Everything and More (56 page)

Two months earlier in Oaxaca, on that sickeningly hot January day with the faraway band insinuating waltzes into the dark bedroom, it had been Gerry’s misery that had elicited Roy’s promise to seek professional help. Now she clung with desperation to her three hours a week. She budgeted herself strictly to pay Dr. Buchmann’s fees and left Patricia’s an hour early, at five, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to walk over. How could she survive without Dr. Buchmann? To whom else could she confess the nights she lay in her bed kept awake by the frightful scratching (she knew it was hallucinatory) that emanated from Gerry’s empty garage studio? Who else could she tell that she had no memory of what foods she shoved into her mouth at mealtimes, or of the blank-minded choking sensation that overtook her when it was time to connect the names that went with her customers’ faces? She had once screwed up her courage to blurt out that she was drinking alone in the evenings. The nonjudgmental sympathy on Dr. Buchmann’s fine-skinned face had ameliorated his cautionary warnings.

“Of course it’s important whether he moves in with her!” Roy leaned forward impatiently. “How can you even ask? I’m the only woman he’s ever lived with.”

“He’s told you he wants to marry Mrs. Wimborne, Roy.”

“That bitch is tremendously attractive! But she tires of her men—two divorces already. Dr. Buchmann, remember, I told you about Oaxaca, when I felt so sorry for him that I said I’d think about a divorce. Well, now I see it wasn’t so dumb. Eventually she’ll throw him out. I’ll ride out the separation. I’ll wait however long I must to have a chance to get him back—I’ll do anything to get him back.”

“Roy, listen to what you’re saying.”

“I know I’m crawling after a man who wants out. But I can’t help it. Never, not once in my life, have I come first with anyone!”

“You’re a fine, attractive person. You’re generous, loyal, bright, you’ve made yourself an excellent career. Your employers like you and trust you. Your family is devoted. You have a great many friends. To function properly, you have to learn to see yourself in perspective. That’s why you’re here.”

Roy sat back. “Talking to you has saved my life, but if Gerry called tomorrow and told me to quit, I would.”

“I’d hoped we had come further than this,” said the psychiatrist quietly.

“Dr. Buchmann, learning about myself has no connection with how I
feel
about Gerry.” Roy’s throat ached as if a silk cord were tightening around her neck. “I love him totally. He’s my whole life.”

“Roy, Roy.”

“She’s always stolen my guys! Maybe it’s connected to some kind of lesbian tendencies she has, who knows.”

“That high-school story you told me is another situation entirely. This is an adult problem that you have to resolve.”

“What does resolution have to do with wanting somebody until every nerve in your body is frantic? Weren’t you ever in love? Can’t you understand? Without him, I’m nothing. I don’t exist!” Roy raised her hands to her face, and the sound of hopeless sobs filled the beige office.

*   *   *

Later, Roy drove the long blocks southward. It was misty and the oncoming headlights frayed at her vision. Across Pico Boulevard, streetlamps glowed on neatly spaced, uniform little bungalows, this one gussied up with French Provincial shutters, that one with modern flanks of timber. Windows were lit in every house, and where the curtains were not drawn, Roy would see a man, a woman, children
around a table or in front of a television set. Homes, families, she thought, the loneliness twisting within her.

She turned into her driveway, braking at the porte cochere which had been added on with the conversion of the garage into Gerry’s studio. In better times, homecoming had inevitably brought her a volatile quiver of pride for her wisdom at using Marylin’s wedding present as a down payment on this house. Now, though, the house was a bleak, traitorous reminder that Gerry, uncaring of his abode, had itchy feet.

In the prim yellow kitchen she went straight to the cabinet where the liquor was stored, pouring herself a stiff, neat Gilbey’s. Numbing her dark, dark wretchedness with booze was a new thing to Roy: until January she had been drunk only once in her life—and that was after a fight with Gerry. With these gaping wounds, though, she could not make it through the long, aching nights without some kind of anesthesia. Downing the gin, she poured another and went into the living room. She was still paying for the chintz sofa and chairs, the maple television, the cobbler’s-bench coffee table, the dining ell’s Early American suite. The somewhat gorged coziness was undermined by three immense featureless oils from Gerry’s Paris period—to Roy they resembled massive blue scars rather than abstractions of the Seine in its embankment.

The small house had no hint of Wace messiness. Roy rose every morning at six, cleaning compulsively, her mind cranking out idiotic thoughts that this might be the day that Althea and Gerry broke up, this might be the day he came home, therefore this table must be dustless, this sink scoured.

Carrying her drink to the bedroom, she changed into a velour robe. Later, she shoved a Swanson’s TV dinner in the oven, continuing to drink while she ate in front of her maple “entertainment center” on whose screen small figures mimed to bursts of laughter.

When the telephone rang, she thought:
Gerry!
and dived across the room to answer.

“Hello, hon,” said NolaBee.

Roy sighed. Of course it wasn’t Gerry. He never phoned. This was 8:30, time for her mother’s routine call. She carried the long-corded instrument back to the couch. In a subdued voice she replied to her mother’s questions. Yes, she was fine, yes, she had eaten supper, a proper one—she stared down at the divided foil platter with its congealing, scarcely tasted food. Chicken, peas, mashed potatoes and gravy.

“You have to take care of yourself, hear,” cajoled NolaBee. “You
can’t let yourself get all down in the mouth because that man’s gone off.”

“Why can’t you understand?” Defense of her husband burst from Roy. “Gerry’s not an accountant, he’s an artist! Artists must go where inspiration strikes them. He has to be free! Right now New York’s the place for him.”

“Hon, I only meant he ought to consider you.”

“He does. He
wants
me there, but I have a job, remember?”

“I worry about you, Roy, all the time.”

After a few thumping heartbeats, Roy said, “I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean to fly off the handle.”

A few minutes later the telephone rang again. It was Marylin. She, too, called every night, but instead of questions and intolerable maternal anxiety, she served up herself, the soft, husky little voice relating show-biz anecdotes of her latest film, which also starred Louis Jourdan.

Marylin was no longer contracted to Magnum—in this television age with the motion-picture grosses way down, no studio could afford to keep a stable of stars—so each of her film roles had to be negotiated for in the hurly-burly. Though Rain Fairburn currently had as much work as she could handle, she was fast zoning in on that certain age, too old to be the unlined, virginal love interest so obligatory to those increasingly peckish moneymen.

Sari got on the line.

Roy rested her head back on the couch, raising one foot and waggling it luxuriously. Being around Marylin’s children eased an actual physical twinge in the area which, from the prodding of the medical profession in search of reasons for her infertility, she understood was the location of her womb.

“What about Sunday?” Sari asked. “Auntie Roy, is it on for Disneyland?”

In so public a pleasure spot Marylin would be hounded after by autograph seekers, and Joshua’s recent heart attack had temporarily grounded him, so Roy had taken on the enjoyable task of shepherding the outings of her brash, breaking-voiced nephew and her dark-haired wisp of a niece. “It’s engraved in red ink on my calendar. A red-letter day. Sari, luv, heaven forbid I’d mish—miss it.”

When Roy hung up, she squinted at the glass-enclosed pendulum clock on the mantel. Her eyes refused to focus on the Roman numerals, and she rose, walking over to peer. Ten to nine, which was ten to twelve Eastern Standard Time. She poured another drink before calling long distance.

The number that she requested did not answer.

She stretched on the couch, dialing long distance every few minutes. The number did not answer until the eleven o’clock news came on. It was two o’clock in the morning in New York.

“Yes?” Gerry’s voice said roughly.

She held her breath.

“Who is it?”

She let the telephone rest on her breast.

“Roy?” came a ridiculous mouse squeak.

You’re only a faraway voice, Roy thought, gazing at the ten-inch screen, where a row of Austrian Fräuleins kicked up their dirndls at a newsworthy festival. You’ll come home to me.

“Dammit, you’re hitting the bottle again.”

Sometimes she could not control her maudlin tears, but she always made the call: the only bright spot in the hopeless clouds was that Gerry still slept in Walter Kanzuki’s loft and had not moved in with Althea.

“That shrink’s making you worse, not better. You’re going to cut this out, Roy, no more sloshing it down, no more breathing telephone calls.” His diminished voice rose half a decibel. “I can’t take much more!”

She hung up and went to bed.

Her sleep was dream-filled, unrestful, and she jerked wide-awake around two, her muscles taut, her mind fibrillating with self-loathing. No wonder he hates me. No wonder he prefers that icicle. How can I endure this living death without him?

*   *   *

“I can’t make it tomorrow,” Althea said.

“What gives?” Gerry replied.

“It’s April Fool’s Day, so I’m flying home.”

“How long will you be out there?”

Expressively she spread her slender manicured hands. Taking off her leopard coat, she crossed the loft. On her easel was a creditable watercolor of tulips that she had done the previous afternoon. She tilted her head critically at it. “The composition’s not bad, but the color’s washy, don’t you agree?”

“Come off it, Althea.”

“My father’s having an operation—it’s come up suddenly. He called this morning. So what else could a loving daughter do but rush to his side?” She lifted her chin arrogantly.

Gerry put his arm around her waist. “Bad operation?” His tone was gentle.

She pulled away. “Know what a colostomy is?”

“Oh, Christ.”

“The crab, the crab,” she said. “The crab doth make dinner of us all.”

“Listen, I’ve never figured the screwy relationship you have with your parents, but why pretend you’re not shook.”

“Because I
am
shook.” She closed her eyes. Delicate greenish veins lay on her translucent lids. “Poor Daddy. While we were talking, he came apart—I’ve only heard him like this one other time . . .” Her voice was muffled.

“I’ll go with you,” Gerry said.

She touched her fingers lightly to his cheek, a gesture of tenderness. “That’s very dear of you,” she said. “But appraising the situation logically, we won’t be together much.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t brighten up his hospital room, would I?” he said. “Still, I can be around when you need me.”

“Will you stay at your place?” Althea asked too easily.

“Jesus, who needs to start that crap all over again?”

“Again? Does that mean she’s stopped her nightly beddy-bye call?”

“Nope. I’m not going to tell her I’m in L.A.”

“Then how will you explain not being in New York?”

“Who knows? The usual. I need to go someplace for the scenery, the light.”

She touched his cheek again. “We’ll have to reserve you a hotel room.”

“You know me. I always manage to find a place to sack down.”

“My cousin’s lending me his jet.”

“Another miracle?” Gerry gave a brief smile. He always grinned at the limousines, the well-furnished airport suites in which they rested and showered, the occasional private planes, the ease and efficiency that surrounded her shortest or longest journey.

“It’s not me, love, it’s my Aladdin’s lamp.” She pulled the watercolor from its securing tacks on the board, tearing the paper in two.

“You rich have it easy.”

“True. All the goodies, including cancer of the colon.”

  
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