Quartet – Seventh installment

Margo

Someone asked me once if I could have anyone’s life, whose would I choose. My own, I said. It’s as close to perfect as I can imagine. Lately I’d been looking out at the world rather than in, watching people going about their business and wondering what I would say if I were to be asked that question again.

Unable to sleep, I got up before anyone else. I could tell because I hadn’t heard the coffee bean grinder—our wake-up call. We had reservations for a tour of an antebellum plantation. It was Zan’s actual birthday, and that’s what she’d said she wanted to do. I’d found a scrabble game and was playing myself. I was winning.

One by one, everyone appeared. We were all pretty quiet until the caffeine kicked in. In such a short time, we had seemed to fall into a morning rhythm—Olivia cooked and the rest of us ate. No way was it fair, but it worked, and Olivia seemed to like it that way. Ruby set a beautiful table and made excellent coffee, in spite of the fact that she drank mostly tea.

Zan loaded the dishwasher with efficiency and her bartender talents were unparalleled, no question. I diced, sliced, stirred, and crushed as was needed and retrieved food items from the refrigerator. If we’d been on a reality TV show, we would’ve put the viewers to sleep with our drama-less domestic scene.

Olivia cooked blueberry pancakes, one stack with whipped cream and a candle stuck in it for Zan, and we sang “Happy Birthday.” It was the first of many times that day.

Nobody was moving fast, but we got ready and took off for Charleston. Colder weather was on its way, but for now it was a glorious day—cool breeze and sunshine. The plantation tour guide wore hoops under her frilly, authentic dress and gave us a Pollyanna version of plantation life. I did manage to feel sorry for the poor woman—all that finery. She looked truly uncomfortable.

“I thought it would be more realistic,” Zan said, as we got back into the car.

“Welcome to the south,” Ruby said. “You remember it don’t you? A thick coat of varnish over anything that might actually prick our bloody consciousness and make us ashamed of the way our—well, not mine, and not Olivia’s—maybe your ancestors behaved—”

“My ancestors are Jewish,” Zan said.

“Oh,” Ruby said. “Well, I’m flummoxed.”

I wasn’t letting Ruby off the hook. “Hey, woman, who do you think invented enslaving human beings? I think the United Kingdom might have done their part.”

“Well, it’s probably been around since Rome was an empire, but blimey, you’ve got a point. Jolly old England modelled it for the colonies, didn’t they?”

“Not sure if we can get to the bottom of this,” Zan said. “And besides, I’ve had enough ‘enlightenment’ for one day. Let’s go shopping.”

We shopped. Ruby, Olivia, and I bought Zan a nice picture frame for one of the hundreds of photos she had taken of our weekend. Then we had dinner at five-star restaurant, Magnolias. All of us ordered one kind of seafood or another. The presentation was exquisite and the food divine. I wondered aloud what it would take to cook like that, and then silently toyed with the idea of cooking lessons. With Ron. Clearly I needed help.

Even though the restaurant was crowded, all the soft surfaces and the deep, plush carpet muffled the noise. We went through two bottles of wine, but at some point I switched to water. For dessert, we had birthday cake and the wait staff sang—quite well, actually.

Zan passed on the cake, but she had an amaretto. She didn’t fight me about driving back to the island. I couldn’t stop thinking about what she had endured and her unwillingness to tell her husband. How could I not tell Ron about something that traumatic? Even furious with him, even disgusted by him, I’d have to tell him.

Most of the conversation driving back to our island home centered around memories we had of each other’s—or our own—earlier foibles, and we were all yawning when we pulled into the driveway. Knowing the weekend was over, the mood had become somber. Nobody seemed willing to sit up and talk anymore. It was as if we’d rather go to bed than admit the weekend was over, so we headed off to our respective bedrooms vowing to stay in touch. We had already promised to keep each other up to date on the issues that needed some resolution. It looked like mine wasn’t the only one.

My plan was to drive all the way home to Coral Gables the next day, this time in the same direction as the snowbirds escaping from the frozen north for the winter. No stopovers, since I needed to be at work on Tuesday. I said my goodbyes to everyone when we went to bed. “Please. Sleep in tomorrow morning. It’s supposed to get cold, and there’s no need for you to drag yourselves out of bed that early.”

“Thank you all,” Zan said. “This was the best birthday I’ve ever had.” Alcohol might have fueled it, but she was obviously sincere.

The next morning it was indeed gray and cloudy, and the temperature had dropped. They got up anyway, of course, and we hugged and renewed our promises to call and text and email. They insisted I take the food and alcohol back with me since all of them were flying, so my trunk got loaded with stuff I shouldn’t eat.

Two hours into my trip, I stopped in Savannah to drop off my Cracker Barrel audio book and picked up another. Thinking wasn’t my friend, and NPR reception was sketchy. I got Liane Moriarty’s, Big Little Lies. How appropriate. It was going to take more than fifteen hours to finish listening to it, but I figured I could walk around my house with earbuds and shut Ron out. That is if he was still there.

He had called me twice, leaving messages hoping I was having a good time and saying for me to call him ‘if I wanted to’. I knew nothing was wrong. Well, hah, everything was more or less wrong, but nothing was an emergency. No babies had drowned. Nobody was in the hospital.

I wasn’t too far down the road when my younger son called. I saw his caller I.D. and clicked in. I almost said, “Hola”, but instead said, “Hi honey.”

“Are you driving? I can hear you driving.” Bobby was a cautious driver, thank the gods.

“I am, but I’m not holding my phone, dear. Hands on the steering wheel at eleven and three. More like ten and two. But you kids with your digital clocks probably have no idea—never mind, not to worry. What’s up?”

“No, what’s up with you? Where are you?”

“I’m driving home from South Carolina after a weekend with my old girlfriends.”

“The singing group?”

“That’s the one.”

“Good for you, Mom. I’m proud of you. You don’t do enough of that, you know. You need to get away from dad and have more you time. It’s the twenty-first century, remember?”

“Thank you, Bobby. I appreciate your encouragement.” I started to ask him why he thought I needed to be away from Ron, but decided against it. “Your turn. What’s up with you, sweetheart?”

“Not much. Just checking in. I can’t believe all this will be over in two weeks. Graduation at last.”

“And you’re all set? Have everything you need? Robe, class ring, all that?”

He laughed at me. “Mom, yes, all that’s set. For a minute there I thought you were going to ask me if I had the rest of my life mapped out.”

“And do you?”

“Hardly. But after Christmas I thought I’d go spend some time with Grandpa and Grandma in North Carolina. That’s what I wanted to ask you about. Any objections?”

Ron’s parents had retired and moved to Hendersonville at least eight years ago. I wondered if they knew about their son. And I wondered mostly how we would get through the weeks between Bobby’s graduation and Christmas.

“Not at all. I bet they would love that,” was all I said.

“Yeah, they’ve been sending me ‘spending money’ for over three years now, and Grandma writes actual letters to me. On real stationary.”

“I didn’t know they made that anymore.”

“Hah. They’ve invited me to come see them, since they won’t be here for my graduation.”

“So this is a guilt-induced visit to the grandparents? Not that I’m opposed.”

“Well, somewhat, but I am grateful for their help, and I’d like to let them know that.”

He’s always been that way, Bobby has. He sends thank you letters, he chooses thoughtful gifts, he asks, and actually wants to know, how you are.

“And besides,” he said, “I liked that part of the country when I was a kid and we visited them. Maybe it will snow.”

Ah, there it was. Ron’s parents lived in a small but comfy home with a view, and it was lovely there. Not too much to do for a young man his age, but beautiful. The lure of the mountains.

“Lots of old folks there, you know. Jes’ settin’ and rockin,’ chawin’ and spittin’.”

“You’re a riot, Mom, you know that?”

He wanted to know when his brother was due to show up and I told him not until the day after Christmas, since they were doing Christmas day at her parents’ home. “We’re celebrating three things. First, your graduation, next, Christmas, and finally, Jon’s engagement. In that order.”

“As the youngest, I love being number one. What do we know about this woman he’s engaged to?”

“She’s nice, Jon says. Religious. Evangelical-type religious. Mega-church. Her father is somebody important. Jon is going to go to work for him, I think.”

“Hmm. Well, good luck with that.”

“Which part?”

“All of it.” Bobby wasn’t a fan of organized religion. Or important people, for that matter.

I could hear someone calling my son’s name in the background. “I need to go, Mom. Thanks for being okay with my travel plans. See you in two weeks.”

We disconnected with “I love you,” and the narrator immediately began reading to me again. I stopped her and spent a few minutes breathing, talking myself down from feeling like a bad mother. Like my own mother. Maneuvering her way around my dad, she had more secrets than a double agent. She tucked me in bed at night with “Don’t tell your father, but …”

When the kids were young we made a pact with them. No secrets. No matter how bad something was, if they told the truth about it, the punishment would be mild, and fair. But if we found out, and they had lied to us or kept it from us, the punishment would be much more severe. We told them, “It’s not that we won’t be upset, but it will be much worse if we find out you lied.” Could’ve had it embroidered on a sampler, it was that much a part of their growing up. So much so, that all of us tended to confess when we screwed up, even if nobody would find out. Well most of us did that, I guess.

What it boiled down to was that my son’s trust mattered to me. Had I broken it by keeping something this enormous from him? Common sense—and Olivia—told me his was Ron’s to deal with. Then I vacillated. If I was the one bothered by the deception, then wasn’t I the one keeping the secret? There was something faulty in that logic, but I hadn’t figured it out yet.

If only I’d asked my husband a key question at a significant moment and gotten him to open up to me. Years ago. Then I would’ve had a chance to … what? Take my small children or my teenagers off and live without him? Be a single parent to two boys who adored their dad? Do the every-other-weekend thing? I could hear Ruby saying, ‘don’t be daft’.

“What difference does it make, Margo?” I said aloud to the windshield. “You can’t change the past. Olivia’s right. The question to ask is ‘what now?’ What happens with the kids isn’t yours to solve. Stick with what you can do something about, Margo. Besides, in your story nobody died. Oh, and nobody got raped.”

Talking out to myself while driving was a favorite activity of mine.

I switched back to the narrator reading Liane Moriarty. I was able to relate to the character Jane. The women were chatting about the horror of being so busy they left the house without makeup, and Jane, who never wore makeup, ‘inwardly shouted: What the fuck?’ It made me laugh, and I needed to laugh.  And that’s what I was going to do—for now at least.

~~~

I pulled into the driveway happy to see Ron’s car wasn’t there. And then unhappy to see it gone. How many times had I worked late and come home to find Ron had planned and started supper, made a salad at least, set the table. Ready to hear all about my day, ready to laugh with me at some of my client’s requests for hairdos that they hoped would make them look like the photo of a model who was thirty years younger than they were. Styles that needed a full head of hair when theirs was thinning, poor dears. He was quick to sympathize with them. I always loved that about him. “At least they’re still trying,” he would say.

Sometimes he would pour me a glass of wine and have me sit on the sofa while he rubbed my feet. Pure bliss to have your feet massaged when you’ve been standing all day long. When I asked about his day, he mostly talked about the partners and associates. Who was mad at whom, who was getting divorced, who was getting married, who was pregnant and wondering how she was going to manage. It wasn’t fair that men didn’t have to worry about that, he would observe.

Ron gave money to beggars on corners. Made sure he had a pocketful of ones and fives. People with dogs got two fives. And he hadn’t had it easy. His parents weren’t wealthy. Both of them worked for the government and had job security, but they weren’t great at putting away money. The only reason they could retire and move to the mountains—where Bobby wanted to visit—was because their family home ended up being in a revisionist neighborhood. With the newly historic labels, every home in the area tripled in value, or more.

My next-door neighbor pulled into her driveway and waved to me. She called out, “Everything alright, Margo?” She had every right to ask. What kind of doofus sits in her car in front of her house?

I pushed the button and let my window roll down and waved my earbuds at her. “Yes, thanks, Susan, just still listening to a good audio book on CD.”

She smiled, tentatively, probably somewhat confused. Who wouldn’t be?  How different things felt. A little over a week before, Ron and I invited Susan and her husband to have Thanksgiving dinner with us. Bobby had gone to Daytona Beach with a friend, and the neighbors had no family—at least none nearby. We’d played Hearts after dinner, women against the men, and beat them three games out of four. It was fun. My world had seemed normal then. Thanksgiving felt like decades ago.

“Hi to Ron,” she said as she locked her car and walked up her front steps.

I wished I could talk to my dad right now. Just thinking of him made me scramble for a tissue. My father, in his forties when I was born, was such a rules-driven guy. My biggest fan, he died of prostate cancer when my boys were ten and twelve, and Mom took less than two years to follow him to the grave. Cancer for her, too. Gave me something new to think about. Longevity genes weren’t on my side.

What if I knew, right now today, that I was going to get cancer—or if I already had it? That my days were numbered. Well, everyone’s days were numbered, but what if I knew I had only so long to live—say a year, two years, five at the most? What would I do? I wouldn’t divorce my husband, that much was sure. Ron would be the best damn caretaker anyone could want. When my mother was dying, it was him who cleaned her up while I was gagging in the corner. “There, there, Cora,” he’d be saying as he got her bathed, into a clean nightie, and back into bed. Him, not me.

And the boys. Don’t get me started on the messes they made. You’d think with all the chemicals I’d had to breathe over the last twenty five years, I’d be immune to foul odors, but sick is a whole different smell. Poop, too. Never bothered Ron. He was a better mother to them than I was. No sense in denying it.

I was sitting there in the driveway, paralyzed with indecision, when his car pulled up next to mine. “Hi, babe,” he said.

~~~

We were at opposite ends of the sofa in the spare bedroom. I wasn’t about to let him touch me, so I was hugging a pillow in my arms. It was a lousy shield. I knew his words were going to hurt, but I had to know everything. “Go over it again with me,” I said. “When did it start?”

He looked pained. “I was young. Close to eleven? I was naïve about porn, and besides it wasn’t easily available then. So, within a year or two it started with Jeff, like I told you. He would spend the night and we would compare penises. Erections. It excited me. Then there was touching, which led to mutual masturbating.”

“And you liked it?”

He nodded. His expression said, ‘duh’, but he didn’t say it.

“And when you got older?”

“I told you. There was a boy in middle school, several boys, in fact. Until we graduated.”

“And then?”

“And then I met you. If I hadn’t fallen in love with you, Margo, it’s likely that my sexual…activities would’ve been exclusively homosexual, but I did fall in love with you, honey. Our relationship was too important to me to give in to the urges I still had, and I resolved to change my ways. But sometimes I couldn’t fight it. Sometimes it just happened.”

“How does that work? Do you…go out looking?”

“No, I don’t. Someone has to know, or at least strongly suspect, and do the chasing. If they’re persistent, I might weaken and give in. I always feel terrible about lying to you, and I vow, ‘Never again’.”

“And then it does.”

He nodded.

“Do your parents know? Did they know?”

“Hard to say about my father. If he suspected, I’m sure he put that in some compartment in his head labeled, ‘Do not open’. My mother is more complicated. She had a customer once, an executive. He was moving his yacht back to New York and asked her if I would be interested in working as a deck hand. She told me about it, and I was excited to have the opportunity. Her boss overheard the conversation and said Mom shouldn’t let me do it, that the guy was a notorious homosexual who liked young boys. I was surprised at her, but my mother still encouraged me to go. I’m pretty sure she knew what I was.”

“What happened?” I shifted my position, trying to get comfortable.

“Dad put the kibosh on it. Not sure what his objection was, but he won.”

“How much of your family life do you think…”

“Did my parents make me the way I am? No, Margo, I don’t think so. I was born this way. My relationship with my father was distant and cold, granted, but his father—my grandfather—was a kind man.”

He paused as if he was remembering his grandfather, drifted away, then shook himself back to the present and went on. “Okay, I was small for my age—still am you say?” He smiled. I loved Ron’s smile. “And I was bullied. I was also probably indulged by my mom. I’m not sure how much of that, if any, contributed to my acting on my urges, but when I did, it felt good. I wanted that feeling to happen again.”

“Do you love them? These men?”

“Absolutely not. I don’t like kissing, cuddling, or expressions of affection from a man. I love those things with you, Margo.”

“But—”

He looked unhappy. “But I’m sexually aroused by men.”

“And Vince?”

“Vince has excellent gaydar. He honed in on me and pursued me until I caved. He’s aggressive and dominant.”

“He loves you?”

“No. He loves—loved—what I did for him. He’s moved on to greener pastures.”

“Are you sure?”

“Couldn’t be surer.”

My stomach was in a knot. “I’m having so much trouble with this.”

“I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry. If I could change it—”

“If I hadn’t picked up your phone…”

“If you hadn’t found out, I don’t know that I would’ve ever told you, honestly. I couldn’t risk it. Selfish of me, I know.”

“Selfish?”

“Sure. In addition to keeping something that serious from you, I deprived you of the kind of love-making you should’ve had. I was anything but adventurous. I kept wanting to do better by you and yet kept worrying that I wouldn’t be able to … please you … I thought it was better to avoid sex rather than disappoint you.

“I wish you’d talked to me…”

“I couldn’t. Please believe me, Margo, I never meant for you to get hurt by any of this. I have loved you from the start. You’re my true North. You’re kind and funny and smart—I love the way you think. It amazes me how your brain works—how insightful you are. And quick.”

“I’m not ready to forgive you, Ron. It’s not about your … proclivities. I believe you had no choice, but for lying to me. For living a lie.”

He winced. “You’d have left me, Margo.”

“Maybe I still will. But I should’ve been told the truth. I deserved that much.”

“You’re right. You did.” He paused. “What are you going to do?”

“Nothing—for now. But the longer we wait to tell our sons, the longer we’re living that lie. They deserve to know the truth, too, and that’s my biggest problem. Olivia says…”

“You told Olivia?”

“I told ‘em all, Ron. Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“I don’t know what I thought. That you would be too … ashamed?”

“Ashamed?”

“Of me. Of my being … the way I am, and of yourself for not knowing it.”

“I was lots of things, Ron, and ashamed isn’t too bad a word, but I was mostly angry, then sad, then angry again. Embarrassed, yes, that I’d been so stupid to not see what was right in front of my face. But I think I didn’t want to see it, and that’s on me.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Don’t. Not yet. But besides what I felt for myself, I was worried about our sons and how they would take it. Take being lied to. Olivia said they would survive it and that they would find their own way to acceptance, that I had to believe that.”

“Do you?”

“Not yet, but I’m working on it.”

 

 

Ruby

 

Business was booming at Margo’s salon. It was The Season on the Gold Coast, after all, and Margo’s posh clients were getting all gussied up. I was in the right place at the wrong time.

“Busier ‘n a one-armed paper hanger, aren’t you? Fuckin’ zoo in here. Thought we’d have a chat, but it’s not lookin’ good, is it?”

“Ruby, I’ve got one client in foils, another under the dryer, and one waiting for me in the chair.”

“Yeh, I can see my timing is rubbish.”

“Aren’t you going to work?”

“Yes, love, of course I am. But—”

“How about this. Why don’t we meet for dinner this evening. My last appointment is at six, and she’s a regular. I should be able to get out of here by seven. You up for that?”

“Smashing. Where?”

We picked a place. Well, I picked it. Alan was coming soon and wanted an answer. I had—still—little clarity about what I was to do with him.