The Pursuit of Alice Thrift (22 page)

The waiter said, “Yes. One minute.”

“I'll have a glass if it's skim,” she said. “Otherwise—”

“Just do it,” said Leo.

SHE WAS PAGED
just as she was dipping into her soup, noodles expertly wrapped around her chopsticks.

“Don't tell me,” said Sylvie.

Meredith actually smiled as if dispensing a lesson in self-possession to those of us who lived by being occupationally frazzled, then excused herself in search of quiet.

“Will she have to go in?” Sylvie asked Leo.

“Most likely.”

No one said anything until she returned with a waiter in tow holding a take-out container. “I'm sorry, but I'll need the car,” said Meredith.

“How many centimeters dilated?” asked Sylvie.

Meredith said, “Doctors rely on that much more heavily than we do in timing their arrival. We try to be with the mother from start to finish.”

“Of course,” said Sylvie.

“Good luck,” I said. “Hope it's a quick one.”

“I assume everyone's all right with taking the T home?” she asked, flinging her coat around her shoulders.

“Yes, no problem, fine,” we answered with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

“Want me to walk you to the car?” asked Leo.

She was leaning down for a good-bye kiss, but stopped halfway and said, “Yes, I do.”

HE WAS GONE
long enough for Sylvie to comment, “Mark my word: trouble in paradise.”

“Why don't we like her?” I asked.

She checked the door before answering. “We don't like her because we're picking up on the tension between the two of them, and we know there's a little rent in the fabric of this affair and maybe we can work a fingernail in there and do some further damage—”

“But why?”

“Why? Because Leo is so clearly unhappy and is being held hostage to Meredith's desire for a nuclear family. No, correction: desire for a baby, period. She doesn't need him! I can just picture the birth—a cadre of midwives tending to one of their own. Leo will be in the corner, dispensing the ice chips.”

I asked—bravely, I thought—“Don't you think Leo can fight his own battles? I mean, you've known him for less than an hour, and you've become chairman of his grievance committee.”

Sylvie smiled radiantly—not for me, but for Leo, who was striding toward us rather ambitiously.

WE WENT TO
a bar—me feeling like the fun-hating, nondancing, one-beer, suddenly exhausted third wheel. I tried to remember if I'd ever said anything proprietary about Leo, anything that would make this bald campaign for his attentions qualify as disloyal. When he left our little nightclub pedestal table for the men's room, I sipped my coffee in silence.

“What's the matter?” she asked. “C'mon. Something's wrong.”

“I'm wondering if you want me to leave you two alone.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” said Sylvie. “What kind of friend would invite herself to dinner, then dismiss the very person who brokered the deal?”

“What deal?” I asked.

“Nothing. Bad choice of words. I meant, we're a
package
deal—you and me.” She smiled. “The bells and whistles may be pure projection on my part.”

“I hope so. He's practically engaged to Meredith.”

Sylvie rolled her eyes.

“She's pregnant. And what about you? You just had a romantic trauma twenty-four hours ago. You have to recover from that.”

“I'm just having fun—meaningless, frivolous fun. So stop worrying. A little flirtation never hurt anyone. Think of it as social work: poor Leo getting some much-needed lighthearted companionship. “

“Are you trying to have sex with him?” I asked.

Sylvie laughed.

“Is that a
no
?”

“That was me expressing amusement at your phrasing, and the censure in your voice.
Shhh.
Here he comes. I'll try to tone down my scandalous behaviors.”

“Let's not stay too late—”

“But I'm not tired,” said Sylvie.

LEO DUTIFULLY ASKED
me to dance after each round with Sylvie, but I was fixed stonily in my chair. “I don't know how to dance to this kind of music,” I said.

“What kind of music
do
you dance to?” he asked.

“The kind of music they played at ballroom-dancing lessons in the eighties,” I said.

“Good luck,” said Sylvie.

“You two go ahead,” I said.

Leo sat down, tapped my hand, asked if I was okay.

A month ago I would have answered with the “I'm exhausted” of old. Instead I said, “Clearly I'm in the way. You and Sylvie don't need a chaperone.”

I felt glances being exchanged above my head. They would be charitable, even affectionate, ones, though, because I'd brought these good-time Charlies together—such close friends of mine, the internist/baton twirler and the most popular heterosexual nurse in the world.

“Oh, stay,” said Sylvie.

“Don't go,” said Leo. “I mean, what would you be doing at home?”

Sylvie pointed to a chalkboard on the wall. “Look: They have pear Napoleon and Indian pudding.”

“And mud pie,” said Leo.

“We could share,” said Sylvie.

I said, “No, thanks. I'm full. Maybe another time.”

They shrugged and managed to disguise their delight. Leo insisted on accompanying me outside to hail a taxi with the ease of the lifelong city boy that he was. When a brown-and-white taxi stopped, I said good night. In response, he squeezed my shoulders and grazed my brow with his lips.

But this wasn't tenderness talking, or even regret. It was Leo saying, Thanks, Alice, old pal. I knew you'd understand.

22.
I Move On

SYLVIE HAD ADOPTED ME, AND NOW SYLVIE HAD SENT ME BACK
to foster care.

I took it hard. I could have walked across the hall and said, “Let's talk,” or, “I miss you.” Instead I moped and cried over the rare thing I'd lost, the unexpected knocks on my door and the pleasure of her boisterous company. Like a girl with a grudge in junior high, I barely nodded when I passed her in the halls.

Rapprochement was up to her, I reasoned. If she wanted to preserve our friendship, she should knock on my door. She should explain that it was an unfortunate misunderstanding, that she and Leo had danced and flirted and shared mud pie. Nothing more.
Whatever you're mad about, Alice, you should know this about Sylvie
Schwartz: that in her book, girlfriends trump boyfriends, and comradeship trumps romance, okay? I miss you terribly and Leo is bereft.

But the stalemate continued. I convinced myself that I couldn't respect a serial seducer, while Sylvie must have decided that anyone so square, so snappish, so judgmental, could go to hell.

I watched my new TV and noted how the world was paired: husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, doctors and nurses, lawyers and cops, anchors and meteorologists, wisecracking roommates and quirky friends.

At the same time, companionship and affection were at hand. Ray was chiseling away whenever he got the chance, memorizing my schedule, leaving groceries at my door, massaging my insteps, naming a new fudge “Alice”—constantly reminding me that he had never liked that know-it-all gal across the hall.

If Ray had been inclined, if he hadn't been relishing his elevation to therapist and best friend, he might have said, “Just do it. Go across the hall. Apologize. Or let
her
apologize. You don't know what's going on. She's probably miserable, too.” I could have consulted a mental-health professional. I could have called a hotline. I could have paged Leo. If I weren't six months behind on journals, I could have read about smart women prone to stupid choices.

Instead I asked for two consecutive days off and got them. On a Friday afternoon in March, just before the clerk's office at Boston City Hall closed for the weekend, I married Ray.

23.
Here Comes the Bride

I WOULDN'T HAVE CALLED IT A HONEYMOON—ONE NIGHT AT THE
first motel we came to after crossing the Cape Cod Canal—but Ray embraced the Upstream Inn as if he'd booked two weeks in Cancún. What kind of guy doesn't take his bride out of town? he asked. What would we tell our kids—that we lived, worked, wed, married,
and
honeymooned in Boston, Mass., like two losers without wheels? So we headed for Falmouth, underestimating the traffic on a Friday afternoon in late winter, traveling light, with a garment bag for Ray, and one canvas tote containing a transparent nightgown that was his engagement gift to me.

He had made a little speech just before the city clerk pronounced us husband and wife, something to the effect of, “Alice and I might be the poster children for ‘opposites attract,' but that's why I fell in love with her. If someone put a gun to her head and asked, ‘Do you love Ray?' I doubt whether she'd fall all over herself answering in the affirmative.
Yet
. . .” He grinned, squeezed my hand, and repeated
“Yet”
for dramatic emphasis. “I never gave up. I know I have a job ahead of me, and that's spending the rest of my life convincing her that this was a courageous thing she did and an amazing gift to me. So this is just me saying, Thanks, Doc. I know you think it's impossible, but I really love you.”

Everyone was looking to me for a reply, for some heartfelt, unscripted wedding vows. I said, “I didn't prepare anything. I've been so buried at work.”

Ray grinned. “What did I tell ya? The jury's still out. But that's okay.” He faced the clerk again, straightened his shoulders, straightened the knot on his new lavender tie.

The clerk hesitated, then asked if I was entering into this marriage of my own free will.

I said, Yes. Of course.

“Because nothing is binding until I sign the marriage certificate,” he continued. “And you're the last wedding of the day. You can take all the time you want. Would you like a few minutes to yourself? Or is there someone you'd like to call?”

“Why?” I asked.

He nodded to his secretary, who steered me to an alcove.

“You don't look very happy,” she whispered.

I explained that I was an overly serious person, too serious for my own good. I considered confiding my mother's Asperger's suspicions to underscore the point, but refrained in case the commonwealth required parental permission for brides with disabilities.

“A couple of more things,” the secretary confided. “I noticed that you came without a corsage or a bouquet. Brides usually carry flowers, even if it's just from a bucket in the supermarket. And often friends and family are in attendance.”

“He offered to buy flowers,” I said. “But I didn't know what I'd do with them in the car on the way to the Cape.”

“Her family's out of state,” Ray called. “And mine are deceased.”

The secretary was frowning at my black suit, hardly a wedding ensemble, but not hospital whites or surgical blues, either. “How long have you known him?” she asked.

“For months. And earlier than that on a professional basis.”

“I shouldn't have brought up that stuff about her feeling less crazy about me than I am about her,” Ray joined in. “That was my inferiority complex talking. But if that's what's holding us up, then ask her what other possible motive she'd have for marrying me if it wasn't about being passionately in love?” He winked. I knew what the context was: Love on the Murphy bed. Love as a transitive verb. Love as the fruit of pheromones.

“I'm not rich and I'm not handsome,” Ray continued. “I
happen
to have a heart as big as Disney World, and luckily I found someone who values loyalty and personality more than good looks and deep pockets.”

“Ray and I are extraordinarily compatible,” I said, returning to his side, hooking my arm through his, remembering to smile. “Which I believe correlates exceedingly well with marital success.” I landed an unscheduled kiss on his lips, which seemed to answer their questions and satisfy all participants.

“Where were we?” asked the city clerk.

RAY USED THE
word
honeymoon
in every other sentence he exchanged with the desk clerk, resulting in a plate bearing an apple, a pear, a banana, and an orange, which appeared minutes after we took possession of our knotty-pine suite. We weren't in the main building, but at the far end of the newer, motel-like crescent behind the inn. Despite its boast of fresh fish caught outside its doors, the room's water view was of a scummy pond. The card was addressed the way Ray had registered: Dr. and Mr. Ray Russo. I hadn't thought about nomenclature before that moment, but said, with what I hoped was great delicacy, that my diplomas all said
Thrift;
life might be simpler with name continuity.

He agreed enthusiastically. “Of course,” he said. “No person named Alice Russo went to Harvard Medical School, so how can you have framed diplomas hanging on your office walls that don't match the name on the door?”

“I thought you might give me an argument about it,” I said.

“Me? The guy who thinks the title ‘Dr.' is more important than ‘Mrs.'? The guy who met you on the job; who won't let you throw it all away even when you've hit rock bottom? Who promised never to whine about the hours or pull any immature shit like, ‘You love your job more than you love me'?”

I said I didn't remember that specific exchange, but thank you. Such support was very much appreciated.

“Dinner first?” he asked.

He meant as opposed to consummating the marriage. Ordinarily, I would choose bed and sleep, but this was real food, at a table, in a restaurant that had earned two stars in the Mobil guide. I said, “I'm starved.”

“I hope it's fancy enough,” said Ray.

I said, “I looked at the menu while you were checking out the gift shop, and it seems more than adequate.”

Ray ran his hands up and down my sleeves. “I guess I was thinking this occasion calls for a revolving penthouse restaurant with live music and thick steaks and . . . popovers.”

“Another time,” I said. “Or maybe you can go with your cousins on a night that I'm working.”

Ray closed his eyes.

I asked if I'd said something wrong.

“Mary and I . . . God. It makes me angry and sad at the same time. . . . We had a reception at the Knights of Columbus Hall, huge meal, a buffet with chefs carving turkeys and roast beef plus every side dish you could ever think of. And make-your-own sundaes.”

I said, “
This
menu is just what I'm in the mood for: fish and chowder and a raw bar.”

“If you're happy, I'm happy,” he said.

I said I was going to have every course, including dessert. And I'd start with a celebratory drink. Maybe even a margarita, or something festive with cranberry juice.

“Are you going to put on a dress?” he asked.

I said I hadn't brought one, but I'd take off my suit jacket if the dining room wasn't chilly. I reached up my sleeve to pull its cuff into view. See—the blouse underneath? It had a ruffle at each wrist.

“You always look like a million bucks to me,” said Ray.

WE WERE INFORMED
by the hostess that a rehearsal dinner was taking place at the long table against the wall. Please forgive the excess noise. “No problem!” Ray enthused. I knew what this portended: Ray would introduce himself, shaking hands up and down the table as if he were the special-functions manager. Once seated, I leaned across the bud vase and whispered, “I know you want to jump up and announce the coincidence, but I'd prefer that you didn't.”

Ray grinned. “You know me, Doc. Always the salesman. Besides, wouldn't you want to know, if you were toasting this and toasting that, that a few feet away is a couple who should get a little attention, too? Let's say the maître d' tells them on the way out that we're newlyweds. They'd feel bad that they had hogged the spotlight.”

“No, they wouldn't.”

He patted my hand. “All I need to say is, ‘I got hitched today myself, and I hope you have great weather tomorrow and a wonderful life.' ”

“Fine,” I said. “Go. Chat. Make some new friends.”

Ray chucked me under the chin and rose to accomplish his mission. The first man he approached shook his hand tentatively, then pointed to an older man wearing a boutonniere. Ray pumped that puzzled hand. Sentences were exchanged.

He returned to his seat, grinning, not deflated, waving to presumptive ushers he missed on his rounds. After a minute of ostensibly studying the menu, he murmured, “Did they call a waiter over?”

I said, “I wasn't watching.”

“Because if I was in their shoes, I'd send two drinks to our table.”

“They don't strike me as the kind of people who would do that.”

He leaned closer. “Wanna know their story?”

I sighed. “Sure.”

“It's the old guy and the dame in plaid on his right. The rest are their kids from previous marriages. Both widowed. Live here year-round. The bride and groom and their dead spouses played mixed doubles.”

“Then you must have told them you were a widower yourself.”

“I'm laying that one to rest. I'm a husband now. No one's interested in the old sad story.”

“Poor Mary,” I said.

Ray looked up. “What made you say that?”

“The finality of it. I know you're mad at Mary because she cheated on you, but—”

“But what? I'm supposed to forgive and forget and build a monument in Sullivan Square?”

“I only meant that you don't have to pretend she never existed. You can talk about her as much as you like. You can talk
to
her.”

“Talk to her? How do I pull that off?”

“I meant you could still visit her grave.”

“Fat chance,” he said.

I asked where she was buried.

Ray said, “Buried? You mean, which cemetery?”

I said yes, of course which cemetery.

He picked up the wine list and said, “No more talk about wife number one. This is our night. I'm ordering us . . . give me a sec . . . here we go: Sex on the Beach! I don't even care what's in it.”

“As long as you don't shout the order across the room,” I said.

His finger slid down the menu to an illustrated box. “And lobsters! Do you like lobster? The twin lobsters come with a salad, a potato, and a vegetable.”

I said yes, I loved lobster, but “market price” could be astronomical. Let's ask first . . . and did he mean we'd be sharing?

“No way! Ray Russo doesn't order from the right side of the menu on his wedding night. Besides, if they have any business sense, they'll throw in a honeymoon discount.”

I said I thought that our fruit plate might be the only grand gesture an inn would make in the off-season, so let's not get our hopes up.

“Do I sound like a cheapskate? I hope not. Professional courtesy or not, I'm just so damn happy. I can't believe I pulled this off.”

“Pulled what off?”

“This! You and me.” A public, louder testimonial was inspired by the appearance of our waiter, a tall young man wearing a brocade vest and the slightly disdainful look of a moonlighting graduate student. Ray continued, “So, there's me, a working stiff, barely graduated from the school of hard knocks. And who do I marry? A woman who graduated first in her class from Harvard Medical School.”

“Not first,” I murmured.

“Second!”

“Congrats,” said the waiter. “Would you like something from the bar?”

“We certainly would,” Ray said. Then—in case the waiter had missed the point—“
Especially
since we got married this afternoon at City Hall.”

“I think this calls for champagne,” said the waiter.

Ray cocked one eyebrow and said with a smile, “On the house, by any chance?”

“Ray!”

“We're also guests of the inn.” He shielded one side of his mouth to confide, “Paying the rack rate, I should add.”

“I'll see what I can do,” said the waiter.

“I hope to be represented in your gift shop soon,” said Ray.

I could see the waiter was straining to look interested for the sake of good service and a generous percentage of the bill. “Represented? How so?” he asked.

“Fudge. The best. And that's based on independent testing results. I left a sample with the manager.”

The waiter's glance seemed to ask, Arranged marriage? Baby on the way? Someone desperate for a green card? “I'll be sure to put in a good word for your product,” he said.

“First-Prize Fudge,” said Ray. “That's its actual name.”

I gave Ray's shin a poke. “Sex on the Sand,” I reminded him, hoping he'd forgo his campaign for complimentary champagne and product placement.

“She means the mixed drink,” said Ray. “Make that two.”

“Excellent choice,” said the waiter, with a bow in my direction.

THE DOUBLE BED
sagged just enough to make sleeping a more claustrophobic event than I was used to. Ray was asleep with one cheekbone beached on my shoulder, and, while not exactly snoring, there was a uvular rattling on the exhale. He scratched himself, passed some gas, smiled beatifically. I tried to shrug him off, but that left him at an unnatural angle, neck extended, chin hooked on my shoulder. Didn't heads belong on pillows? Hadn't beds evolved to queen- and king-sized so that body integrity could be maintained during sleep?

In addition to his twitching and eructing, worry kept me awake. Insomnia was new to me, the chronically exhausted intern. I reviewed the sweet parts of the day, which surely outnumbered the embarrassing ones. I considered counting sheep, but opted to review the cranial nerves and the eight layers of the abdominal wall. Still, real life overtook medical minutiae. Panic infected every new subject. Most alarming: I was married. What seemed like convincing arguments yesterday (“Everyone has doubts; every single person who walks down the aisle wonders if he should run like hell in the opposite direction. And you know what? If you change your mind? We can always get divorced”) sounded to my nocturnal ears like desperation. What was his hurry? Why
this
weekend and not six months from now?