Splintered Heart (6 page)

Deck A, Cabin 307
— his name, his cabin number were on the passenger list that was already posted.

It had been awful, trying to find Deck A, going up and down those narrow stairways in the shifting tilting world, clopping through those narrow hallways in her silly high heels. And when she did finally find the door marked 307 she was utterly paralyzed. To be there was wrong. To knock on the door was out of the question! If he answered, what would she say?

On the dresser in her stateroom there was a card which said: "Dinner: Second Sitting." While dressing for dinner, Marian nervously nibbled at the chocolate candy Aunt Paula had given her.

...Why oh why did I let myself come on this trip? How could I imagine this wouldn't be hideously embarrassing? How appalled Mamma and Paula would be, to see me chasing after some man I don't even know
...

By the time Marian was ready to go out the stateroom door, she'd consumed more than half of the box of chocolates.

At the round table in the middle of the boat in the middle of the ocean with the tinkles and chatter and the dinner music and dinner smells all around, Marian sat fiddling with her wine glass, unable to make even the slightest effort at conversation.

She hurried back to her stateroom, finished the remaining chocolates, gulped down what was left of the champagne her cousins had given her and pulled up the covers. It was afternoon the next day when Marian opened her eyes. She didn't mind missing all the recreational things that were listed on the card on her stateroom dresser, but she minded missing breakfast. The chocolate binge had made her ravenously hungry — not seasick or nauseous as Aunty Paula had predicted. She grabbed one of the new outfits, didn't even bother to iron out the wrinkles, just barely made the second sitting for lunch.

"Excuse me, but aren't you Marian Melnik?" Ferris Cooper was standing over her, looking down from way high above, grinning. A miracle it was, the charming, gloriously handsome Prince was sweeping her off her feet, carrying her off to his castle — first to his table to finish lunch and then to
Deck
A
,
Cabin
307
because he had a book he wanted to show her.

"How amazing, what good luck this is for me," Ferris said, handing her his T.S. Eliot, "I've been so bored."

She was clutching his book of poetry to the breast of the somewhat wrinkled sailor dress for which she'd paid an outrageous price just on the slim hope of
maybe
catching his eye in passing, and there she was — the pleats of the flared skirt were practically brushing against his leg!

"I hadn't realized at that cocktail party, what a good looking girl you are," Ferris was saying. "I love it that you love Eliot's poetry, Marian."

"It's always amazed me, Ferris — how an American boy from St. Louis, Missouri could become a great English poet."

"Marian, you've got to find time for me, so I can take you to see the bank where he was a clerk!"

Ferris took Marian Melnik's hand as if they'd been hand holding friends for a long time and they went promenading around and up and down and in and out of the QUEEN'S nooks and crannies.

It seemed like a nonstop, pink and blue heavenly dream. There were no shadows, fearful moments, gestures or remarks from Ferris Cooper that ever made Marian feel as if she was the one who had connived to create their "accidental" meeting. He never questioned why she happened to be sailing on QUEEN ELIZABETH II. She didn't want him thinking she was an idle rich girl, so she mentioned a few business appointments that she had in London. That subterfuge was the only grey cloud in the sky.

Even the fibs that Marian had told Miss Cresset seemed to be on Ferris Cooper's tour-guide map, as they explored all those delightful tourist places Marian had always dreamed of visiting.

Only it wasn't just England they were exploring.

They had adjoining rooms in London. They shared a bathroom in a creaking ancient rooming house in historical Bath. Innocently they shared a bedroom in overcrowded Edinburgh where the Arts Festival offered them all sorts of exciting things to do and share. It was there Ferris kissed Marian passionately and told her he never wanted to let her go.

She kept wondering if it was really happening, asking herself, "Do I deserve him?" It was as if Santa Claus and Daddy, rolled up in one, had decided to give Marian Melnik the man of her dreams. Two months from the day the QUEEN ELIZABETH II had sailed, on a sun filled May day, Marian and Ferris Cooper were married.

When the newlyweds returned from Bermuda where they had lazed and loved and floated down the stream on a lily pad of idyllic pleasures, there were suddenly a lot of realities with which they had to contend. Of course they'd talked of life styles, career possibilities, but always in the moonlight, never in the clear light of day.

Ferris had friends who had just vacated a fabulous, six-room co-op apartment. It was expensive, in a high-rent neighborhood, but Ferris was making the decisions for "the family". He had sent a money-order deposit so their new home was waiting.

"My darling wife, I've got my work, I know where I'm going," Ferris said the first morning back. They were sitting on crates in their empty beautiful kitchen. He was studying her. "But you're not going to go back to work in the store — even if they gave you a promotion, you told me that you lucked into that job. So what are you going to do?"

She avoided his gaze.

"I know you so well and yet I hardly know you at all," Ferris placed his hands on her shoulders so that they were facing each other. "Come on now, what's worrying you?"

"I suppose I should…I ought to begin thinking about starting a family." Her heart was pounding. The lie had caught up with her. Like a poor grey mouse, she'd nibbled on the tempting feast, sprung the trap — it had come down around her ears with a crash.

"A baby? Is that what you want?" Ferris spoke softly, his eyes never leaving hers.

"Well, I'm really not very young..." Marian's voice trailed off. She could hardly breathe.

"Sweetheart, you are the right age for me. You think I'd be happier with a younger girl?"

She wanted to shout, "I'm not twenty-nine! I'm old! I'm thirty-four!" But she couldn't shout, couldn't whisper, couldn't bring herself to say those awful words.

Ferris kissed Marian tenderly on the forehead. "Darling, I love you for what you are. If you want to get pregnant I am very, very willing to participate. You're an exceptional woman. You'd be an exceptionally good mother." He kissed her tenderly. "Is that what you really want?"

She knew she had to tell her husband that it was too late for them, a woman couldn't risk starting a family at age thirty-four, almost thirty-five. The incidence of birth defects was too high, it was a scientific fact. And there was already a tragic history of birth defects in her family.

Ferris spoke before Marian had a chance to begin. "Marian, be what you want to be. Not what you think you ought to be, or what your Mamma thinks, or Aunt Paula, or anybody else thinks. If you want to be a Mother, O.K. But I love you for
you
, and if a family isn't what's right for you, it wouldn't be right for me!"

Ferris' words were wings. No longer were there guilty lies to worry about, he was telling her to fly!

"Pretend you are fresh out of school. You have no obligations, no pressure. You can do anything, everything." Ferris handed Marian a pencil. "Sit down here on one of the orange crates, my lady and write down all the possibilities."

Those long-ago lists, those girlish projects — how impractical they seemed, now that she was married and deeply in love.

Marian considered running a kindergarten, opening a boutique, getting a doctorate in music history so she could teach. She knew she liked business — marketing, budgets and advertising were areas were she was already skilled. She knew she liked being her own boss. Meeting people, helping people, working with people was important.

The list became a notebook which included not only ideas but also names — there were a number of important people, friends of the family, whom Marian could call upon for job openings in a new direction, as, if, and when she figured out what direction would be the most challenging.

The notebook began to seem like a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle with too much blue sky, blue water — the kind that takes forever, sometimes never gets put together.

It came together at one of the Mamma's weekly dinners.

Uncle Milton had been stuffing himself on the mounds of food that the maid was serving. Ever since Sammy and Natasha had presented them with grandchildren, Milton was getting quieter and fatter while Aunt Paula was getting thinner and younger — concentrating on beauty. With niece Marian now safely married, Paula wanted sister Hannah to re-furbish herself, her apartment, and her social life.

Dear Mamma was trying. She had tried all sorts of things over the years, especially doctors, each had a different diagnosis, a different course of treatment but nothing helped. Ralph was the problem, he had always been the problem. It wasn't going to change.

Beginning with the appetizer, there had been the usual magpie chatter, the two sisters bringing up their favorite topics starting with children and Paula's grandchildren, moving on to domestic problems — should the apartment be redecorated, did the maid deserve a raise, why was a new appliance never as good as the old? They loved it when men, Ferris especially, gave them advice and opinions. He'd smile and Mamma would melt and Aunt Paula became putty in his hands.

By the time the dessert was served, the sisters were discussing charities — should they, shouldn't they give a large donation, a small donation to a group who was improving the city by planting trees along one of the avenues?

Marian was toying with her spoon, watching Ferris be a loving son to her Mother, imagining what a loving Father he might have been to his son. All of a sudden she found herself uncontrollably angry.

"Dammit, dammit Mamma, dammit Aunt Paula!" Tea cups, teaspoons stopped midair. She couldn't help it, she was disgusted with their self-centered prattling, the way they'd been monopolizing everyone's attention with their trivialities — she couldn't stand their babbling. "Trees in the city? Look around you, don't you realize people are starving. Trees aren't going to help. There are children all around us in the city who need your help, not tree-planting people for God's sake!"

It was one of those fickle fate, fantastical coincidences of right people, right place, right time — Uncle Milton being there, Ferris putting the sisters into such a receptive mood, and the unexpected passion of her plea which touched them, especially Uncle Milton.

"By God, Marian is right. Let her help the children who live around here in the neighborhood, or the children of the whole damn world if she wants to. The trees can help themselves!" Uncle Milton pounded the table. "Give your daughter that money, Hannah. Whatever you give her, Paula and I will match!" Milton got out his address book, gave Marian a name and phone number of a wealthy friend who also might want to help a good cause.

And from that moment on, she was in fund-raising. Eventually, all the names in the notebook were contacted.

A family project developed into a business which grew and expanded into a major Fund-Raising Corporation with Marian Melnik Cooper as President, Director and Boss. Also, chief cook and bottle washer.

Marian picked up a pencil and opened her schedule book with a sigh. She doodled a wavy line around the date. The wavy line became the waves, the boat crossing the Atlantic.

Under PHONE MISS CRESSET, she wrote

ORDER GROCERIES

SORT LAUNDRY

THANK YOU NOTES

CALL OFFICE

She nibbled on her pencil eraser. There needed to be a staff meeting to figure out a spectacular way for getting money for the California kids. Separate lists needed to be made — one for herself and one for Elena, itemizing how they were going to proceed.

Suddenly it fused. "A style show!" Marian said out loud to the empty maid's room. "What the
Caucus Club
ladies need is a style show benefit to start the ball rolling!"

"And when I do the 'kickoff' speech, I'll tell my story — how I got started in fund-raising because my own Mamma was worrying about planting trees instead of children..."

She was hearing it in her mind already.

DISCUSS TREE SPEECH ANECDOTE

Marian made an exclamation point after ANECDOTE, doodled on top of it thinking which of the staff writers should be assigned to the project, making the exclamation mark darker and darker.

The exclamation mark became a black bobby pin.

At 6:30 p.m. the telephone rang. She reached to answer before it could ring a second time.

"Hello?"

There was no response.

"Hello?" She repeated it loudly.

Whoever was on the line said nothing.

"Who is this? Who's calling please?" She made her voice sing-song, as if she were an answering service.

Whoever it was hung on for another second but it seemed like a long minute not a second. Then, Marian heard the click and they were disconnected.

...Robbers sometimes telephone before they break in — oh God, where is Ferris? I can't telephone his family in Ohio, how could I explain that I came home three days early — that he hasn't been home — that the place feels as if he hasn't been living here for weeks...

But there were contradictions. The milk was from yesterday. The bath mat had been damp.

...I could phone the police, but what can I say? He's only been gone since yesterday. He took his shower this morning. What would the police think of me? They'll think I'm a typical wife whose husband drinks and runs around with other women...

In a crack-the-whip command, Marian ordered herself to be silent, to pull herself together.

...You are being unreasonable, you've got to organize it, make a deadline, perhaps forty-eight hours. Then, if you don't hear from Ferris, it's reasonable to make a few phone calls. First Mamma — she might know where her son-in-law is. If she doesn't know, then you'll phone his family in Ohio, then Charles, hospitals, the police, in that order...

The tooth was aching — perhaps a bit of the breakfast sweet roll had lodged in the molar. On the kitchen shelf there was a box of red, yellow, blue toothpicks for hors d'oeuvres — the shiny plastic kind.

The bobby pins were shiny black.

Marian forced herself to sit down, eat a sandwich of stale bread and cheese. She took out the carton of milk — the food was comforting, the fears organized — she took a large gulp of milk from the container and gagged.

The milk was lumpy, curdled and smelly. Rancid.

...How can the milk be rancid? It's stamped Tuesday,
clearly
Tuesday, so he must have bought it yesterday or the day before! How could Tuesday's milk be rancid unless…unless he bought it a week ago, two weeks ago...

Robbers, black bobby pins, stale smell in the apartment, the unfinished schedule, the wasted day, failed surprise, and why was the milk rancid — it went round and round as she dumped out the toothpicks, arranged and re-arranged them, put them carefully back into the box.

At ten o'clock, Marian heard a large
POP
.

The extra special, dry white wine for dinner that was being chilled in the freezer had exploded.

++++++++++

Chapter
6

"Evening, Mr. Cooper," said Jimmy, one hand on the elevator lever controlling their ascent, the other covering a yawn. "Guess I should say 'good morning'! How's the weather doing out there?"

"Still pretty cold," Ferris Cooper said. He was carrying his brief case. The Early Bird edition of the newspaper was under the arm of his leather coat. The elevator man's yawn was contagious, Ferris yawned as they climbed to the fourteenth floor.

"When I came on at midnight I had a feeling we were in for cold night." Jimmy started moving the lever up slowly though they were two floors away from stopping. He took pride in giving the tenants a smooth ride, coming to a stop without vibration or shudder like a perfect landing. "Yes sir, we're in for a few more bad weeks according to what I heard on the radio."

"I hope not." Ferris wasn't concentrating on Jimmy, he was remembering the lock on their front door — it wasn't working properly, the key was sticking. He had been intending to talk to the Super about a replacement. "Damn that lock! What time does Pete come on duty tomorrow?"