A Marriage Made at Woodstock (6 page)

“Hey,” he shouted when he heard her coming up the stairs. “Is it a burglar? Or is it a reformed Joseph Peters bringing back my apple?”

She stopped in the doorway, a silhouette there in the soft glow of the clock and the rosy blush from the night-light in the bathroom. “I'm exhausted,” she said.

“But the seminar went okay?”

“Fine.” He saw her lift up a hand and run it through her hair. Then she left the hand there, her arm arced, as though she carried a water pitcher on her head, something to be balanced. He remembered the first time he'd ever seen her do it, at Woodstock the night they'd met. There had been a fine drizzle coming down and her hair was sparkling with raindrops as she ran her fingers through it, then just let the hand rest there, as though she'd forgotten about it. It reminded him of an Ezra Pound poem he'd read in college, just a month earlier.
Dark-eyed, O woman of my dreams, Ivory sandaled, There is none like thee among the dancers, None with swift feet.
Those were the same feet that now had blisters from boycotting milk-fed veal. He felt a surge of love rise up in him.

“You know what?” he asked, and saw the silhouette of arm undo itself. She put a hand on her hip and waited.

“What?”

“I got jealous tonight for the first time in almost twenty years,” Frederick said. “Can you believe that?” Chandra said nothing. “I even went out to my car with the intentions of checking up on you,” he added. “Can you
believe
that?” He forced a laugh. He had always prided himself on his self-honesty. Still, she said nothing. The silence grew like a little pond between them, broken only by the bluish-green splash of the clock. He wished that he could see her face. He pulled himself up to a sitting position in the bed. “I even wondered if you and this Robbie, this surfer muscleman, had a little thing going. Can you imagine?” His laugh was now too nervous, too telling. He waited for a response, but none came. Chandra went on standing in the doorway, in the semidarkness, the outline of his wife, the woman he knew so well. Sure, they'd drifted apart somewhat and, yes, he did spend an inordinate amount of time with his computer. But twenty years means something. He and Chandra had this special relationship. At least that's what he told his brother, Herbert, so many times as Herbert was going through his divorce. “I don't remember meeting this Robbie character before,” he said then. He hoped he sounded sincere, even nonchalant. Chandra had often accused him of looking through people and not at them, of being too self-centered to notice the obvious. He wasn't sure why the little surge of panic was rising in his chest, but it was. If
Felis
catus
had been around, he would understand why his nose was suddenly vibrating. If he didn't hyperventilate, he would surely sneeze.
In
control, in control, in control.
“Can you believe I thought you were having an affair?” he finally said it, his voice now shrill. He hated the tone of it! He sounded like Herbert, moaning and bemoaning, all the way through the divorce lawyers, the trial, the alimony. Chandra hadn't moved, was still there in the doorway, a creature carved of stone
. Ivory sandaled, There is none like thee among the dancers.
Frederick eased himself slowly out of bed and flicked on the bedroom light. He looked into her eyes, into the place where all humanity as well as the animal kingdom lived. He looked there for an answer since none was coming out of her mouth.
Dark-eyed
, O woman of my dreams.
He saw her pupils growing smaller with the light, shrinking, twenty years disappearing, all those Sunday mornings in bed evaporating. He saw himself growing old alone, a crusty, ancient man, bitter to the end,
living
on
the
outskirts
of
humanity
, living in a gutter somewhere, without even a laptop to keep him company.

Something's wrong between us that your laughter cannot hide

And you're afraid to let your eyes meet mine

And lately when I love you I know you're not satisfied

Woman, Woman, have you got cheating on your mind?

—Gary Puckett & the Union Gap

It happened that fast, at least to Frederick, but Chandra claimed that it had been a long, slow process.

“You are so wrapped up in yourself, Freddy, and in that damn computer, that you don't even notice our lives unfolding before you,” she'd said. “I have to introduce you to people over and over again because you can't even take the time to
remember
them.” And then, true to her nature, she would speak no more on the subject. She had spent the night in their spare bedroom and he, unable to fathom the unnecessary acreage of their king-size bed, had camped on the small settee in his office, dozing off just before daylight.

When he woke at seven o'clock, he felt a pang of regret that Walter Muller had beat him out of bed on that day. He entertained for a few seconds the notion that he should record this discrepancy on his computer calendar, then decided against it. He personally couldn't help it if his wife had caused his steadfast schedule to wobble a bit.

At eight o'clock he'd gone to work on the payroll taxes as scheduled. No need for his professional life to fall apart just because his personal one was experiencing a rumble. And besides, he still didn't know the nature of the beast. Perhaps this Robbie fellow was no more than a good, strong body from which to erect a picket sign, instead of something more Freudian. Although Chandra wouldn't admit it, Frederick knew that she perceived some men as nothing more than human billboard signs. He would wait until she let him peek into her hand, study her trump cards. He had no doubt that The Girls would stay with him on this. He was delighted to discover that he had, after all, his own share of the Stone family's sangfroid. He was reminded of Christmas dinners in Grandmother Stone's immense and unfriendly parlor as the Stone aunts sat on one side of the room, the Stone uncles on the other, all unsmiling, rigid in their chairs, their cheekbones wonderfully chiseled. “They look like the pieces of some great, awful chess set,” his mother had leaned over and whispered to him once, the sweet smell of cooking sherry on her breath. Frederick would call upon this frosty inheritance while he gathered the essential data.

He felt confident as he lingered over a second cup of his special coffee. But at ten o'clock Chandra arose to begin packing—impressively early for her—and the argument commenced.

“I'm not leaving for another man,” she said. “I'm leaving for Chandra.” More of her cute, cryptic poetry, her little metaphysical singsongs. Frederick wondered how
Lorraine
felt about it all. He had decided, while he was running the monthly profit-and-loss statement for Portland Concrete, to elaborate on
betrayal
first, and then perhaps make a cutting swath or two about how marital strife could affect both their careers. This was a mere gratuity on his part, since, after all, only the loonies dallied with Chandra's seminars. A little strife was probably good for his wife's business.

“He's not a man, he's a
boy
, for heaven's sake,” Frederick said. He hoped to stick a pin into Chandra's own nest of hubris.

“You seriously don't remember Robbie?” she asked. Well, why should he remember the dolts and dimwits who paraded through their home? “What solar system do you live in, Freddy? What planet do you live on? What street? In which house? Surely not the same as mine!”

“You flaunted him beneath my nose,” Frederick said, and then hated his voice for declining into a whine. And he hated what his feet seemed to be doing: following her from room to room as she packed.

“At last,” Chandra said, “I can flaunt something beneath your nose that doesn't make you sneeze.” Then she slammed the bathroom door and locked it. Waiting for her to reemerge, Frederick sat on the top step and listened to several minutes of shower spray, a scattering of deodorant cans, the bathroom scales announcing her weight, toiletries being noisily packed. Damned infernal woman. She'd better not pack his Ultra Brite. He had researched for hours to find the best product for removing tartar. Even his oral hygienist had commended him on his deep interest in dental health. Chandra, however, had said he was excessive. Well, the judge in divorce court would have no trouble telling them apart. Frederick Stone would be the one
with
teeth
. A rattle of bottles came at him now from behind the closed door, most likely those organic perfumes she was forever collecting,
eau
de
cow
shit
or some such.

Chandra padded out past him. She had wrapped a towel about her head, her hair wet beneath. She had always reminded him of an Egyptian queen wearing a headdress when he saw her like this, Nefertiti maybe, who had stood firmly at her husband's side in all those Egyptian reliefs, who even followed him into a new cult—and Frederick Stone saw the computer age as a new cult—who bore future queens for him. He thought of Chandra's swanlike neck rising up from the collar of her blouse. He felt the beginning of a sadness he hoped was temporary. Surely this was an act of civil disobedience, of marital discord. It would pass.

“You were the one who said that couples should always communicate,” Frederick said. His whine seemed to have modulated upward. This was not how he had imagined things would turn out. He had envisioned her crumbling beneath the guilt—if indeed she was guilty—flailing in the face of Stone stoicism. Bambi against Mount Rushmore. But Chandra, good Woodstockian soldier that she was, turned on him with the same zeal she had used against Dow Chemical.

“I married an English major,” Chandra said. “A man who loved poetry, long walks on the beach, picnics. A man who had the same vision as I did, that the world could be a better place. But I ended up with a computerized machine.” Frederick shook his head since it was all he could think of doing. He had, at the tender age of forty-four, become The Establishment? He leaned against the foyer wall, beside the massive indoor tree which had been a birthday gift from Joyce—who had not received so much as a phone call on her own birthday—and watched helplessly as Chandra crammed candles, books, and clothing into boxes.

“I'm not helping you carry those out to the car,” Frederick said. At least he had some dignity left. Through a branch of the potted tree, he stared at her face, a mottled visage that had launched a thousand protests. Surely this was another one and she was merely testing him.

“Lurk in the foliage all you wish,” she said. He knew Chandra's opinion of folks who lurked in foliage: warmongers and the manufacturers of Agent Orange. “I'll see that movers pick up the larger stuff.”

“Chandra,” Frederick said, and wished he had a glass of mineral water, Perrier maybe, because it didn't have a mineral taste and was lower in sodium than other brands. Of course, he hadn't
tried
the other brands. There was no need to, with
Consumer
Reports
at his fingertips. He'd settle now for tap water. His throat seemed to be stuck together when he swallowed. “Chandra, this is insane.”

“You're a blind man, Freddy,” she said. “Blind.” She covered both her eyes for emphasis.

She struck him suddenly as the monkey that saw no evil, and he was alarmed to hear him himself laugh.

“You think it's funny?” she asked. He shook his head. He wanted to tell her that it was only because she reminded him of the See No Evil monkey. But he couldn't tell a woman who was about to leave him that she looked like a monkey.
Monkey
is
the
general
name
for
any
member
of
the
primate
order
with
the
exception
of
the
tree
shrews
, said a voice from within his head. Frederick recognized it immediately as belonging to his high school biology teacher, Mr. Bator, who had taught evolution with a great panache. Mr. Bator had dressed as a gorilla all during finals.
Most
monkeys
are
active
during
the
day
and
many
live
in
groups
, Mr. Bator added. Frederick looked closely at Chandra. Had she heard this too? But she continued duct-taping the flap of a cardboard box. Surely he had imagined the voice. It had been many years since high school. He tried to think rationally.

“Do you want to go to a movie or something?” he asked. It would be an opportunity for them to talk. Chandra always chatted through movies. She ignored him and rifled instead through their mutual stack of record albums, pulling out the occasional Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, leaving the ones that belonged to Frederick. All the CDs were his, post-sixties things that they were. Frederick leaned down and picked up an album which Chandra had shuffled aside,
Greatest
Hits
of
Gary
Puckett
& the Union Gap
, not exactly activists, these guys. He had bought the album at a used-record shop in 1984, the same year his father died, the same year his sister, Polly, died. He remembered it had been a little shop piled high with used records. He had already been married to Chandra for so many years that the purchase made him uneasy. This was not Music for the Revolution. Would Chandra think him helplessly
Establishment?
Now, as he stared down at the youthful faces looking up, a realization struck him. The Union Gap would all be in their forties by now.

“I'll take the stray cat,” was her only reply. He wished that he could share the fleeting wave that was coursing through him. He was feeling the passage of
time
, he was privy to seconds disappearing, minutes, years. The Union Gap as middle-aged men. He and Chandra halfway through their lives. The years were, indeed, swift bastards. He felt Chandra press something into his hand. It was a green Post-it with a scrawled phone number.

“For emergencies,” she said. “And that word doesn't mean the same thing to Joyce as it does to me, so please don't give her this number. And, if you don't mind, I'll tell Mother about this at my own pace.” A loaded box in her arms, she backed out the front door and let it slam behind her. He heard the cat mewling after her. For a minute he remained in the middle of the living room floor and listened to the unblemished sounds of loneliness: a child's voice filtering in from the street, a sudden squeak in the cellar of the Victorian house, the branch of the wild cherry bobbing against his office window. And he almost saw it, almost envisioned a new life for himself, as he had once envisioned a better world for all mankind, a life in which he would learn to grow old without her, in which he would rise in the morning to look at his face in the bathroom mirror and she would not be there in the blue rooms of his pupils. Dreamlike, he almost beheld this new life, embraced it, realized that it waited for him down the long corridors of bitter nights and days.
Almost.
But then the sound of the Toyota rumbling in the yard bounced him back to his old life. And he knew then with certainty that Chandra was leaving. What he didn't know, at that moment in time, was that she would take The Girls with her. He hurried out the door and stood on the front porch, teary-eyed, still holding the youthful Union Gap. As he watched, the little Toyota turned the corner of Ellsboro Street, the back window filled with clothing and books. When he could no longer hear the metallic rattle of the Toyota's loose muffler, he went to the telephone. The first person he called was Chandra's sister, Joyce. He couldn't explain it, but he needed reassurance, even from quirky Joyce.

“Chandra has left me,” he said, his voice unsteady. He hoped his pain was obvious. By the time Joyce—a woman he'd never really liked—finished a sermon that detailed what she'd always considered Chandra's bad points, Frederick felt better. He signed off with a promise to come to her house soon, for dinner, and hoped he wouldn't be forced to view the soggy condoms. He then gave Joyce the phone number that Chandra had left behind.

“I'll try to talk some sense into her,” Joyce said, and Frederick felt almost joyous.

“You're a good person,” he said, knowing it was a lie.

Next, he called his mother-in-law and gave her a description of events, and then the classified telephone number.

“I've no idea where it is,” Frederick said. “Maybe it's at his place, at
Robbie's
.” He heard Lillian cluck her disapproval.

“I knew something like this would happen,” she said. “Seminars of the Mind, my foot! Lorraine needs to get her own mind straightened out and leave those lunatics to professionals.”

“Lillian,” he said, “Chandra
is
a professional.”
Remember
all
that
money
you
spent
on
psychology
courses?
he almost added.

“You poor man,” Lillian said. “Lorraine is making a grave mistake.” Frederick was almost sorry he hadn't been a more appreciative son-in-law over the past two decades. He made a quick promise to make amends in the few years Lillian had left. The emotion of the moment was so thick he even went so far as to invite Lillian to lunch the next week. This should all serve as proof to Chandra that he, Frederick Stone, was a worthy soul if her own family endorsed his side of the argument. And families should stick together anyway. Speaking of families, what about his own? This wasn't something he could discuss with his mother, who was now residing in Florida. Physically, that is. Emotionally, she was on Mars. And even if his father was living, which he wasn't, Frederick wouldn't be able to talk to him. His father had been the coldest, most indifferent piece on the Stone chess set. His father had been the king, and Frederick had set out at an early age to capture the king's attention. But he had never succeeded. It had been the quintessential stalemate. Chandra should have lived for a time with Dr. Philip Stone, dentist to the root canals of the rich, if she thought she knew something about indifference!