Lovesick
Lovesick
1959
Another sixteen-hour day. Ruth is exhausted, running on fumes and nicotine. Her head is full of numbers, projections, schedules, phone calls needing to be returned. For every one item she ticks off her list, two more appear. She should be glad the day is over. Now she can go home and relax with her husband and children. But these days home feels like more work, a different kind of work. For her, it’s harder work.
She’ll have to watch herself, bite her tongue when she wants to mention something about Barbie or Toy Fair. When Elliot goes to tell her how he beat Marvin six–love, giving her the blow-by-blow of their tennis match, she’ll force herself to listen, or look like she’s listening. But the whole time she’ll be thinking about the final mix for the Barbie commercial, wondering if they should have gone with a female announcer rather than a male. If Ken is sulking, staring at the same page of the book in his lap, she’ll know she should go to him, ask what’s wrong, ask for every detail of his day, but the thought is more draining than anything she’s done at the office. And then there’s Barbara, who’d probably prefer Ruth didn’t say anything to her at all. When Ruth finally arrives home and steps inside, she wonders if they’d resent her even more if she said a quick hello and slipped upstairs to soak in a bath.
Ken is already sequestered in his room, while Barbara and Allen are in the living room with Elliot. The girl is lovesick. Barbara is only seventeen, turning eighteen next month. What does she know about love? Never mind that Ruth was sixteen when she met Elliot. That was different. Ruth was different.
She assumes this is just another Tuesday night. After all, Allen is always at their house. He’s there for dinner twice, sometimes three times a week—not that Ruth joins them, because she’s usually working late. But there’s many a Saturday afternoon that she sees him lounging by the pool, even if Barbara doesn’t feel like swimming. Ruth often finds him sprawled on the couch while Barbara sits beside him, watching him watch a television program she has little interest in. But tonight, there’s a restlessness in the air. Something is looming, and Ruth senses that they’ve been waiting for her. She hasn’t even poured herself a drink when Barbara announces her news.
“Allen and I are getting married.”
Barbara is smiling full-on, but with each passing second that goes by without Ruth or Elliot speaking—saying anything at all—her brightness dims. Despite Barbara always threatening to get married, Ruth and Elliot are still caught off guard. It had seemed more like a taunt than a possibility. She and Elliot exchange looks: How should we play this?
“Married? My goodness. Isn’t this a surprise. Mazel tov,” Elliot finally says, getting up to kiss Barbara and shake Allen’s hand.
“Really?” says Ruth, unable to pull off her husband’s cheery delivery. “You two are getting married?” She might as well have said, You two are going to rob a bank. How marvelous.
“Yes,” says Barbara, looping her arm through Allen’s. There’s something very possessive in the gesture, like she aims to put a lock on him. “We’re getting married this June. Right after graduation.”
Allen hasn’t said a word. Barbara is driving this train, and Ruth knows she should keep quiet, but heaven help her, she can’t. “Allen,” she says, “how do your parents feel about this?”
“Ah.” Allen blinks, dumbstruck. He’s scared of Ruth, and she knows it.
“We wanted to tell you and Daddy first,” Barbara says, gripping Allen’s arm ever tighter.
“I believe I was talking to Allen,” says Ruth, immediately regretting her tone. No wonder her daughter hates her. But she’s not interested in being Barbara’s friend at the moment. She lights a cigarette, snapping her Zippo shut with a loud clack . “Tell me something, Allen, how’s the sporting goods business been treating you lately?”
“Um, what?”
“Ruthie—” Elliot gives her a go easy look, but it does no good.
“What do they pay you an hour?” Ruth asks. “A buck and a quarter?”
“Actually it’s $1.15. But I’m due for a raise.”
“Oh, good. A raise.” She pauses, takes a dramatic puff off her cigarette. “Listen, I’m not gonna pussyfoot around here—what I want to know is how you plan on supporting my daughter after you’re married.”
“Mother!”
Ruth holds up her hand. “Do you want to go out and get a job, Barbara? ’Cause I’m all for that.” Barbara is seething. Ruth can’t stop herself. She needs to— quick —do something to spare her daughter from making this horrible mistake. The panic comes out as a rush of rage fueled by adrenaline, and now that she’s started, there’s no turning it off. “Allen, you still live at home, correct? With your parents? How much can you afford for rent each month? What about groceries? Have you ever seen, much less paid, an electric or telephone bill?”
“Mother!” There’s a foot stomp this time.
Ruth’s all in and there’s no pulling her back. This is how she fights, and even the National Guard couldn’t stop her now. “Let’s face it, Barbara, you’ve been raised in a certain fashion. You might not like this big fancy house, you might say you want to live like, quote, ‘a normal person,’ but you do appreciate nice things. Expensive things. I just want to make sure that Allen can provide for you.”
“Of course he can provide for me,” she insists with another foot stomp.
“And, Barbara, what about college? Is that out the window now? Are you just going to sit at home and keep house?” Ruth goes for the jugular. “When was the last time you made your own bed, young lady? You know, you won’t have Edna to pick up after you, do your laundry, clean your dishes…” Bull’s-eye. Direct hit. But Ruth keeps it up, lobbing one objection after another until Barbara storms out of the room crying, leaving her fiancé standing there, pale and speechless.
—
“Well, that didn’t go very well, did it?” Ruth says to Elliot later that night as she folds back the bedspread.
He pulls her into his arms and, as Ruth takes a shuddering breath, he says, “You could try apologizing, you know.”
“For what? For not wanting my daughter to throw away her future?” Ruth drops her head to his shoulder. “She’s about to make a terrible mistake. We can’t let her do this.”
“But we need to be careful,” he says, meaning Ruth needs to control her temper. “Otherwise, we’ll only drive her into his arms.”
“I know, I know. I just—I couldn’t help myself. She’s a child, Elliot. She’s nowhere near ready to get married. And to him ?”
“We’ll try and find a way to reason with her. Gently. Rationally. You’re overtired, and that’s not helping things. Try and relax and get some sleep.”
Ruth nods and leans toward him, accepting a kiss before he turns out the light, leaving her in such darkness, it takes a moment for her eyes to adjust. She lights a cigarette, the ember tip glowing red. Elliot doesn’t say anything about her smoking in bed. For tonight he allows it.
Her daughter is in love with love, with being a bride—with no thought as to what comes after that. Does Barbara really know Allen? How does he handle stress? Resolve arguments? Is he kind to strangers? Is he fair and honest? Generous with a dollar or stingy and watching every penny? Does he drink too much at parties? Leave his dirty socks on the floor? Is he a gambler like the rest of her family? And what about children? Will he be a strict father or leave all the disciplining to her? These are the things that no one tells you to consider when you get engaged. But further down the road, these are the very things that will make or break a marriage. Barbara is shortsighted, focusing only on things that are destined to change. Allen’s looks will fade; his hair will thin as surely as his waistline will thicken. He may fall ill or on hard times. When everything about him that she initially fell in love with has disappeared, what will she be left with? And will that be enough?
What Ruth can’t understand is why Barbara’s in such a hurry. There’s time for marriage and children. Time that she won’t ever get back if she doesn’t take it for herself now. Ruth wants her daughter to have opportunities, to be able to do more with her life than raise children and be Allen’s wife. It won’t be enough for her, but how can she get through to Barbara? It’s not as if she can boss her around like one of her employees.
At the office Ruth calls the shots. At home, with her daughter, she doesn’t. That last thought resonates with her. It’s so obvious, but she hasn’t realized it until just now. In that split second, she understands what it is about Barbie and that wedding dress that gets her so riled up. It’s all about control. Ruth can’t control Barbara, but she can control Barbie. Ruth might not be able to stop Barbara from getting married, but she can stop Barbie from doing it. Like most revelations, this notion will dance around her thoughts, coming and going, until she’s ready to fully accept it.
She thinks Elliot’s already asleep until he says, “You know, your sister didn’t think I was good enough for you, either.”
“Oh, please, you can’t compare the two.”
“No, of course not, but just think about what I’m saying.”
After a deep inhale she remembers how much Sarah disliked Elliot in the beginning. Elliot was a talented artist, but all her sister saw was a poor scrawny boy with scuffed-up shoes and oil paint beneath his fingernails. There was no way he could provide for her baby sister. The one big fight Ruth and Sarah ever had was over Elliot.
Ruth had known from the start that Elliot was the right man for her. Even at sixteen, she knew how strong-willed she could be. She knew she needed a husband who was secure enough with himself to let her take charge. A marriage with any other type of man never would have worked. Sarah had balked when Ruth borrowed money to get their fledgling plastic business off the ground, but Ruth believed in Elliot, and more than that, she believed in herself. She’d gambled on Elliot, her starving artist, and she’d won.
“And don’t forget,” Elliot says now, “Sarah thought you were too young to get married, too.”
Ruth can’t deny this, but there’s a big difference. Barbara is young for her years, far younger now than Ruth ever was. Barbara thankfully has had a much easier life than Ruth did, but privilege has made her daughter soft and impressionable.
Ruth has always been the opposite. Hard and immutable. When she first met Elliot, she was smitten by his good looks, his glorious head of dark ringlets and that smile. She thought it was just infatuation, but as they got to know each other, Elliot—soft-spoken, shy, congenial Elliot—found a way to break through her shell and soften her heart. But that makes sense. Imagine the impact of two hard objects colliding. They would have smashed each other to bits. Instead, it was his warm, gentle sensibility that melted her exterior. He had found that part of her that her mother took away and he’d handed it back to her. She trusted that Elliot Handler would never give her back; he’d never let her get away.