The White Rose

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I
n a bed at the center of the universe, a man is inside a woman he loves and they are moving, the bed is moving, the apartment is moving, the island of Manhattan is moving. There is a bowl of roses on the bedside table, fat white Boule de Neige—his own—chosen for her, and right off the truck, in the blue hours of the morning, this very morning. Now it's late afternoon and outside, Park Avenue is clogged with strident, resentful cabs, but Marian—her name is Marian—feels oddly becalmed, borne aloft in the safe familiarity of her city and her bed, even as the angry horns float up and through her bedroom window, even as this wild pounding (his hips and her heart weirdly in tandem) moves her roughly against the sheet—a top note of friction, but good friction. This pounding—there is no other word for it, thinks Marian, but how odd. Pounded into submission? Pounded into sweetness? She smiles, her eyes closed against his neck. How odd a way to change a thing from something hard to something soft, as she is most certainly being made into something soft, into a sweet soft thing, tight between him and the sheet. Sweet butter, for example. And what is that thing they pound into butter? Is it milk? Is it cream?

“Yes,” says Oliver, as if in confirmation, and she laughs into his soft dark hair.

And then, quite suddenly, he stops, and Marian has one of those moments, those rare and otherworldly moments, when a person can see herself as if she were not herself at all but someone else, looking at her, and she sees (greedy, not knowing how long it will last) through the scrim of all this ambient affection, and all this situational lust, herself: white shoulder, white breast, dark nipple, fleshy. And—much to her own surprise—she is absolutely ravishing. Possibly, she appraises, almost coolly, the most ravishing woman who ever breathed. How dull of her never to have seen it, for all these years of mirror scrutiny and social unease, all these years secure in her twin designations of smart and plain. What a waste, never to have noticed her own loveliness, for surely men have longed for her since she put away roller skates. Surely someone will again before they put her in the ground. But never before, nor ever again, as much as right now.

Oliver moves again. It is a relief and a sadness.

“Sweetheart,” he says, though not distinctly.

From far below, a howl of enraged traffic drifts into the open window, and it occurs to Marian that she is inhabiting the moment of her greatest happiness. Never mind the reasons she should not be in this particular bed with this particular man—and there are many reasons, and they are very good reasons. Right now, right now: in her life, in this bed, with Oliver and the roses and the noise and the dusk of a Manhattan day in October. And she sees, as if she were falling from her own open window, her life flash not back from the end nor forward from the beginning but both of these at once, the ends racing for the middle, for this moment at the heart of her life, so that in the instant before she smacks to the last of consciousness, this is what she will see: herself and him, inside, in motion, in love, and then she will know that her life was actually a good life, with sweetness and pounding and car horns and the smell of him, Oliver, who looks at her that very instant and says what he says, which is: “I love you.”

Marian, in answer, in restraint, shifts a bit. This has the unintended effect of letting him sink—incredibly—even deeper inside.

“I love you,” Oliver says again.

There is the faintest pause, barely longer than a breath. Then she says, “You don't have to say that. You shouldn't say that.” And she moves again. She is not uncomfortable, precisely. But she wants to move.

“Why not?
I love you.
” She hears impatience in his voice. He has decided to take offense at this, in the way only a man can do.

“You'll know others,” she says, her eyes on the roses. “You're young.”

“Marian,” Oliver says. “Marian. Look at me.”

Marian turns. She does not want to look at him. She wants to look at the wall of her bedroom, which is taking the full hit of October light on a plaster painted six times with ever deepening greens. Like—she remembers Marshall saying, once, between coats four and five—“living in a goddamned terrarium.” But perhaps that's not untrue, she thinks now: her burrowing instinct. Earth mother, that's her! Can you be an earth mother and childless?

The sheets rustle. He is waiting for his answer, the angry young man.

But she is losing herself, too. There is something dizzying in the smell of him, she thinks, shutting her eyes tight and feeling him move. The smell where neck meets shoulder, back of knee, palm of hand: clean and hard, talc and tough, the animal scent of purest desire. Either that or the bed is rocking, or the building, which is not so very tall, but they are nearly at the top of it, and the beguiling of those impatient cars and screeching brakes, or his hips, which, being narrow (or more likely her own being wide) fit so neatly between her thighs and move so cunningly, or…there's that smell again, Marian thinks. She wants to stop what she is doing, what they are doing, and just
smell
him.
Hold still! I must smell!
And she imagines herself slipping him over and onto his belly, immobilizing him with a well-placed knee, and leaning over him, nose to ear, nose to nape.

And then, quite suddenly, she remembers the way Caroline used to smell Oliver's hair when he was a little boy—with a whispered
“My luvvie,”
and a kiss to his chubby, little-boy cheek—and it's all over.

How small? How young? Having no children of her own, she has never been good at ages. Did he wear diapers? My God! (
“My luvvie…”
She concentrates: little boy, curly brown hair, corduroy pants, a grubby stuffed bunny clutched in a grubby fist, and Caroline, her hair gamine short, worn short those early years in Greenwich, when? After college, certainly. After Marian left Yale? Before New York? The math? The math?)
My God!

“Marian,” he is crooning, and though she is now too miserable to let go herself, she is also too generous to hinder him, so she follows him with her hips and sounds, making herself hollow
(vessel,
Marian thinks grimly,
old gourd, old girl)
until he is rattling, like a death rattle. Little-death rattle. This breaks her misery and actually makes her laugh, though only for the briefest instant.

“Sweetheart,” moans Oliver, misunderstanding. There is a mist of sweat between them.

Marian closes her eyes. She holds the moment even as it slips from her, even as he slips from her, but Oliver's elation lingers.

“Mmm,” she offers, noncommittally. She knows he loves her. And the terrible thing is, she has never not wanted him to love her. Not from the first and never since. He keeps throwing her golden apples, and she keeps stopping to pick them up. She will never have enough apples, she thinks.

“I want to tell everyone,” Oliver says, avoiding eye contact.

“Oh?” She says evenly. “And who constitutes ‘everyone'?”

“Well,” he considers, “the Upper East Side. Upper East and Upper West. SoHo. The West Village. Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope. Those people who move to Brooklyn, they're so defensive, aren't they? And Hastings-on-Hudson, and Montclair. They get very offended if people leave them out. Also the New Haven Line, or else I could never go home again. The Hamptons, of course. Or should I say, ‘the East End' like the rest of you reverse snobs?”

Marian thwacks him.

“I figure an ad in the
Ascendant
should cover it. I'd just put it in the shop ad, it wouldn't cost me any more! It could say,
The Calla Lilies Are in Bloom Again at The White Rose. Order some today. And incidentally I am in love with Marian Kahn. That's right,
the
Marian Kahn…author of
Lady Charlotte Wilcox
!
Maybe I should do a special:
Get a free pink paperback with any order of pink callas over $50.
What do you think?”

“I think that's shocking.” She shakes her head, indulging him. “My book, a freebie for a lousy fifty bucks? Make it at least a hundred.”

“Writers,” he says, and rolls his eyes. “God, the ego of writers.”

Marian laughs. She hadn't seen it right away, this Puckish side of him, not in their serious, panicky, and reverent first months, and not often since, but it's there. Oliver, for the most part, is a serious man, broody even, given to silences and careful speech, but now, very occasionally, a streak of playfulness turns itself to the light, and when it does, Marian finds herself disinclined to resist. In what she stubbornly considers her real life, levity is rare and abandon pretty much unheard of. She loves to laugh with Oliver. She loves to feel her body against his, both of them shaking with laughter. So long as he doesn't go too far.

“Besides,” he says now, “why not bring in the fans? I'm a small-business owner. I'm supposed to be keeping my eye on the bottom line.”

“And just how,” Marian says, “is invoking a woman who's been dead two hundred years going to increase your sales of calla lilies?”

“Not
her
fans, silly,” says Oliver, nudging her shoulder with his forehead. “
Your
fans. You have fans.”

“I teach history, Oliver. She was a wild adventuress whose boyfriend wore a dress. She has fans.”

He winces. “I forgot about the dress. I wish you hadn't reminded me.”

“Oh?” she says archly. “And what do you have against a man in a dress?”

“Well, nothing. I mean, to each his own. But honestly, what kind of self-respecting heterosexual guy goes around in a skirt?”

“Hmm,” she says. “How about a heterosexual guy whose vengeful wife and creditors would like nothing better than to find him and drag him back to England? She had the money, you know. The wife,” Marian says. “Besides, I think Charlotte liked it.”

Oliver turns to her. “You're suggesting she was of the Sapphic persuasion?”

“Oh, don't be so small-minded, Oliver! I'm suggesting that his willingness to masquerade was a sign of his devotion, which she would have liked. And maybe it was a little bit titillating as well.”

He makes a face. “Titillating.”

“Sure. Why not? You're traveling through Europe with your ‘girlfriend.' You walk down the street, sit out in some public place surrounded by your countrymen abroad, half of whom have heard the scandalous story of your elopement and are dying to know where you are…and in addition to getting away with it—which is quite an aphrodisiac itself—you know that under that dress is the man who's going to take you back to the inn and make love to you.”

Oliver considers this. “And this scenario would be appealing to any woman.”

“I can see its appeal,” Marian tells him. “Beyond that, I make no assumptions.”

“Interesting,” he says. His hand materializes, softly, at her breast, which he kisses. “And I thought I knew all about you.”

Marian closes her eyes. “You know enough,” she says.

“Sometimes,” Oliver says with a grin, his face to her neck, “I try to remember how I used to think of you. When I first read your book. Or when my mom would talk about you. But I can't. I can only see you as I see you now.”

“Now,” Marian says, echoing him. This is promising.
Now,
she can handle. Only
then
—the one in the past and the one in the future—gives her pause.

“But did I tell you?” He perks up, lifting his head and looking slyly at her. “I remembered you the other day.”

She frowns. “Remembered me? When?”

“I think it was you. You tell me. It was in Greenwich, in the backyard. I was with Billy Pastor, so that would have been sixth grade, because he pissed me off the next year and we were never friends after that. My mom and Henry were having a party. A cookout.”

“Big steaks,” she says, her voice thin.

“Right. All the men stood around all night drinking G and Ts and acting like they were total hunter-gatherers, not suits on the train. And there was this woman on a log, smoking a cigarette, in this wild dress with purple squiggles on it.”

Marian swallows. “Marimekko,” she says.

“What?”

“Marimekko. From Finland. Very chic in the seventies. Never mind.”

“And it was you!” He crows in conclusion. “I remembered, the other night on the subway. Man, you were beautiful.”

“Yeah,” she says with a sigh. “I were.”

“You
are.
” He nudges her. “You're not tricking me into that.”

She looks at him. “What were you doing looking at women when you were in sixth grade?”

“No.” Oliver laughs. “I wasn't looking. It was just…just a filed memory, you know? And suddenly it came back to me.”

“On the subway.”

“Yeah, on the subway. I had you all over my fingers. It did something to my brain.”

“Oliver!”

“Oh,” he says, grinning. “Do that again. Blush again! From now on I'm going to leave your trail all over the IRT.”

“God, you would,” Marian says, repelled and elated.

“I would. I will,” he teases.

“You're foul,” she says, laughing.

“But I clean up so nicely.”

“Foul. I'll tell your mother.”

It has slipped. She hadn't been thinking. Now it is out there, in the world, between them. His mother is her oldest friend—not her greatest, not her best friend, but certainly her oldest. An old girl's oldest…that meant older than many, many. Caroline, who had white-blond hair and hated Miss Fokine's dancing lessons as fiercely as Marian had, so so long ago. Marian will not tell Oliver's mother. Marian is terrified of Oliver's mother being told.

“Why not?” he says, his voice soft, but steely soft. “I'll tell her myself. She has to know sometime.”