Happy All the Time (3 page)

One evening, when Holly went off to a concert with her grandmother, Vincent spent the evening listening to Guido.

“I want to marry Holly,” Guido said.

“Last week you said she was hard to get through to,” said Vincent.

“I don't care,” said Guido. “No one is problem free.”

“You certainly do look wonderful together. But you say she's unnecessarily complicated.”

“She is, but I don't care.”

“You seem to be saying ‘I don't care' an awful lot.”

“I don't care,” said Guido. “I have never been so sure of anything in my life. It doesn't matter what she's like.”

“Freud says that in big issues, like who to marry, it's only a question of what you feel.”

“Where does Freud say that?”

“I don't know,” said Vincent. “Daphne Meranty quoted it to me.”

“Which one is Daphne?”

“She's the one from Bangor. Her father is a minister. He's very interested in Freud. He makes all his children read Freud and he makes his congregation read him too.”

“Is she the one with the Airedales?”

“That was Ellie Withers, and it was wire-haired terriers.”

“You're not going to marry Daphne Meranty, are you?” Guido said.

“Oh, no,” said Vincent. “She's engaged. I was her last fling. That's how the subject came up, you see. Well, good luck. With Holly, I mean.”

“Is that all you have to say?” Guido said.

“Well, if you say that you're more certain of this than anything else in your life, what else is there to say?”

Guido sat gazing at his best friend and third cousin. There was the slightest resemblance between them—in the way their thick hair fell and a little around the cheekbones. Vincent was ruddy and freckled. In sunlight, his hair was reddish. His light eyes were flecked with green. His clothes could never stay entirely on his body. He hated cuffs and so his sleeves were always rolled up. His long torso caused his shirttail to untuck. When one button of his shirt unbuttoned, two generally followed. Where Guido was elegant, lithe, and sensual, Vincent was casual, springy, and game.

Guido found it curious that Vincent—who spent his life as a scientist analyzing—simply lived, while Guido, who simply lived, spent his life analyzing. Vincent was sitting in front of his fake fireplace, tying flies under a high-intensity lamp.

“Well, say something,” said Guido.

“Oh, for God's sake,” said Vincent. “If you think it would be fun to marry Holly, marry her. I know it's all very serious but one of us ought to get serious. I guess I'll be the best man and have to throw you a party or something, huh? Your problem is you think too much. You agonize over everything. I never think about myself at all, which is clearly the better way. And now you have an issue that can't be thought about. Just marry her. Have you asked her?”

“No,” said Guido.

“Well, get cracking, for God's sake. How can I be your best man if you haven't proposed? Your problem, Guido, is that you are a man of thought, not a man of action. Go ask her. I'm sure she'll say yes. Why haven't you, for God's sake?”

“Terror,” said Guido.

A week later, Guido sat in Holly's living room watching her stand on tiptoe to water her plants. She watered them twice a week—the same days every week. She disappeared into the bedroom with her watering can. Guido held her image with him: her swan-like neck, that wedge of dark hair, the arch of her feet as she balanced on tiptoe.

“Guido,” she called. “Come here.”

He stood at the bedroom door.

“There's a little blue box in the squirrel-foot fern. Did you put it there?”

“Yes,” said Guido.

“Why did you?”

“As a romantic gesture,” Guido said.

“Is it a ring?”

“Yes,” said Guido.

“I see,” said Holly. “In that case, I think we ought to have a talk.” Guido's heart lurched. This lurch was followed by a searing pain. There could be only one thing to talk about—she was going to turn him down. The fact that she was clutching the box did not console him.

“I'm going away for a week,” said Holly. “I have to have a little uncluttered time to think in. I'm very introspective as a rule, but now I feel carried away. I can't think in context. I mean, I can't think about us while you and I are together. Do you see what I mean?”

“I don't,” said Guido.

“What I mean is, this is all very serious. I mean, if I am going to marry you, I feel I ought to turn it around in my mind and if we're together, I get confused.”

“I haven't asked you to marry me,” said Guido.

“Then why have you stuck a ring box in my squirrel-foot fern?”

“As a romantic gesture.” Guido sat down next to her on the bed. “Open it.”

Inside the blue box was a mound of dark blue velvet, lying on top of which was a heavy yellow-gold ring with a flat turquoise in the center.

“I know you hate stones,” Guido said. “And I know you hate any gold that isn't yellow. And I know you like weight.” He knew more things: that she hated sheets that weren't pressed; that she thought suntans were show-offy unless gotten in the line of work; that she felt letters ought to be written with a fountain pen; that she took a stand against ice in drinks; that she took an equally firm stand against bright colors with the exception of red; and that she would eat oranges but nothing that was orange-flavored. He was deeply in love with these quirks and he felt that he could see the big picture beneath them. Guido believed in the meaning and integrity of gestures. Holly's habits, her rituals, her opinions stood for the way she felt about the world—they expressed some grand conception of life and the placement of things in it. Her perfection and precision were a noble stand against sloppiness. Nevertheless, these things were just about all he knew. She had never told him anything. Now he understood that she intended to marry him, but she sat on the bed with the ring in her palm and said nothing at all.

“Do you like it?” Guido said.

“It's perfect,” said Holly. “I love it.” He could not see her face. Her head was bent and all he could see was her glossy, sable hair.

It fit, of course, perfectly.

“I do want to marry you,” said Guido. “I mean, I want you to marry me.”

Holly looked up at him with a look of slight surprise. Wasn't it a done thing? she seemed to say.

“It's only a question of when,” Holly said. “But I want to go away first. I want to feel what it's like to be without you so I can know what it's like to be with you. Does that make any sense?”

“No,” said Guido.

“Well, what I mean is, I'm used to our connection and I'd like to disconnect just to feel the power of that connection. You can't feel that unless you reconnect and you can't reconnect without disconnecting. Stop looking at me like that, Guido.”

“I was only beginning to realize that I am about to marry someone who doesn't make a shred of sense.”

“I do make sense,” Holly said. “I just can't see things up close. Then I get intrigued by the idea of distance.”

A tiny shiver went through Guido. That sounded like a phrase he would one day remember.

“Holly?”

“Yes?”

“I have no idea how you feel about me.”

“Don't be silly. Of course you do. I'm going to marry you, aren't I? It's just a week apart.”

During that week, Guido made a stab at pretending he had never met her. He went to the library. He wrote the final chapter of his dissertation. He went to a basketball game with Vincent and then went out and drank too much beer. Vincent refused to discuss Holly with him, so they talked about Vincent's mulch machine, the stock market, and where they would live in New York.

When Guido got home, his apartment seemed dim and airless to him. He turned on the lights, opened the window, and let the cool, wet breeze float in. He felt not unhappy, but lifeless and dismal. He did not feel lonely or wretched, but only pointless. He poured himself a glass of brandy and sat by the window. He was not, he realized, dying of love. He was simply lifeless without its object. What he felt about Holly was not obsession, but enrichment. Without Holly, his life was worth something, but not all that much. Holly was the beginning of his adult life. She was the one to whom he was committed forever. Before he went to bed, he picked up a copy of
Le Lai de l'Ombre
and was not consoled to find that Jean Renart had had the same problem in the thirteenth century. He read:

Once the erring bow was bent

Straight to its goal the arrow came

The beauty and the sweet name

Of a lady placed within his heart.

At the end of the week, Holly called and asked him to come see her. When he arrived, he found her arm in a cast. She was using a silk scarf as a sling.

“I broke my wrist,” she said. “Would you untie this knot for me? It took me forty minutes to tie it.”

With her free arm, she flipped the hair up off her neck and Guido untied the knot in her scarf. The scent of her shoulder and the proximity of her neck made him almost dizzy. He expected the cast to be flowered, like her china and sheets, but it was only white.

“When did this happen?” Guido said.

“Three days ago. I fell down the stairs.”

“What stairs?”

“You know what stairs.”

“Holly, you never told me where you were going.”

“Didn't I? I was sure I did. Well, maybe you didn't ask. Paula Pierce-Williams and I went to my grandmother's house in Moss Hill. I fell down the stairs. I mean, I tripped over the runner. Paula took me to the hospital. It's only a little fracture, but, honest to God, Guido, I heard it snap. There can't be another sound like it. To hear something break inside your own arm. Every time I think about it, I can hear it and it gives me a sort of electric jolt.”

“Why didn't you call me?”

“I said a week, and the week wasn't up.”

“But, Holly. You broke your arm. Your arm means a lot to me.”

“It means a lot to me. You have no idea what it's like to sleep with a pound of plaster on your wrist.”

“I'm hoping to find out,” he said.

He rested his hands on the cool cast and ran his fingers across its uneven surface.

“I can feel that,” said Holly. Then she burst into tears. “It's so frustrating. I can't tie my own sling, or wash my hair or anything.” Then in a voice so small and tearful that Guido could hardly believe it was hers, she asked if he would wash her hair.

“Yes, of course I'll wash your hair,” said Guido. “After all, we're getting married. But before I do—I mean before I wash your hair or get married—I want to know if I am washing the hair of someone who loves me.”

She rested her cheek against his shoulder, so obviously miserable he didn't press her.

Guido had never washed anyone else's hair before, and he found it very pleasurable. He swirled the shampoo through her scalp and when he rinsed it out under the tap, that glossy hair fell across his wrist like thick tar. When she sat up, her eyes were glazed. She combed her hair abstractly and then put the comb down with a little snap.

“Of course I love you,” said Holly. “How could I not? I would never behave like this around someone I didn't love. In fact, I've never behaved like this before.”

“Behaved like what?” Guido said.

“Like someone who was going to get married.”

“And you're sure you love me enough to get married?” said Guido.

“Don't be silly,” said Holly. “Of course I am.”

“And what makes you think so?”

“Guido, I can't be grilled on these subjects. I gave you a list of things I loved about you. I told you why I loved you. Now why can't I simply love you and not talk about it all the time?”

“Are you sure loving my eyes and hands is enough? What about my character?”

“I'm just in love with you,” Holly said. “I can't talk about these things. Your character
is
your hair. It's all integrated. I don't think about these things the way you do. I just feel things—that's all.”

Guido held her broken wrist gently and kissed all the knuckles of her hand. Her fingers felt cool and helpless.

“I love you because you do inspired things like that,” said Holly. “Will you tie the sling up for me?”

He tied the little silk knot at the back of her neck and she held her head steady, the way a patient child does.

PART TWO

CHAPTER 2

One morning, Vincent Cardworthy woke up in a bedroom in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, next to a woman he was not sure he recognized. He knew he was in Sewickley—he had been there the night before and he was positive he had not been on an airplane in between. The woman lying next to him had bright blond hair and ruddy cheeks. She wore a cotton nightgown.

Vincent sat up. Recollection dropped over him like a noose. The woman was Rachel Montgomery. She was a friend of the friends who had put Vincent up for the weekend. He had come to Pittsburgh to address the Planning Council on waste and sewage. Rachel had been a guest for dinner on Saturday night. Memories of the dinner were dim; everyone had had a lot of drink. Rachel, he remembered, had been driven over and Vincent had gallantly offered to drive her home since he was more sober than his host.

Rachel was a divorcée, or about to become one, and she was quite voluble. He had walked her to the door and had been invited in for a nightcap. By this time Vincent was exhausted as well as tight. It had not mattered to him that he had no idea of how to get back to his hosts.

Rachel had sat him down on the couch and begun: her soon to be ex-husband was a banker and was now in Bermuda playing golf with his brother and sister-in-law. Meanwhile, Rachel held down the fort, which had a tennis court attached, with little Hugh, who was three, and Sophie, who was five. In her spare time, she was in love with the lawyer who was getting her her divorce and he was in love with her. They planned to be married when his own divorce came through. Rachel's final papers were in the mail; within the week she would be a free woman.