Surface (16 page)

C
HAPTER
20

C
laire requested a table for one near the bar. The restaurant was the only decent spot within walking distance of the hospital. Its walls were painted a deep red and covered with small oil paintings of Parisian nightlife, the crowd noisy. She ordered a dirty martini with extra olives. When it arrived, milky with chill, she drank half of it in one big gulp and stared into the ruby candlelight, the inconceivable events of the afternoon only just beginning to penetrate.

She stabbed at an olive at the bottom of her glass with the plastic cocktail sword. The damage was done, Michael had said, even if Nick did make a complete recovery. They’d
both
done too much damage. She pictured Michael’s eyes as he’d uttered those words, how his expression had gone from tortured to practically somnolent. The olive rolled around the glass, eluding capture. Her husband had finally pulled his head out of the sand, and she felt as if the man who had spoken those unfeeling words to her and then refused to engage any further was someone she’d never met. Claire emptied her glass.

“Waiter, another martini, please. Extra dirty.”

She didn’t know what to make of their history anymore. The candle flame glowed pink, and under it, rivulets of wax dribbled honey-like down its sides. Her eyes burned, and she hated that Michael had brought her to this again. How absurd to doubt the validity of eighteen years of one’s life. And how nearsighted to disregard so much goodness for one failure, massive though it was.

In the background Edith Piaf’s tragic voice soared over the static of an ancient record.
Quand il me prend dans ses bras, il me parle tout bas, Je vois la vie en rose.
She mouthed the words and wondered how they could not have been happy when she had tried to make everything so beautiful. She had gladly given up her job and devoted herself to creating the kind of warm family life and home Michael had never had.
La vie en rose.

The second drink went down more smoothly. As Claire chewed on an olive, it occurred to her that maybe she didn’t really know her husband at all. When they should have been plowing the depths of their souls and working through their difficulties together, he drifts deeper into his own murky world. She thought of his eyes again, the remoteness in them, the absence of light. She remembered seeing the look before. There was some important truth buried there, Claire was certain, something he was keeping from her.

She ran a finger around the moist rim of the glass, thinking about her own secrets and failures.
Had
she been happy the night she met Andrew? Did it matter anymore? She signaled to the waiter for another.

“Claire?”

She turned around, wondering how he had found her. But she couldn’t see him. There was a blur and a voice, but no Michael. Maybe he’d realized his mistake. She heard her name again and looked expectantly past the banquette. There, sitting at the bar, was Richard. She attempted to stand, and possibly run, but her head was too heavy and her knees missed the message. He came to her instead and sat down.

The waiter returned with her drink as Richard sat. “What, no cookies?” she asked.

“How about some peanuts? It looks like you could use something to eat.”

She held on to the base of the glass, making a triangle with her hands. “I’m drunk.”

“I can see that. But you don’t strike me as the type of woman who gets drunk in restaurants by herself.”

She took a long sip, swirling the thick saltiness around in her mouth. “It’s been a day.”

“I guess so.”

Claire leaned in over the table, barely registering the heat of the candle beneath her chin. “But I’ll tell you who I am, Richard. I’m go-with-the-flow Claire. I’m the gal whom roommates loved and boyfriends wanted back. Because I’m the perennial goodwill ambassador who never, God forbid, wants to ruffle feathers, and always makes nice, always smiles and fixes.” Richard pushed a glass of water across the tablecloth to her hand. She traced a line in the condensation with her finger, feeling her head wobble on her neck. “I told myself this was the strength of my character.” She stared at Richard, seeing a hazy kaleidoscope of faces. “But it didn’t make me strong. It just got me lost. Good and goddamned lost.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. Red tears, she imagined, like the candle wax. “Lost me my marriage.”

He tore off a piece of bread from the loaf in the basket and offered it up to her.

Hammered on Stoli and sinking deeper into her despair, she pushed away the bread and told him that she wanted to go home to her house, that she just wanted her life and family back. The words tasted tart, like cheerless Starbursts of regret. He drove her to her apartment and made sure she got safely to the door.

C
HAPTER
21

T
he incessant pounding could not have been in her head. Or maybe it was. In her head. The noise grew louder and she began to decipher a sort of rhythm to it, a tune. Sinatra? Snippets of “Fly Me to the Moon” rushed in. A convertible, stars tumbling across the sky, the night breeze on her face. She slowly got out of bed and heard her name muffled through the front door. She checked the peephole.

“Well, aren’t you a vision,” Richard said as she opened the apartment door. He held a Gatorade bottle and coffee. “Glad to see you dressed for the occasion.”

Claire, in the same clothes she’d been wearing when she crawled into bed, ran her hand over her hair, trying to tame its vertical wildness. “What are you doing here?” Her scalp throbbed and she could smell the fermentation on her breath as she spoke. The memory of martinis and Richard’s voice came back to her, making her wonder if there was anything more to the previous night’s story. She surveyed her clothing again.

“You, my friend, were a perfect mess. But I,” he said, holding up his Gatorade hand, “was a perfect gentleman. Scout’s honor.”

She exhaled a mixture of dread and relief.

“So, are you gonna invite me in? I bring a cure for what ails you.”

“Richard, I don’t really want any—”

“Oh, you
will
.” He ran the coffee under her nose.

She turned around and walked into the kitchen. Richard followed her. “First, the cold stuff. Then coffee.” He placed them on the counter in front of her.

She unscrewed the bottle top. “You’re forever bearing bounty, aren’t you?”

“That’s quite lyrical for a hangover.”

Claire gulped half the bottle. “God, that’s magnificent. Thank you.”

“I thought you might be in bad shape this morning.”

“Can’t imagine why.” She closed her eyes, trying to remember more scraps of the previous evening. “It feels like someone put tiny mittens on my teeth.” She finished the Gatorade and started on the coffee.

Richard sat down at the small dining table and leaned his head back into interlaced fingers. A tolerable amount of morning light peeked through the half-open curtains behind him.

“I’m sorry for rambling on like such an idiot last night. After a certain point, it was just my drinks having another drink. You were really kind to drive me home.” Claire stared across the counter at him, grateful that someone was actually looking after
her,
and suddenly aware of the gaping lack of human infrastructure in her world. She’d shut out all friends and kept Cora at a three-state distance—Cora, whom she couldn’t sever from her life with a chainsaw, though she’d had fantasies. It was to be all Nicholas and all Michael, all the time. Reparation through insulation.

“Lucky I had a taste for French onion soup.”

“Yes.” She opened the refrigerator and scanned the shelves.
Lucky.
After a moment she retrieved a plum and set it down on the table in front of Richard. “But you’ve gone above and beyond, coming back this morning. You’re a good friend.”

He placed his hand on her wrist. “Well, friend, I didn’t want you stewing in your despair all day.”

She sat down opposite him. “Oh, I was stewed, all right. And I’m sorry if I was a bit—inelegant.”

“Even drunk and swearing, you were still elegant.” He picked up the fruit and bit into its purple flesh.

She covered her eyes with her hands. “Ugh.”

“How’s the hangover?”

Claire did a brief physical inventory, avoiding her psyche. “Not horrendous, considering. I think the fog’s starting to lift.”

“Excellent. Then we can get going.”

“Going?” She was starting to lose her vague enthusiasm for company.

“We’re taking a little field trip to the Getty.”

She stood, feeling an instant and clobbering head rush. “Richard, I have to get to the hospital. I’m sorry, I really need to see—”

“You
will
see Nicholas. But I’d recommend a couple hours of fresh air, some exquisite gardens, and Van Gogh’s
Irises
first. Then we’ll head back to the hospital. After you’re sufficiently . . . aerated.”

Richard looked up at her, and Claire felt his eyes assessing her rumpled clothes, her unwashed face and hair, her wooziness and fragile veneer. Not as Michael might have, but in the nonjudgmental, just-observing-the-state-of-things manner of a journalist. A pal. Her brain ached thinking about Michael, her heart ached for simple companionship. Life, she noted, was becoming more fraught by the day.

He pulled out an
LA Times
piece on the museum, and placed it on the table. Claire ran her finger over the photo of the grounds and thought about her day at the beach, knowing she was beat. In every sense of the word. “I don’t know. I just feel so wrecked right now.”

“You said you’ve been dying to see it. And you said Nicholas was doing great.”

“Yes, but—”

“Hey, it’ll do us good. Both of us.”

She stared out the window over Richard’s head.

“Hair shirts, pal.” He caught her eye.

“I need to call Nicky. And I’ll need to shower.”

As they strolled the tree-lined walkways en route from the museum courtyard to the central gardens, Claire surveyed the color around her—the vivid pink bougainvillea arbors, the red flowering crape myrtle trees, yellow climbing roses. She breathed in verbena and exhaled her hangover in small puffs. The Technicolor brightness of California hit her, and she realized her steady diet of stark white walls and black moods had not been a healthy one. All black and white, all work and no play—they both had the same psychic effect. She buried thoughts of her marriage, and focused on her surroundings. The Pacific Ocean glimmered like a sapphire in the distance.

“I’m tired of hearing my own voice, Richard. Talk to me. Tell me about you.”

They had reached the gardens, and sat down opposite a pool blanketed by a floating maze of deep orange azaleas.

“About me? I generally like to ask the questions.” Richard rolled up the sleeves of his denim shirt and looked out toward the Santa Monica Mountains. “I’m forty-nine, but think I look a sprightly forty-seven. I love my job at the paper, but it’s just a job, something to keep me in steaks and skis and able to pay tuition.” He paused and ruffled his wavy salt-and-pepper hair. “Though my ski season was cut a bit short this year. I’ve been divorced for three years, and my gorgeous daughter is at Berkeley.” He shifted his gaze to Claire’s face, a question forming on his lips. Just then a group of stilt dancers appeared on the museum terrace above the garden, and Richard directed her attention to the wildly costumed giant human puppets.

Claire watched them move with the awkward, slow motion gait of giraffes, and listened to the giggles of children at the terrace café, their boisterous squeals of delight as the puppet men dipped and danced for the crowd. She grabbed Richard’s arm as a young boy tugged at one of the striped stilt legs, sending the puppet into an unanticipated lurch and totter, and sending the boy’s mother into a wild-armed scolding.

“And in one fell swoop, the circus came to a swift and staggering stop,” Claire said with a dramatic laugh.

Richard raised his eyebrows. “You’re a real wordsmith, eh? That’s supposed to be my department.”

She gazed out at the sea, the city and the museum grounds. “It’s been a week of firsts.”

“What are you talking about, Smitty?”

“Are you giving me a nickname?” she asked, nudging him playfully, and liking the warm familiarity of a sobriquet, since she’d never had one. “You do seem to bring out the hungover poet in me.” She stood and motioned for Richard to follow her around the pool. The sun was behind them, giving the water a honeyed glow. A young woman in large white-rimmed sunglasses and tailored jeans and heels stood behind an easel on the opposite side of the pool, painting, her long blond hair brushing the tops of sculpted breasts with each brushstroke. Claire wondered at her golden, photo-like quality.

“I’d say you don’t see
that
every day,” Richard said under his voice as they passed the painter. “Except that you do. In LA.”

“This place is a bit unreal, don’t you think? A bit perfect?“

He nodded.

“You didn’t grow up here, did you?”

“Nope. San Francisco. Lived in Boston, Atlanta, and London.”

“I’m a Burlingame girl, myself. Although Mother always tried to pass it off as the City. And we live in Denver. Nicky, Michael, and I. When we’re home, I mean.”

“You told me last night.”

“Sorry.” Claire cringed and quickened her pace.

“Do you miss it?”

“My life is there.” She looked out at the pool, with its ribbons of orange.

“Even if it doesn’t include your husband?”

Claire halted mid-stride, gravel lodging in her sandals. “Jesus. Did I say that, too?”

“No, but given what you did tell me, it seems not unlikely.”

“Everything doesn’t always have to be so black and white.” Her voice hardened. “Things shift.”

“I’m sorry. I was just restating the facts, ma’am.”

“Well, don’t be so quick to write the obituary on my marriage. In fact, just forget what I said last night. Apparently I already have.” They began walking again, silently, through a cactus garden, stopping for pretzels at a refreshment cart. For a second Claire imagined Michael plastered up against the prickly pins of a saguaro, like Wile E. Coyote, realizing his colossal misjudgment and giving her a second chance at making things right.

“I just don’t want to find you face-first in another martini glass, Smitty.”

“That’s really not my style. I was kind of an accidental drunk last night.”

He smiled softly, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “So, when do you go home?”

“It looks like they’ll be discharging Nicky next week. He’ll move back into the house and do outpatient at Craig.”

“And you?”

“It seems I’ll be getting an apartment.” She turned to him and looked squarely into his face. “Michael’s not mistaken about inflicting our difficulties and stress on Nicholas twenty-four seven. I’ll make it work somehow, and then . . . well, we’ll see,” this last declaration as much a balm on her wavering conviction as it was a promise to herself.

He smiled a sort of placating half smile. “Shall we go see some irises?”

“Yes. And I could use about a gallon of water.”

For two hours Claire was just another tourist in a museum, appreciating the brilliant rendering of flowers and light, the charged glances between two subjects on canvas, and the power and nobility of painting. And for those two sweet hours, the reassuring permanence of art displaced the not-so-beautiful chaos of her world.

 

“It was spectacular,” Claire said as they approached the nurses’ station on Nicholas’s floor. “Thank you for such a perfect day. And I’m remarkably hangover-free now.” They lingered for a moment at the sitting area, Claire placing her sunglasses in their case as Richard held her bag from the gift shop.

“Transformative, wasn’t it?”

“Didn’t I tell you it would be?” she said, winking. “You look forty-six, by the way.”

Richard handed back her bag. “See you in the cafeteria, Smitty. I still owe you a dinner.” He turned and walked to the elevator.

A framed print of a sunlit wheat field caught her attention, and she took note of her complete lack of stress.

“Claire, where on earth have you been?”

Startled, Claire spun around to see a green pantsuited woman behind her at the nurses’ station. “Good lord, Mother, where did you come from?”

“Why, the City, of course. And who on earth is Smitty?”

In an instant, the heartening powers of an art-filled morning were neutralized. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

“Because I knew how busy you’ve been. So I made my own arrangements to see my grandson.”

“How long have you been here?” Claire noticed a wrist brace on Cora’s right hand, similar to the one Nicky wore.

“An hour or so. And I can only stay until tomorrow. I’m meeting Carol Morgenstern in Del Mar. But I’ve already had a lovely visit with Nicholas. He tells me he’s going home soon.” She looked over her shoulder and gave a broad smile to the nurses behind the desk. “And Nicky said Michael was already here?”

Claire felt her stomach pitch. “Have you hurt your wrist, Mother?”

“My bag was quite heavy, and all the carrying seemed to inflame it. I asked one of the girls”—again she smiled over toward the nurses’ station—“if she could find some solution for me.” Cora held out her hand, admiring her latest accessory, as Claire tried not to think about what that scene must have entailed. “Just remind me to return it before I leave.” Cora shifted her gaze back to Claire. “Who was that man you were with, Claire? And why did he call you Smitty?”

“His sister’s a patient here.”