Bittersweet (4 page)

“The kids seemed a little wound up tonight. What's up?” he asked, putting his report down.

“I think they're just excited about the end of the school year. It'll do them good to get to the Cape, and get it out of their systems. They need some downtime, we all do.” By this point in the school year, she was always sick to death of her car pools.

“I wish I could take time off earlier than August,” he said, running a hand through his hair, thinking about it. But he had to oversee some marketing studies for two important new clients, and he didn't want to leave town prematurely.

“So do I,” India said simply. “I saw Gail today. They're going to Europe this summer.” It was pointless to try and talk him into that again, she knew, and it was too late to change their plans for this summer anyway, but she would have liked to. “We really should do that next year.”

“Let's not start that again. I didn't go to Europe till I finished college. It's not going to kill them to wait a couple of years to do that. Besides, it's too expensive with a family our size.”

“We could afford it and we can't cheat them of that, Doug.” She didn't remind him that her parents had taken her all over the world when she was a baby. Her father had taken assignments wherever he thought it would be fun, at vacation times, and taken her and her mother with him. The traveling they'd done had been a rich experience for her, and she would have liked to
share that with their children. “I loved going with my parents,” she said quietly, but he looked annoyed, as he always did when she brought up the subject.

“If your father had had a real job, you wouldn't have gotten to Europe as a kid either,” Doug said, almost sternly. He didn't like it when she pushed him.

“That's a dumb thing to say. He had a real job. He worked harder than you or I did.” Or you do now, she wanted to add, but didn't. Her father had been tireless and passionately energetic. He had won a Pulitzer, for God's sake. She hated it when Doug made comments like that about him. It was as though her father's career was meaningless because he had earned his living with a camera, something that seemed childishly simple to her husband. No matter that he had lost his life in the course of what he was doing, or won international awards for it.

“He was lucky, and you know it,” Doug went on. “He got paid for what he liked to do. Hanging out and watching people. That's kind of a fortuitous accident, wouldn't you say? It's not like going to an office every day, and having to put up with the politics and the bullshit.”

“No,” she said, a light kindling in her eyes that should have warned him he was on dangerous ground, but he didn't see it. He was not only belittling the heroic father she revered, but he was casting aspersions on her own career at the same time, who she was, and who she had been before they married. “I think what he did was a hell of a lot harder than that, and calling it a ‘fortuitous accident’ is a real slap in the face.” To her, and to her father. Her eyes were blazing as she said it.

“What got you all riled up today? Was Gail off on one of her tangents?” She had been, of course. She was always stirring the pot in some way, and India had said as much to Doug before, but the things he had just said about her father had really upset her and had nothing to do with Gail. It had to do with her, and how Doug felt about the work she did before they were married.

“That has nothing to do with it. I just don't see how you can discount a Pulitzer prize-winning career and make it sound as though he got a lucky shot with a borrowed Brownie.”

“You're oversimplifying what I said. But let's face it, he wasn't running General Motors. He was a photographer. And I'm sure he was talented, but he also probably got lucky. If he were alive today, he'd probably tell you the same thing himself. Guys like him are usually pretty honest about getting lucky.”

“For chrissake, Doug. What are you saying? Is that what you think of my career too? I was just ‘lucky’?”

“No,” he said calmly, looking mildly uncomfortable about the argument he had inadvertently backed into at the end of a long day. He was wondering if maybe she was just tired or the kids had gotten on her nerves or something. Or maybe it was Gail's rabble-rousing. He had never liked her, and she always made him uncomfortable. He thought she was a bad influence on his wife with her constant complaining. “I think you had a hell of a good time doing what you did for a while. It was a good excuse to stay out and play, probably a little longer than you should have.”

“I might have won a Pulitzer too by now, if I'd stuck with it. Have you ever thought of that?” Her eyes met
his squarely. She didn't really believe that, about the Pulitzer, but it was a possibility certainly. She had already made her mark in the business before she gave it up to have children and be a housewife.

“Is that what you think?” he asked her, looking surprised. “Are you sorry you gave it up? Is that what you're saying to me?”

“No, it's not what I'm saying. I've never had any regrets. But I also never thought of it as ‘playing.’ I was damn serious about what I did, and I was good at it …I still am….” But just looking at him, she could see that he didn't understand what she was saying. He made it sound like a game, like something she had done for fun before she settled down to real life. It wasn't “fun,” although she had had a good time at it, but she had risked her life repeatedly to get extraordinary pictures. “Doug, you're belittling what I did. Don't you understand what you're saying?” She wanted him to understand. It was important to her. If he did, it made what Gail had said a lie, that she was wasting her time now. But if he thought what she'd given up was unimportant anyway, what did that make her? In some ways, it made her feel like nothing.

“I think you're oversensitive, and you're overreacting. I'm just saying that working as a photojournalist is not like working in business. It's not as serious, and doesn't require the same kind of self-discipline and judgment.”

“Hell, no, it's a lot harder. If you work in the kind of places my father and I did, your life is on the line every second you're working, and if you're not careful and alert constantly, you get your ass blown off and you die.

That's a hell of a lot tougher than working in an office, shuffling papers.”

“Are you trying to make it sound like you gave up a lifetime career for me?” he asked, looking both annoyed and startled, as he got up and walked across the room to open the can of Coca-Cola she'd brought him. “Are you trying to make me feel guilty?”

“No, but I should get a certain amount of credit at least for my accomplishments. I shelved a very respectable career to come out here to the suburbs and take care of our kids. And you're trying to make it sound like I was just playing around anyway, so why not give it up? It was a sacrifice for me to do that.” She looked at him intently as he drank his soda, wondering just what he did think about her career now that he had opened Pandora's box. And she didn't like what she was seeing in it. It was a real disregard for what she had done, and given up for him.

“Are you sorry you made the ‘sacrifice’?” he asked bluntly, setting the can down on the little table between them.

“No, I'm not. But I think I deserve some credit for it. You can't just discount it.” But he had, that was what had upset her so badly.

“Fine. Then I'll give you credit. Does that settle it? Can we relax now? I had a long day at the office.” But the way he said it only made her angrier, as though he was more important than she was. He picked up his papers again then and was obviously determined to ignore her, as she looked at him in disbelief at what he had said to her. He had not only discounted her career, but her father's. And the way he had said it had really
hurt her. It was a lack of respect that she had never felt from him before, and it made all of Gail's comments that afternoon not only real, but valid.

She didn't say another word to him until they went to bed that night, and before that, she stood for a long time in the shower, thinking it all over. He had really upset her, and hurt her feelings. But she didn't mention it to him when she got into bed. She was sure he was going to bring it up himself and apologize. He was usually pretty aware of those things, and good about apologizing when he hurt her.

But he said not a word to her when he turned off the light, and he turned his back and went to sleep, as though nothing had happened. She didn't say goodnight to him, and she lay awake for a long time, thinking about what he had said, and what Gail had said to her, as she lay beside him, and listened to him snoring.

T
HE NEXT
morning was chaotic, as usual, and she had to drive Jessica to school, because she'd missed her car pool. Doug never said anything to India about their conversation the night before, and he was gone before she could even say good-bye to him. As she cleaned up the kitchen, after she got back from dropping Jessica off, she wondered if he was sorry. She was sure he would say something that night. It was unlike him not to. Maybe he'd had a bad day at the office the day before, or was just feeling feisty and wanted to provoke her. But he had seemed very calm when he'd spoken to her. It upset her to think he had so little regard for everything she'd done before they were married. He had never been quite that insensitive about it, or quite as blatantly outspoken. The phone rang just as she put the last of the dishes in the dishwasher, and she was going to go to her darkroom to develop the pictures she'd taken the day before at soccer. She had promised
the captain of the team that she would get them to him quickly.

She answered on the fourth ring, and wondered if it would be Doug, calling to tell her he was sorry. They were planning to go out to dinner that night, at a fancy little French restaurant, and it would be a much nicer evening if he would at least acknowledge that he had been wrong to make her career sound so unimportant and make her feel so lousy.

“Hello?” She was smiling when she answered, sure now that it was he, but the voice on the other end was not Doug's. It was her agent. Raoul Lopez. He was very well known in photojournalism and photography, and at the top of his field. The agency, though not Raoul, had previously represented her father.

“How's the Mother of the Year? Still taking pictures of kids on Santa's lap to give to their mommies?” She had volunteered at a children's shelter the previous year to do just that, and Raoul had not been overly amused by it. For years now, he had been telling her she was wasting her talents. And once every couple of years, she did something for him that gave him hope she might one day come back to the real world. She had done a fabulous story three years before, on abused children in Harlem. She had done it in the daytime while her own kids were in school, and managed not to miss a single car pool. Doug hadn't been pleased but he had let her do it, after India had spent weeks discussing it with him. And, as in the past, she had won an award for it.

“I'm fine. How are you, Raoul?”

“Overworked, as usual. And a little tired of getting
the ‘artists’ I represent to be reasonable. Why is it so impossible for creative people to make intelligent decisions?” It sounded like he had already had a bad morning, and listening to him, India was hoping he wasn't going to ask her to do something totally insane. Sometimes, despite the limitations she had set on him for years, he still did that. He was also upset because he had lost one of his star clients, a hell of a nice guy and good friend, in a brief holy war in Iran in early April. “So what are you up to?” he asked, trying to sound a little more cordial. He was a nervous, irascible man, but India was fond of him. He was brilliant at pairing up the right photographer with the right assignment, when they let him.

“I'm loading the dishwasher, actually,” she said with a smile. “Does that fit your image of me?” She laughed and he groaned.

“Only too well, I'm afraid. When are those kids of yours ever going to grow up, India? The world can't wait forever.”

“It'll have to.” Even after they were grown, she wasn't sure Doug would want her to take assignments, and she knew it. But this was what she wanted for now. And she had told Raoul that often enough for him to almost believe her. But he never gave up entirely. He was still hoping that one day she might come to her senses, and run screaming out of Westport. He certainly hoped so. “Are you calling to send me on a mission on muleback somewhere in northern China?” It was the kind of thing he called her with from time to time, although occasionally he called with something reason-
able, like the work she had done in Harlem. And she had loved that, which was why she kept her name on his roster.

“Not exactly, but you're getting close,” he said tentatively, wondering how to phrase his question. He knew how impossible she was, and just how devoted to her children and husband. Raoul had neither a spouse nor a family, and could never quite understand why she was so determined to flush her career down the toilet for them. She had a talent like few he had known, and in her case he thought it was a sacrilege to have given up what she had been doing.

And then he decided to take the plunge. All she could do was say no, although he desperately hoped she wouldn't. “It's Korea, actually. It's a story for the Sunday
Times Magazine
, and they're willing to put it out to someone freelance, instead of a staffer. There's an adoption racket in Seoul that's going sour. The word is they're killing the kids no one will adopt. It's relatively safe, for you at least, unless you ruffle too many feathers. But it's a fantastic story, India. Babies are being murdered over there, and once it runs in the magazine, you can syndicate the story. Someone really has to do it, and they need your pictures to validate the story and I'd rather it be you than anyone else. I know how you love kids, and I just thought …it's perfect for you.” She felt an undeniable rush of adrenaline as she listened. It tugged at her heart in a way that nothing had since the story in Harlem. But Korea? What would she tell Doug and the kids? Who would drive her car pools and make dinner for them? All they had was a cleaning lady twice
a week, she had done it all herself for years, and there was no way that they could manage without India to do it all for them.