The Deep End (28 page)

“Fine,” Joanne answers, a presumption since she has yet to receive any mail from them. She stands up and puts her hand on the older woman’s shoulder. “Look, why don’t you lie down for a while yourself? You moved all that furniture around; you must be exhausted.”

“Will Eve be all right?” Eve’s mother asks quietly at the front door.

“I’m sure she will,” Joanne answers, surprised at how reassuring her voice sounds when, in fact, she isn’t sure at all.

“I
don’t know how I let you talk me into this.”

“Hey, that’s my line.”

“The last thing I feel like seeing is some glitzy Broadway musical,” Eve pouts, staring out the front of the car window at the early evening sky.

“It’s supposed to be wonderful,” Joanne tells her. “They say that the costumes are unbelievable, the dancing is glorious, and the songs are actually hummable.”

“Who’s this ‘they’? The good doctor again?”

Joanne feels her shoulders slump and readjusts them, trying to force a smile. “As a matter of fact, yes,” she answers, hoping to avoid an argument, giving up on the smile. Every time she and Eve get on the topic of Joanne’s new boss, they invariably begin to bicker. “Ron and his wife saw the show last week and he hasn’t stopped raving about it.”

“If it’s so good, how come we were able to get tickets?”

“I told you, his brother …”

“Oh yes,” Eve cuts her off, “his brother is laying the production assistant.”

Joanne winces. “He’s
dating
the production assistant.”

“Same thing—don’t be so naive.” Eve stares glumly out her side window.

“Look, if this is really such an ordeal for you, I’ll turn the car around and we’ll just go home.”

“Now? We’re almost there, for God’s sake. You made me get all dressed and everything. Who said anything about wanting to go home? God, you’re so touchy!”

“I just don’t feel like driving into Manhattan in Friday night traffic if you’re going to do nothing but complain all the way there and all the way back.”

“Who’s complaining?” Eve fidgets in her seat, pulling her silver shawl across her bare shoulders. “Geez, you’re in a funny mood tonight.”

“I was in a great mood,” Joanne tells her.

“Was? As in ‘not anymore?’”

Joanne feels her shoulders relax. “I’ll be fine. Highway driving always makes me a little nervous,” she lies.

“You don’t think this job might be too much for you?” Eve asks after a slight pause.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, you know, you’re not used to working. I mean, you haven’t worked outside of the home, ever, have you?” Joanne shakes her head, not sure where Eve is headed. “And suddenly you’re working every day from nine to five, and it must be quite a switch. You’re bound to be tired.”

“I’m not tired.”

“You look tired.”

Joanne glances across the front seat at her friend who pretends to be carefully studying the road ahead. “I do?” Joanne finds herself staring at her reflection in the rear view mirror. The lines around her eyes seem no more pronounced than usual. If anything, she is looking—and
feeling—much better than she has in months. “I don’t feel tired,” she says. “In fact, I feel pretty good. I love the job …”

“How can you love a job that has you staring into faces full of zits every day?”

Joanne tries to laugh but the resulting sound is more of a grunt. “The people behind the pimples are very nice. Everybody’s friendly. Ron couldn’t be a nicer person to work for …”

“So you keep saying. Anything happening there that I should know about?”

“Like what?” Joanne begins to feel uncomfortable. This is not the first time that Eve has hinted that something distinctly unprofessional might be going on between Joanne and her new employer.

“I saw the way he looked at you that day in his office. Little Ronnie Gold and little Joanne Mossman, together again for the very first time!”

“Joanne
Hunter,”
Joanne corrects sharply, “and I’m starting to resent this conversation.”

Eve is clearly startled by Joanne’s sudden assertion, as is Joanne herself. “Take it easy. I was only teasing.”

“Ron is a happily married man, and I am a married woman,” Joanne says, aware of the not-so-subtle distinction between the two. “He is my boss and I like him and respect him. That is all there is to it; that is all there will ever be to it.”

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” Eve mutters, almost under her breath. Before Joanne can object, Eve continues, “So, you think you’ll keep working after the girls get home from camp?”

“I don’t think so,” she says, suppressing her annoyance. “I only agreed to take the job for the summer. By then
Ron will have found someone else he likes, I’m sure, and hopefully, Paul and I …” She breaks off in mid-sentence. It has been two weeks since she last saw her husband.

“Hopefully Paul and you …?”

“Who knows?” Joanne shrugs, not wanting to pursue the subject of a possible reconciliation. There is silence as Joanne realizes that there are increasingly few subjects she feels comfortable discussing with her oldest and closest friend.

Eve squirms in her seat and fidgets with her shawl. “You made sure we got an aisle seat, didn’t you?” she demands.

“You already asked me that.”

“And what was your answer?”

“Yes, I made sure we got an aisle seat.”

“Good.”

The conversation lapses into silence.

They have to park approximately six blocks away from the theater and, as a result, must run to make the eight o’clock curtain. The crowd outside the Barrymore Theater is moving slowly inside as Joanne and Eve arrive breathless and laughing at the doors. “I don’t know what’s so damn funny,” Eve gasps, clutching at her throat. “I haven’t run like that since I came first in the track and field day race at the end of our junior year. Remember that? I beat out everybody else by a good ten yards.”

“Well, you certainly beat me,” Joanne acknowledges, gasping for air. “I’d say that you were in pretty good shape!”

Eve’s body goes suddenly rigid. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

As has been happening with increasing frequency lately when she is with Eve, Joanne is unsure how to respond. Her hands move awkwardly in the air, her mouth refusing to open.

From inside the theater, a persistent bell is calling them to their seats. “I guess we should go inside,” Eve says, her voice softening. “Isn’t that Paul?” she asks suddenly.

“What? Where?”

“He just went inside. At least, I think it was Paul. I just saw him from the side. It might have been someone else.”

Joanne feels her heart starting to thump wildly, understanding it has nothing to do with her recent exertion. She feels like a teenager, one of the pimply multitude she reassures daily. How does she look? she wonders, trying to catch her reflection in the glass doors. Eve said she looks tired. Does she? She is wearing a new red-and-white-striped cotton dress, scooped rather daringly in the front, ruffles at the bottom flouncing playfully around her knees. It is unlike anything she has ever owned and it was purchased with most of the money from her first paycheck. Her skin is clear once again, but her hair is a mess from running the six blocks to the theater. But then it is always a mess lately, and everyone keeps telling her how much they like it this way, including Paul. She looks a little thinner, she thinks, feeling herself being pushed through the lobby doors. She hands her ticket to the usher and is immediately pushed along the back wall toward the appropriate aisle. That she looks thinner is probably just the effect of the vertical stripes, she decides, although it is true that she has dropped a few pounds since she began working. New diet? Eve has asked. Yes, Joanne recalls thinking, the anxiety diet, though in truth, she feels less anxious each day.

They find their seats and sit down, Eve craning her tall, elegant neck to get a view of who is sitting where. With her red hair artfully framing her pale complexion, Eve resembles, for the moment, a humanized giraffe. “I can’t see him,” she says, obviously referring to Paul, stretching to look behind her.

“It probably wasn’t him,” Joanne says, knowing instinctively that it was. “Paul was never big on plays …”

“I couldn’t see who he was with,” Eve states as the lights go down and the orchestra starts up.

The music is loud, the beat thumping and vibrant. The audience seems to sway collectively in the darkness, anticipation mounting. Joanne is aware of the increasingly insistent sound; her feet catch the hum of the orchestra; she sees the curtains part, a set that instantly dazzles, costumes that startle and almost take one’s breath away; she hears voices rising in clear, joyful confidence. Yet all she hears, sees and thinks is, I couldn’t see who he was with.

Why hasn’t this occurred to her? That if Paul is here, he is here with someone. Who? Possibly a client. Please let it be a client. Maybe a friend. Let it be a male friend. More likely a date. Most likely young and attractive. Possibly little Judy whatever-the-rest-of-her-name-is.

I couldn’t see who he was with.

Joanne focuses hard on the spectacularly lit stage, now bathed in bright swatches of color, like a decorator’s paint samples. In the center is a man cloaked all in black; he is singing to three women dressed in identical layers of multicolored chiffon, their hair dyed to match these layers, their faces similarly made up. Suddenly the lights go blue, then deep indigo, the women seeming to disappear into their surroundings, their faces reemerging as gold
and silver masks. Joanne feels disoriented, at loose ends. She wonders what all this harsh stage makeup and strong lighting will do to the actresses’ complexions. She glances over at Eve. Her face reflects the same silver and gold, her hair the icy blue of the stage lights, her eyes black and empty.

Once again, Joanne hears nothing, feels nothing.

I couldn’t see who he was with.

Suddenly the women return and the stage is a bright, pulsating, lemon yellow, the man in black disappearing into what appears to be a great glob of blinding sunlight. Joanne closes her eyes against its persistent glare. She feels the heat of the round yellow ball. Turning back toward Eve, she notices that Eve’s face looks especially cold in the warm sunlight, somewhat skeletal in the sun’s harsh delineation of her features, almost cruel. Yellow was never my color, she can hear Eve say, though, in fact, Eve says nothing. The sun is now burning Joanne’s skin, causing her forehead to break into a sweat. The sun is too hot, she thinks, wishing to escape into the outside air. Somebody please turn off the sun. Fighting her growing anxiety, Joanne focuses her attention on the stage, realizes that the women are now nude—have they been so all along?—clothed only in the iridescent layers of light.

The curtain suddenly goes down on the first act. The house lights come up. The theater bursts into a prolonged period of applause. All around her, people are rising to stretch their legs. “I can’t believe it went so fast,” Joanne hears herself say, aware her mind was elsewhere for much of the time.

“Are you kidding?” Eve asks. “That was the longest
damn first act I’ve ever sat through. Don’t tell me you actually liked that? So much for the good doctor’s recommendations. Let’s go outside.”

“I think I’d rather stay put,” Joanne tells Eve, thinking that only minutes ago, she felt desperate for some air.

“Let’s go outside,” Eve repeats, indicating that the discussion is closed.

On the way up the aisle, Joanne hears words like innovative and original, breathtaking and wonderful. Only Eve’s lips are fixed in a permanent scowl. “It’s a terrible show,” she says, loud enough to be heard by everyone they are passing. “The worst thing I’ve seen in years.” They reach the lobby, Joanne’s eyes resolutely downcast. “There he is,” Eve says immediately. “It
is
Paul,” she continues. Joanne looks up. Paul is standing by himself along the side of the deep red wall. “Aren’t you going to say hello?” Before Joanne can answer or object, Eve raises her arm to wave, catching Paul’s eye and signaling for him to come over. “Here he comes.”

Joanne takes a deep breath, feeling vaguely sick to her stomach. She feels the people beside her adjust to accommodate the newcomer, knows that Paul is now standing beside her. She reluctantly turns in his direction.

He is wearing a gray suit with a pale pink shirt and a maroon striped tie, and though he is smiling, he looks uncomfortable. “Hello, Joanne,” he says softly. “How are you, Eve?”

Joanne nods as Eve replies. “Dying slowly,” she says, her voice flat and humorless.

“You look fine,” he tells her, and Eve grunts.

“You can write that on my tombstone,” she says.

“How
are you?”
he asks, turning back to Joanne.

“Good,” she tells him, realizing that she means it. “I have a job.”

“A job? What kind of job?” He is surprised, interested.

“I’m … sort of a receptionist … for a skin doctor … for the summer … till the girls get back from camp.”

“Sounds great.”

“I’m enjoying it a lot,” she tells him.

There is a moment’s silence. “I’ve been meaning to call you,” he says awkwardly, aware that Eve is closely monitoring the conversation.

“That’s all right …”

“I’ve been very busy …”

“No problem,” Joanne tells him.

“I thought that maybe we could drive out to the camp together on visitors’ day. That is, if you haven’t already made other plans.”

“I’d like that,” she agrees quickly. “I think the girls would too.”

“Have you heard from them?”

“Not yet. You?”

“Not a line. Typical, I guess.” He looks around. Why does he seem so uncomfortable? “Great show,” he enthuses, taking a step backward as Eve sneers. “You don’t agree?”

“Can’t say that I do,” Eve tells him, about to say more when she is interrupted by the appearance of a young, attractive—if overly made up—blonde who has materialized from out of nowhere to take a firm grip on Paul’s arm.

Paul smiles in her direction; Eve smiles in her direction; Joanne smiles in her direction. The young blonde smiles back. They are all standing in the middle of the lobby smiling at each other like a bunch of idiots. Joanne
feels the house lights bathe them in alternate shades of blue, yellow, and purple. She feels that they have suddenly been transported center stage and stripped bare. She feels her knees go weak and her stomach turn over. She now knows why Paul looks so uncomfortable. She wonders whether he will introduce them and how. Judy (for surely this must be little Judy), I’d like you to meet my wife; Joanne, this is little Judy.