Chapter 40

“Been a long day for you,” Will Trask said. “Shouldn’t have to clean up all this mess besides.”

She said sarcastically, knowing he would not hear the sarcasm, “You know how we wives hate a messy kitchen.”

“Some of the wives’ve gone in swimming,” he said. “How about you joining them? I remember that little bikini you had on, what was it, a year ago?”

She looked at him. Arms crossed above his stomach, he was regarding her complacently, half-smiling and impervious, certain she would not react in any way disadvantageous to Paul.

She turned her back squarely on him and walked from the kitchen. In the bathroom she brushed her hair and stared into the mirror for long minutes.

She went out toward the bar. Two of Paul’s salesmen, their backs to her, sauntered toward the door to the backyard carrying fresh scotches.

“A Reagan landslide,” Larry Keating was saying. “The man held off Mondale; Bush put it right up Ferraro’s ass.”

Following Keating out the door onto the patio, Fred O’Brien laughed. “How about the IRA trying to blow Maggie Thatcher’s pussy off? Not a very good year for the women, hey?”

The men’s laughter faded as they moved out into the yard. Carolyn poured herself a vodka and tonic, understanding with perfect clarity that she could not possibly get through the next several hours without perpetrating some spectacular outrage. Pleasurably, she contemplated various acts of mayhem: grinding a bowl of vegetable dip into Larry Keating’s smug face; pouring ,a pitcher of orange juice over the careful coiffure of Fred O’Brien’s conceited wife; aiming a well-placed foot at Will Trask’s backside and propelling him into the pool.

She looked at the bottle of scotch on the bar, then inspected the cabinet below. She removed the two remaining quarts of scotch, carried them into the kitchen, poured them simultaneously down the drain, and tossed the bottles into the trash bag.

She found Paul in the yard. “We’re out of scotch,” she told him. “There’s less than half a quart.”

“Can’t be. Jesus.” He scowled. “I can switch the guys to bourbon, save the rest for Will—”

“I’ll get more.” She spoke emphatically. “Just a few minutes break from here and I’ll be fine the rest of the night. I promise.”

“Okay. Good. Two more quarts, Princess.”

She noticed Will Trask at the poker game watching her; his eyes were uncertain, gauging.

“Have Annie be your hostess while I’m gone,” she said. “It’ll be good for your career.”

“Do hurry back,” he said glumly.

“Carrie…”

Val’s body seemed to fill the doorway of her flat, her black dress a copy of the white one she had worn the night she met Paul. From behind her came music and the mixed cadence of party conversation.

Carolyn backed away. “I’m sorry, it never occurred—I never thought—”

“A few friends—just a small party.”

Carolyn laughed, aware of the hysterical edge in her laughter. This was the final absurdity in this entire absurd day. “I can’t stay. We’re having our own party—Paul’s office staff. I escaped for a few minutes.”

“Come in, we’ll go to Neal’s room.”

“Neal, is he—”

“At his grandfather’s. He’ll be so upset he missed you. Come in. Please.”

Carolyn entered the flat. Her glance took in four women and five men, unconventionally garbed compared to her own guests, elegantly arranged on Val’s furniture like exotic birds. She met the intelligent brown eyes of the woman from the gallery; the woman made no sign of acknowledgment.

“A friend. We need to talk a few minutes,” Val said to the group. “Alix, would you and Helen take care of things? David needs a fresh drink.”

A pretty blonde woman in tight black pants, a red tie hanging in loose nonchalance from the neck of her white shirt, nodded to Val, her eyes drifting down Carolyn in cool appraisal.

Carolyn followed Val into Neal’s bedroom, sat on the narrow bed. She said quietly, “I don’t know what’s happening to me.” Val sat down beside her, her hands crossed in her lap.

Carolyn continued slowly, “I’m not sure about more and more things in my life…I feel scattered in a thousand pieces. But I want to be with you and Neal again, I do know that.”

“I’m glad,” Val said. “I hoped…I’m glad, Carrie.”

They sat in silence. Carolyn ached with a restless, indefinable yearning she remembered from when she was small, when the relentless winter cold first began to release its grip on Chicago. Early spring fever, her mother had called her mercurial moodiness.

Val raised her hands, turned them over, looked at the palms. She said, “Am I not to touch you?”

Carolyn reached for the hands, placed them around her waist. She pressed her face into the soft flesh of Val’s throat. Val’s hands began to move, to shape her body. Sliding her hands across Val’s shoulders until the breadth of them was enclosed in her arms, Carolyn knew that she had come here only to have this again, to speak any words that would let her have it again.

Val’s face was against her hair; she could feel her breath warm on her ear. Val’s hand came to her breasts. Her nipples hard, she strained against the caressing palm. This is insanity, she thought, anyone could come in here.

The hand moved down her, to her thighs. Desire was suddenly an electric current so vivid and precisely focused that she could not bear it another moment. As Val’s hand cupped between her legs she fumbled with the belt of her pants; gasping, she struggled with the zipper. Val lifted her onto her lap, slid her hand down inside the pants.

The wetly stroking fingers were excruciating, too slow for her need. Her hips gyrated in urgent seeking, directing a fingertip into the swift motions she needed. Rigid, shuddering, her jaw clenched to smother the gathering sound in her throat, she came with exquisite sharpness.

Val lifted her from her lap. Breathing rapidly, Carolyn lay docile on the bed while Val tucked the shirt back inside Carolyn’s pants and fastened them.

“I have to go,” Carolyn mumbled in utter bleakness, her eyes closed.

“I love you,” Val said.

Carolyn flung an arm across her eyes. The words were expelled from her: “For God’s sake, why?”

Silence followed.

“Never mind,” she said to Val. Why can’t I die, she thought. I wish to God I were dead.

“I’m looking for the words,” Val said, “the way to tell you. I think it’s because you…react. To me. To my life…to my son…my art, everything. You make me feel…defined. In good ways I never dreamed I could be. You make me feel…strong. And whole.”

With a sensation that was almost palpable, Carolyn felt the disorientation of the past weeks leave her as if a layer of skin had fallen away.

“I feel whole,” Val repeated. “There’re other reasons, lots of superficial things. Physical ways you have, the angle of your back, crazy things. Smells of you, your skin and hair…She raised her hand, inhaled from her fingers, smiled. “Cocaine couldn’t be any better.”

Energy surging through her, Carolyn sat up. “Come over tomorrow. Paul’s going to a football game. We’ll have the afternoon.”

Gazing at Val, wanting her, she felt assertive, in control of her want, euphoric with the sense of possibility. Thoughts, images, plans were forming rapidly in her mind. “Come at noon,” she said.

She got up, her glance falling on painting paraphernalia and stacks of sketch pads usually kept in the front room but moved in here because of the party. She picked up a sketch pad. “May I borrow this?”

“Sure.” Val circled her with an arm. “You’re thinner. Too thin.”

“From being sick.” Was she less desirable to Val? She added hurriedly, “I’ll gain it back.”

“You’re so lovely, Carrie. That shirt is wonderful on you.” Reassured, she smiled at Val, wanting to tell her she was beautiful, knowing she could only tell her when she could show her.

Paul said crossly, “Where did you buy the scotch, San Diego?”

The moon,” she said happily.

“Will wanted to go looking for you.”

“Did he?” she said, entertained by the idea that Will Trask thought he personally had driven her out of the house. She pushed the bag containing the scotch into his hands. “I’ll go be charming to our guests. I did promise, remember?” In the chill of the evening the wives had again donned sports clothes. The party had quieted, was moving indoors. Carolyn mediated several arguments among children grown querulous, and put the O’Brien’s daughter to bed in the guest room. Overflowing with her private joy, she bestowed smiles and chatter on her guests, avoiding Will Trask, whose eyes were on her each time she glanced at him, his expression baffled and irritated.

The party broke up at midnight. Afterward, helping her empty glasses and ashtrays, Paul said tiredly, “I can’t figure you out and neither can anybody else. Will actually asked if you take uppers. We can’t have people thinking that.”

“I suppose not,” Carolyn agreed, yawning, thinking she would wear the other new silk shirt for Val.

With Paul heavily asleep beside her, Carolyn rose and donned a robe and slippers. Quietly, she let herself out of the house and retrieved the sketch pad from her car.

Curling up on the sofa, she opened the pad—to a sketch of herself. Transfixed, she turned over two more pages of drawings, all recent—she recognized background details of Val’s flat. In the first sketch she was sitting on Val’s sofa frowning down into the pages of a book in her lap; in the other two she was playing cards with Neal.

There were three more drawings. In each of these she lay on a bed, nude. On her stomach, a leg drawn up. On her side, her back to the artist. With her body in an arc, an outstretched arm pulling her breasts upward.

She knew when the sketches had been made; heat came to her face and waves of warmth spread over her breasts, down her stomach, as if she were being slowly caressed. She looked at the three sketches again, at the catlike languor and contentment of her body which had come from more than sleep.

She opened the pad to the unused pages. She worked hesitantly on her pencil drawing, pulling four attempts from the pad before one satisfied her; she worked for some time improving it.

She went back to bed. As sleep enveloped her she wondered why she felt so happy. She still did not know what to do about herself, or Paul. She only knew what she would do with Val tomorrow, not what she would say to her.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 550