Creatures of Habit (7 page)

He said, “Don't worry. Honeymoons can be a bit of a letdown.”

She excused herself, locked the bathroom door, and looked around in disgust. Where were the heated tile floors they had advertised? The towel warmers? The European spa towels? Where was the round bed with gossamer netting to make you feel you were floating on a cloud? Was she the first person to ever feel this way? This washover of sick regret?

She dried her eyes and stepped back into the room. She willed herself to picture Randy on this sad evening. He was sitting out on the stoop of his parents' house where the two of them had sat hundreds of nights waiting for steaks to grill and staring out at the pastures and tobacco fields. Poor brooding Randy, heartbroken. He was sorry now that he had not stepped forward and intervened. He would always regret it; one day he would tell her so and then she would say that she regretted it, too, and then they would go back to where they had always been—a couple—partners for life. They would not be able to remember which came first, his infidelity or her desire for something more in a relationship. It wouldn't even be important.

She was about to laugh just thinking of the two of them getting back together, but then realized how false that fantasy was—false and hopeless. He probably never even thought of her that day, or if he did it was to decide not to put on a suit and go to the wedding. It probably never crossed his mind that he should go and object, that she might need his intervention.

S
HE SHOULDN'T HAVE
, but as she lay down beside Alan, she let herself think of being with Randy as they
bounced through the fields in his truck, one of his dogs squeezed between them on the front seat. His hair was wild and windblown, and the Marshall Tucker Band blasted from the speakers. They drove down the dirt roads to the river and then sneaked into the old deserted ice plant, a place they believed none of the other kids had discovered, or if they had, hadn't dared to ease through the chained doorway into the cool darkness.

I
N THE MORNING
, when Alan suggested they go to the exercise room and then sit in the whirlpool awhile, she begged off with extreme, perhaps irrational, fears of community mold and bacteria that incubate in such an environment. She said she would lounge a bit, walk around, but she knew exactly where she was going. Rose had not arrived yet and there was already a line, two of the women who had been there the night before. Lisa felt uncomfortable sitting there eavesdropping so she wandered down the hall and into the ladies' room, where she found Poconos Rose herself, stripped of all makeup and jewelry, brushing her dark hair and twisting it up on top of her head. She was pinning it in place when her gaze in the mirror caught Lisa's.

“Do I know you?” she asked.

“Wouldn't you know that answer?” Lisa answered. When there was no laughter she apologized and started again. “I saw you last night at your table.”

“Yeah, it's busy around here,” she said. “But the line moves pretty quick if that's what you're worried about.”

“No, I'm not worried.”

“What then?” Rose pulled a big purse onto the counter and took out her makeup bag. She applied black eyeliner and a maroon-colored lipstick, both items that made her look much older. “I'm priced reasonably.”

“Oh no, that's not it,” Lisa said. “You were looking at me last night.”

“I was?” She put her hand to her chest and squinted as if trying to remember. Her eyes were a brilliant emerald green, clearly contacts.

“Yes, I was in line to go to dinner and I noticed that you were watching me, staring really. I think you saw something.”

“Oh?” Rose crossed her arms over her thin chest and studied Lisa from head to toe. “Were you with a guy in a suit? A little older? Kind of executive looking?”

“Yes.”

“Newlywed.”

“Yes!” Lisa was getting excited.

“That's no vision, honey,” she said. “Here's what comes here: you got the newlyweds; you got the old ones trying to recapture the first honeymoon—they're my favorites actually, no offense; you got the bar mitzvah crowd, like last night? Lord. You got an occasional reunion.”

“So there wasn't something about me?”

“Should I have seen something?”

“I don't know. I really thought you did.” Lisa turned and perched on the edge of an old vinyl chair near the door.

“Sounds like you wanted me to see something.”

“Maybe.”

“Like maybe you made a mistake?”

Lisa looked up, eyes wide. Rose was not much older than Lisa if at all, but the way she talked, the way she looked Lisa dead in the eye made it clear she had already seen far more than Lisa probably would in a lifetime. She had a hard, muscular stance that made Lisa feel inadequate.

“You think I did?”

“Do you?” Rose threw her lipstick back into her floppy macramé bag, then turned, exasperated by all the questions. “Look. I really have had a vision or two, okay? Else I wouldn't be in this particular business. But what I see in you is what anybody who took two seconds to look could see.”

Lisa paused, afraid to ask another question and afraid not
to. “Can you tell me what you see?” She stared down at her hands to avoid Rose's eyes.

“Well okay, last night what I saw was a young woman wearing the kind of suit worn by business women, church ladies, and girls who take the time to plan a going-away outfit. Am I right?” Lisa nodded. “You're clearly not one of the first two, and your husband,” she paused, giving the word extra weight, “still had one of those flower things stuck up near his neck.”

“Oh. A boutonniere.”

“Whatever. You're standing there with your arms crossed over your chest looking like you're at a funeral and concentrating on
my
business instead of your own.” She laughed. “And what was I thinking? I was thinking about how I was in a hurry to get to my kid's piano lesson.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be.” She shook her head and smiled. “We've all been there. Maybe this lifetime, maybe another, but we've been there.” Rose pulled a multicolored scarf from the bag and draped it over one shoulder. She saw Lisa watching and stopped short again; she seemed to be getting impatient. “Okay, so I dress up a little. Most of those people out there wouldn't pay me the time of day if I didn't look like what they expect me to look like, you know? I mean I'm really a
blonde, a natural blonde, but who knows a blond fortune teller?” She leaned close and pointed to her eyebrows, the fair hairs clearly crayoned over with black pencil. “Men are that way. Friends. Mothers. There's a certain look we expect, you know? Sometimes the image is true and sometimes it isn't.” She turned her head from side to side, admiring the swirl of her earrings in the mirror. “We're all hoping that we can see beyond what the eye sees, but for most it's just trial and error. You know, you reach a certain age and it's time to fly the coop, no time to think about anything other than that very moment. There's never the perfect time. We'd all do something a little different if given another chance.”

“I was fine before the wedding and now all of a sudden I'm terrified. It's crazy.”

“Doesn't sound crazy to me.” Rose put her bag on her shoulder and took one last look at her reflection. “I'd call it everyday business for somebody like me.” She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, raised her arms up high, and swayed back and forth. “There, I'm ready.” She was about to open the door but then turned back once more. “You know, nobody knows everything. If we did there would be no reason to live. At least you weren't too chicken to try. A lot of people are, you know, and what do they wind up with? And remember—you're nothing but a human
bean
—that's what
my kid would say. Human
bean
.” Rose laughed and disappeared in a swirl of gold and imitation silk. The door wheezed shut, and immediately Lisa could hear the clamoring—a shrill peep of needy people, like chickens at feeding time, pushing to be first in line. Though tempted to turn and look, Lisa shielded her eyes and ran back to the honeymoon suite. If she could just concentrate on what lay immediately before her, she would be all right. If she could just take it day by day, picking and choosing what best suited her life. She wasn't a chicken, and she wasn't about to be pecked to death. And if she felt frightened, Alan would be there with an outstretched palm and a promise that he might, or might not, be able to keep.

“I'
M THINKING
I will have myself a restaurant known as Peckers, and as my model I will use Hooters, where one of Bill's buddies likes to go on Friday night. I will have a woodpecker instead of an owl and waiters instead of waitresses. They will wear uniforms that are, shall I say, a bit revealing below the belt and as manager my job will be saying who looks good in the outfit and who doesn't. Sorry, that's business. It's not harassment if you say right up front that Peckers is all about peckers. The Pecker Burger, the Pecker Shake, the foot-long Peckerdog, the Pecker who serves you. There will be lots of cute puns about wood, redheaded, etc. I think it will be a huge success.”

I make this speech to the group—Bill's old friends and
their wives—gathered for the golf weekend Bill pulls together every year. Golf is the excuse for the get-together even though sometimes only a couple of them actually play. Most of the time is spent drinking and telling tales. Bill has just told how he and the boys could not help but pull off of I-95 and check out Cafe Risqué, which advertises all up and down the highway. I also say, “So why not South of the Border? They have lots of billboards on the highway, too, and they have liquor by the drink. They even have fireworks you can buy. Sombreros. Enchiladas. As a matter of fact, you can buy just about anything at South of the Border, except for the señoritas,
unless,
” I add, feigning great surprise, “that's why you went to Cafe Risqué instead.”

T
HE SIGNS SAY
that Cafe Risqué is open all night and that the women are topless. The women on the signs look like supermodels—shiny healthy hair and white well-cared-for teeth. I'm certain that what's on the billboards is not what you find inside, especially at eight o'clock in the morning, or two o'clock in the afternoon. Or any time, for that matter. I'm betting you find track marks, illiteracy, scars of at least one abusive relationship. At least that would be my uneducated guess.

I'm guessing stretched-out titties, the children who stretched them cold and alone at home waiting for mama to get off work. Or maybe the women have no children and they eye every man who comes in through that darkened glass door as a potential future, a ticket to a better, cleaner existence. Men, for instance, like my spouse, Bill, who is college educated and should know better, and his sidekick, Ed, an old fraternity brother who has flown in from Atlanta and who chooses to spend part of his day this way while his wife and newborn are back at home.

I voice my sadness at this scene. I politely question Bill's participation in this event and ask how he will explain such a place, should the question ever arise, to our son and daughter, who are on the threshold of adolescence. And still the conversation in the room turns to breasts. Ethan—former college fraternity brother from Winston-Salem—just can't get over the whole scene. He is imitating, swinging his pathetic khaki-clad body side to side. He discusses ta-ta size like you might a pumpkin, while his wife stands there and giggles. I catch her eye and she stops cold. She knows better but like many of us she has learned that it's easier to look the other way, pretend that you really did not see or hear what you thought you did.

You can learn a lot on a weekend like this. I look around the room—my dining room—as they gather here for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres, and I might as well be on another planet even though it's a scene I have lived through for over a decade by now.

There is always at least one man going through the motions of separation or divorce. That one normally arrives with a woman twenty years younger or comes alone and flirts with all the wives. This year it is Dennis, from D.C., who grew up in this very town but has gone to great lengths to rid himself of any traces of his native origin. It is as if he has no memory of a mother or a childhood or an education here. He would have the world believe that he simply sprang forth in a business suit with a fat wallet boasting membership in the NRA, a Rolex on his wrist, and a BMW parked by the curb. Right now he seems to be checking out everyone's cleavage. I watch him and keep thinking that before the night is over, I will go and get my high school yearbook and pass it around so everyone can check out when he was a Future Farmer of America and a Teen Dem and a relatively decent guy. I will ask how his mother—a woman who put in forty years as a receptionist at the courthouse and who raised a child all by herself—is faring out at Turtle Bay Nursing Home, which he visits only at Christmas if then. He keeps
trying to catch my eye and wink like the two of us are somehow in on something. My glance back at him says
You suck.

I
TELL EVERYBODY
that I think men who are attracted to breasts in a major way are still yearning to suckle their mamas. Isn't it true there's a whole generation of formula-fed men who never had that opportunity and now they are suffering? They want to latch on; they want to make their mothers draw sharp breaths in with the tight wrench just before that glorious letdown. I say that knowing that they are all Enfamil men with mamas who claim they couldn't nurse when the truth is nobody taught them how. I don't think evolution would have allowed a whole generation to die out; it certainly hasn't happened that way in the animal kingdom. You don't see animals making fun of teats and udders. I doubt if it happens among humans in Third World countries either. But maybe this was the period in history when society began to look at the breast in a whole different way. Maybe this is when the breast went from a source of nourishment for the young to something for men to pinch and make jokes about.