The Deep End (19 page)

Joanne dropped the white linen dress to the floor and felt a tear fall the length of her cheek. That would never happen, she thought. It would never happen because she had nothing to wear! She would meet Paul in Mr. Avery’s office an hour from now—my God, an hour from now!—and she would be wearing the same old clothes as the woman he had left, and Paul would look at her and smile—her dowdiness reinforcing his decision to leave—and they would sit side by side without touching, concerned parents still, if nothing else, and listen to whatever Mr. Avery had to say, and then they would go out for lunch—Paul had agreed to her suggestion of lunch, perhaps that was a sign that he missed her?—and they would discuss Mr. Avery’s concerns and try to determine the best way to deal with Robin’s problems in a civilized fashion. Civilized! That was the exact problem with all her clothes. They were so civilized. She could be comfortably buried in any of them.

The phone rang.

Joanne stood naked in the middle of her walk-in closet and stared in its direction without moving. He knew she was in here, she thought, feeling a fresh outbreak of sweat covering her body. Somehow he could see into this small windowless room; he knew that she was nude; even now his eyes were examining her, his fingers poking at her flesh, prodding the all-too-obvious flaws. Joanne stood motionless, holding her breath lest the sound of her breathing betray her, until the phone stopped ringing. Then she
resumed rifling through her closet, her shaking hands selecting a turquoise sundress that had at least a spark of youth about it, then running to the chest of drawers in the bedroom, careful to duck out of sight of the window, although there was no one presently working in her backyard. She opened the top drawer and retrieved a pair of plain white panties and a matching bra—why didn’t she have anything sexier?—and slipped them on, her fingers fumbling with the hook of the white cotton brassiere. Why didn’t she possess any of those skimpy little lace undies that Eve was always purchasing? She made a mental note to buy some in the near future. Perhaps if there was enough time she could stop at a store on the way to Robin’s school and pick something up. She checked her wrist, realized that she wasn’t wearing her watch, and looked over at the bedside clock beside the phone. Ten minutes to ten already—she’d never have time.

What was she thinking about anyway? She laughed, the kind of sharp staccato laugh that sticks in the throat. She stepped into the turquoise dress. Paul wasn’t interested in her underwear. He wasn’t going to see it. They were meeting with Robin’s teacher in forty minutes to discuss their older daughter, and they were having lunch afterward—at
her
suggestion to
further
discuss their older daughter. There would be no romantic trysts in a nearby hotel room for dessert.

Joanne marched into the bathroom and appraised herself in the full-length mirror, one quick glance convincing her that her husband of almost twenty years would not be so overcome with passion that he would be in any hurry to see what kind of underwear she had selected for the occasion.

She pulled spitefully at her hair, thinking that the problem wasn’t with her clothes at all but with her face. All she needed was a new head, she thought, growling at her reflection. She looked so pasty. Returning to the bedroom window and slipping a pair of old sandals on her feet—what was happening to her big toenails?—she stared into the mess that had once been a well-tended lawn and garden. My summer cottage without the traffic, she thought ruefully, staring into the empty concrete hole that had once been her backyard.

It had been ten days since any of the workers had been around, seven days since she had been curtly informed that Rogers Pools had gone into receivership, five days since Paul had told her he was trying to straighten everything out.

Makeup, she thought suddenly, a little makeup. She hurried to the bathroom, flung open her medicine cabinet, and pulled out the rows of expensive tubes that Eve had once persuaded her to buy, though she couldn’t remember the last time she had used any of this stuff. Pretty is as pretty does, her mother had always preached, and Paul had told her repeatedly that he disliked artificiality of any sort. Still, a little makeup couldn’t hurt. Not enough to notice; just enough to make a difference. She rubbed a hint of color into her cheeks, decided it wasn’t enough, then rubbed in some more. Now it was too much. She quickly washed it off and tried again. After four such tries she was still not satisfied. She’d have to ask Eve how it was done. Giving up on her cheeks and reaching for her mascara, she began gently rolling the curved applicator upward in a series of slow, careful gestures.

The phone rang. At the sudden sound, her hand jerked roughly into her eye, her eyelashes blinking furiously with
the unexpectedly sharp pain. Joanne pressed her hand to her right eye to stop the harsh stinging, and when she looked at herself seconds later, she saw that she had smeared the mascara all over the side of her face. “Terrific,” she said out loud, her voice trembling, her eyes filling with tears of self-pity. “Just great. The closer she gets …,” she uttered, recalling the old Clairol commercial of a beautiful young woman running in slow motion through a field of flowers to embrace her eager young lover.

The phone was still ringing. “Goddamn you,” Joanne yelled in its direction. “Look at what you made me do. It’s not enough you’re going to kill me, you have to ruin my makeup!” She stomped angrily over to the phone and jerked it off its carriage. “Hello,” she barked, bracing her body for the strange rasp that would instantly reduce her flesh to jelly.

“Joanne?”

“Warren?” She was momentarily disoriented. Why was her brother calling her—it was barely 7 a.m. in California—unless something terrible had happened? “What’s the matter? Is everyone okay?”

“Everyone’s fine on this end,” he responded curtly. “You’re the one I’m calling about.”

“Me?”

“For Christ’s sake, Joanne, why didn’t you tell me?”

It took Joanne a moment to sort through her confusion and to understand what Warren was talking about. “You mean about me and Paul?” she asked.

“Among other things. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to upset you. I was hoping it would all be worked out by now,” she explained, thinking that she did not need this phone call at this moment in her life.

“But it’s not.”

“No,” she admitted. “At least not yet. But I’m having lunch with Paul today and …”

“I spoke to Paul yesterday.”

“You did?” Silly question, Joanne thought after she had asked it. How else would he have found out about their separation? “What did he say?”

“Well, you can imagine what kind of idiot I felt like,” Warren began, avoiding her question. “I phone your number only to be told it’s been disconnected, so I call Paul’s office and I ask what’s going on, and there’s this awkward silence, and he says finally, you mean Joanne hasn’t told you? And I say, told me what? And so he tells me.”

“What?”

“What?” he repeated. “That the two of you have separated, that he has his own apartment in the city, that you were getting some obscene phone calls—Joanne, are you all right?”

Of course I’m not all right, Joanne thought. “Of course I’m all right,” she said. “Paul just needs time to … to think things through. He’s confused, that’s all.”

“Would you like some company? Gloria could fly over for a few days …”

“No, I’m fine, really.” If she admitted the need for Gloria’s company, it would only alarm her brother further. What was the point in doing that?

“Gloria wants to say a few words to you.”

“Hello, Joanne.” Gloria always sounded as if her nose had just caught a whiff of something unpleasant. “How are you holding out?”

Joanne told her that she was fine. She didn’t tell her that she had mascara all over the right side of her cheek,
that she had nothing decent to wear, that her closet floor was a mess of discarded clothing, that her backyard was a mess of abandoned concrete, that her best friend was falling apart, and that she was increasingly convinced she was to be the Suburban Strangler’s next victim. She said she was fine because she knew that was what Gloria wanted to hear.

“Well, that’s good. I mean, I know it’s your life and everything,” Gloria continued, “but try not to take it too seriously. You know what I mean?”

“I thought we were going to have lunch,” Joanne was saying.

“I know and I’m sorry,” Paul explained, a slight edge in his voice. “I tried to call you this morning when this thing came up, but nobody answered.” Joanne saw herself standing in the middle of her walk-in closet, the phone ringing shrilly from the bedside table. “I’m really sorry, Joanne. There was nothing I could do. This is an important client and when he suggests lunch, it’s more than a casual suggestion, if you know what I mean.” Joanne looked toward the floor. (You know what I mean? her sister-in-law asked again from three thousand miles away.) “Look, I do have time for a quick coffee,” he said, his voice softening.

“Where?” Joanne asked, her eyes skimming the empty high school corridor.

“There’s a cafeteria, isn’t there?”

“Here? In the school?”

“What better place to discuss Robin’s problems?”

You had to admire his skill, Joanne thought as her husband took her arm and guided her down the wide stairs to the cafeteria. In one simple sentence, he had said
everything: they were here to discuss their daughter’s problems, not their own; he was prepared to go no further; to try for something more would be singularly inappropriate, given the time and place; keep things casual, he was warning, simple, and above all, unemotional.

Joanne gripped the banister for support as Paul released her arm. Feeling her knees knocking against each other, she slowed her steps, afraid she would fall, embarrass him further. The smell of food began mingling with other familiar smells, the odor of old socks and gymnasiums, of chalk and blackboards, of exasperation and enthusiasm. Of youth, she realized, seeing herself and Eve when she looked at two teenage girls giggling together beside their open lockers, lined with pictures of the latest teen idols.

“Here we are,” Paul said, pushing open the double doors to the cafeteria and standing back to let Joanne pass through.

(“Over here!” Eve called to her immediately, jumping up and down in her seat. “You can have the sandwich my mother made me—baloney again, if you can believe it. We must have shares in a baloney factory—what did your mother make you? Tuna fish, great, we’ll trade.”)

“What would you like?” Paul grabbed a tray from the stack and slid it along the steel bars toward the cash register.

“Just coffee,” Joanne said, snapping back into the present, seeing Eve as she watched a tall, slender girl of perhaps fifteen, her thick red hair pulled back into an unruly ponytail and secured by a dark green ribbon.

There were only a handful of students in the large room, the tables arranged precisely in long rows. Several of the students looked in her direction as she followed
Paul to a table by the window, which was located above their heads so that all one saw of the outside schoolyard was feet. Paul removed the two mugs from the stained orange tray and slid the tray over to the adjoining table, studying his coffee as if he expected to be quizzed on it at any minute, reminding Joanne strongly of the daughter they were here to discuss. “So, what did you think of what Avery had to say?” he asked finally.

“I think he’s very concerned about Robin.”

“You don’t think he’s overreacting?”

Not everyone is overreacting these days, Joanne wanted to tell him, but said instead, “I don’t think so.”

“I just meant that it’s June, for Pete’s sake, the kids are restless, school’s over this afternoon except for the final exams, and he even admitted that Robin was sure to pass.”

“He’s concerned about next year, her attitude …”

“She’ll be fine by the fall.”

“Will she? Why?” Joanne was as startled by her own question as her husband. “Will things be any different in the fall?” she pressed.

“Joanne …”

Joanne looked at the dotted squares of the soft ceiling tile. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “I just don’t think we can afford to be too cavalier about this.”

“Nobody’s being cavalier. There’s no question we’ll have to talk to Robin, make her understand the seriousness of her actions, that she can’t afford to start the next year the same way she finished this one, that she’ll have to attend all her classes, that skipping any of them is totally unacceptable behavior.”

“When are
we
going to tell her all this?”

Paul said nothing, taking a long sip of his coffee. “I’ll speak to her on the weekend,” he said finally, pointedly checking his watch.

“Paul, we need to talk.” Joanne heard the tremble in her voice, hating herself for it.

“We
are
talking,” he said, deliberately missing the point, refusing to look at her, taking another long sip from his mug.

“I miss you,” she whispered.

Paul looked from side to side with obvious discomfort. “If there’s anything you need …”

“I need you.”

“This isn’t the place.”

“What is? You keep saying you’ll call but you never do. I was hoping we could talk at lunch.”

“I explained about lunch.”

“That’s not the point.”

“The point is that I haven’t had enough time,” he told her as he had told her once before. “I’m just starting to get used to being on my own.” He lifted his head from the table to stare directly into her eyes, his voice low now, barely audible. “You have to get used to it too.”

“I don’t want to get used to it,” she told him, surprised by her own assertiveness.

“You have to,” he repeated. “You have to stop calling me at the office over every little problem.”

“This wasn’t a little problem. Mr. Avery …”

“I’m not talking about Mr. Avery. I’m talking about things like the gas bill …”

“There was a mistake on the invoice. I couldn’t figure it out.”

“I’m talking about
Sports Illustrated …
”

“I didn’t know if you wanted to renew your subscription.”