Save Johanna! (16 page)

He says he’s leaving right away so I race into the shower. The hot water stings my bruises, but it seems to pull my body together and puts some nice healthy-looking pink in my cheeks. I put on jeans to cover my legs and a long-sleeved sweat shirt.

There couldn’t have been any traffic because inside of fifteen minutes he’s ringing my downstairs buzzer. He always likes to give me a little warning by ringing from the lobby, but when he gets to my front door, he uses his own keys.

Until recently David and I rarely had important disagreements and certainly no shouting matches like last night’s, so when he comes in we’re both very embarrassed and terribly uncomfortable. We head for the kitchen where we can at least hide in the business of making tea or cutting fruit. Or mixing a bloody mary, which we both need. Now we sit across the table from each other, searching our minds for some analgesic to end the pain.

When two people love each other fully, the slightest hint—it can be as little as a nod or as subtle as a look—can trigger the reconciliation and unloosen a torrent of apologies and forgiveness strong enough to wipe out all the bitter thoughts of recrimination and resentment. Trust and confidence flow back.

That fullness is the way David and I love each other, and inside of minutes we’re in each other’s arms, and I wonder how I could have thought anything mattered more than this. But, he says, we must talk.

And we do. But our love is so overwhelming at this moment that whatever we say seems petty.

Except the one last thing I bring up.

“I want to be married to you.” We’re holding hands across the kitchen table. “I want to wake up with you every morning and do all the things we’ve planned and talked about for the last four years. I don’t have one shred of doubt that that’s the way I want to spend the rest of my life, but I don’t want it to start now.”

“Why, Johanna? I have to know the truth. Please be open with me, no matter what.”

“Because I’m afraid. I feel that the work I’m doing now could contaminate us, leave a lasting damage we might never completely repair. Why take the chance when we could wait just a few months and be certain to give it the best start possible?”

“Dear Johanna, there’ll always be threats from the outside, but we can only get stronger if we’re together. Apart, we’re vulnerable. I know I am, but with you I feel invincible.”

“I don’t know . . .”

“Trust me.”

At this moment, in the warmth of my kitchen with so many reminders of our joy together around us, I feel I’d be a fool not to trust him. And if not him, then whom?

David stayed with me for the rest of the weekend. It was lovely, just like it used to be, wandering around the city, doing nothing much. Early Sunday morning we took an especially long but very pleasant walk down Twelfth Avenue along the Hudson River. We rarely have reason to go there so it remains unfamiliar territory and full of discoveries. We found old, wooden piers that reach far enough out into the water to make you think you’re on an ocean liner; and neglected railroad terminals, their skeletons holding up hundreds of smashed windows; all reminders of the thriving port city of an earlier time. Twelfth Avenue, being relatively unpopulated and therefore quiet and free of the garbage that litters the rest of the city, has an empty look that’s very restful. It’s not exactly a weekend in the country, but it is far enough removed from the interior city to give you a view of the skyline.

And then, just as we used to, we went to a double feature, two wonderful old movies at the Angelika.

After a horrible beginning the weekend turned out to be sublime. I didn’t go near the computer once and talk about the book was kept brief and peripheral. The only reminder of any difficulty comes when David suggests that it might be helpful for me to see his friend Wyn Kaplan, a psychiatrist. Though I’ve never gone for therapy many of my friends have, and it’s helped some enormously so I’m certainly not against analysis. But I’ve learned enough about it to know it’s a very hard, painful process, and I tell him that I don’t feel I can handle it at the moment. There are too many other demands on me that can’t wait.

“Actually, David, it might be a very good idea, and as soon as I finish the book I’ll look into it. Wyn’s a very nice guy. I think I might be able to work with him.”

“Don’t wait, Johanna, why struggle alone? Wyn could help you now, and it might even help your work.”

“The thing that’s going to help me most now is finishing the book as fast as I can. It’s obvious that it’s become some kind of irritant, and when it’s out of the way and things return to normal I promise that the very next project I take on will be me.”

“I wish you wouldn’t put it off.”

“I have to.”

“I have an idea. See Wyn once. Talk to him. Maybe he can give you some interim advice that could take some of the pressure off for now.”

“I really don’t want to.”

“Just talk to him once.”

“He’s not a magician, David.”

“I know that, but from personal experience I can tell you he’s remarkably good. See him once, Johanna.”

We’re home, sipping on some wine, lying around the living room with the Sunday papers spread out on the floor and table. It seems a small request, and I suspect he needs the reassurance. “All right,” I say, “but I don’t intend to get involved in anything more than one consultation now.”

“I understand.”

It takes me the better part of the next hour to get over the feeling that David must think my need for help is truly urgent. That disturbs me, and I’m about to feel a resentment against him for trusting me so little when he practically reads my mind and assures me that I’m not at all nuts, but he just thinks that Wyn needs the extra money, making me smile my way out of a beginning sulk.

The rest of Sunday evening is glorious, and at about eight Louis comes over with Mickey, and he is just like Warren who was just like Eric. We order in some Chinese food, and it’s like old times.

When things are as good as they are now I see how destructive I’ve allowed my problems to become. I must take greater control over my life.

It’s Monday morning, and I admit I just got a little thrown by Wyn’s nurse. I know for a fact that he’s a very successful, busy doctor, yet inside of seconds she was able to schedule me for an appointment first thing tomorrow morning. Either I fit into a fortuitous cancellation or she’s been lying in wait for me, having cleared the calendar of the mildly mad to leave room for the big stuff like me. I suspect David’s hand in this, but if I allow myself to pursue that line of thinking I’ll never get down to work. And work I must because after the scare of Friday night and contrary to what everyone else seems to think, that’s the one thing that’s going to help me the most—working and finishing.

I edit the end of the previous chapter where Pinky is returned home to Greenwich from the Franklins’ apartment. That finished, I turn on the computer.

It was Saturday morning and the Fowlers were just finishing a late breakfast. Canadian bacon and eggs for George Fowler and croissants and coffee for his wife Roseanne and daughter Louise, AKA Pinky.

The croissants were homemade, as was the rest of the breakfast, by Mrs. Jean Dacour, their Haitian housekeeper. Mrs. Dacour had been with the Fowlers from the time Pinky was seven, and now that both girls were grown and the house had quieted down she had more time on her hands for her favorite pastime—baking. Mr. Fowler and Pinky could always eat as much as they liked of Mrs. Dacour’s delicacies, but poor Mrs. Fowler claimed to gain pounds just at the sight of them. As long as that was the case, she said, she might as well enjoy them, and so, on this Saturday morning, with her younger daughter safely home again, she indulged herself by devouring three croissants, bending slightly to her diet by not buttering them.

Sitting there, this handsome, healthy-looking threesome at the table enjoying their breakfast under the bright sunshine streaking in through the curved bay window, they could have been a magazine ad for the comfort of the good suburban life. Both parents were bronzed from at least four days of golf weekly since the early spring, and now, in late August, they would be deciding where to chase the sun this winter.

Their daughter Pinky might have been nicknamed for the color of her face. Obviously she was a latecomer to the sun and still suffering from too fast a burn. The tip of her nose had started to peel, and it was obvious that the rest of her pretty face wouldn’t be far behind. She hadn’t been home from the Franklins’ a full week, and for the three weeks she was at their apartment hadn’t left it once. Before that, of course, she had been with Avrum. But now they had her safely home, and she appeared to be happy enough. Well, maybe not exactly happy but not the old angry, quarrelsome Pinky of the pre-Avrum days. Resigned might be a better word. Mrs. Fowler thought content, but Mr. Fowler knew better. They were being very careful with her. The Franklins had cautioned them about asking her too many questions, and by no means were they to discuss Avrum with her. And so they didn’t. For the first few days it felt as if they were all walking around on tiptoe, but now things had relaxed a little, and last night all three had gone to a movie and then afterwards, over a soda, had discussed the possibilities of Pinky’s returning to art school.

Though you couldn’t call her reaction in any way enthusiastic, she hadn’t been negative either. Since they weren’t considering the fall term there was plenty of time for more discussion before registration for the spring term.

“Teaching art can be a very rewarding career. You’ll love it,” Mrs. Fowler had said, slipping into her old habit of making people’s decisions for them. But Mr. Fowler thought that Pinky might want to consider doing something else with her talent.

“There’s no shame in teaching,” said Mrs. Fowler, “and it’s got the kind of security she’ll really appreciate later in life.”

“Let’s let Pinky make that decision,” he answered her in a tone as effective as a kick under the table, and Mrs. Fowler, who wasn’t usually too quick, took the hint.

Through this Pinky said nothing, and that in itself was a vast improvement over the loud and angry arguments of the past. The Fowlers thought they had a great deal to thank the Franklins for, and they did with a very generous contribution to Kenneth Franklin’s foundation. Mr. Fowler also had a good contact on the New York
Post
, and they did a feature story on the Franklins and what they described as their “calling.”

Now today, the beginning of another sunny, hot weekend, they all had their own plans. Mr. and Mrs. Fowler were going to spend the afternoon at the club, Mr. Fowler on the golf course and Mrs. Fowler at the bridge table, and Pinky would be at home sitting around the pool. Mrs. Fowler suggested she might want to invite a friend over, but Pinky said no, she had a new book she was looking forward to reading. With all the restraint available in her very small arsenal, Mrs. Fowler did not suggest that Pinky could read her book anytime and how much nicer it would be if she tried to renew some of her earlier social contacts. In order to make certain that she didn’t suggest either of these possibilities, Mrs. Fowler left the room on the excuse that she had to go upstairs to change for the club. For the moment she would follow the Franklins’ advice, but she was, after all, a mother who knew her daughter. Later would be time enough.

Pinky and her father sat over coffee. Most of the talk was about the lemon meringue pie Mrs. Dacour was making for tonight’s dinner. Pinky liked the way her father joked with Mrs. Dacour. Not like her mother whom she always felt sounded so condescending to the help. Pinky didn’t join in the conversation. Since she’d gotten home she’d felt very quiet. No one had mentioned it, not even her mother, but that was the way she felt. It was hard for her to talk. Everything seemed either too big and overwhelming for her to attempt or too small and unimportant to make the effort. As long as they left her alone she wasn’t unhappy. In fact, since she’d come back from the Franklins’ her mind had been too exhausted to tackle being unhappy. Worn out, too tired to think, and certainly too tired to fight, she was comfortable just waiting. For what, she wasn’t certain.

Spending the day alone at the pool was a pleasant prospect. She wouldn’t read, though; even that was too taxing just now.

Pinky went upstairs to change into her bathing suit. After almost a week at home her bedroom still looked strange and unfamiliar. Could she ever have belonged in such a room with its ruffled organdy spread and matching dressing table skirt, leftovers from the years she’d spent fantasizing herself Betty from the Archie comics? But she hadn’t been Betty for a long, long time, nor had she thought about her until recently, until she’d come back home.

Even now the old questions about who she really was didn’t call up any of the urgency or anger she would have felt in the past. In fact, she felt remarkably empty of the frustrating emotions, the terrible guilt of the privileged that used to torture her life. The days passed, and they weren’t so bad. They weren’t so good either, but now that seemed a small price to pay for the quiet she needed so desperately. Most of the time she felt too drained to do anything but sit around the pool.

Her parents would be leaving momentarily, along with Mrs. Dacour whom they would be dropping off at the railroad station in time to make the 12:10 back to New York, and, except for the gardeners who were coming to work on the grounds, she would be undisturbed all afternoon.

Pinky put on her old blue Danskin bathing suit, didn’t check herself in the mirror, picked up the book she wouldn’t read, and went downstairs and out the front of the house. Her mother was already in the car at the wheel, Mrs. Dacour was in the back seat, and they were waiting for Mr. Fowler who had had a last-minute telephone call. He came out of the house and started walking toward the car when he seemed to have an afterthought, turned, and came to Pinky. He was smiling.

“Honey girl,” he said to her, sort of chucking her chin lightly, “I’m so happy to have you home. I missed you . . . very much.”

Pinky didn’t answer. She was too choked up to speak, but she put her arms around him and hugged him.

Roseanne Fowler leaned on the horn, and when they turned and looked she made motions to her watch and mouthed through the window that they would miss the train. George Fowler gave his daughter one last quick peck on the cheek and ran for the car.

As the white Mercedes backed down the long driveway, simultaneously from the opposite direction the gardeners came into view, trudging up the sweeping front lawn, carrying their tools. They had come from their truck parked on the street.

Pinky turned from the white car with her father’s smiling face reflecting through the windshield to the three men coming up the lawn. She only glanced at them for an instant and then turned back to wave to her father. Then she gasped. Her head shot back to the men. She had to be wrong. Please, God, let her be wrong! But she wasn’t. It was he!

The third man, the one farthest from her, almost entirely hidden by the others, that one was Frank. Pinky knew Avrum had sent him.

She spun back to the driveway. “Daddy . . . ” she called softly, but the white car was already backing through the iron gate and out of sight. An instant later she heard her mother gun the motor as the car shot down the road. And she was alone.

Except for the two gardeners and Frank.