“You thought I would melt away and disappear, making it convenient for you to just take over my life?” says Janice. Beverly’s chilling presence seems to have jerked Janice back from her muddled inebriation; she is sharp, focused. “Think again.” The words snap like freshly starched linens, and Janice thrills to see Beverly flinch. Janice has never enjoyed fights, the way they seem to pry you open and expose your biggest weaknesses and most irrational impulses. She rarely fought with Paul. Their arguments were more of the passive-aggressive seething variety—her frustration revealing itself through nagging, a clawing desperation that she recognized in herself and hated, and his through total absence and workaholism. But now she itches for a good battle. She must have It to thank for this.
“I didn’t intend to hurt you. You must know that,” says Beverly, widening her eyes and blinking pleadingly. Janice wants to kick her.
“I don’t know anything, Beverly,” says Janice. “You didn’t bother to call and tell me, after all.”
Beverly pinches the bridge of her nose, a habit Janice recognizes from the tennis court—it is what Beverly does when she is concentrating on her game strategy. “You know I was having issues with Louis,” Beverly continues, in lowered voice, “and then Paul and I were paired up for that golf tournament when you were in Indiana at your mother’s funeral last summer, and it just happened. I couldn’t bear to tell you, and of course I had no idea that it would be anything more than that week. But then, there were these
feelings….
And I knew you weren’t exactly in a happy state…”
Janice remembers, miserably, a conversation she and Beverly had not long before Paul left her, right here at the club after a tennis game. Beverly told her that sex with Louis had grown tedious, and Janice, flush with this confidence, described a recent night when she’d heard Paul masturbating in bed, right next to her, when he thought she was asleep. She assumed Beverly would share her disgust at the disconcerting fact that he would rather masturbate than wake her up to have sex and that he blithely
did it in the bed,
totally unconcerned about whether Janice would notice, but the look on Beverly’s face was one of pity. Janice believed, at the time, that Beverly was pitying her, but now she wonders whether that pity was directed toward Paul instead. And, worse, whether Paul had been thinking of Beverly.
“So,” Janice says, “what you’re saying is, you decided my supposed unhappiness was an excuse to make me even less happy?”
“Well,” says Beverly, “I think you’d agree that something had to change. To help you escape your claustrophobia.”
“Claustrophobia?” The word throws Janice off, the phrase triggering some sort of déjà vu she can’t quite place. It hits her, then, out of nowhere: “Escape this claustrophobia” is the phrase Paul used in the letter he wrote to divorce her. God—did Beverly help him write it? Or did he show her what he wrote? The thought sickens her. Either way, it is incontrovertible evidence of their affair, of the fact of their
relationship,
and for this she hates Beverly.
“I hardly think you’re in a position to tell me what I need,” Janice says, her voice rising. She can sense a stillness in the ballroom, as if everyone is straining their ears to hear what they know is a juicy conversation. The people within a few feet of them are studiously looking away.
“I don’t blame you for being angry,” Beverly says, “I know what I did, what we did”—Janice recoils at Beverly’s use of “we”—“is horrible. And I don’t expect we’ll ever be friends again, but I do hope that we can be civil. For everyone’s sake…” She steps in a little closer and rests her hand on Janice’s forearm and Janice realizes that Beverly has actually been anticipating this moment—that this is actually a
catharsis
for her. Janice knows, without a doubt, that Beverly has been practicing this speech in her head for two months, waiting for the inevitable moment when they would run into each others at Whole Foods or Neiman’s. She jerks her arm away.
“Oh, can it with the sappy clichés, Beverly,” she snaps. “I have no intention of being civil to you and making you feel better about yourself. I have no interest in you at all. I just hope that when Paul discards you like a past-due carton of yogurt, the way he dumped me, you won’t come crying at my door, because I won’t be feeling charitable.”
Beverly attempts a furrowed expression of compassionate concern, but her frozen forehead—shot full of Botox—merely buckles peculiarly around the eyebrows. Janice thinks she can see Beverly mentally running through her lines, like an actor who has forgotten the sequence of his monologue. Janice looks around at the stiff backs of her club friends, who have been rendered motionless in their effort to pretend they haven’t been listening. She is aware of the sweat beading up on her forehead, the burning itch that has blossomed on her other ankle, too. She doesn’t feel centered at all. All she can think about is getting another line of It in her system.
“I’m done with this conversation,” Janice says. She turns to make a beeline for the bathroom, but stops short and circles back to where Beverly still stands, looking lost.
“He’s here, isn’t he,” she says.
Beverly opens her mouth, then closes it and nods. “He’s in the Club Room,” she says, her voice as flat as a spatula.
the only sound in the bathroom is the hum of the air conditioner. The room smells like lilies of the valley and clean cotton. Janice washes her trembling hands under the tap, presses her palms against the cool marble countertop, and then holds them to her hot cheeks. She is, she realizes, more than a little bit drunk. She envisions herself as the wobbly line that a child might draw with a sticky crayon. The thought of seeing Paul makes her queasy. Again she considers just giving up and slipping out the back door of the party.
But her racing pulse propels her forward. The metallic taste of victory is at the back of her throat. She has conquered Beverly already, has channeled her self-righteous anger into a dangerous weapon, and now she feels ready to turn it against her husband. If she somehow perseveres and makes it through this evening, she will have proven something, although she can’t put a name to what, exactly, that something might be. The alternative is simply to fade away and vanish, and she is not prepared to go out with a whimper. She is glad that she didn’t flee earlier. She lifts a foot and scratches at her ankle furiously.
She double-checks that the door to the ladies’ room is locked, then fishes in her purse for the plastic bag. A line of powder goes down on the marble. She pauses, taps at the baggie with a lacquered fingernail, and considers the wisdom of doing two lines. It is more than she usually takes, but just this one time it shouldn’t hurt. Yes. If she is going to face Paul, she needs the extra boost to properly straighten out that wobble. She taps another fat line of powder out, nearly depleting the baggie. She will need to get some more. Tomorrow. Maybe after that she will finally fire James.
There is a knock at the door just as she’s sniffed back the first dose. Janice nearly jumps out of her skin. “It’s occupied!” she barks.
She flushes the toilet to mask the whoosh of air as she sucks the second dose up into her nostril, then runs the tap to complete the charade. The second line of It makes her eyes water and the tender linings of her nostrils burn, and then, within seconds, she can feel the room lift as if elevated on hydraulic springs, the previously imperceptible hum of lights rushing into a roar, the throb of the blood beginning to pump its furious circuit through her limbs. It makes her feel so alive—so
bright
—that it almost hurts. Christ, how could she ever give this up?
Nevernevernever,
her veins pulse in answer.
Janice studies herself in the mirror, looking for any visible flecks that might have clung to the inside of her nose, then flings the door to the bathroom open with such gusto that she accidentally knocks over the woman who is standing behind it, waiting her turn for the toilet. “Sorry!” she sings, barely registering the woman’s astonished face, before she makes her way down the hallway toward the Club Room.
The Club Room was, at one point, the mansion’s vast library, with fourteen-foot-high ceilings and a mahogany frieze carved with cherubim. Deep leather chairs and a red pile carpet fill the room. One wall of books has been removed to make way for a long polished brass bar; another went to make room for the cigar humidor. As Janice arrives at the door she can see a low cloud of blue-gray smoke drifting just over the heads of the club members.
Halfway into the room she realizes that the itching in her ankles has vanished; in fact, she can no longer feel her feet. She wonders whether the second line of It was, perhaps, a bit too much. Her mouth is sour, and she takes another one of those green martinis from a passing tray in order to wash it away. Janice can feel herself vibrating with intention. She sees herself at the center of the room, sending out waves of energy.
Nevernevernever,
her body throbs furiously. The faces of those standing around her shift in and out of focus. She can zero in on only one: Paul’s. He stands directly across the room with a snifter of scotch in his hand, looking straight at her.
It seems to take ten minutes to cross the room to him, and yet she sees her journey only in flashes, as if lit by a strobe. There: Her hand grazes the back of a chair, hard, leaving her knuckles bruised and raw. There: Her hip knocks against Dr. Brunschild, who turns his head with alarm and then vanishes from her peripheral vision as she is propelled forward. There: the hand of the bartender, who rattles a silver martini shaker in time with the racing pulse in her temples. She can feel the symmetry of everything around her, each molecule in the room recognizing the larger purpose in her journey.
Paul watches her approach, his wary gaze like a beam, pulling her in. It isn’t until she comes to a wobbly halt in front of him that she realizes she has no idea what she is going to say. She stands before him, hating him with such all-consuming rage that she cannot even form words to describe what she feels. And yet, at the same time, she is compelled to reach up and touch his face, feel the familiar papery patches of skin with her fingertips, touch the prickly hair on his earlobes that she knows so well. He stands only a few inches away, his shoulder close enough to rest her chin on, and she feels that if she were to break the barrier and reach out and touch him, somehow the physical contact might bring a melting end to all this incivility and ugliness. She tips forward, just slightly, in anticipation of this movement. But he takes a half step back, and in that motion she sees that it’s far too late; he is already gone. That, in fact, he has been gone for longer than she can remember. And the momentary hope vanishes, leaving behind only the deep ache of loss.
She clenches and unclenches her fist, unsure if she will use it to punch him in the face or clutch at his blazer and weep. She had not anticipated that the purifying fury she experienced with Beverly would, with Paul, be so tainted by grief and remorse.
Paul speaks first. “Janice,” he says, his voice strained and thin. “I thought you’d be here. Beverly said you wouldn’t, but I knew you wouldn’t miss it.”
“Well, I’m so very pleased that after twenty-nine years of marriage you know me better than your new mistress does,” she spits, involuntarily thinking of Beverly blithely using the term “we.” Janice shudders.
Paul’s broad chest rises and falls as he takes a long, deep breath. “How are the girls?” he says, maddeningly calm. “I saw Margaret last week—she was a mess. Someone needs to have a talk with her. I tried, but she wouldn’t listen.”
Janice is momentarily unmoored by the revelation of her daughter’s infidelity; the vista before her shifts as new allegiances and fresh betrayals spring up to block her view. She can’t get a clear grasp on the situation anymore—certainly not on her apparently duplicitous daughter.
“Why are you pretending you care?” It takes a concentrated effort to get the words out; she hears her own voice as if it is coming from the end of a tunnel, echoed and diffuse. “Your children seem to have fallen to the bottom of your priority list, somewhere below getting your suits dry-cleaned and screwing my tennis partner and attempting to blackmail me with custody threats.”
Paul glances around him and lowers his voice to a near whisper. “Janice, can we not? Please. This is not the time or place. I see that you’re upset, but can’t you just be civil? I highly doubt you want our friends and neighbors getting into our personal affairs.”
“I don’t really give a damn,” says Janice. She raises her voice to make it that much more of a weapon.
“I
don’t have anything to be ashamed about.
I
did nothing wrong.”
“Do I need to bring up the pool boy?” whispers Paul.
“You know that’s baseless,” she whispers back. (
Nevernevernever
she hears in the back of her head.) “Noreen won’t back that up. She lied. You have no proof. No. Proof.”
Paul looks at her critically. “You’re drunk,” he says. “We shouldn’t be having this conversation. Let’s leave this for the lawyers.”
“No,” she says loudly, furious that he would try to push her off, like a pest best removed by the professionals. “To hell with the lawyers. I can’t believe that in six weeks you haven’t picked up the phone to explain to me why you’re throwing our marriage down the toilet. And I really can’t believe that you would try to screw me out of everything we built together and then expect me to be decorous about it.” The words are beautiful and vicious as diamonds, but she can barely hear her voice through the rush of blood in her ears. Her heart is beating much, much too fast.
NEVERNEVERNEVER,
it pounds. Sweat trickles down the side of her face and drips off her chin. The itching on her ankles is back with a vengeance. She has lost a critical sense of balance.
Paul winces, then glances casually around with a tiny smile flickering across his lips in a blatant bid to look natural. People are staring nakedly at them. “You’re really going to regret this tomorrow unless you just take a breath and calm down.”