The Last Chance Page 21

  At work Margot continued to be the good robot. It was difficult to concentrate, but she forced herself through each day. It was the nights that were so bad. She didn’t want a blind date, she was too old and tired to spend an evening making forced conversation with a stranger. She didn’t want to inherit the problems of a lonely man her age. The only alternative was prowling.

  She prowled again. Sometimes she was rejected. She realized that what she had finally brought herself to offer to a stranger was no longer appreciated as a prize. It was all too available. She went to singles bars and saw the girls in the ladies’ room primping and comparing notes on the men. The girls were all sloppy and interchangeable. The men were unappealing and interchangeable too. All these unappetizing people performed various sexual acts with one another for the price of a drink, and it made the entire idea repugnant. She wanted to offer herself to a man and have him be glad, thrilled, enchanted. She was fifteen years too late. Unless, of course, he loved her. Where was she going to find a man to fall in love with her? She didn’t have the faintest idea how to begin.

  Ellen was so recklessly spending all her free time with Reuben that she realized she could have lied to him and said she had told Hank, and he would have believed her. But she couldn’t lie to Reuben too. Not if she intended to marry him eventually. Her second marriage would be based on truth, not lies.

  “I want everything out in the open now,” Reuben said. “Why can’t you tell him? Do you want me to?”

  “No, not you! That would be horrible. I will tell Hank, darling. Just let me pick the right time.”

  “Are you afraid of him?” Reuben asked.

  “Hank? Oh, no. I do feel sorry for him though.”

  “Ah, yes, pity. That’s their ultimate weapon.”

  “We have all the freedom we need now,” Ellen said. “What more could we have? We see each other every day at the office, I’m here with you almost all the time. Do you want to call me at home? You wouldn’t have the poor taste to do that even if Hank did know—no, especially if Hank knew. Not until either he or I had moved out.”

  “What are you going to do about that?” Reuben asked.

  “Moving out?”

  “One of you has to.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Ellen said. “We could sleep in separate rooms. I could put Stacey in with Jill and take Stacey’s room. The problem is, Hank has no money, and it’s taking all my salary just to make ends meet. I took a loan out from the bank to pay for the girls’ school. Hank had to cosign it. It was so humiliating. I’m the wage earner in this family, but I don’t make enough, and besides, I’m a wife, which is just like being an underage child in this country. A single woman could take out a loan. Margot could take out a loan in a minute. But I had to bring my husband in to cosign it with me. How could one of us move out? We’re both too poor.”

  “You could move in with me,” Reuben said.

  “How would that look?”

  “What do you mean ‘How would that look?’” He laughed. “You have the most bizarre system of values, Ellen. People move in with other people every day. Married people. It is not a federal offense.”

  “Your wife would take all your money. She’d have a right.”

  “I don’t care. I can make more.”

  “How would we live?”

  “We’d live the same way we’re living now,” Reuben said. “Except you wouldn’t be nervous and frantic any more. I’d take care of you. You’d still have your job. Believe me, I can take care of your children and my children where school is concerned. You said Stacey’s so bright; we’ll get her a scholarship. Those things happen. When you and I live together—”

  “When we’re married we can get an apartment,” Ellen said, “and the girls will live with us. But if I just walk out, then they’ll have to stay with Hank, and they need me. I think we should both get our divorces and then get married and then live in an apartment.”

  “It’s all right with me,” Reuben said. “But we can’t get our divorces until we tell our spouses, can we?”

  Ellen smiled weakly. “I know.”

  “You don’t even have to leave him. I’ll be fair and self-sacrificing about that. Just tell him. You can’t get a divorce until you tell him, Ellen.”

  “I will. I’ll tell him.”

  “When?”

  “It’s almost November. I’ll tell him right after Christmas. I can’t ruin Christmas for the girls.”

  “You’ll tell him after Christmas.”

  “Yes. I will. It’s the perfect time. We’ll start off the new year with a new leaf.”

  “Christmas.”

  “Reuben, Christmas is important to Hank!”

  “I forgot, it’s the goyim’s major holiday,” Reuben said.

  “Well, you wouldn’t tell your wife and kids on Chanukah, would you?”

  “Ellen, my darling, my wife doesn’t even know when Chanukah is.”

  “Well, what I meant was that Christmas is a hell of a time to be alone.”

  “I’ll be alone.”

  “You won’t. You’ll have to go visit your kids.”

  Reuben sighed. “That I will. With sacks of presents.”

  “So you see? It’s a family holiday, no matter whether you’re religious about it or not. We aren’t religious. I haven’t set foot in a church since my wedding except to go to someone else’s wedding. I’ll tell Hank after Christmas. Then if he wants to move into the Y or live with a friend, he can. Or he can stay on in the apartment. But at least we won’t have to spend Christmas pretending to the girls that we’re happy.”

  “I bet you haven’t fooled them a bit,” Reuben said.

  “Oh, I’m sure we have.”

  “Whew. You’re a tough lady.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re stubborn.”

  “I just want to be fair,” Ellen said. “Let’s set a target date. January first, 1976. Everything fresh and new. We’ll have clear consciences and start our new life out in the open.”

  “I hired a divorce lawyer,” Reuben said.

  “You did?” she said, amazed.

  “Well, I don’t know how to do it myself.”

  “When did you hire him?”

  “Last week. Just to set up a preliminary division of property. I don’t even have any idea what I own or what I want to take, and my wife doesn’t either. We aren’t terribly materialistic people. The biggest fight is going to be over the books and records.”

  “Oh, Reuben. You’re such a wonderful person and I’m sorry I’ve made things so difficult for you.”

  “You certainly have,” he said. “But nothing is worth having that isn’t hard to get.”

  “Oh, sweetheart.”

  He produced a sheet of paper on which he had typed a paragraph: I, Ellen Rennie, the undersigned, swear to tell my husband Hank on——that I am in love with Reuben Weinberg and want a divorce. Signed——. “Sign this,” he said.

  She took it and read it. “Oh, Reuben, what are you going to do with that?”

  “Put it on the bathroom mirror so you have to look at it every day.”

  “Also the maid,” she said. “I’ll sign it if you put it in the drawer.”

  “I’ll put it on my cock. Just sign it.”

  “Okay.” She took the pen he offered her and filled in the date January 1, 1976, and signed her name at the bottom.

  “January first!” he said. “I thought you were going to tell him after Christmas.”

  “That’s an outside date. Contracts give an outside date.”

  “Not this contract,” Reuben said. He tore it up. Ellen felt a surge of panic.

  “Oh, Reuben don’t leave me! I’m sorry! I’ll sign anything you want. I promise. Please—”

  He smiled and took a Xerox copy out of his briefcase. “I knew I might have trouble with you so I made a copy. Write ‘December 26, 1975.’”

  Ellen took the copy and filled in the date he wanted and signed her name. Her hand was trembl
ing. Reuben took the contract and looked at it with satisfaction, then he tucked it neatly into the corner of the desk blotter.

  “I would die if you left me,” Ellen said.

  “I won’t leave you.”

  “Promise.”

  “I promise I won’t leave you. I’m going to marry you.” He put his arms around her and she finally felt her heart stop pounding so hard. He kissed her face. “Poor, scared Ellen,” he said.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you,” he said. “I’ve proved it, haven’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re going to prove it too, aren’t you?”

  “I’ll start proving it now,” Ellen said and led him into the bedroom. It wasn’t what he had meant, but it would suffice for the moment.

  November 1975

  Rachel realized that in the past two months she had been so busy with college and her new, full life that she had stopped thinking about Nikki in the mooning adolescent way she had before, and now thought of her as a good friend and an equal. Her crush had evaporated, replaced by the genuine concern one has for a dear friend. All her frantic scurrying through those psychology books to find out the ramifications of her “aberration” had produced only one thing—a love for psychology, which had made her decide to major in it. But it was her own instinct and not anything she had read that convinced Rachel now that she had never really been in love with Nikki, she had been in love with the free life Nikki seemed to represent. She hadn’t been a lesbian at all, she had been lonely.

  She was happy for Nikki because of her affair with John Griffin, but in her heart she hoped Nikki would eventually get back together with Robert. Rachel knew it was hard for her to see Robert the way his wife saw him. He seemed pleasant, bright, and attractive. When he was in a good mood he was warm, a man you could feel at home with. But Nikki saw him in all his other moods, and he had invested a good deal of his masculine identity in her as his Wife—capital W. Rachel knew that Nikki was far better able to cope with loneliness than she had ever been. But she wondered if that was because she had been lonely at the beginning of her adult life, when she was a new, single girl in New York, before she had met Lawrence, while Nikki had chosen loneliness much later, when she was a grown woman, with an established career, two grown children, and knowledge of the limitations of the accepted alternative.

  School had opened many doors in Rachel’s mind. Now she tried to analyze people’s motivations and feelings. She no longer felt like just an ornament, even at her own parties. She still performed her chores by rote, but there was something added: she saw her guests as people. She could zero in on who was lonely, who was shy, and link that person with someone friendly. She realized that many people at parties were even more uncomfortable than she had been, and that the most gregarious of them might be so only because of prefortification by alcohol or a pill. She wished she could think of a man for Margot, who was the loneliest person she knew. The change in Margot during the last several months was apparent. Nothing seemed to please her. Her mouth was clamped firmly shut in an expression that might seem to the onlooker to be disapproval, but Rachel knew it was pain.

  She invited Margot to every party she gave. Her entertaining was much more limited lately because of schoolwork, and she wanted to introduce Margot to as many people as she could, but in all honesty Rachel had to admit the pickings were lousy. She could never be the sort of happily married woman who assumed any single or divorced man was “going to waste” if he wasn’t immediately grafted onto one of her single or divorced friends. Some people were blatantly incompatible. Margot was almost impossible to please. Where someone else might just tell a man she would prefer him to change a habit she didn’t like, Margot would use it as an excuse to get rid of him right away. Those newly divorced men were like kids. They had been out of the mainstream for so long they thought nothing had changed since the fifties. They had to be taught. But Margot insisted that any man her age or older was “already ruined.” Rachel was glad Margot wasn’t a schoolteacher.

  Margot had even flirted with Andy, but she seemed to frighten him off. He was aware that she wasn’t interested in him as a human being but just as a conquest. He was thrilled to be included in the Fowlers’ social life, and he fitted in very well, but he didn’t carry fitting in so far as to sleep with Rachel’s friends—not that Rachel would have minded at all if he did. He had been so sweet at the first party Rachel invited him to that Lawrence had liked him very much, and he had become a sort of son to them. When Rachel knew that one of Lawrence’s friends had a daughter more or less the right age for Andy she would invite her, and he either took to the girl or not, depending on what kind of person he thought she was. Apparently trying to suit people to each other didn’t really work no matter what their ages; they had to suit themselves.

  Rachel invited Ellen and Hank more often than she used to because Ellen and Margot were so close she didn’t want Ellen to feel hurt knowing that Margot was always there and she seldom was. Lawrence didn’t like Ellen. He said she was full of hostility. But as long as she was included in a large enough group of people so he could avoid her, he was perfectly willing to let Rachel invite her. The first time Ellen saw Andy she rushed over to Rachel, fairly licking her chops.

  “Well! Who does he belong to?”

  “To himself,” Rachel said, smiling.

  “He’s not gay?”

  “No.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Where did you find him?”

  “At school. He’s in my psych class.”

  “Freshman or sophomore?”

  “Freshman,” Rachel said. “He lost a year traveling. Ellen, you aren’t tired of Reuben already, are you?”

  “Oh, no,” Ellen said. “I want him for Jill.”

  Hank came over. “Want who for Jill?” he asked.

  “That red-haired boy,” Ellen said. “Isn’t he cute?”

  “He’s too old for Jill,” Hank said.

  “Why? He’s nineteen, she’s sixteen. When I was sixteen I would have been thrilled to go out with a nineteen-year-old boy.”

  “She’s too young,” Hank said angrily.

  “Oh, fathers and their precious daughters,” Ellen said, amused.

  “Well, I do think she’s a little young for him,” Rachel said. “There’s such an enormous difference at their ages.”

  “You’re supposed to be on my side,” Ellen said.

  “You’re perfectly free to ask both of them,” Rachel said mildly. “Excuse me.” She went to the door to greet Nikki and Robert. She hoped Andy didn’t think he had to ask Jill out just because Ellen was her friend. He was so polite he’d probably agree to anything to pay her back for her hospitality. Well, she wasn’t going to worry about it; he was old enough to take care of himself. Maybe they’d even like each other—although she doubted it. When she had been sixteen she couldn’t think of a single thing to say to a nineteen-year-old college boy.

  In November it was Rachel’s birthday. She was thirty-six. For the first time since she had been twenty-one a birthday didn’t bother her. Thirty-five was such a banal number, thirty-six had to be better. In the morning Lawrence waited to have breakfast with her. She had a nine o’clock class. Every year on her birthday he had left a fresh white carnation on her breakfast tray for her to find when she woke up, but today he handed the flower to her. She decided to wear it to class.

  “You don’t get your present till tonight,” he said.

  They had decided to have dinner together, just the two of them, at Lutèce. He had offered to invite any other people she would like to have, but Rachel wanted him all to herself. He seemed flattered and pleased. She realized for the first time that Lawrence had always been much more acutely aware of the difference in their ages than she would have imagined, and that her life as an undergraduate had worried him. He was afraid she would grow so much intellectually that she would want someone who would spend more tim
e with her. Instead, as it turned out, it was he who was spending more time with her. Now at night when he was working in his den she sat there too and studied. It was not that he had been locking her out but that he thought she would prefer to watch television.

  At psych class Andy slid into the seat beside her. She had been putting her books on the seat to save it for him, but he always got there so early that there was seldom a problem. “What’s the flower for?” he asked.

  “It’s my birthday. Lawrence always gives me a white carnation. I don’t even know why.”

  “Oh, why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday? I would have gotten you something.”

  “I don’t want you to spend your money on me,” Rachel said.

  “Well, let’s do something special,” Andy said. “Please? Come on, let’s cut classes the rest of the afternoon and I’ll take you to the Aquarium.”

  “The Aquarium?”

  “It’s great! Have you ever been there?”

  “I don’t even know where it is,” Rachel said.

  “It’s in Coney Island.”

  “You want to go to Coney Island in November?”

  “The Aquarium is open. You’ll love it. It’s one of my favorite places. I used to go there a lot when I first came to New York. I haven’t been there for a long time. It doesn’t take long on the subway.”

  “The subway?” she said in horror.

  He grinned. “You said you don’t want me to spend my money on you, and I can’t afford a cab.”

  “All right, silly.” She grinned back at him. “I never cut a class before. I hope it isn’t habit-forming.”

  “It isn’t. I do it all the time.”

  They both laughed. She had never imagined she would go on the subway, but it was a nice day and she felt safe with him. Evidently people had to go to the Aquarium on the subway, and they probably went a lot of other places on it too, so she would risk it. Andy would be too offended if she paid for a cab.