Family Matters (3 page)

When Betsy kissed her, Violet said, “Mmm,” with her mouth full.

Judd was up. So much for Betsy's home-going reveries of slipping cozily and silently into bed beside him and snuggling up to his warmth. He was in the living room with the light on, reading the newspaper. He threw it down when Betsy came in.

“It's five-twenty-five in the morning.”

He wore a short plaid bathrobe over nothing. His slender, hairy legs were crossed and the dangling foot danced up and down. He looked elegant and angry.

“Didn't you see my note?”

“What note?”

“On the table by the saltshaker. You know.”

“Why would I look on the table? Did you think I was going to make myself breakfast?”

She regarded him with sadness. Another failure. To establish shared rituals, patterns, habits, traditions was one of her modest goals—which was, in turn, to lead to the more ambitious ones.

“I
always
leave notes there.”

“Well, I'm afraid I don't
always
look there—okay?” He bounced his foot, with its long toes, up and down. His hands were thrust into the pockets of his bathrobe as if there were weapons there. “I'm not a mind reader, sweetiepie.” He used the rare nasty tone that made her despair. The whole thing is a house of cards, she thought, and she determined to help him push it over. As always at such moments, she felt very cold and calm.

“And what does this famous note say?”

“You know where it is,” she snapped back. “See for yourself. I'm going back to bed.”

She turned her back on him and made for the bedroom. She heard him get up, cursing, and stalk into the kitchen.

“God damn it!”

She pulled off her clothes in slow motion, holding her T-shirt daintily by its shoulders before she laid it gently in a drawer. Her jeans she smoothed and draped over a hanger. How neat I am, how complete I am without him; this was what her fastidious movements meant.

He came in, watching her. “Your mother! I might have known. And it was your God damned mother who woke me up at ten minutes after four.”

“What do you mean?”

“The phone rings—right? I answer it, there's a little
whoop
—” He demonstrated, in falsetto. “And then
click!
I knew it was your mother.”

Betsy pulled her nightgown over her head. So her mother had called again while she was on her way over. Why? And then, knowing she'd awakened him, saying nothing about it … The deviousness of Violet was incredible, but so was her inability to get away with things. The uncontrollable whoop of surprise and dismay was just like her. In spite of herself, Betsy felt a rush of tenderness for her mother.

She got into bed, leaving Judd to turn out the light. She buried her face in the pillow; she didn't want to see him take off his bathrobe and be naked. The bathrobe was flung on a chair, the light switch clicked. After a pause he got in beside her.

I can't keep living like this, she said lucidly to herself. Better to live alone than to put up with this.

His hand was on her thigh. Immediately, her stomach muscles quivered, and she turned to him gasping. They had four or five ways of making love, depending on circumstances. They did it now swiftly and without frills, and by 5:45 they were both comfortably asleep, back to back. In the morning, they discussed who would pick up Sanka and macaroni at the supermarket, whether or not to go to a movie that night, and what a hell of a lot of noise the God damned garbage men were making. It was the way all their quarrels ended—with lovemaking, careful forgetting, and the dawn of a new day.

In the evening, they were both weary, and willing to be nicer than ever. Macaroni and cheese, hamburgers, a green salad, and a bottle of wine—Judd's favorite supper, and he did the dishes. They went to a terrible movie, which they both enjoyed, about a killer whale who gets revenge on the humans who killed his mate. The night was warm, and they took a slow walk home, holding hands. It was very nice, and the niceness of it lulled Betsy, as it always did. She felt plump and ripe with contentment, an earth goddess. She woke up Saturday thinking that if they got married in the summer they could have such a nice vacation—it would be nice, very nice.…

She lay sleepily in bed, watching Judd. He had an early assignment to photograph a new shopping mall, and she observed with interest while he got dressed. She loved watching him do things—anything. She liked the economical way he moved, dancerlike. He put on low-slung underpants and tight jeans and a white shirt with the cuffs rolled back precisely twice, and a red and green patterned tie that he knotted loosely, leaving his top button open. He always wore a tie. This delighted Betsy; on Judd, it looked rakish and original. In the summer he wore a straw hat. He also owned a white duck suit and a long woolen cape. A dashing man, she always summed him up—not handsome (hooked nose, small blue eyes, and pitted cheeks), but dashing as the devil. His name was Judd Vandoss, he was thirty-one years old, a successful free-lance photographer. He had moved in with Betsy the preceding winter after deflowering her on New Year's Eve. The bizarreness of the feat appealed to his imagination.

“A thirty-four-year-old virgin! How could it happen? It's like a miracle.”

It was, as far as Betsy was concerned. Her other beaux had never achieved it. She could count them on three fingers, starting with Ron, her high school steady, gawky as she but not as bright, who copied her homework and shyly felt her up, but not very far, in the movies. He was a creep (she confessed honestly to herself at age sixteen), but she was lucky to get him. In college there had been Paul: They had done lots of kissing, mostly at Betsy's instigation, but never seemed to get around to anything else. It was all talk and no cigar, and to preserve her self-respect Betsy had had to type him glibly as a latent homosexual. And there was Alan, her linguistics professor in graduate school, who was married; it was sneaking around to her apartment he liked, more than what they did there, and he was afraid to get involved in a real affair.

These were the only men she had ever spent more than a few evenings with. Until Judd, and the miracle, and the continuing series of miracles, not least of which was her feeling for him. She hadn't expected overpowering love to come to her at thirty-four. She'd given up on it.

For almost five months they had lived together in pleased astonishment. All winter they had met chiefly and most intensely in bed. It was only now, with the coming of spring, that they had begun to draw back and look at each other. They were still pleased—the rootless wanderer and the passionate virgin who had been saved for him. But Betsy had to admit, though only to herself, that she was tired. She'd had no idea a love affair would require so much study. She might have been back in graduate school, but it was more complicated than graduate school. She was a student and a spy, engaged in constant, wary espionage, puzzling out how to please him, disguising her own feelings and looking for clues to his. She was aware of it when the obviousness of her devotion began to annoy him—talk of love made him curt and uncomfortable—and she had to teach herself the technique of hiding it. She wanted it to be there for him, as a secure background to his life in case he wanted that security (and she had very little idea of what he did want), but she didn't wish to smother him with it. So, instead of declaring her love, she scrubbed out the tub after him, she let him have the Arts and Leisure section of the Sunday
Times
first, she learned to make omelets and macaroni and cheese, she helped him to quit smoking, and on mornings when he had an assignment and she didn't have a class she got up early with him and made his breakfast.

She did so now while he shaved. She had combed her hair, slapped on a little blusher because she was pale, and put on a silk-embroidered kimono she knew was becoming. She wouldn't see him until dinner, and she wanted him to be left with an attractive image of her to carry through the day. This sort of thing, too, she had taught herself.

She made him a cheese omelet with parsley in the corners, whole wheat toast, fresh orange juice, and coffee. She had coffee and juice. She was going back to bed; it was the first day of her long summer vacation.

“I won't be back for dinner, Bets.”

“Oh, no!” Involuntarily, she expressed her dismay, and then checked it at his look of outrage. He loathed nets cast out to snare his freedom. “It's just that Grandpa was really looking forward to having us both.”

“So was I, I really was.”

Betsy analyzed his regret swiftly: 90 percent genuine, 10 percent appeasement—not a bad mix.

“But when I spoke to Jerry yesterday he said we'd be doing night shots, too. I completely forgot to connect it up with dinner or I would have mentioned it last night. But I just realized—hell, I won't be back till ten at the earliest. More like eleven.”

“I won't see you all day!”

Almost a wail—not quite, but he punished it. “Well, I'll have some free time this afternoon between shootings, but I can't see myself coming all the way back here. This place is way out Route 20, almost to Rochester. I thought if I have the time I'd go out and try to get some shots on one of the lakes for that wildlife competition.”

“Heavens, no, don't come all the way back.”

He inspected her for irony but found only loving tenderness. He sat down to his eggs.

“Tell your grandfather I'm really sorry. And your mother.” He raised his head. “How is she, anyway? I haven't seen her for a couple of weeks.”

He had had to miss the last two Saturday night dinners—another tradition going down the drain.

“She's just the same,” Betsy said.

“She
sounded
just the same on the phone the other night.” He grinned. “
Morning
.” Ah, that was the official line: no resentment, just that irrepressible Violet. She adjusted herself to it.

“She has a new bee in her bonnet.”

“As usual, you'll be the one to get stung.”

“Well—yes. She wants me to find her mother, for my summer project.”

“Her
what
?”

“Mother. Remember, I told you she's adopted? She wants a family tree. She read an article.”

“A bit late …”

“That's what I'm afraid of. Among other things.”

“But you've got the job. I mean, you took the job.”

“Of course.” She spoke sharply. “Judd, she's
dying
. You don't say no to a dying woman. You don't tell her
anything
is too late.”

“And what happens when you find out? When all your poking around in libraries and courthouses leads to a cemetery? Do you get an old lady from central casting?”

“I'll deal with that when the time comes. Maybe it's not hopeless, Judd.”

“Oh, come on.” He forked in the last of the omelet, ate the parsley, and gulped coffee. Betsy began to clear the table; it made a pause during which they could both back off.

“I've got to get going. Let's hope my blasted car starts.”

“Do you have that map?”

“No! Bless you, Betsy Wetsy.” He grabbed her and kissed her forehead. “Where would I be without you? Out in the middle of nowhere looking for a shopping center.”

He hunted through his desk, located the map, and said, “You know, you can't be
sure
your mother's adopted.”

“What?”

“You know how she makes things up. Nobody else has ever mentioned it—right? Are you sure she's not just trying to inject a little drama into her situation?”

It was a reasonable question. Even an imaginative one. Nothing to get mad at. Judd's callous, almost flippant attitude toward her mother's state always pained her. Maybe it was healthy? Or a desperate denial of death that was to be pitied? But it pained her.

“Could be. I don't think so, but it's possible. I suppose I'll find out.”

“To me, she looks like your grandfather. From certain angles.”

He kissed her good-bye with passion, holding her tight. He reached inside her kimono for a piece of breast, and then he pulled her down on the sofa on top of him.

She fitted her body to his.

“This is ridiculous. I'll be late.”

“You started it.”

He watched her with his pale eyes half-closed while she unbuckled his belt and pulled down his zipper, and then she untied her kimono and awkwardly slipped it off.

“I love it when I'm all dressed and you're all naked,” he said lazily, and cupped her breasts in his two hands. She moved so he could close his lips around one while they made love. Almost at once—it was something about the way they fitted each other, they had never been able to analyze it—she began to come. She lay on him with her teeth in his shoulder, tasting shirt. He clutched her buttocks, gasping deeply, and let loose the flood of endearments that came only with orgasm: “Oh, my baby, my love, my little love, oh baby, baby—”

After a minute they looked at each other and laughed.

“Now you can go,” she said.

“God, you are terrific. Ah, what an ass—tits—the tightest little cunt—”

“Enough.” The words still embarrassed her, and she kissed him to hide the fact. Then she stood up and put her kimono back on. He lay at ease, unwilling to get up; a shaft of sun across his face made his pale blue eyes look almost sightless, like the eyes of a statue. We are made for each other, she thought.

“You've lost that map again.”

They found it on the floor. He adjusted his tie and kissed her again, with no less passion.

“Judd! What's come over you?” Oh, it was good, it was lovely; no house of cards could be this solid, this beautiful.

“You. You came over me.” He grinned. “A pun.”

“Har har.”

She saw him to the door. He kissed her neck. “Give my best to the family. I'll try to be home by eleven.”