Thirteen #2
She doesn’t agree, but I get to work gathering everything up.
I take the dishes to the kitchen, and she hasn’t moved by the time I return.
Her cigarette is burning down so I set the mother of pearl ashtray next to her.
She doesn’t thank me and I wonder how she knows to give me exactly what I want, and then I realize that maybe, right now, we are perfectly, miraculously aligned.
She rests her head against the wall, closes her eyes.
I wash the remaining dishes, dry them, put them away.
Clear the carpet of toys. Empty the ashtrays and set them back in their places.
Find the red shoe’s match, rest the pair together on the rack by the door.
“What’s next?” I ask.
“I wish we were going to a party,” she says.
“Oh,” I say. “We are. It’s time to get ready.” She laughs. “Really,” I say, taking her hands, pulling her to standing. “Go get dolled up.”
She shakes her head and disappears down the hall and I peek into Al’s den where there’s a little table in front of the love seat.
Perfect. I move a taper candle from the credenza and set it on the table, flick the lighter again, race silently down the hall and into my room.
I grope through my closet for a dress hanging deep in the corner beyond my everyday clothes.
Find it by touch, slick and substantial. Ease it off the hanger.
I slip it on in the bathroom off the hall.
It hangs heavy and luxurious, the finest thing I own.
I’m back in Cyril’s room, watching Hattie tie the box to my suitcase, and then in Los Angeles, opening the lid to see what Hattie sewed me.
A chartreuse silk dress, made with an intimate knowledge of my body.
Cinched at the waist, like she’s holding me there.
I apply lipstick and blush, a barrette to sweep my hair up, opal dangles clipped to my ears. I’m back in the living room by the time Adele emerges from her bedroom.
“That dress,” she says. “Whenever you wear it, I’m full of envy.” She’s in champagne organza with a gemstone necklace that catches the light. Claire has one that matches it, from a party with Les Dames Amis.
I take two glasses and Al’s bottle of whiskey from the credenza, and gesture toward the den. The room has transformed since Lionel’s been gone. A love seat and a desk and a freestanding record player. “I’d like to welcome you to The Denison. Or the Denver?”
“The Denison sounds like a grand old hotel.”
“The Denison, then.”
I put on Billie Holiday, just loud enough to fill the room.
I pour us drinks and we sit on Al’s chairs, and Adele flings her head back and croons along with the music, her voice smooth and strong against Billie’s rasp.
She sings with the entire A side of the record, sure of every lyric, sipping her drink during the instrumental parts.
“You should sing more often,” I tell her when the music stops.
“I sing every Sunday at church,” she says pointedly. “And at the club.”
“No scolding allowed at the Denison.”
“As long as you get me another drink.” I do, but when I set the bottle down and hand her her glass, she’s frowning at me.
“What is it?” I ask. She bites her lip, hesitating. “Go on.”
“Come back. Sit. Please don’t be angry. It’s just—Claire and I have wondered if something happened on your honeymoon. Something you didn’t tell us. Did Cyril treat you all right?”
It comes from nowhere, so many years late, lands heavy in my chest. “Yes,” I say. “He treated me fine.”
“But then, why don’t you want another man in your life? We thought he must have done something.”
“It was nothing like that. He was very sweet to me.” I shift.
“All of it was a shock. How fast it went, how unsure I was. I love Clément more than anything. Of course. But pregnancy, childbirth…” I shake my head, stop myself there.
Nothing had prepared me for it. Bloody and terrifying, my body shuddering afterward, teeth chattering, barely able to speak.
From the hospital bed, I’d asked Adele if it was normal and she’d waved the question away, said I had a healthy baby, I was healing fine.
But in the days that followed I still couldn’t tell.
All I could do was watch Clément’s belly move up and down, prove to myself that he was alive.
“I can’t do it all over again,” I say now.
She lifts her glass to her mouth, tips her head back to sip, silver bangle circling her wrist. She swallows.
Looks into her glass. “Marriage isn’t only about having children, though.
It’s about feeling like a woman. Excitement and anticipation.
Safety. Letting yourself be taken care of.
Does it really seem so bad? What Al and I have? What Claire and Bernard have?”
“Of course it doesn’t. You know I love Al and Bernard. You’re the happiest couples I’ve ever known. I just want something different.”
“And your something different is to live in an apartment, just you and Clément. That’s how you see your life, for the long term?”
“Don’t you ever fantasize about it? Your own place, your own decisions?”
“I have my own place. I make my own decisions already. It’s a comfort to make them together with Al.
” A car passes out front, the sweep of its lights through the curtains and across the room.
She says, “You scare me sometimes, and you drive me crazy. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t admire you, too. ”
We’re quiet. A couple minutes pass. I run my thumb along the side stitches of the dress.
And then Adele says, “I wish I didn’t have to bring this up, but the social worker came by earlier.
He’s asking—just in case, as a precaution—if there’s anyone in the family willing to adopt.
I told him yes, of course. He went over the qualifications.
Being married was the most important one.
” A tightness in my throat. I swallow. Swallow again.
“Considering that, Claire would be the most obvious choice. She’s waited so long for a child, and she and Bernard are all set up. But, of course, you and Delphine—”
“I don’t even know why we’re talking about this,” I say in a rush. “Delphine might get better.”
“I hope so,” Adele says. “But if she doesn’t?”
“I’m not married,” I say.
“But you could be.”
I’ve waited so long for my life to come together. I’m on the precipice. My body in this dress, reminding me how ready I am for someone else to touch me. Someone who I want. “But I’m not,” I say, my tone final. “I’ll put on a new record. Something you haven’t heard yet.”
I find the new Ken Griffin single we just pressed. “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” on the organ. We listen, Adele humming along.
“You know,” I say, “we could really do this, go out together one night after the children are down. I’d love to take you to a place I’ve been to with some of the girls from work. There’s a piano player, and everyone sings.”
“I don’t know,” she says.
“That night at the Drop before we left home—it was one of the best nights of my life.”
“Oh I miss that place. But it isn’t the same here. I’m just not really…” I picture her under the lights of the bar, beside the piano. Everyone’s watching her, enraptured. “It’s more fun to pretend,” she says, and squeezes my hand.