Love Deluxe (8 page)

My sisters burst through my bedroom door giggling and talking ninety miles an hour. They jumped into my bed in their nightgowns, carrying a bottle of champagne and three glasses. “Bachelorette party!” they shouted, “We have the perfect movie for a scaredy-cat little sister!” We toasted and then snuggled together like a litter of puppies. Maggie pushed play on the remote and we tried not to wake Mother with our shouts of laughter as we watched
Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte
.

Chapter Five

John’s parent’s house was at the top of a hill west of Austin with a “view” of Lake Travis. The minute we stepped inside I had the feeling that the rooms were slightly out of balance. The entry hall was too narrow and in place of a traditional staircase there was a metal spiral staircase that just didn’t fit. If there was a view it must have been from the neighbor’s roof, all I could see out of the too small windows were rocks and more rocks.

John’s mother was a smaller, feminine version of him. A pale blonde beauty, still young looking in her sixties, she could have passed for his sister. She introduced herself as Carrie and her eyes were the same guileless, crystal-blue as her son’s. She seemed kind and spoke with a distinct Northern accent.

His father, well, did I not like him because of the few stories John had told or did he really just seem mean? He’d grown up in Kentucky and his name was Ben. His wife pronounced his name “Ban,” but I called him Bee-in in my add-a-syllable Southern way. From what I knew of Ben’s backwoods up bringing it was probably closer to what he’d grown up hearing.
Bully, liar, manipulator
, those words flashed through my mind as I met his murky, hazel eyed stare. Much later, my father would tell me he believed Ben Foster was an abuser of women and children the first time he laid eyes on him.

They were taking us out for dinner to celebrate our engagement. Carrie suggested we go to the Oasis for its wonderful waterfront dining and glorious sunset. Ben said he knew a place we’d like better and added that it was BYOB as he produced a bottle of Mogen David from the refrigerator. John and his mother both turned the identical shade of red.

John said, “You don’t have to bring that, Dad, the meal’s on me.”

Ben Foster was a course man, in looks and manner. Medium height and thick bodied, his face had nothing of the handsomeness of his son’s. The slightly prominent brow was the only feature that might have connected them.

He slapped John on the back with a rough hand and said, “What’s the matter boy, got too used to the high life, afraid your old Daddy’s gonna embarrass you?”

“No, Dad,” he said simply and I was startled at the sound of John’s voice. There was something there I didn’t recognize, not fear, but resignation I think. It touched a dark and sad place in my heart. I hurt for John and for his Mother, as well, although maybe I was too eager to judge the man.

“Get your purse,” he said to his wife, and to John, “we’ll take your mother’s car, might as well go in style.”

His mother’s car was a very old BMW with torn leather seats. His dad’s driving was jerky and erratic and he’d adjusted the rearview mirror so that he constantly watched my eyes. By the time we weaved crazily down the hill away from their home with a view, I was dizzy and nauseous. Both John and his mother stared silently out their windows.

We stopped in front of a seafood buffet housed in a former Pizza Hut and his father turned to me and asked, “How’d you like that driving, hope it didn’t upset your delicate sensibilities?”

I wanted to reach over the seat to slap him and tell him to shut his ugly mouth, but I resisted the urge.

“I’m not that easily upset,” I said, struggling to get the dingy seatbelt unfastened, trying to appear unfazed.
Fucking Neanderthal
, I thought, and smiled as he held the door open for me.

The restaurant staff appeared to know Mr. Foster and was overly courteous. He handed the bottle of wine to the waitress and instructed her to pour it into a carafe so it would look like the good stuff. I couldn’t believe he knew the word carafe and John and his mother acted as if they didn’t know him at all. We scooted into a booth facing John’s parents and I felt utterly exposed, realizing that my larger than life fiancé was afraid to say anything that might give this crude old man the opportunity to criticize. The food was obviously left over from lunch and while Ben filled his plate, the rest of us had to pick and choose.

Carrie chattered away about our wedding and Ben warned John not to come hitting him up for money since he had to take out a huge loan on their recently built home. I wanted to laugh but I was nearly choking on the sour Kool-Aid taste of the wine. Carrie complained that the architect’s fee was enormous, yet many details in the house hadn’t turned out as she’d hoped. I took the opportunity to ask about the spiral staircase, noting that it was a bit unexpected in such a traditional style house.

“I know, I just hate it and Ben’s knees give him trouble. I don’t know what we’re going to do when we get older,” she said, taking a big swallow of wine. “But it was all that would fit, I believe the architect got his measurements wrong, and I wanted big windows for the view, I’m disappointed they turned out so small.”

John was quiet, picking at his fish, and Ben’s eyes were positively merry.

“That ignorant architect got carried away, and why not? That son of a bitch didn’t have to pay the bills. Maybe the contractor had to cut a few corners.” Ben laughed and elbowed his wife.

“Oh, no,” I said. “Did you have a bad contractor?”

“Ben was the contractor,” Carrie said, avoiding my eyes as she refilled her wine glass.

I was contemplating the term self-centered jack ass, when Ben leaned across the table and asked John, “Something wrong with your food, boy?”

John stood up, “This fish is bad.”

“Sit down,” Ben’s voice was awful, his back woods accent strong and menacing. “Isn’t a damn thing wrong with this food, eat it.”

John sat down without a word and I was speechless. I stared at him but he didn’t look up from his plate as he began to eat. I turned to his father with a look that could’ve turned him to a pillar of salt and his eyes said
I dare you
. I knew in that moment that John would pay the price if I uttered a word. Ben held me there with his eyes and as he gloated I moved my hand to knock my full glass of wine onto John’s plate. A waitress rushed over to clean up and although I could’ve sworn I saw flames in Ben’s eyes, his lips tightened into a hard line and he didn’t say a word.

At the Foster’s house, his mother insisted that we come in for dessert. John tried to refuse, but she’d made the special carrot cake that was usually reserved for his birthday.

Ben made martinis from gin in a plastic bottle and we all stood on the back deck. He pointed to a gap between the giant limestone boulders that littered the property and insisted that if you looked hard you could see the lake.

We sat in plastic lawn chairs and quietly ate the cake, there was a breeze and it blew clouds across the moon. Shadows fell across our faces.

John looked miserable but it seemed the worst was over and we’d survived.

Ben broke the silence finally and spoke directly to me. “Are you too old to have babies? I heard you had a boy but something happened to him.”

John stood and pulled me up next to him. “Come on,” he said, setting our plates aside, “we’re going.”

“Can’t a man ask a question?” Ben grumbled, as his wife hugged her son and then we were out the door fast.

As we backed out of the driveway Ben Foster walked toward the car and knocked on the window with his ashy knuckles.

“Sure hope you two enjoyed the meal, I’d say that counts as a rehearsal dinner, see ya at the wedding.”

Before we reached the bottom of the hill I’d managed to fish the bottle of Xanax from the depths of my purse. I shook two blue pills into my hand and swallowed them dry.

John held out his hand, “Can I please have one, too?”

***

The wedding was simple and elegant, held at the endearingly romantic Little Church of La Villita that sat just off the river walk in downtown San Antonio. My family and one hundred friends came to wish me well in my new life. John’s side, too, turned out in droves, his Mother with a genuine smile, his father with his ever present sour expression. It’d been a dry summer, but it rained hard the morning of our wedding.

Emily said the Chinese believe that rain on your wedding day was good luck.

I said I wished I were Chinese.

The rain slowed to a drizzle during the ceremony and just as we kissed, the sun shone through the tall, stained glass window in the historic church and bathed us in light.

We kissed once, twice, three times until the onlookers clapped and cheered.

I wanted the most romantic city on the planet for my honeymoon and Paris won hands down.

The lake house had sold before it was finished, so we planned to pull out all the stops starting with a room at the Ritz.

The Paris Ritz, was there any other hotel in the world with such a reputation for luxury and opulence? Coco Chanel lived there, Hemingway was a regular, as was Proust who entertained in the dining room and drank iced beer. Princess Diana enjoyed the last meal of her life in the Imperial Suite, so much history.

Inside our room, the bellman deposited our luggage and retreated with a noble bow and an honest to goodness French maid proceeded to unpack for us. The room was an opulent, old world sanctuary. Every window had a view, the draperies were swaged and tasseled, the cushions were tufted and fringed. The furniture was antique and every commode and console and credenza was carved and gilded or beautifully embellished with intricate inlays. A cloud of exquisite down-filled linens and a dozen pillows covered the sumptuous baroque bed. Its peachy-pink Quagliotti sheets were custom made for the Ritz and smelled of lavender and felt as if they had been washed in rain water and then ironed to perfection. The bathroom was all white marble and gleaming porcelain and the bath tub, with its signature gold swan fixtures, was big enough to float a ship in.

On the flight over John slept and I napped. It was morning in Paris and we couldn’t wait to get out and see the city. Jet lag hadn’t caught up with us yet so we were eager to do and see as much as possible right away. We ate breakfast at a bistro across from the Louvre, omelets with warm croissants and fresh butter and strong coffee with lots of cream and sugar,
delicious
. In the Louvre we stood under the famous glass pyramid and marveled at the contemporary structure coexisting with the venerable old buildings. We started out in the Richelieu wing and were awed by the Winged Victory, Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa. We made our way into the Denon wing and John fell hard for the pastoral paintings, the higher the mountains the better. They reminded him of his days as a ski instructor at Mammoth Mountain, California, one the best times of his life, he said. My favorite was the enormous painting
The Raft of The Medusa
which I’d written a paper on in college. We both loved the wild, endless look of the ocean, the dot of a ship on the horizon suggesting hope of rescue, it was haunting and unforgettable.

We sat on a bench and studied the painting for a long while, until I got up to find a restroom.

“Will you wait here, buddy?” I asked.

“I’ll be right here,” he said.

I stopped, leaned down and wrapped my arms around him suddenly, a sadness I thought I’d left behind gripping my heart for an instant.

“What if I lose you?” I asked, holding onto him.

“Well, then you’ll find me by the mountains or water.” He kissed me and said, “Hurry back, buddy, I’m so hungry I could eat concrete… or weird French food!”

When I got back he was asleep on the bench, he looked like a huge golden retriever, stretched out without a care in the world. I shook him and hurried him to his feet before we were thrown out. We rushed through the myriad rooms and corridors past the world’s most impressive collection of art and out into the early evening. On the Champs Elysses the daylight had faded and the street lights were just blinking on. It was mid-August but already there was a chill in the night air. The wind whipped down between the centuries old buildings and with the sun gone the cold was a shock.

At the hotel we were hungry and exhausted, but we couldn’t resist stopping in the Bar Hemmingway for a drink. We made ourselves at home in its oaken coziness and ordered vodka martinis. I should have thought twice about drinking on an empty stomach, but I was chilled to the bone so I drained my glass. Two more appeared as if by magic and we laughed and made a toast and finished them, as well.

I loved the history of the tiny bar, how Hemmingway held court there in his early days as a writer living in Paris. Always a true lover of his work, I was besotted just being where he had been. I was already tipsy and I’m sure I romanticized the author as I told John all about him as a young man in the city he’d adored. I said he had to read
A Moveable Feast
, my favorite book of all time, with its beautiful language. Especially the part I adored about eating the oysters and losing the empty feeling.

I rambled on about how happy Hemmingway was living in a garret in those innocent years, struggling to write words that were true, that being the most important thing in the world. How he was content at first with his wife, Hadley, which was what I would have named Brooks if he had been a girl, and joyful over his baby son, Bumby. I went on drunkenly about all the great people he’d met in Paris, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Finally, I said, when he was done with the grand adventure of living, he’d simply chosen to end his own life. I began to cry, John was leaning against the bar and he straightened and wrapped his arms around me.