The Life Room (29 page)

“I would expect nothing less from Eleanor,” Elizabeth said proudly. “I only wish her father were here to see her. Celebrations make him uncomfortable. He’s too emotional. Your father would be a puddle, wouldn’t he, Eleanor?” Elizabeth said.

Stephen caught her eye. She looked away and began talking to another one of her mother’s friends, but she continued to listen to Stephen’s and her mother’s conversation.

“No, I’m not seeing anyone,” he said. “Do you know the first question a girl asks when you meet her? She wants to know what you do for a living. When you say you’re a writer they look at you sideways. They think to themselves, ‘This one isn’t marriage material.’”

“How’s the writing going?” her mother gently asked, as if she were afraid to hear his answer.

“I’ve had a few breaks but it isn’t enough to make a living. I’m still painting houses and putting up aluminum siding. I go through these periods where I tell myself to forget it. The writing. That it isn’t going to happen. I have to shake my doubts. Other times I know I have to stick with it.”

“Of course you must, dear,” Eleanor’s mother said. “Where would we be if everyone were a doctor?”

Eleanor watched him skewer another piece of bread and dip it into the bubbling cheese. She looked at him again. He stared right through her. He went into the kitchen, taking his drink with him. She told herself she was lucky to have found Michael. She sat down next to him and locked her fingers within his. Stephen had peered back into the living room from the kitchen. He saw the gesture. Did she do it specifically to hurt him or was it to reassure herself? She was bothered that she still found him attractive and that she felt compassion for him. She rose to go to the bathroom. He went in the other direction to grab his coat. They met in the narrow hallway. The attraction was like an electric current connecting her body to his. How could she still be drawn to him? She looked at him for a moment and thought they might embrace. Stephen leaned against the wall and stared at her as if they were two teenagers flirting at a party. She saw in the way he looked at her that he knew he still possessed power over her, and the knowledge was enough fuel to get him through the evening. She thought that his anger would allow him to forget her. She stumbled on her high heel.

“You have something in your hair.” He reached over and took out a crumb. As his hand slipped into her hair, she grew warm and flushed. “You’re radiant, Eleanor.”

He walked back into the living room and left her standing in the hallway. Once she regained her composure and followed him, she saw Michael stand up to shake his hand. Carol had reached over to kiss him good-bye. He gave Eleanor’s mother a hug. He did not say good-bye to Eleanor. He placed his half-drunk vodka tonic on the coffee table in front of her. As he was walking out the door she looked at his glass—the ice had melted, the lime had absorbed the alcohol, and it turned soft and pulpy.

She slid next to Michael on the sofa. She sipped on her glass of wine, holding the globe with two hands so it wouldn’t shake, and listened to Michael tell her mother about the studio apartment in New York they were renting. She was devastated that Stephen left but she resisted the impulse to go after him. Why should she? That was long ago. He was the one who left her. She was upset that he did not try to explain himself, and relieved at the same time that he hadn’t. Carol sat down on the couch next to her mother. “When I told Stephen Eleanor was getting married and that you were having a party for her he drove all night to be here, Elizabeth. He knows how much you and Eleanor mean to me,” Carol said. “You were the only friend who didn’t judge me when I left town.”

In her office the morning after seeing Stephen, she logged on to e-mail and sent a message to John.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

John: Can you explain the significance of Plato’s meaning of platonic love? It’s for my new book.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

E: Transcending physical desire and tending toward the purely spiritual or ideal.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

So you’re saying that physical desire impedes a higher spiritual quest?

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

I’m saying that Plato saw resisting sexual desire as a way to reach a higher spiritual plane. Marsilio Ficino, a Renaissance follower of Plato, used the terms
amor socraticus
and
amor platonicus
interchangeably to mean a love between two humans that was preparatory for the love of God. From Ficino’s usage, Platonic came to be used for a spiritual love between persons of opposite sexes.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

So you’re saying that once platonic love is consummated it’s no longer spiritual? That the reason platonic love is so intense is because of the tension of having never been consummated? The imagination continues to fuel the possibilities, perhaps idealizing the connection?

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

I’m saying then it’s no longer platonic. It becomes something other. In fact, it may or may not be as powerful as spiritual love. The Romantics would say it was ecstatic love. When I think of unconsummated love I think of Dante and Beatrice. Of
La Vita Nuova
. Dante believed his love for Beatrice led him to the love of God. He met Beatrice when he was nine and idealized her. He believed it was through Beatrice that he was able to explore the self. That the exploration of the self is the exploration of truth. And that poetry was the vehicle for his exploration.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

How’s
The End of Romanticism
coming?

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

I think I prefer the Romantic period.

She smiled and logged off e-mail.

Hi, Eleanor, I’m in Utah. The mountains are amazing. I’m doing a story for
National Geographic
. I’m still thinking about what you wore that day in Paris. That flowered, silk skirt—were they rosebuds?—and your hair up in a twist. I think both of your eyes looked blue that day. How’s everything in your world?

She turned off the computer. She went into the bathroom down the department hallway. It was hot and muggy. September had been cool, but in the last week there had been another heat wave. Tiny mosquitoes and gnats had flown inside the mesh of the screen window and lined the inside of the sink, drawn to the coolness of its white porcelain. She locked the bathroom door and sat down on the window ledge for no other reason than to enjoy the comfort and insularity the bathroom provided.

I’m in Vermont, chasing after a Democrat for the Associated Press. How’s your Anna doing? Isn’t that the character? The one from the Russian novel? I can picture you in your office, Eleanor. I know where to find you. That’s what I think about in bed at night. You behind your desk with your avalanche of books behind you.

Fall was fading. Soon it would be winter.

It was the emancipation of summer, the freedom of beginning the day with only a light summer blouse and thin skirt, the openness of walking arm in arm in the park that had left her naked and vulnerable in Paris. She welcomed the spareness of winter; the thinner clouds, cool air. She longed to bundle herself up in thicker clothes for protection.

She began to look for Stephen’s e-mails. He sent them from Internet cafes around the country. At lunch her friend Marcia confessed that she’d struck up an e-mail correspondence with an old boyfriend and that she had decided to keep it private from Brian. “Why would I purposely instigate a fight with him?” she said. “Besides, it has no impact on Brian.”

“Is it because you’re bored?” Eleanor asked.

“I don’t think about it that deeply.”

Hi, Eleanor. I’m doing an overnight in New York to see an editor. Will you be around on Saturday? I’m sending this to you from the airport cybercafe. Your pal, Stephen

Now he was her pal.

Michael was working at the hospital. Eleanor planned to take the boys ice skating. She e-mailed Stephen back and told him to call her on her cell phone. Maybe she’d invite him to go skating with them at the rink in Central Park. For twenty-four hours she thought about walking the path through the park with him in intimate conversation. But by the time she arrived at the rink with the boys, after she had laced up her sons’ skates, said hello to another boy and his mother from the boys’ school, the fantasy faded. How could she have entertained the idea of bringing Stephen skating with her boys? What was wrong with her?

She called Stephen’s cell phone and left a message saying it wasn’t going to work, that she was sorry to have missed him, that she hoped next time he was in town they’d have another chance. Afterward she felt more deeply connected to him, as if by not seeing him she had ensured that they would see each other at a later date.

Eleanor, I’m back in Colorado. The mountains are so distant today, I can barely see them. I’m working on my novel. You’re my ideal reader. When I’m writing, it’s as if I’m writing to you. I see you in my dreams. Your comrade, Stephen

Now she was his comrade.

She woke up and didn’t want to get out of bed. It was as if she were dragging herself out of layers of a complicated dream. Ever since the boys were born, she’d sprung out of bed as soon as they awoke. But it was different now. Everything was different. She wanted to fold back into sleep to quiet herself. She rationalized her way out of bed, telling herself that the boys and Michael needed her, they were part of her tangible world. Michael left for the hospital at the crack of dawn. The boys played quietly in their room while her mind struggled to float back from semiconsciousness. She slowly made out the objects on her dresser, her bottles of perfume and the broken pitcher from Paris, sealed back together with glue. She remembered buying the pitcher with Stephen. Even as she told herself what a child he was, there was a part of her that knew that it was the vulnerability in him she was drawn to.

At breakfast she helped Nicholas study for a math test. While he was looking at his flash cards her eyes drifted to the window.

“Mom, where are you?” Nicholas said. “You’re not paying attention.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, bracing him by the shoulders. “I’m here. I won’t leave you.”

“I know you won’t leave me. But could you help me study for my test?”

“Of course I will,” she said, recovering. “I’m your mother.”

The Wings of the Dove
was the topic of discussion in her Henry James seminar.

“Kate Croy knows from the outset that she must have Denscher. She knows that money is the only thing stopping them and that she and Denscher could profit from Milly’s dying. It’s calculated, but Kate perceives her and Denscher’s love as being of greater consequence. She sees it as nearly spiritual, essential, beyond anything. That’s what allows her to betray Milly,” Maryanne Foster said, looking at Ted Donough as she spoke, as if she were speaking intimately to him rather than to the class.

“Are you suggesting that James intended for her to be calculating?” Eleanor egged her on. Eleanor stared at the gold stud punched into the soft flap of skin underneath Maryanne’s eyebrow.

“Of course,” Maryanne responded. “Kate didn’t realize that it would have consequences. That she couldn’t control how another woman affected him.”

“Well, one of James’s themes
is
the cost of betrayal. But go on, Maryanne.”

“Kate makes Denscher see that their only chance together is if he makes love to Milly. Kate puts the seduction in motion, calculates the outcome—Milly’s fortune—but she doesn’t anticipate that Denscher will grow to care for Milly. She’s clueless. She believes their love is absolute. That’s her failing.” Maryanne confidently tossed back her dyed black hair.

“Failing?” Eleanor probed.

“She didn’t realize that Denscher would fall in love with Milly’s memory That memory is more powerful.”

Ted cut in before Eleanor could respond. “So are you saying that seduction here isn’t really a calculation on the part of the seducer? That by remaining passive, the object of desire put the seduction in motion?”

“Of course.” Maryanne tossed her head back, laughing.

After class Eleanor thought about the animated way in which Maryanne drew Ted Donough to her. Ted was completely absorbed. Eleanor was almost jealous of her freedom.

Stephen was on assignment in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, when he called. He was writing a story on the reenactors of the Civil War. The phone call came just as she was going to pick up the boys from school. “It’s like being inside a play,” he said. “It’s surreal, watching these people dressing up and fighting like there’s a war still going on. What is it with people and their obsessions with the past?”

Silence.

“Eleanor, are you there? How are you? It’s good to hear your voice.”