Family Happiness (19 page)

This was true, and Polly did enjoy bringing Martha home. It was easy to sit her down with the children and feed her whatever they were having. Pete and Dee-Dee loved her, and she kept Polly company effortlessly. It was not necessary to plan a dinner party to get Martha to come for dinner. But it wasn't fair, and Polly knew it.

“I can't believe I got you here,” Martha said as she opened the door. “I pushed all the mess under the bed and I even washed out the wineglasses.”

Martha's apartment looked like an enchanted paradise to Polly. It was a rabbit warren of a flat, cluttered, filled with books, journals, knickknacks, and cast-off furniture. One end of the couch rested on a Latin dictionary, and the braided rug on the floor had a hole in it the size of a salad plate. Polly had lived in groups all her life. Martha's apartment and Lincoln's studio were both arranged for the comfort of only one idiosyncratic spirit—something Polly had never known.

“It's wonderful here,” she said. “It's so comfortable.”

“It's so little and mingy,” said Martha.

“Oh, no,” said Polly. “It's heavenly. It looks like a perfect place to curl up and read.”

“I can also curl up and listen to the girl next door having a fight with her boyfriend. Now, come sit down and tell me what time you have to leave.”

“I'm being picked up,” said Polly.

“Oh?” said Martha. “By an unnamed person?”

“Lincoln is picking me up,” Polly said. She was so unused to anyone knowing about their relationship that she winced when she said his name.

“Is he going to come up?” asked Martha.

“He's going to ring the bell and I said I would meet him downstairs,” said Polly.

“That's pretty fastidious.”

“Do you think it's a hollow gesture?”

“Sure,” said Martha. She held a wineglass up to the light, squinted at it, and poured Polly a glass. “I mean, I know about him and you, so what's the big deal?”

“It's the gesture,” Polly said. “Being with him in front of a third person.”

“It's too free,” said Martha. “If you keep it a secret, it makes it feel more sinful. If he came up here to pick you up, you think it would appear that you accept it as a normal part of your life.”

“You're right, of course.”

“Of course,” said Martha, pouring herself a glass of wine. “You have just gotten the good of my years of expensive psychotherapy. Now lean back and tell me how you got married.”

“In a white linen dress with a square neck,” Polly said.

“I mean, how did you decide?”

“It made perfect sense,” said Polly. “I was programmed for it, like one of your computers. I
wanted
it. I was in love, and I wanted to get married and have a family.”

“And then what happened?” Martha asked. She and Polly were curled up on opposite ends of the couch.

“I got what I wanted,” said Polly. “We had a beautiful, small wedding, and a wonderful honeymoon in France, and then we came back and started living our life, and then Pete and Dee-Dee came along, and everything was just as I always thought it would be.”

“And then what happened? How did Lincoln happen?”

“Sometimes I can't remember at all,” Polly said. “Sometimes I think it all happened to someone else. It hit me all at once. I met Lincoln at a gallery show and he must have made a big impression on me because I thought about him all summer long. He says that we were bitten when we first met but the disease had to incubate. Then I met him again in the fall. I didn't know what was happening. Henry was away a lot. We had had such a bad summer—I mean, I thought Henry had had a bad summer—that awful case, always being interrupted. I was busy thinking I was making everything hum, but actually I must have been waiting for something and Lincoln was it.”

“Aren't you glad it happened?”

“It's either the worst or the best thing I've ever undergone,” Polly said. “It certainly makes a great many things clear, but I often think that most things are better left unclear. Now, give me just a little taste more of wine. I don't want to talk about myself anymore. Tell me about you and Spud.” Martha sat up straight on the couch.

“We have three styles,” she said. “We bicker, we have serious discussions about big issues, and we talk a disgusting form of puerile baby chatter. Mostly we bicker. Don't you and Henry?”

Polly and Henry never bickered, and Polly and Lincoln had nothing to bicker about.

“No,” said Polly. “And we don't ever have puerile baby chatter. What do you two bicker about?”

“Oh,” said Martha, leaning back against her couch pillows. “He comes over after work. I say, Spud, did you have dinner? He doesn't answer. I say, louder, Spud, did you have dinner yet? He looks at me and says, I was thinking about whether or not I had dinner. I don't think as fast as you. I say, That's ridiculous. How can you not know if you have had dinner? He says
I
can not know. I say, It's just that you hate to answer a direct question. He says, Oh, Martha, try to shut up and give a person room to relax, and so on.”

“Fascinating,” said Polly, “but what does it accomplish?”

“It's just a method of getting information across. Some people don't have to bicker to do that, but we do. It's our little way.”

“You ought to get married,” Polly said.

“Spud mentions that from time to time. Maybe I could get married the way people used to have babies—out cold. You could chloroform me, and when I woke up I'd be married.”

“It isn't that awful,” Polly said.

Martha gave her a bleak look.

“My trouble isn't marriage,” Polly said. “It's me.”

The doorbell rang and it was Lincoln.

“I'm sorry, Martha.”

“It's all right,” said Martha. “But you're not off the hook. You have to come for dinner. Go and have a good time.” She kissed Polly at the door and Polly went down the stairs feeling that a wise and understanding older person had sent her on her way.

Lincoln and Polly had dinner in a small Hungarian restaurant.

“Just like normal people,” Lincoln said. “A real date. Do I get to walk you home?”

“Okay,” said Polly.

“And can I come up for a nightcap?”

Polly looked at him for a long time. “All right,” she said. “There isn't any reason for you not to.”

“The grubs will be asleep,” Lincoln said. “I'm not going to stay very long. I'll try not to kiss you in your own home.”

“Let's go,” said Polly. “Before I lose heart.”

Once at home, Polly hung their coats up in the closet. She took a deep breath and walked into the study. There was Nancy Jewell curled up on the sofa doing her homework.

“Hi, Polly,” she said.

“Lincoln,” said Polly, “this is Nancy Jewell, the best babysitter in New York. Nancy, this is our friend Lincoln Bennett.”

“Hi,” said Nancy. She began to gather up her homework. “Your mother called. The kids are fast asleep. I read them an extra story and I just checked on them a second ago.”

After Nancy was paid, chatted up, and kissed good-bye, Polly came back to Lincoln. He was prowling and snooping like a cat in a new house.

“I loved the ‘our' friend,” Lincoln said. “Never mind. I know you have to say things like that. Now, tiptoe me past the grubs and take me to your desk.”

They crept down the hallway to the bedroom. Lincoln knew the way, and Polly stopped to check Pete and Dee-Dee. In the bedroom she found Lincoln at her desk reading her mail. On her desk and on the wall above her desk were framed photographs—of Polly and Henry, of Henry and the children, of Henry wearing a battered hat and a pair of blue jeans, of the children with blueberry pie all over their faces.

“Give me all the photograph albums,” Lincoln said. “I'm sure you have dozens. I've been waiting to see them, so hand them over.”

There was not one photo that did not pierce his heart, but he was hungry for more. He tore through them with no expression on his face. He could not stop staring at pictures of Henry, or of Henry and Polly together. He looked through their album of wedding photos twice. Then he stacked them all on the floor.

“It's an awfully pretty life you've got here, Dottie,” he said grimly. Polly stared at him.

“If I were a true gentleman, I would get into that elevator and never see you again.”

Polly put her hands over her mouth.

“There will never be any pretty pictures of us, Dot.”

At this Polly sat down. “You don't want any pretty pictures,” she said. “This
is
my life. I
am
embedded here. How do you think I feel in your studio? Everything is perfectly arranged for one person. Everywhere I turn I see things that aren't mine, and will never be mine. Your house announces that I'm just a guest. I look at
you
and you aren't mine. You're just somebody I love. I know it looks like a fortress in here. But it isn't so strong a fortress that I didn't fall in love with you.”

She was sitting on the chaise, and Lincoln came to sit with her.

“I know you love me, Dot. I've only been here once before. I was dying to mooch around where you live. I wanted to see where you sit when you talk to me on the telephone. Now take me to your kitchen and make me a cup of tea.”

They both stood up and flung themselves into each other's arms.

“It hurts a lot to be here,” said Lincoln.

“It sometimes hurts me to be here,” Polly said. “And sometimes it hurts me to be in your house.”

“I know it does,” said Lincoln. He kissed her eyebrow. “See? I lied to you about not kissing you in your very own home.”

They stood entwined until Polly broke free. “This is torture,” she said.

“I'm a gentleman,” Lincoln said. “I wouldn't dream of misbehaving with you in your own home. However, I expect you at mine tomorrow. Now give me my tea.”

They sat at the kitchen table, holding hands. Lincoln had cased the pantry and the kitchen, the refrigerator, and all the shelves and cupboards.

“Can I smoke a cigar?” he asked. “Or will Concita or the grubs remark about the smoke?”

“Smoke away,” Polly said.

They sat in silence, holding hands.

“This is much worse than sleeping together,” Polly finally said. “Anybody can go to bed with anybody, but not everyone sits around the kitchen holding hands.”

“While that may be true,” Lincoln said, “I want you for my lunch tomorrow.”

“You'll get me,” said Polly.

After Lincoln had gone, Polly looked in on Pete and Dee-Dee again and wandered back into the kitchen. She told herself that she was there to wash the cups and saucers, but she knew she wanted to be near his cigar smoke. She did not wash the cups and saucers. She sat where he had sat and the smoke was like his ghost.

A love affair is a secret from a spouse, but what is in the heart of one's lover is a secret, too. Polly knew how well she fit into Lincoln's life. She watched him wince if she stayed too long—he could not help it. She knew he functioned very well on the limited doses of her he got, and she knew that their relationship was limited, futureless, and very sweet. And she knew that even though the thought of Polly unattached, of Polly without children—of an eligible Polly—was not at all sweet to Lincoln, and that Lincoln did not want her very close by, the fact of her marriage caused him pain anyway.

The bonds with her husband and children were the strongest she had. Her marriage, for all its stresses, was a vault. In his weak moments these thoughts made Lincoln feel like a little orphan boy—a little match boy out in the cold, looking at the bright yellow windows of a big, rich house.

Polly sat quietly. She was afraid that if she moved around the smoke would dissipate. But after she had washed and dried the cups, she went to hang them in the pantry. It seemed to her the smoke had settled there. Her pantry shelves were neatly stacked with dishes, pots, staples, and supplies. She stood in the doorway and the scent of his cigar made her feel much less lonely—she could not deny that to herself.

Ten

One afternoon the idea that they might separate came over Lincoln and Polly. They were in Lincoln's bed, entwined so tightly that had they been a sculpture in marble, it would have been impossible to tell whose limb was whose. The sweetness and rest Polly felt in Lincoln's long arms made her quite miserable: she could never be entirely happy in his presence, she knew. It would have been difficult to get any closer together, but Polly pressed herself against Lincoln anyway.

“What's the matter, Dot?” Lincoln asked.

“In a little while you'll be in Paris,” Polly said into his chest.

“That gives you time to rig up some excuse to come with me, you know.”

“Okay, Linky,” said Polly. “I'll come for the whole time.”

“Don't tease me, Dottie.”

Polly sat up. “I'm not teasing. I'll come for the whole time.”

Lincoln sat up, too. “You are teasing.”

“You hope and pray I am,” said Polly. “A whole month or two of me! Even in Paris. You'd see me walking down the street toward our little hotel with a loaf of bread and a little string bag and terrible alarm bells would go off in your head. Every morning you'd wake up and instead of just your own peaceful self, there would be an alien creature lying next to you.”

“Isn't it funny?” Lincoln said. “I always think I'd love it.”

“Linky, listen to me. Do you know what you were like the week Henry was away? I know I was watching the clock—you know Henry calls me late at night—but you were
really
watching the clock. You came to my house and snooped around to tell yourself how much better things would be if you weren't in my life.”

“Oh, come on, Dot. Five minutes of rain on a Paris roof, you and I strolling around the Luxembourg Gardens, us at a shabby little restaurant, us feeding the goldfish.”