Too Much Too Soon (26 page)

“Oh, I don’t know,” Joscelyn teased. “Doesn’t everybody compare it to the French Riviera?”

“There’s no oil in the Riviera,” Malcolm said quietly.

They had finished eating. Bright ocher Italian plates clinked as Honora cleared them of heaped up chicken bones and carried them to the small but complete kitchen—later Millie or Paco would come and finish cleaning up.

They relaxed over their coffee in the swift-falling Los Angeles twilight.

“Well, Joscelyn,” asked Fuad, “how do you find marriage?”

“It’ll pass muster,” she said.

“Is that all?” Fuad asked.

“Actually, it’s heaven.”

“Heaven?” Malcolm smiled at her. “You don’t spend much time there.”

“We’re bogged down with a changeover for a local electrical company,” Joscelyn explained to Fuad.

“Joss’s being modest,” Curt said. “She’s way ahead of schedule.”

Malcolm stared down at the yellow tablecloth, which the last blaze of sunlight was turning a rufous orange.

Tomorrow being Tuesday, a workday, the Pecks left before ten. Malcolm took Sunset
home, silent, handling her car with the same frenetic lack of consideration for other drivers that he had shown on the way over. Joscelyn clutched a striped paper cocktail napkin she’d taken by mistake, staring out the window as the dark shadows of Bel Air then Beverly Hills estates gave way to the brightly lit strip with its artful billboards of singers and entertainers.

By the time they reached the underground garage she could no longer bear the silence between them. Following Malcolm up the cement steps, she said, “Fuad’s terrific, isn’t he?”

Malcolm had reached the door to the hall. Wheeling, he said with low intensity so she could feel the force of his breath. “You make me want to puke!”

In their apartment he snatched the bourbon from the kitchen shelf, then turned on the TV, taking a long slug from the bottle while Johnny Carson’s image came onto the screen. With friends Malcolm might have a couple of drinks, and at dinner he sometimes opened a Heineken. That was the extent of it. To see him slurp from the bottle like an AA going off the wagon made Joscelyn’s stomach tense into a hard ball. She scurried into the bedroom.

“This isn’t a goddamn barn,” he snarled. “Can’t you ever shut a door?”

She closed the door quietly.

With a mixture of martyrdom and nerve-tingling dread, she made the bed, hung up their clothes, scrubbed the toilet and washbowl with Ajax, folded the wash, stacking the Jockey
shorts and pajama bottoms in Malcolm’s side of the bureau. From time to time she went to listen at the closed door. There was only televised laughter and Carson’s joking voice kidding her not.

Not until she was ready for bed did she dare go into the living room. Malcolm was slumped in front of the long, walnut “entertainment center” that had been a wedding present from one of Curt’s business associates.

“Malcolm, it’s after twelve,” she said quietly.

He lurched to his feet, coming toward her, his mouth tensed into a distorted smile. He slammed his fist at the left side of her head. She gripped onto the doorjamb to keep herself from falling.

“That’s just a taste of what you’ll get if you don’t lay off me!”

Clasping the side of her head, she staggered to the bed, collapsing on the monogrammed blanket cover. He slammed the door shut.

Her cheek and ear throbbed hotly and she could hear a resonant whine. The whine didn’t let up. Was some delicate part of her ear broken? Should she phone Kaiser Permanente, the medical group to which all Ivory employees belonged? What would she tell the doctor on call? That a Pringle label connected to a sweater by a thread had caused the blow? For by now she was convinced that she was to blame for Malcolm’s rage.
If I hadn’t acted like a bitch when he was all hot and bothered from the traffic jam, none of this would have happened. I knew how badly things had been going for him at work.
She turned, gingerly lowering her head to the pillow, and to her surprise, dozed off.

She awakened, lifting her head. The whining had been replaced by hoofbeats and a weird, strangled sound that rose, diminished, then rose again.

She jumped from the bed, conscious of the sharp pain cutting across the left side of her ear and jawbone. In the living room an old black and white Western jerked across the screen. Malcolm, his chin slumped on his chest, was wheezing those agonized hoops of sound.

He was crying in his sleep.

Kneeling in front of him, she touched his arm lightly. “Darling, darling, wake up.”

His eyes opened and he stared at her, bewildered, frightened. “Joscelyn . . .?”

“You must’ve been dreaming.”

“A nightmare. I was a kid.” He shuddered.

“It’s all right.” She held his face between his palms, covering his beautiful, damaged mouth and nose with kisses. “Hey, you’re fine. Now come inside.”

Putting an arm around his narrow, firm waist, she led him into the bedroom.

He stretched out on his back in his Bermudas, and she curved next to him, an arm across his chest. After a minute he turned to her and she patted his shoulders and back, soothing him as if he were a terrified little boy.

“You’re not leaving?” he asked.

“Hey, buster, you don’t get rid of me that easy.”

“Never came up against failure before,” he
muttered. “That bastard from Paloverde Oil shoots down my every damn idea.”

“It’s a group project.”

“S’my ideas that get shot down.”

“You’re being too sensitive.”

“S’easy for you to say, you’re terrific.”

“So’re you.”

“I’ll never be a project engineer.”

“You will,” she said, rubbing between his shoulder blades. “You will.”

“Christ, I’d give anything t’be in Lalarhein, a guy could prove ’self in Lalarhein.” His words slurred drunkenly, drowsily.

“Shh,” she murmured. “It’s late.”

“Give anything to be there . . . .”

*   *   *

Joscelyn’s idea of lunch was to remain in her windowless cubbyhole with a tuna on whole wheat: unless Malcolm dropped by to join her, the sandwich would remain half eaten, giving off a fishy aroma while the crusts turned upward. Two mornings after the barbecue, however, she telephoned Honora, inviting her to lunch at Mike Lyman’s.

Joscelyn Sylvander Peck’s soul shrank when it came to asking for anything, and she needed a favor from her sister.

The heatwave had not broken and though she had only a short block’s walk, her trim, sleeveless navy blouson was damp by the time she plunged into the dimly lit, noisy, steak-odored air of Lyman’s. The bar was buried behind businessmen waiting for their tables, but Honora was already seated—the name
(Mrs.) Curt Ivory conjured up the magical rustle of five-dollar bills to Los Angeles maître d’s.

“Hi,” Joscelyn said, and sank down in the leather chair. As she sipped her Tom Collins the oppressiveness of her impending request grew.

The conversation, grouchily truculent on her part, drifted on about the broiling weather, the pruning of Japanese cherry trees, and Fuad’s visit until Honora leaned forward, affectionate concern radiating from the dark eyes. “Joss, what’s wrong with your cheek?”

Joscelyn pulled back as far as the leather chair permitted. “Nothing.”

“You’ve got a mark here.” Honora touched her own cheek near the black wave of her page boy.

Joscelyn had applied triple coats of makeup base to the area, successfully covering the gray-purple of the bruise: the restaurant’s dim lighting, however, brought out the shadows of its slightly raised topography.

“Oh, that. Didn’t you notice it Monday night? Over the weekend I decorated myself—I banged the edge of the diving board.”

The waiter set down their lunch salads.

The time has come
, Joscelyn told herself. Poking at a large shrimp, she muttered, “Honora, listen, there’s this thing you can do for me.”

“Yes?”

Two couples rose noisily from the next table, and during their forced, clamorous laughter, Joscelyn muttered, “Ask Curt to send Malcolm
and me to Lalarhein.”

Blinking, Honora stared at her. “I didn’t get that.”

“Ask Curt about getting Malcolm in on the Lalarheini project.” Joscelyn turned from her sister’s flabbergasted gaze, breaking a roll, buttering the smaller piece. She could feel the sullen set of her jaw.

Finally Honora said, “Joss, I never interfere in his business, you know that.”

“Swell, I really appreciate the help, Honora. Thanks.”

Honora’s brows drew together in pleading intensity. “D-don’t be taken in by the way Fuad acts about your career, Joss.” The slight stammer proved her complete misery. “He’s lived in America. But Lalarhein’s one of the worst Islamic countries as far as women go. They’re not allowed to work.”

“That’s hardly classified information.”

“Then . . . You mean you’re giving up your career?”

“Obviously.”

“But, Joss—you can’t! You’re a truly talented engineer. Whichever team you’re on gets things accomplished—and quickly. Curt’s always saying how lucky Ivory is to have you.”

The humble tone of Honora’s accolades gave Joscelyn a queer shiver of dislocation.
She
had always been the inferior Sylvander girl.

“The company’ll survive,” she said acidly.

“But what’ll you
do
there? Joss, you have no idea what it’s like. The mullahs rule every detail. Women stay inside their homes, and if
they go out, they’re veiled. They aren’t allowed to drive. Daralam—the capital—isn’t a city, it’s a huge, dirty village with no real shops or restaurants, hardly any trees, no proper water system, no garbage collection—in the photographs it looks picturesque, but it’s horrible. The heat, the flies, the beggers, the smells. Those three days I was there were enough to last a lifetime. Lalarhein’s not a country, it’s an oven, a medieval oven.”

Joscelyn chewed her salad. “Working there’ll be a giant boost for Malcolm.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll keep busy.”

Honora’s head tilted. “Joss, you aren’t preg—”

“God no! I’m not a nineteen-year-old idiot.”

Honora’s soft upper lip quivered and the lovely eyes were very bright.
If Curt could see her now, he’d kill me
, Joss thought.
I deserve to be killed.
Yet she couldn’t force herself to apologize.

After a minute, Honora said, “I’m sure that there’s a project in this country for Malcolm.”

“Company policy is to advance people who can handle the tough assignments in tough places.”

A long silence that Joscelyn misconstrued.
She thinks Malcolm put me up to it.

“And please don’t tell Malcolm about this. He’d murder me. He gets livid if he thinks the relationship does one iota for him.”

“Oh, Joss, you used to get like this when you were in trouble at school.”

“If you don’t want to help Malcolm, just say so!” Joscelyn burst out. The clatter and voices and smells of the busy lunch hour swam around her. “You’ve never accepted him.”

“We both like him and have from the beginning.” Honora’s voice soothed, her eyes reassured.

“Then why are you being so negative about doing this?”

Honora sighed deeply. “If you’re sure Lalarhein’s really right for you and Malcolm, of course I’ll talk to Curt.”

“Thank you,” Joscelyn said stiffly. She signaled for the check, but when Honora had come in she’d told the captain to put it on Curt’s account.

*   *   *

The sisters didn’t leave Mike Lyman’s together. Joscelyn was in a rush to get back to the office while Honora’s appointment with the tree man on Olympic Boulevard wasn’t until two forty-five.

As Honora watched the tall, pleasantly angular figure wind around the tables, she was thinking,
Poor Jossie.

Her reservations about her younger sister’s marriage had intensified at the barbecue. For a few moments she had seen beyond Malcolm’s endearing, puppyish efforts to please and been aware of another, darker persona. It had been an unnerving revelation.

Did he bully Joss into this?
Honora absently formed a triangle of crumbs.
She said no, but methinks she did protest too much. She’s really
shook up.
Honora, who had no experience with physical abuse, did not consider the possibilities connected to Joscelyn’s bruised cheek as she attempted to figure out the unknowable problems surrounding the Peck’s marriage.

She sipped her coffee until only eight or nine tables remained occupied. The busboys were setting up for dinner. She watched them, her mind drifting back to the thin young waitress at Stroud’s. Now she was covered by a great slagheap of possessions—furs, jewelry designed for her by Van Cleef and Arpels, the estate in Bel Air and the big house with the boat in Newport Beach, a new flat in London on Upper Brook Street, her garden with its rare plants and trees. She was married to a man she adored and who adored her. She had arrived at the Promised Land. So why did one benign day succeed the next, bland and ultimately empty?

I have my period, that’s all
, she thought. She had been to specialists here and in New York, suffering a series of painful if minor corrective surgeries, she had tracked her temperature, she and Curt had followed the doctor’s orders on when to make love. With paralyzing regularity her periods flowed. Curt reassured her, he said he couldn’t even remember telling her that he wanted three children, he needed her and nobody else.
In the old days I might have been poor, sometimes desperate, but I can’t recollect feeling utterly useless.

She pushed sharply away from the table, sloshing iced coffee into the saucer, leaving the now deserted restaurant.

*   *   *

It was Honora and Curt’s habit when they dined at home to take an evening stroll in the gardens. As they wound along the lit paths, Honora briefed him about the luncheon and Joscelyn’s request.

“Curt . . . is it true that your top people have all worked overseas?”

“So it’s a promotion’s she’s after?”

“For Malcolm.”

“If that’s all there is to it, no big deal. A little nepotism here and there is good for the soul. The levee job I told you about on the Mississippi—I’ll send them both.”