Nell (43 page)

Nell hung up, cheered.
Charley’s Aunt
was Victorian; the costumes would require lace and satin and ribbons, long dresses, top hats and morning coats. It would be fun to work with fancy elaborate clothes. And the play was so funny that rehearsals, she knew from past experience, would be amusing, sometimes hilarious. This play would allow the cast to enjoy one another; they would be involved in entertainment rather than serious drama that strained to get across some heavy message. Nell could vaguely remember a line about “Brazil, where the nuts come from …” She grinned to herself and looked up to see Charlotte coming in the door of the boutique.

Charlotte was looking rather strange these days. She was letting her short spiky hair grow out a bit, or at least she had decided not to dye it again, and so the hair near her scalp was brown but the ends were all orange. She didn’t look quite sane. On the other hand, she was pretty enough so that she didn’t look frightening, either.

“Hi, Nell,” Charlotte said. “Listen, can we go to lunch today? I want to talk to you.”

Nell stared. She had not gone out to lunch with Charlotte or done anything
alone
with Charlotte since Marlow had announced he was going to marry her. She and Charlotte were polite to each other, even amicable, because of Hannah and Jeremy. But Nell had no desire to become intimate with this woman again. They had managed to coexist peacefully, a pair of countries that shared Marlow as their common boundary, for the five years that Marlow and Charlotte had been married.

“Charlotte,” Nell began. She intended to say something definite but not unkind, perhaps simply: I stopped having lunch with you years ago.

But Charlotte interrupted her. She leaned on the jewelry counter toward Nell, looking as imploring and pathetic as one of Dickens’s orphans. “Nell,” she said. “
Please
.”

So at lunch Nell found herself seated in a ferny café facing Charlotte over quiche lorraine and a glass of wine. Charlotte made small talk about the summer while they ordered, twisted her napkin until it looked like a piece of origami, and alternatively avoided meeting Nell’s eyes and leaned forward, catching Nell in staring contests.

Finally Nell said, “Charlotte, what is this all about? What’s up?”

Charlotte took a sip of wine, paused for dramatic effect—as if the entire morning already hadn’t been a giant buildup—and announced, “I’m leaving Marlow.”

“You’re leaving Marlow?” Nell echoed, astounded.

“Divorcing him,” Charlotte said.

Nell’s first thoughts were for her children. Because the adults had been pleasant to one another, Hannah and Jeremy had had a relatively smooth transition from living with Mommy and Daddy and having Charlotte as a friend to living alone with Mommy and visiting Daddy, who had married Charlotte. If it has been confusing for them, at least they had known Charlotte, were accustomed to her, understood her quirks, even liked her. Now Marlow would be going out with other women—he would, Nell knew, sooner or later marry again, because he was a man who liked being married. This meant that Hannah and Jeremy would have to get used to yet another stepmother.

Nell’s second thoughts were for herself. Damn, she thought. If Charlotte leaves Marlow, that means I won’t be able to get over to Nantucket very often. Marlow loved his children, but in an abstracted way; he wasn’t very good at the basics of feeding and entertaining, not when they were still so young. If Charlotte left him, he soon would be involved in a series of new affairs—he would be far too busy with all that to want to give his weekends over to playing Chutes and Ladders with his kids.

Nell pulled her thoughts away from herself and focused again on Charlotte, who by now had taken out a cigarette and was smoking it in a long black holder. The cigarette holder gave her a very dramatic, 1920s effect. Where on earth did she find it? Nell wondered. She must have stolen it from some props department, she decided, and Nell thought to herself, in spite of herself, what a really marvelous creature Charlotte was. She
was unique, a jazzy, crazy, and not unkind stick-figure of a girl.

“I can tell you’re surprised,” Charlotte said.

Nell laughed. “Well of course I am,” she said. “Shouldn’t I be? I had no idea you and Marlow weren’t happy together. Shall I ask why you’re leaving him, or do you want to keep that to yourself?”

To Nell’s dismay, Charlotte began to cry. She did it, however, with great style, arching her head disdainfully at her own display, inhaling deeply on her cigarette, letting the tears just run down her face to plop on her blouse. Nell watched, entranced, because Charlotte’s nose didn’t run: How does she manage
that
? Clever Charlotte, she thought, admiring her.

“Oh, Nell,” Charlotte said, in a dramatically defeated voice, “I envy you so much.”

“What?” Nell said. The shock of this statement made her smile, the way she had sometimes smiled as a child when she heard that a person had died.

“You have so much,” Charlotte went on. “You have all the things I want.”

Nell stared at Charlotte, silent. She couldn’t imagine what in the world the girl would say next.

“I mean you have
children
,” Charlotte went on. “Jeremy and Hannah. They are so beautiful, so clever. Oh, Nell, I want children more than anything in the world. I want to have a kitchen like yours, with children’s drawings on the refrigerator and sunny little toys on the floor and those sweet dimpled hands holding mine.”

“Jeremy and Hannah don’t have sweet dimpled hands anymore,” Nell said.

“Oh, you know what I mean. I mean, if I had children, they’d have sweet dimpled hands when they were little. Oh, Nell, I want to have a baby.”

“And Marlow doesn’t,” Nell said.

“Marlow’s a sneaky old Scrooge,” Charlotte said. “All I had to do was to mention to him that I was thinking I wanted to have children, and do you know what he did?”

“I can’t imagine,” Nell said.

“He started using
condoms
,” Charlotte announced. “Now I can’t even have a
mistake
. He hardly makes love to me anymore, he’s so terrified I might get pregnant. I’ve been trying for about a year now to sort of, oh, you know, overwhelm him with lust, get
him when he’s wanting it and when I don’t have my diaphragm in. But he’s always so careful now with those damn condoms. And
now
he says he’s going to get a vasectomy. Nell, he’s made the appointment.”

Nell could only laugh. “Oh, Charlotte,” she said. “What can I say? You know as well as I do that Marlow isn’t interested in fatherhood.”

“Yes, but he’s interested in me, or he used to be, and he knows it would make me happy to have kids, so he ought to let me have kids so I’ll be happy.”

“Well, they’d be his kids, too,” Nell said, sobering up. “And he already has some of those to ignore. Two separate generations of them.”

“Yeah, it’s too bad Clary has to come grubbing around right now. Part of this is her fault,” Charlotte said.

“Part of what is Clary’s fault?” Nell asked.

“Well, if she weren’t hanging around Boston now, bugging Marlow to help her find a job, making him feel he’s still responsible for her, he might be more interested in having more children. Don’t you see what I mean? Clary’s twenty-six, after all; she ought to be on her own instead of whining around after her daddy, expecting him to spend his time fixing the world up for her.”

“Charlotte,” Nell said firmly, “I don’t think Clary ever ‘whines around’ after anyone.”

“Well, you know what I mean,” Charlotte said, and inhaled deeply and defensively on her cigarette.

What you mean, Nell thought, is that you don’t want Clary to exist. There had been times in her own life when she hadn’t wanted Clary to exist. She understood Charlotte perfectly. Charlotte was only three years older than Clary: living proof that Marlow was an
old
father, had done his share of furthering mankind, deserved a rest from raising kids. Marlow had been a father for twenty-seven years, and although he still looked young and was capable of producing more children forever, he really did deserve a break, especially since he didn’t like children all that much in the first place.

“Listen,” Nell said. “Don’t dislike Clary because she’s Marlow’s daughter. She is a very good person. Even if Marlow didn’t have Clary—even if he didn’t have Hannah and Jeremy—he still wouldn’t want to start a family now, not at his age. Charlotte,
Marlow’s
fifty
.”

“I know that!” Charlotte said. “Don’t you think I know that? I’m his
wife
, you know!” She glared angrily at Nell, then her tears started up all over again. “Oh, Nell, how did you manage it?” she asked. “How did you manage to get such a neat life? Two beautiful children and your freedom, too?”

“Well,” Nell said dryly, “I guess I have you to thank for at least some of that—the ‘freedom’ part.” Charlotte doesn’t have the first idea about my life, she thought, listening in gentle amazement as Charlotte carried on about her. Charlotte is determined to envy me, she thought. She always did envy me, but God knows why. “Look,” Nell said. “You shouldn’t want my life. Charlotte, you don’t understand. I’m all
alone
in life. I’ve got to work hard to raise the children, but they’ll leave me in a few years for their own lives. I want them to do that. But I am really
alone
.”

“Oh, everybody is
alone
,” Charlotte intoned with dramatic gloom.

“Charlotte, damnit, this is not some existential play we’re talking about!” Nell snapped. “This isn’t some theater of the absurd. This is real life. When I say I’m alone, I mean when I’m sick in the night I get up and fix my own 7UP and when I’m lonely in the night I’ve got only the cat to hug. I am financially and emotionally and physically my sole support. Tonight I will have no one to discuss the evening news with and no one to rub my back and no one to kiss, and if I have a nightmare, I will have no one to turn to in the dark. That’s what I mean by
alone
.”

“You have lovers,” Charlotte said.

“Sometimes,” Nell replied. “Sometimes I do. For the most part I don’t. I certainly don’t have any kind of security. Charlotte, no one has
chosen
me, chosen me above all others. Jesus, don’t you see that? Marlow has chosen you.”

The two women looked at each other, deadlocked in their battle to be the most deserving of pity.

“Well,” Charlotte said at last, stubbing out her cigarette in the ashtray, “Marlow might have chosen me, but only part of me. He doesn’t want all of me, and he certainly doesn’t want me pregnant. I figure if I get divorced right away, I’m thirty, I still have plenty of time to find a new husband and start a family. Right?”

“Oh, Charlotte, thirty is
young
,” Nell said. “Of course you’ll have time to marry
again and have lots of children. I’m sorry you and Marlow can’t work things out. I hope you get what you want.” She caught Charlotte’s glance. “Charlotte, I
mean
that,” she said.

Nell walked back to work by herself, thinking about Charlotte and her announcement, about divorce and babies and the complications of modern life. Clary had known Marlow when he was married to her mother and Nell and Charlotte, and there would undoubtedly be more to come. Hannah and Jeremy had seen their mother with Marlow, then in a way, with Steve and Ben and Stellios and now Andy—and undoubtedly, Nell sighed, there would be more to come, because she had no real hopes that she and Andy would ever marry. Parents used to have lots of children, Nell thought; now children have lots of parents. How will we help our children believe in the reality and values of enduring love? she wondered. Oh dear, she wondered, how will we help ourselves believe? How will we help ourselves?

The third weekend in September, Clary and Nell took the bus and ferry together to spend the weekend on Nantucket. Clary stayed with Harry; Nell stayed with Andy. For Nell, it was like going to heaven. She arrived at midnight, and Andy met them, dropped Clary off at Harry’s house, then took Nell home to his house and bed. Saturday morning Nell woke early with him, took a long, invigorating walk on the empty beach, then showered while Andy fixed them an enormous breakfast of cheese omelets, sausage and bacon, wheat toast with wild beach plum jelly. They ate and ate and drank pots of black coffee—then went back to bed. They stayed in bed, making love and dozing and talking, until evening, when they decided they were hungry again. They walked to the Brotherhood and ate, walked home to watch an old mystery movie on television, and went back to bed at midnight. It was a perfect, lazy, luxurious day; it was, as Nell told Andy, “pig heaven.”

* * *

Sunday morning they walked again and ate another marvelous breakfast of pancakes and maple syrup, then spent the afternoon reading
The New York Times
and
The Boston Globe
. In the afternoon they made love. Then, so incredibly soon, it was time for
Nell to leave.

Nell met Clary at the wharf, and they boarded the ferry together. They bought beer and sandwiches and sat at a red table, idly talking and looking out at the sea. Clary had had a good weekend, too.

In fact Clary had had a good month: She was staying with Marlow and Charlotte while looking for an apartment, and last week she’d met two women who shared an apartment in Cambridge and were looking for a third woman to join them. The apartment was spacious, each woman had her own room, the location and rent were good, and the women seemed tolerable, even people Clary would like knowing. She was up about that; she was up about the possibilities of getting a good job. Through Marlow, she’d interviewed for several staff positions at colleges, and she already had an offer for an industrial position. She had partied all weekend on Nantucket. She had had fun seeing Harry but was not heartbroken to leave him. And at a party on Saturday night, she’d met a fabulous man who was planning to come to Boston soon and would give her a call. She was wired; she was skied; she babbled on and on to Nell, full of plans and gossip.

Nell watched Clary as she rattled on, only half listening to her. She was glad Clary was happy, truly, but she was also puzzled and envious. Was it really so easy, Nell wondered. Had Clary actually put Bob out of her mind and moved on, moved away from that source of love and pain? She envied Clary her lightheartedness.