All Is Vanity (38 page)

Luckily, for me and Lexie, things continued to happen to Letty.

M
—

We are rotten at the core. The rug, in fact, the very floor, has been chewed out from under us.

“Mom, what’s this?” Marlo asked. This was three days ago. We were about to paint her new bedroom (we were forced to choose a designer color for this since none of the less expensive brands produce quite the right shade) and she had volunteered—volunteered!—to wash the trim.

“What’s what?” I was pulling packing boxes away from the wall.

“All these little holes. Is it a special kind of wood?”

“I didn’t do it!” Hunter said.

Marlo was right. The windowsills, all of them in her room, and, as
it turned out, most of them in the house, were pitted with tiny holes. The effect was lovely—lacy like Indonesian carving—and horrifying. Uncle Frank, it seems, does not know a termite infestation when he sees one
.

And it’s not just the window frames, which would be bad enough. It’s everything, beams and underpinnings, floorboards and rafters. Studs. Half the wood in the house needs to be replaced or it will all collapse in a rain of sawdust when we least expect it. Or when we most expect it. Our expectations, in fact, have nothing to do with it. Such repairs, needless to say, are expensive
.

I have begun to hide the children’s books, in hopes of discouraging their college matriculation. It’s too late for Marlo. She’s already mastered long division and the basic elements of five Native American cultures. But maybe Ivy, at least, will be content to be apprenticed to a paper hanger
.

I have, in truth, borrowed a bit from the children’s college funds, but we’ll put it back by spring. Still, this probably means we shouldn’t have bought that table or at least ought to have forgone the club chairs. It’s hard, though, to return things once you’ve moved them in. Impossible, actually, in the case of the table—they won’t take it back. Also, Miss Wiggins has used one of the club chairs as a makeshift litterbox. Apparently, she’s not completely sanguine about the move. Anyway, if I returned the chairs, we’d have nothing to sit on. I’ve gotten rid of all the old wicker and foam
.

L

M
—

It’s two in the morning and Michael isn’t home. I haven’t heard from him all day, not since eight-fifteen a.m. when he asked why my coffee was always so bitter. It isn’t. I mean, it was this morning for some reason, probably the pot wasn’t clean or the water was “off” or something—you know how sometimes it just is bitter, but it’s not like it’s always bitter. Usually I make very good coffee. I get the beans from that place in Venice. (Venice, California. I’m not that extravagant.) And, really, what I wanted to say to Michael was “make your own coffee!” Especially now that I have a job, too. In fact, I’d already been to the flower market and back by the time he got up, so I’d already had my coffee. Which maybe was why it was bitter, since, now that I think of it, I didn’t really
make him coffee. I just microwaved a cup of the stuff I’d brewed in the dark, hours before
.

Wait … is that the car? No. It’s the Infiniti next door
.

All day I ran on anger, but now my fury is down to fumes, and he’s still not home
.

Michael wasn’t really upset about the coffee, of course. He was angry about what happened last night, which, as far as I’m concerned, started way before last night, but yesterday I was particularly tense, what with the Genslen fiasco and then Marlo getting another C on a math test. I know this is not important. She’s only in fourth grade, for Gods sake. But Marlo and I spent two hours studying for that quiz and it seemed to me that we understood the concept of common denominators perfectly well! Was she not paying attention? Doesn’t she realize that she’ll never get into Stanford without a clear understanding of fourth-grade math? Or, failing that, an A. Also, Barkis chewed the heel of one of the shoes I bought for this new job so thoroughly that it’s now a mule, and clearly I erred in correcting him, since when I try to get him to chew the other one to match, he just whines and runs into the other room. And it turns out they misrouted the pipes to the en suite bathroom when I made the switch from plastic to copper, but nobody noticed the problem until yesterday when they installed the shower in the wrong place. Even now they’re pretending it’s not a problem. “If you change your mind, Mrs. Letty,” Hector says, “we move it.” I have not changed my mind! I never wanted to have to stand behind the toilet to use the sink, which this configuration forces one to do. (It’s difficult to explain, but it’s obviously wrong.) But somehow, because I did change my mind about the piping material, we’re going to have to pay for the rerouting and rearranging and replumbing
.

So last night all of this was weighing on me, while I lay there on the futon that smells like dog, which is not entirely unpleasant, but is still
not the way one would like one’s bed to smell, waiting for Michael to sandwich himself between the covers so that we could get this day over with so as to be ready to start another one in a few hours, and I could actually hear the crinkle of all those damned unfillable envelopes under my shoulder. Michael was standing in his underwear and his socks, neatly creasing his pants preparatory to neatly hanging them over the back of a club chair for the night, and suddenly I just felt so angry with him. I wanted to snatch those trousers from his hands, crush them into a ball, and hurl them at his head
.

“Michael!” I said
.

My feelings must have been clear in my tone, because he jumped. “What?” He looked right and left wildly, as if I were alerting him to the proximity of a black widow
.

“What about that money?”

“I know,” he said miserably. He covered his eyes with one hand and kneaded his forehead with his fingers. You know how long his fingers are? They’re freakish! A child could snap them in half
.

“Honey.” I punched the pillows so I could sit up. I punched them hard. “That money was one of the reasons we decided you should take this job. Maybe the main reason. I’m not sure it’s worth all the time and effort, all the disruption of our lives, without that.” I carefully skirted the main issue, which was that if he didn’t hurry up and get this salary increase our lives would really be disrupted, what with the bankruptcy court and all
.

He looked around nervously, trapped between a nagging wife and several heaps of items that belonged in a bedroom that seemed likely never to exist
.

“Honey,” I tried again, “I know you don’t want to make unreasonable demands, but it’s not unreasonable to demand what you’ve been promised.”

“Well, last week, Duncan was saying—” he began
.

Duncan! I loathe Duncan! And his wife with her tented, celebrity-fawning, far-from-democratic change!

“Michael,” I interrupted, icy-smooth as vodka, provided at a full bar, paid for by me, “have you ever heard the expression ‘talk is cheap’?”

And, after that, it only gets worse. I shamed him, Margaret. I told him he was an irresponsible father and a coward. I told him he was weak. “Duncan,” I concluded, “may like you, but he can’t possibly respect you.”

It worked. Oh, yes, I got what I wanted. Thoroughly browbeaten, Michael swore he would confront Duncan today, or what was today until two hours ago when it became yesterday. I’ve been trying for the last eight hours to pretend that I didn’t say all those things flat out, or, at least, that my saying them was for his own good. The truth, untwisted by frustration and panic, is that Duncan overlooks his promises to Michael because Michael makes it easy for him to do so. Michael is not the sort of person who cares only about the bottom line and what’s in it for him. He is a generous, modest man, who doesn’t know his own worth. But that, I’m afraid, is not what I said. I’m afraid this money, when he gets it, will be tainted with my insults and demands and will no longer be something to celebrate
.

But, tainted or no, it will be money. First, I will pay the bills. Then, I will fix our marriage
.

Car. Yes, a familiar Saab.

Letty

I wanted to take them each by a hand and explain one to the other. Michael, I was sure, would forgive Letty her desperate accusations were he to know what lay under her shoulders every night. After all, they had spent the money together; they should work together to pay their debts, as well. But while I felt a steady pulse of empathetic unhappiness for them both, I could not help but recognize that
what Letty had done—provoked a fight and yet held back the truth to maintain the tension—would be a remarkably effective plot device. Once again, I was dependent on Letty and her remarkable talent for living her life—at least the last six months of it—in a novelistically interesting way. It was far too early to call Los Angeles, so I assured Letty via e-mail that she was not a monster, but only driven beyond the limits of human endurance by fear. Perfectly understandable. Not to mention (as, of course, I did not) ideal for exploring the uncharacteristically manipulative behavior an otherwise sympathetic character might exhibit in a state of panic. I was all for giving credit where credit was due: I took a break from the novel and set to work on a draft of my acknowledgments, expressing my thanks to Letty.

Although I was selfishly pleased about their fight, I was also reassured to discover myself relieved that, thanks to Letty’s exasperated prodding, they’d finally be getting the money they’d been promised and their serious financial worries would be over. Necessary as Letty’s suffering was to my novel, I didn’t think she could stand much more nor could I bear to watch. I was fairly well satisfied with my book anyway at this point. My characters had careened to the brink of bankruptcy; they had looked deep into their souls and discovered heretofore unacknowledged weaknesses; but I had no desire to write a tragedy and suspected readers would have no heart for it either. The strength of Lexie and Miles’s relationship would prevail, I decided, and for this they deserved a happy ending. They would recognize where they’d gone wrong, promise never to be tempted by Mammon again, and squeak by in the eleventh hour to live more simply ever after.

Such a conclusion, however, did not take into account the inevitable perfidy of others.

M
—

Duncan, the great and powerful Duncan, has gotten an offer from the Metropolitan Museum. He’ll be gone by Christmas. He’s sorry, but he’s sure that Michael understands why he can’t make any promises right now. His replacement may want to hire his own people. Duncan will put in a good word, of course
.

Forgive me, if I sound bitter as six-hour-old coffee
.

I think of Duncan now at that party, the party Michael threw for him—to thank him, to impress him, to demonstrate a commitment to him and the museum. I think of him cramming those cubes of dripping chicken into his mouth. Had I another chance, I would push the skewer down his throat
.

It frightens me that Michael isn’t angry, or rather that he isn’t acting angry, because I know he’s seething. He wouldn’t look at me as he told me what Duncan had said, but I could see his fingers shaking, as if at any moment his fury would fork from them like lightning
.

Obviously, I should have told him about the debts long before this. How can I tell him now? I’m glad, at least, I’ve told you, Margaret. It’s too frightening to know this alone. All day I’ve been thinking about that wad under the futon. It’s like living in a horror movie, the camera always sliding to that corner of the room. “Under there, it’s under there,” the camera says
.

L

I called, first Letty’s home number, then the cell phone, and left messages on both machines. I e-mailed. I called the airlines to see how much an emergency ticket would cost. Unfortunately, although I explained the situation to a very pleasant agent named Cecilia, and also to her somewhat impatient supervisor, Tammy, and offered as incentive in each case to name a significant character in my book af
ter her, they both claimed there were no special discounts for flying to the aid of friends in financial trouble.

Ted did not see the point of rushing to Los Angeles. He sat on the couch as I paced between the bedroom and the living room, arguing with Tammy, removing from our suitcase the sweaters we stored there, digging underwear out of the hamper. “Did she ask you to come?” he wanted to know.

I had to admit she had not, that, in fact, she’d not even called back. By three a.m., however, when I got up to check my e-mail, she’d responded.

M
—

Michael will not come out of the addition. I found him there in the space that is to be our bedroom, sitting cross-legged in front of the framed hole that is to open onto our private balcony, but which is now just a rectangle of sky overlooking the pool pit. He would not speak to me. I told the children he was king and took them to McDonald’s for dinner, although even the Happy Meals now strike me as extravagant. I ordered a small Coke and ate the ice
.