Other Women (40 page)

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To explain, Caroline knew, would only make matters worse. You tried not to draw attention to anything you wished to preserve. Even if it was already too late. “I was just thinking that you’re right about jenny,” she replied in a shaky voice. “She told me on the phone what a good session she’d had with you. And I said, “Well, just remember she likes me best.””

Hannah laughed. What a charmer Caroline was.

“You’re right. I do,” she heard herself say.

“You do?”

Hannah nodded, faintly alarmed by her unprofessional response.

Caroline studied her. How could Hannah like her after all the crap Caroline had laid on her?

Probably this remark was another therapeutic technique. Hannah was always pointing out that she was only doing her job. “What’s that photo you were just looking at?”

Hannah glanced at it. “It’s a plowed field covered with snow, viewed from an airplane. But if you look at it a certain way, there’s the silhouette of a woman in profile. The man who did it thinks it’s the Virgin Mary.”

Caroline smiled. “I can’t see her.”

“Make the white the background.”

Caroline widened, then narrowed her eyes. “No good.”

“Keep trying. You’ll get it.”

As Caroline drove down the lake road through the afternoon sunshine, she could see a large stretch of open water in the middle of the lake, bordered by jagged chunks of softening ice. The ice fishing shanties and the intrepid autos were no longer in evidence.

The dirt road up to the cabin was soggy and deeply rutted. She and Diana had recently switched from complaining about ice on the road to complaining about mud.

Before long, they’d be complaining about the dust that sifted through cracks in the cabin in summer to coat the furniture. Soon snow tires, parkas, and storm windows would come off. Doors and windows would be thrown open. The sun would beat down. The children would lie in the grass and identify shapes in the clouds.

She decided summer was her favorite season.

But what about autumn-the sky over the lake as deep blue as

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Hannah’s eyes, the air crisp as a bite from a chilled McIntosh apple? y tilde o say nothing of the scarlet maples in the woods beside the cabin. ‘lfhe whole point was the juxtaposition, she concluded. Summer was “l eavenly because it followed mud season. But if you had scorching n all the time, the vegetation would burn out and you’d sit in the [email protected] dreaming of snow. Each season was perfect in its own way, and

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relation to all the others. The point was to know that, rather than

complain about mud in spring, dust in summer, and ice in winter. t Jesus, she was turning into as much of a Pollyanna as Hannah. ,he smiled.

The smile faded. She’d just admitted to Hannah that she was .0portant to her. Hannah at this very moment was probably feeling tilde Urdened.

She’d get rid of Caroline in some polite fashion. Caroline tilde eIt an overzealous Boy Scout begin to tie sheep shanks with her tilde testines.

For God’s sake, she told herself, wait until next week and see what he does. Don’t assume catastrophe before it happens. Meanwhile, she has determined to enjoy this fucking spring. She focused on her dream of tropical birds and felt the knots in her stomach loosen. tilde nything could happen to Hannah. She could move away, die, go ,,eaffreal estate. She probably would now that Caroline had made her confession. But nobody could take those birds away. Even the pileated ,eaeaoodpecker showed up only when he felt like it. But she could picture rc

jungle scene any time she liked simply by closing her eyes. And kith it came a feeling of warm gratitude-toward what she had no idca-that canceled out the fear and anxiety.

As she waded through the mud to her door, she looked up and saw Prnelia perched on the railing to Diana’s entrance, balancing on a few gUare inches of wood. Caroline stood still, boots sinking into the tilde ,od, gazing at the cat.

Amelia turned her head, met Caroline’s gaze, ,eapd slowly blinked her yellow-green eyes. Her mouth looked as though It were smiling.

Caroline was struck by her gratuitous beauty. Why did Such a silly, friendly, aloof, graceful creature exist at all, with her totally unnecessary patches of tan, black, and white?

Open your eyes

,eand

see what you see when you’re not set to see horror.

Amelia was a wiracle. Tears formed in Caroline’s eyes.

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Ameba stiffened, head snapping to attention. She pushed off from her perch, leaping in an arc of astonishing grace to pursue a small chipmunk that scurried across the yard.

“Amelia, stop it, damn it!” yelled

Caroline, robbed of Hannah’s vision and plunged into her own. If she’d had Jason’s gun, she’d have shot the damn cat herself. She packed some soggy snow into an icy ball and heaved it at Amelia.

It landed with a plop in the patch of snow beside the cat, who leapt sideways, back arching and hair standing on end.

Caroline’s apartment was silent. Arnold lay snoozing in a patch of sunlight on the hooked rug, flop of a watchdog that he was. The boys and Sharon were at friends” houses. Leaving her muddy boots by the door, she took a Michelob from the refrigerator and collapsed in the plaid armchair by the phone. Taking a long gulp of beer, she felt her spirits descend like an express elevator.

Maybe the miracle was all around, but so was the horror. Which was real, she wondered, the graceful insouciance of Amelia on the railing, or the terror in the chipmunk’s eyes as it caught sight of that great feline hulk? The air took on heaviness as Caroline tried to breathe, and she felt her shoulders begin to tighten.

As she tossed down the rest of the beer and set the can on the telephone table, she heard Diana moving around upstairs.

Each of us is author of her own moods.

If she wanted to sit down here being depressed over the rapacious personality of her cat, that was her choice, she reminded herself. There were other options, such as acDiana’s invitation from the other night.

Suddenly inspired, she jumped up, raced into her bedroom, and removed her white dress, damp with sweat from the therapy session. She also took off her stockgarter belt, and underpants, leaving on only her lacy Victorian camisole, which Diana loved. Putting on her down bathrobe, she went upstairs.

“Hi, babe,” said Diana from the couch as she looked out at the melting ice on Lake Glass and knitted on Suzanne’s Icelandic sweater. An empty wine glass sat on the shag carpet beside her. “Have a seat. What are you up to?” She eyed Caroline’s bathrobe.

“I’m on my way to your bed. Like to join me?”

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Diana smiled, not looking up for a moment. “Does a hog like to root in swill?” She put down her knitting and stood up, stretching languorously, red hair glowing in the sun like embers.

“God, you’re a gorgeous creature,” murmured Caroline, touching Diana’s familiar face with her fingertips.

“You’re not so bad yourself.” Diana reached out to undo the belt on Caroline’s robe. “Oh my goodness,”

she said as the robe fell open to reveal the camisole. Her green eyes narrowed with lust. “You look good enough to eat.”

“Be my guest.”

Diana’s body, so different from Brian’s, so similar to her own. Caroline supposed lesbianism was the ultimate in narcissism. She knew what Diana was feeling as she touched her, could feel it in herself, to such an extent that eventually she no longer knew who was doing what to whom. If this was narcissism, so be it. What could be wrong with a little self-love?

Afterwards, as they lay in each other’s arms in the sunlight on the shag carpet, the two Eves in Eden smiling down from Caroline’s tapestry on the wall, Diana asked in an exhausted voice, “What do we do when the kids burst through the door?”

“I tell them I love you very much, and hope they’re as lucky when they grow up.” Caroline brushed some stray strands of hair off Diana’s

forehead and kissed one of her closed eyes.

“I see. And then you give them gift certificates for visits to Hannah Burke?”

“Correct.” Caroline wasn’t sure she’d ever been this happy. She felt as though she’d returned home after a long stay in foreign lands. Everything seemed suddenly simple. You just walked away from the painful complications you’d concocted, like a hermit crab from an outgrown shell. Brian was out of the picture. Diana would finally finish Suzanne’s sweater and get rid of her. The kids would soon be gone, and she and Diana would live out their twilight years in each other’s arms and between each other’s legs.

“Could I ask a favor?” said Diana.

“Sure. What?” Just then if Diana had wanted Lake Glass siphoned into a thimble, Caroline would have done her best.

“Would you mind not sleeping with that man in this house?”

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Caroline felt her heart contract into a tight fist. “Bad timing, baby.” “Bad timing or not, it’s important to me.”

“Diana, why bring up all that outside junk when right now is perfect between us.”

“Because

it’s perfect between us. I can’t bear knowing you’re down there doing what we just did with him.”

“If you sleep with Suzanne here, why shouldn’t I sleep with Brian?” Why not just tell her it was over with Brian? But a principle was at stake. Besides, if Diana knew Caroline had no one but herself, she’d feel burdened and would withdraw. I know what you want and you can’t have it.

How in the world had this seemed simple a moment ago?

“Because he’s a man. If he were a woman, I wouldn’t mind. I’d cheer you on.”

“Like hell you would.”

“I would. But I can’t bear to have you with a man under my very nose. You’d feel the same if I were doing it.”

“I’ve paid half the mortgage on this place for five years, and I’ll do as I please here.”

“All right, go ahead,” said Diana, standing up and gathering together her tangled clothing. “But don’t be surprised if one day you wake up to find me gone.”

Caroline grabbed her Victorian camisole, ripped it in two, and hurled the pieces at Diana. “You’ve been gone for several months already. I wouldn’t even notice the difference.”

Back downstairs, furiously pedaling her loom, and banging the beater against her shawl as though against Diana’s head, Caroline started thinking about murder-Amelia murdering chipmunks, Jason murdering Amelia, some sexual psychopath murdering Jason as he walked through the woods home from Hank’s tonight …

Then she sat perfectly still, staring out to the melting lake and realizing what she was doing: shifting her anger at Diana to the world at large and working herself up into an anxiety state. Her hands fell to her sides and her shoulders slumped. You can’t control what happens, but you can control your response to it.

Doggedly she began reviewing her session that afternoon with Hannah. But as she did so, the anxiety amplified. She was going to lose Hannah too.

She told Diana she

loved her, and Diana informed her she’d wake up to find her gone. You couldn’t go around telling people you cared about them. It scared them away. And she’d done that this afternoon with Hannah. Hannah would vanish like all the others. Like Jackson, David Michael, Arlene, Diana. No one was left.

Desperately, she tried to locate the calming jungle scene in her head, but this time she couldn’t find the birds and flowers. Only the swamp remained, matted and putrid.

Hannah watched Chip struggle with his need to leave and his need to stay. He was poised above the couch, halfway between sitting and standing. She’d just suggested she was merely a habit, like smoking, that he’d miss their sessions but would soon fill the gap with other people and activities. He looked unconvinced, hovering there in closefitting tan corduroys and a plaid sports shirt. He’d finally shed those overalls, which he’d been wearing unwashed since the Chicago DemConvention. He’d also shaved his full beard, and was about to open a Burger King on the highway near the mall. It was fascinating to watch clients’

appearances alter as their self-images altered.

Comprogrammers became slalom racers, and ski bums became judges. In her wildest

fantasies she wouldn’t have pegged Chip to open a Burger King. But it wasn’t her job to judge the transformations, only to assist clients in achieving whatever bizarre goals they set.

“I don’t know, Hannah. I know it’s time to stop. But I, like, can’t.” He sank back into the sofa.

“Sure you can, Chip,” she said, fighting her own impatience. She felt like a counselor pushing a frightened camper off the diving board. Chip seemed startled by her enthusiasm for his attempts to leave.

He was accustomed to females clinging to him when he wanted to sally forth in pursuit of the wild American hamburger, not grasping that her success as a therapist depended on doing herself out of a job.

As Chip sat in deadlocked silence, stroking his beard-free chin, Hannah thought about what a muddle termination usually turned into. Such a decisive word for such a nebulous series of events. Some clients picked a fight so they could leave without missing her. Others

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dwindled away, skipping appointments and finally not showing up at all. Some expected her to orchestrate a grand finale, like the “Ode to joy” in Beethoven’s Ninth. Others brought champagne and Tootsie Rolls. Some evaded the

issue altogether by hanging on for years, using the sessions as a weekly pep rally for their status quo, until she got fed up and ushered them to the door. Some went away, only to come back again and again. A few really looked at their method of leave-taking, saw how it applied to other areas of their lives, and learned something.

But whatever their style, the only way she could survive was through detachment. Any client could walk out forever at any moThe couple of times her detachment failed her, she missed them and fretted about what she’d done to drive them away. Probably one reason she did this job was to stay in practice with the skills she’d developed to cope with the deaths of all her dear departeds. Her office was a speeded-up version of the world: people flowed through, and she had to resist entanglements with them or suffer the agony when they moved on, as they usually had to. Every day she felt their allures, and every day she renounced them.