After the Reunion (26 page)

She introduced a new recipe: butterscotch chip marshmallow, making sure it wasn’t too sweet and cloying, which wasn’t an easy feat, and it did well as soon as it appeared. She sent the kids out to the shopping malls again on the day she revealed her new flavor, and this time instead of having to cajole people to take free cookies they were mobbed.

Peter was looking for a good press agent now, and had stopped even mentioning going back to school. He had given up the apartment with all those roommates and now had one of his own; his first step on the way to the beach house, the expensive sports car, the gorgeous live-in girl friend and the killer dog.

It was at this moment that Ken invited Emily to dinner.

She thought: Why not? He had been phoning her regularly and acting civil. If she entertained thoughts of going back to him they should at least discuss their future face to face.

He picked her up at her apartment, looking distinguished in a suit and tie, and took her to Chasen’s. She thought he looked a lot better than when she’d last seen him; not so thin and wasted. He ordered a very expensive white wine, saying he thought she would like it, and was polite and charming. “Come home for the holidays,” he said. “We’ll go to a little off island near Hawaii for Christmas. A deserted island where we can get to know each other again.”

“But Christmas is our busiest time,” Emily said.

“The boys can run the business.”

He was saying it gently and persuasively, but it hurt. Why did Ken always think she was useless? She could take a vacation if she wanted to—she was only as far as the nearest phone, and whenever things were running smoothly she was actually the figurehead, even though she was also the famous Emily. “I don’t know,” she said.

“I’ll hire a boat,” Ken said. “We can go to several islands. Would you like that?”

She thought about it. She didn’t like boats, and she didn’t sit in the sun much anymore. Ken had accused her of being fat and flabby and old, and now he intended to look at her in merciless sunlight in a bathing suit? She preferred Chasen’s in a dress. Besides, even though Ken looked a lot more like his former sane self, the idea of being alone on a boat in the middle of nowhere with him was more frightening than romantic. “I’d rather go to one island,” she said. “You pick it.”

“All right,” he said, looking pleased. “Christmas week. It will be like a second honeymoon.”

They hadn’t had a dinner like this, where he actually talked to her, the way he talked to other people at dinner parties but never to her, in ages. She could see why everyone liked Ken. The wine and the roseate atmosphere of the restaurant relaxed her, and she began to look at him as a man again instead of the unpredictable monster she had once lived with. He was still so attractive … She had never stopped thinking that, even when she liked nothing about him at all.

After dinner, she thought he would drive her back to her apartment, but instead he took her to their house, the home they had once shared. “I don’t think …” Emily began, but he stopped her.

“Just for a drink,” he said.

They sat on the couch and he poured her a glass of wine because he knew she didn’t like brandy. He had music playing on the stereo. It was just like a date, but they were married … it seemed strange. She liked it better than marriage.

He looked at her winningly, and then he leaned over and kissed her lightly. “I missed you so much,” he said.

“Oh, Ken, I wish that were true.”

“It
is
true,” he said. He kissed her again, this time more seriously. Despite her reservations she found herself enormously flattered. “Stay,” he murmured. “Please stay.”

“I …”

“I’ll drive you back in the morning.”

She stayed. She was back in her room, her bed, with her husband, and it seemed both different and familiar. They made love the way they always did, perhaps better, perhaps more lingeringly, because he was trying. And while it was happening Emily realized that she had never really liked sex very much with Ken. She had liked the idea of it, because it was supposed to mean they loved each other, but often he had stopped before she was satisfied, and often she had faked an orgasm because she didn’t want him to think it hadn’t been rewarding for her, or to offend him. They had never really discussed their sex life, and she wouldn’t have been able to tell him the truth even if they had tried.

He had told her she was a boring lover, but so was he. At least for her. Maybe he was better with those other women, or perhaps she never
had
been very highly sexed. She might have been frightened right out of her sexuality by her mother’s warnings. Emily sighed, and Ken took it for a sigh of relaxation and bliss. He pulled out, and she wished she could go home.

The next morning he drove her back as he had promised, and she said she would go away with him for Christmas. She told herself that sex wasn’t everything, but that maybe on their “second honeymoon” it would be better.

She had only two weeks to get ready for her departure. It should have been more than enough, but she was beginning to feel a sort of excited anticipation, as if she and Ken might really have a second chance. She spent a whole day finding two bathing suits that were both sexy and flattering. She had her hair cut, and a manicure and pedicure. She had to make sure that Peter could run the business without her. It no longer was a concern to her whether or not Peter and Kate would miss being with either of their parents at Christmas: she knew they would not. Kate had made one token visit to the store, one day when Emily was at their accountant’s office, and Peter had reported afterward with gleeful sibling rivalry that she’d seemed more taken with the help than the product.

“Attractive sales people never hurt,” Emily said.

Her friends were not surprised she was going to try it again with Ken. This was a difficult town for single women of their age. For all its Hollywood pretensions, it was really the suburbs; spread out, isolated, early-to-bed; a place for couples, for being at home at night. The other life here, the one Ken lived without her, was one Emily could not imagine and had neither the wish nor the qualifications to enter. Her friends believed in compromise, especially when it came with the trappings of “romance.”

Ken was busy too, getting ready for their trip, because he had so many patients who were upset that he was going to leave them, even though it was only for a week, and his time was fully booked. He phoned Emily every day, but he said it would be more like a second honeymoon if they didn’t see each other until the night they left. She knew he meant not sleep together, and she was amused. She wondered if he suddenly found her so irresistible that to take her to dinner would mean he couldn’t keep his hands off her, or if he was just trying to recapture something from their engagement. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they could recapture something … anything … She intended to try. If it didn’t work, if it was a disaster, she could break off with him afterward. She refused to think that far ahead.

She arrived at his house—their house!—promptly at six o’clock, suitcase in hand. He opened the door, a drink in his. He seemed neither drunk nor surly, so Emily was reassured, and when he offered her a glass of wine she thought it was festive. He gave her a warm kiss hello and told her he wasn’t finished packing, so she went into the bedroom and sat on the bed, sipping her wine, watching him pack, and feeling pleased with herself for not offering to do it for him the way she would have in the old days.

“I hope you brought books,” he said. “There’s really nothing to do there. Lie on the beach, drink, talk …”

“I brought two,” she said, “but I’ll read yours when you’re through with them.”

Ken went into the bathroom to get some more things and she walked idly to his suitcase to see which books he had packed. Good; all the new novels she hadn’t had time to read. She picked one up, and underneath, slipping out from inside a folded beach robe, she saw the edge of a plastic bag of cocaine. Her heart crashed.

She took the bag out and looked at it. There was enough dope there to keep Ken out of his mind for the entire week. When he came out of the bathroom she was still standing there, but she had put the cocaine back in his suitcase, right on top of the books so he would know she had seen it.

“Oh,” he said, as if it was nothing. “I told you it’s totally deserted and peaceful there. This is just for a little recreational high.”

“You said you had given it up,” Emily said, trying to sound calm.

“Am I acting stoned?”

“No …”

“Well, I am. Just a little. I told you I’d get it under control.”

“Then why do you have to bring so much?”

“I’m a respectable citizen. I don’t intend to run around a strange place trying to buy this stuff.”

“Why do you need it at all?” She didn’t even know why she’d asked. Whatever answer he gave her would be the wrong one.

“I don’t
need
it,” he said, sounding irritated suddenly, like the old, feared Ken. “I
want
it.”

“So you can stand me,” she said dully. She should have known. Miracles were limited. She’d already had her share. Ken wasn’t going to change.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said. “I want it so we can have fun. Don’t you want to have fun?”

She wondered if he had a gun in there too. She walked to the door. “I was willing to compromise,” she said. “I was willing even to dream again. But not this way. It’s not going to work. Not if you bring that stuff with you.”

They looked at each other. She wished he would take the coke out of the suitcase and say he would go away with her without it, but she knew he never would. He didn’t. “Don’t you tell me what I can and can’t do,” he said.

“I don’t intend to,” Emily said. She walked down the stairs, trying to hide her fear, and picked up her suitcase. Ken had followed her. She glanced at him and saw he had no gun. It was not going to be a repeat of the last time. Not in any way. This time she had a place to go. “Enjoy your trip,” she said coldly. Then she walked out the door, leaving him standing there.

She drove away, but this time she was not crying, not shaking, no longer frightened: feeling only a deep, sad disappointment. And then, as she drove back to her own apartment, even the disappointment melted, and left the beginning of what she recognized as a shell of strength. She smiled. She would leave Ken with that damn house with all its memories, and his drugs, and his lies, and while she was cleaning out her life she might as well also leave him Adeline.

Yes, she would definitely leave him Adeline.

Emily laughed, feeling strong and free, and, for the first time, a little crazy in a way she knew was not crazy at all.

The next morning she showed up at work. Everyone was surprised to see her. She got Peter aside. “Your father is back on cocaine and we’re getting divorced,” she said gently. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s life,” Peter said. “Do you want to meet the potential press agent this week, as long as you’re here?”

“Sure. The sooner the better.”

“His name is Freddie Glick.”

“Oh good,” Emily said. “Like Sammy Glick.”

“Who’s that?”

“Never mind. It’s from a novel.”

The press agent wanted to meet them at the Polo Lounge for breakfast. He was wearing an open-necked red shirt, a black sport jacket, three gold chains nestled in his chest hair, and he looked like a middle-aged Las Vegas comic. He ordered two fried eggs and slurped them up while Emily and Peter drank coffee. She thought breakfast meetings were barbaric: people should eat breakfast alone at home in peace. While Glick drank his coffee he recited an impressive list of his celebrity clients and revealed his expensive fee. “But I don’t think I can do anything for you,” he said.

“Why not?” Emily said.

“So you make cookies. So what? What’s the gimmick? You’re not a sweet old granny, you’re not a glamorous young thing in her twenties like Mrs. Fields. You’re a normal, average, real person. How am I going to get you on television? Even newspaper and magazine interviews? I can start with the local papers, but eventually I’d want to go national. How am I going to sell a real person? I’ll be perfectly honest with you, I’m not going to waste your time.”

“How glamorous do you want me to be?” Emily asked.

“Hey, Mom, you’re fine,” Peter said. “Let’s go.”

“No. I’m asking a question.”

Freddie Glick looked at her appraisingly. “Sort of a Joan Collins type might suit you. Could you do that?”

“Could you give me two months?”

He nodded slowly. “You really want this, don’t you?”

“If I look the way you want, can you get me publicity?”

“Sure. I read that piece in
F.E. W
. You do a good interview. I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”

“We have a meeting in two months,” Emily said, and called for the check.

When she and Peter went back to the store Emily disappeared into the little office they’d opened in the rear. She started to make phone calls. First to her friend Karen, to find the name of the best plastic surgeon in town for a facelift. Karen was an authority on such matters, including the best hair colorist, the best makeup artist; but first things first. Karen said the best plastic surgeon this year was Dr. Harley Winthrop.

“I thought you were in Hawaii with Ken,” Karen said.

“Change of plan. Call you later.”

Next Emily called Dr. Winthrop’s office. Even though it was Christmas week there was an appointment nurse there. “The first appointment for an interview would be at the end of February,” the nurse said.

“I need it right away,” Emily said.

“I’m sorry.”

She took a deep breath. “I’m Dr. Kenneth Buchman’s wife.”

“Oh. Well then, just hold on a minute and let me see if we have any cancellations.”

The nurse was back in a few seconds with an appointment for the beginning of the first week in January. Doctors’ wives always got preference, especially when they were the wives of doctors as well known as Ken. “And I can schedule your surgery for the week after that,” the nurse said in a new, very friendly voice. “I’ll book the hospital room too. You want a private room, of course?”