American Wife (39 page)

I turned left out of the parking lot, still behind Beverly Heit; the Heits lived about half a mile from us, and I’d probably be following her all the way home. “Ladybug, how was school?” I asked.

“Mrs. Turnau sent Megan to the principal because she wouldn’t quit asking people if they wanted a poop sandwich.”

“A what?” I said.

“A poop sandwich. Oh, I love this song!” “So Emotional” had come on the radio—a few months back, Ella had bought the new Whitney Houston cassette, the first music she’d ever purchased with her own money—and she leaned forward, turning it up. I reached out and turned off the radio altogether.

“Mommy!”

“Ella, you need to be respectful when someone is talking to you.” I glanced over at her. “Now, what on earth is a poop sandwich?”

Ella shrugged. Megan was Megan Thayer, the daughter of Joe and Carolyn, who were another Halcyon family. They had separated in the winter, and I’d heard from Jadey that Carolyn had recently filed for divorce; the rumor was that Carolyn had come into some family money and felt freed to end the marriage. Charlie and I weren’t extremely close to either Carolyn or Joe, but we ended up seeing a fair amount of Halcyon people in Milwaukee because, like us, they belonged to the Maronee Country Club, I was in Garden Club and Junior League with the wives, and our children all attended the same school. This meant that on a regular basis, Charlie and I would share a blanket with Carolyn and Joe at one of Ella and Megan’s soccer games, or chat with them at a fundraiser. When the news had broken that they were splitting up, I’d had the impression that most people were shocked, but I really wasn’t. Joe was a gentle, slightly dull man thought by many women in Maronee to be quite handsome in a classic way: He was tall and slim, with a long, dignified nose and a full head of gray hair with a wave in front. Meanwhile, Carolyn was a complicated and not particularly happy-seeming woman. The famous story about her was that once when they were hosting a dinner party, she’d brought out the main course, a duck cassoulet, and one of the guests, a fellow named Jerry Greinert who was a good friend of theirs, had said jokingly, “Not that again,” and Carolyn had proceeded to throw the serving dish on the floor, turn around, and storm out of the house.

“Can I turn the music back on?” Ella said.

“Not yet. Do people pick on Megan?”

“If you would like to know the answer to that, then you can only find out when I turn on the radio.”

“Be nice to her,” I said. “When you and Christine are playing at recess, see if she wants to join you.” Although Megan and Ella knew each other well—there were only forty-four students in the third grade, plus they spent a good deal of the summer mere houses apart—they had never been real friends. Megan was a tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired girl, a strong athlete, but she had that overly watchful, overly eager quality that’s off-putting to adults and children alike; the previous summer, in Halcyon, she had asked me whether Ella would be having a slumber party for her next birthday, and if so, whether she, Megan, would be invited.

I said to Ella, “But if Megan offers you a poop sandwich, tell her no.”

With great exasperation, Ella said, “Mother, I
already
told her no.”

“Oh,” I said. “Good. But still be nice to her. You have such a big heart, ladybug.”

“Can I turn on the radio?”

We were a mile from our house. “Not too loud,” I said.

DESPITE THE ONGOING
investigation by the USDA, it still wasn’t clear how the meat in Indianapolis had come to be contaminated. That evening, Charlie got home from work at a reasonable hour, and out of either habit or defiance he lit the grill. (He still insisted on using a charcoal one for flavor.) I had planned a quick walk with Jadey, and after I called her, we met halfway between our houses and cut onto the golf course’s cart path. On the weekend, this route had its risks—about five months before, by the seventh hole, a ball had hit Lily Jones in the shoulder—but I loved the green grass, the groves of pine trees, the spring sky at dusk. Golf balls aside, it was all incredibly calming.

Jadey was wearing white sweatpants, a red T-shirt, and a white sweatband that held back her blond hair; we both had shorter hair now, about chin-length, though hers was more layered than mine. We had just passed the duck pond when she said, “So I’ve figured out how to get back at Arthur. First I’ll lose weight, then I’ll have an affair. Want to go on a diet with me?”

“I hope you’re kidding.”

She lifted her left arm and pinched a bunch of flesh beneath her bicep. “Arthur’s right. I mean, who’d want to commit adultery with
that
?”

A few weeks earlier, Arthur had, according to Jadey, announced that she needed to lose weight; since then she’d refused to have sex with him. Although I sided with her, the story felt incomplete. As off-color as Arthur could be, he wasn’t cruel, and I couldn’t imagine he’d expressed the thought as bluntly as she claimed; I even wondered if he’d been answering a question she’d asked. In the time since I’d met Jadey, it was true she’d gained about thirty pounds, but she was still very pretty. She’d become softer, less girlish, but she
wasn’t
a girl, she was thirty-eight years old, and what was wrong with looking the age you were? I myself had gained probably ten pounds in the last decade, mostly weight that I’d never quite lost after Ella’s birth, and it seemed like a worthwhile trade-off. I said, “Do I dare ask who it is you’re planning to have an affair with?”

“Let’s just say all applications will be considered seriously.”

“This is a terrible idea, Jadey.”

“Oh, come on—don’t be the morality police.”

“Well, it is a terrible idea morally, but I was thinking logistically. Can you imagine getting a divorce, having to share custody and being apart from Drew and Winnie?” None of Charlie’s brothers and their wives had sent their children to boarding school, a precedent that greatly relieved me; I would have fought hard against sending Ella. “Or how about this,” I said. “Picture Arthur remarrying.”

Jadey shook her head. “I’d slit his throat first. Though wouldn’t it be fascinating to know who he’d pick? I’ve always thought he had a thing for Marilyn Granville.”

“She’s married.”

“So am I.”

“You’re much cuter than Marilyn,” I said.

“I am, aren’t I?” Jadey smiled at me sideways, mock-flirtatiously, but then she frowned. “Too bad Arthur doesn’t think so.”

“Does he know how upset you are?”

“It’s been almost a month since he visited the hospitality deck on the S.S.
Jadey,
so he should figure it out soon.”

“Has he initiated sex and you’ve refused?”

“Has he initiated it?” Jadey said. “Alice, is the pope Catholic?”

“And you’ve said no?”

“Sixteen-year-old virgins say no. I
demur.
”

“Jadey, I just worry. Sex is important in a marriage.”

“I don’t even miss it. It had gotten so predictable that I felt like we’d already done it before we started—I had to pinch myself to stay awake. I recently realized I’ve been married to Arthur for almost half my life. Can you believe that? Why didn’t someone tell me that twenty-one was way too young to commit to another person?”

“My doctor says you should have sex twice a week.”

“And you listen?”

“Well—” Generally, I was less forthcoming than Jadey about topics I considered private. There was no one I confided in more, but I also was aware that Jadey’s greatest asset and her most serious downfall was that she was a talker. Years before, for Christmas, Charlie had given her a pillow he’d found himself and been quite proud of, supposedly modeled on one owned by Alice Roosevelt Longworth. It had a white background and said in green print:
IF YOU DON’T HAVE ANYTHING NICE TO SAY, COME SIT BY ME.

Jadey and I had gotten this far into the conversation, though, and it didn’t seem fair to be coy, so I said, “I try for once a week.”

“Do you
enjoy
it?”

“Sometimes I’m not in the mood beforehand, but I’m still glad after. It makes me feel close to him.”

“Do you always, you know, grab the brass ring?”

“Mostly,” I said. “Occasionally, I’m just too tired.”

“I only can if the kids are out of the house.”

“No wonder it’s not as fun. Maybe you should buy some books or movies or something.”

“You mean
pornography
? Is Alice Blackwell recommending
pornography
?” She adopted a prim tone. “As I live and breathe—”

“Jadey, come on.” I nudged her. Two men were about fifty feet away, cruising toward us in a golf cart, and there was a 90 percent chance—such was the Maronee Country Club—that we knew them.

“You two don’t use it, do you?” At least she’d lowered her voice a little.

“Charlie looks at magazines once in a while.”

“Doesn’t that
bother
you?”

I shrugged. “Men tend to be more visual than women.”

“Does he take matters into his own hands, so to speak?”

“I suppose.”

“You suppose? Well, where’s he when he’s looking at them, and where are you?”

“Sometimes if he can’t fall asleep, he goes into the bathroom.” Simultaneously, I felt that we had veered into territory that was none of Jadey’s business, and I also felt that being married to a man who every so often looked at pornography, or who masturbated, wasn’t a big deal. And yes, Charlie definitely masturbated, he did it to
Penthouse—
he didn’t subscribe, but he bought an issue every few months, and while we didn’t exactly talk about it, he also didn’t try to hide it. It would have horrified me if he left a magazine in the living room, or if Ella found one, but since he was discreet—he kept them in the locked bottom drawer of his nightstand—I didn’t mind.

I sometimes got the impression that because of my frequent reading, I was less easily shocked than the people around me, that I knew more factual information—about sex, yes, but also about typhoons or folk dancing or Zoroastrianism. In addition to reading a novel every week or two, I subscribed to
Time, The Economist, The New Yorker,
and
House and Garden,
and if I found an article particularly interesting, I’d see what I could track down about the subject at the Maronee public library.

Jadey was saying, “Don’t you feel like him looking at other women is an insult to you?”

“I just assume most men notice other women, and most women notice other men.
You
obviously do.”

She laughed. “That’s the problem—I can’t think of anyone to have an affair with.” The golf cart passed by us then, and one of the two men on it called out, “Ahoy, Blackwell ladies!” I recognized them as Sterling Walsh, who owned a real estate development company, and Bob Perkins, who was a good friend of Charlie’s brother Ed.

Jadey turned to me and nodded once meaningfully at the back of the golf cart. “Definitely not,” I said. “Arthur’s much more appealing than either one.”

“Are you at least going to support me on my diet? I can never stick to one when I do it by myself.”

“You don’t need to go on a diet. Just eat sensibly, and we’ll walk more often. We should walk in Halcyon, too.” Our families both were going for the month of July and into August; Charlie and Arthur would return at intervals to Milwaukee.

“Have you heard of the one where you eat half a grapefruit with every meal?”

“Oh, Jadey, girls in my sorority used to try that, and by the third day, they’d see a grapefruit and gag.” But I was struck in this moment by my immense fondness for Jadey. Though her upbringing had been more like Arthur’s and Charlie’s than like mine—her father had made a fortune as a cement supplier, and she’d been raised in a house as large as Harold and Priscilla’s—I still felt that as Blackwell in-laws, we were expats who’d found each other in a foreign country. I said then, “I want to ask you something. Have you ever thought that Charlie drinks too much?”

Jadey furrowed her brow. “The Blackwell boys know how to enjoy themselves—not Ed, but
our
boys do. But no. I mean, what would Chas do drunk that he wouldn’t do sober, right? Same with Arthur.”

“No, I agree.” It was such a relief to hear her say these things—they were almost identical to one side of the argument I’d been having with myself for the last few months. “How much does Arthur drink on an average night? For instance, if you’re all having dinner?”

“He has a few beers. Hell,
I
have a few beers. Hell,
Drew
has a few beers. I’m an awful mom, right?” She laughed. “No wonder everyone thinks people from Wisconsin are lushes.”

“So Arthur has, what, three beers? Or more?”

“Alice, let’s quit dancing around this. How much does Chas drink?”

Slowly, I said, “Well, it’s mostly whiskey these days, and I guess about a third of a bottle, but maybe a little less. It’s hard to say, because he buys the cases wholesale.”

“A third of a bottle every night?”

“I think so.”

“And does he
act
drunk?”

“Last week, he banged his forehead coming into the kitchen, like he’d misjudged the width of the doorway. But it’s more that he’s not in the best mood. He’s not mean, but he’s discouraged. Don’t repeat any of this to Arthur, obviously.”

“What, you mean while we’re making sweet love?”

“Charlie never plays squash in the morning anymore, he never takes Ella to school,” I said. “I don’t know if it’s because he’s hungover or just—I don’t know.”

“Have you asked him about it?”

“I tell him to go easy, but I wouldn’t say he listens.”

“Well, I’ll watch for anything unusual when we’re at Maj and Pee-Paw’s on Saturday.” Jadey made a face. “Although I guess these aren’t normal circumstances with the brouhaha in Indianapolis—if this reassures you at all, Arthur was in the foulest humor when he got home last night.”

“Charlie’s grilling steaks for dinner as we speak,” I said. “Would you eat Blackwell meat right now?”

She nodded. “It wasn’t Blackwell. More people would have gotten sick by now, and you can bet we’ve got guys talking to every ER in the region. The poor people at that sports banquet, huh?” We both were quiet, surrounded by the country club’s smooth green grass, a spring breeze rising and carrying with it the smell of soil. Jadey said, “That’s the problem with being married to them. We’re forced to see how the sausage gets made.”