Magnolia Wednesdays Part 4

Ruth shot Ira a "take that" look. They rarely achieved anything substantial in counseling, but there was the occasional validation. And she'd always been afraid of what might happen if they just gave up and stopped going.

"Look, I love my wife," Ira said. "I wouldn't have stuck around for fifty years if I didn't."

Ruth's mouth gaped open at the left-handed compliment. "Lucky me," she said. "I feel so honored."

"I don't run around. I'm not looking for some little chickadee on the side." Ira continued addressing his comments to the counselor as if Ruth hadn't spoken. "I work because that's what men do. And because there is no such thing as too much financial security, especially in today's environment."

He turned to Ruth now. "And I've never heard my wife complain because there's too much money in the bank. Or because she can buy too many clothes or tchotchkes for the house. Or give too much money to charity or to the grandkids."

He paused and Ruth knew exactly what was coming next just as she knew how he liked his oatmeal in the morning and what he preferred in bed.

"I built and run a successful bagel company. I am the Bagel Baron. And I'm tired of hearing her complain about it. What am I going to do on some cruise ship out in the middle of the ocean? Or on some tour of drafty old castles in England, for chrissakes? I'm only seventy-five, which I hear is the new forty. Am I really supposed to move to Florida with all the old altakakas. Or sit around the house all day making chitchat with a woman I've been talking to every day for the last fifty years?"

"Poor you!" Ruth said. "Your horrible, demanding wife expects you to spend some time with her when you've been generous enough to stay with her all these years. Where do you want me to pin the medal?"

"Now, let's just calm down and try to . . ." Dr. Guttman's tone was both reasonable and conciliatory as he began to lay out how they might proceed. Ira was looking at his watch again, impatient to get back to the thing he cared about most. And that thing wasn't her.

For the first time Ruth saw the futility of expecting someone else to solve their problems. What were the chances that someone else, even a trained someone else, could convince Ira to notice her again? They'd been having this same conversation for years and it had gotten them nowhere. She was tired of being reasonable. She'd had it with understanding.

"You know what," she said to the two of them. "I'm done with this." She scooted away from Ira's familiar bulk. "You're a nice boy," she said to Dr. Guttman. "I'm sure your mother's very proud. But for once my husband is right. This is a waste of time and money."

One of Ira's bushy gray eyebrows sketched upward. She absolutely hated it when he did that.

"Mrs. Melnick," the psychologist said. "What exactly do you want from your husband? Maybe if you offer a specific thing you want him to do we could start from there."

"What do I want?" she asked. "I want some attention and some of his time. I want him to at least pretend that he wants to be with me. Not act as if I'm the lucky winner in the stayed-married sweepstakes."

"But specifically, what can he do to demonstrate these things to you?"

Ruth thought about this one. There was no one thing she wanted. How did you quantify an amount of attention, a level of interest? She had filled her days with volunteer work, mah-jongg, and ballroom-dance cla.s.ses, which she loved and which made her feel almost like a young girl again. Next week she'd start belly dancing! She'd spent so much time at the Magnolia Ballroom that she'd come to think of Melanie Jackson as another daughter; it broke her heart how hard the poor thing was trying to put on a brave front.

Ruth looked at the psychologist and then turned to really look at her husband. Ira didn't look bad for seventy-five. He'd thickened through the middle like she had, and had lost several inches from his once-towering frame. His shoulders were no longer quite so ma.s.sive, and his hair, which had once been a thick, wavy black, was now a much spa.r.s.er iron gray. But he had a vitality about him still; the air of confidence that had initially attracted Ruth to him was still intact.

"He can come to some sessions at the Magnolia Ballroom with me. They have practice parties every Friday and Sat.u.r.day night and there's a lesson for the first hour. He could at least try one of them."

The doctor's eyes widened in surprise. Ira's closed in exasperation.

"Do you see what I'm dealing with here?" he said to Dr. Guttman. He turned to her. "When have you ever seen me dance, Ruth? You knew from the day you met me I wasn't a dancer. And I don't see any reason to start now."

Ruth was tired of begging for sc.r.a.ps of attention, tired of being made to feel that everything else in his world was more important than her. "I'm the reason, Ira," she said. "Me. And I don't see why this should be a problem now that you're forty again. Are you too old to learn a new trick?"

"You see?" Ira railed, looking for backup from the other male in the room. "You see how unreasonable she is. What does the fox-trot have to do with love? How will learning to . . . cha-cha improve our marriage?"

"Well, it's obviously . . ." Dr. Guttman began.

"It's a symbol of your interest in me, you schmo," Ruth interrupted. "A way to spend time together. And if you can't be bothered to do that, then the specific thing I want from you is a divorce!"

A dead silence followed her p.r.o.nouncement. Ira looked completely nonplussed. Dr. Guttman looked like he might want to call his mother. Ruth was more than a little surprised herself.

"You can't be serious," Ira said.

"Mrs. Melnick, you can't possibly want to throw away a half a century of marriage? Why don't we . . ." the doctor began again.

"No," she said, unwilling to take anything back. No amount of talking, nagging, or counseling had made the slightest bit of difference and wasn't likely to. She wanted tangible proof of Ira's love for her. Surely that wasn't too much to ask. "If my husband can't find the time to take an occasional dance cla.s.s with me, then I don't want to be married to him anymore."

She turned to look Ira in the eye. For the first time she didn't see the man she'd fallen in love with over brisket at his mother's house, or the father of her children, or the years working side by side with him to build the bagel business that had taken him away from her.

Ruth stood on unsteady legs and hated that she had to wait several moments for her body to finish straightening. Ira might want to believe he was middle-aged, but she knew just how old they were.

She looked down at Ira, who was still sitting on the sofa looking like someone had just landed an unexpected punch.

"I've never been more serious in my life," she said. "We take some dance cla.s.ses together or I file for divorce. Betty Weinman's son is a big-time divorce lawyer. I'm sure I won't have any trouble getting an appointment with him."

"Ruth, come on," Ira said. "You've had your little joke. Sit down, let's talk about this."

"No," she snapped. "I'm finished talking. And this is no joke." She walked toward the door.

"Mrs. Melnick," Dr. Guttman said. "This is no way to settle things. Come back and sit down. We still have ten minutes left."

But Ruth wasn't interested in settling. She was going to have a real marriage again. Or she was going to have a divorce.

"Ira can stay and make sure he gets every penny out of the session," she said as she swept herself up to her full five feet two. "I'm not wasting any more of my time on a husband who doesn't appreciate my worth."

7.

THE DRIVE FROM inside the perimeter of Highway 285 to the suburbs that sprawled around it like the spokes of a wheel took about twenty-five minutes at this time of day. By three thirty P.M. when rush hour began in earnest, the drive to the northern suburbs could stretch into what might pa.s.s for eternity.

The drive up Interstate 75 pa.s.sed largely in silence. Melanie concentrated on the zooming cars and trucks that wove around them. Vivien watched exit signs flash by and studied the occupants of the cars as they pa.s.sed. Almost everyone drove with a cell phone pressed to one ear. In some frightening cases they also texted or checked email while piloting their mult.i.ton vehicles.

When they reached her exit, Melanie slowed. A series of turns took them onto the four-laned Marietta Highway, which was also called Upper Roswell Road or simply 120. In the Atlanta area and its environs, it had apparently been decided that there was no reason to settle for one street name when you could use two or three. If the name had the word "Peachtree" in it, so much the better.

Here, despite a recent gas crisis and an alleged fear of dependency on foreign oil, vans and SUVs of all shapes and sizes dominated. A large percentage had at least one car seat in the back, most of them occupied. Those who'd already been there and done that displayed college b.u.mper stickers on their rear windows; in many cases more than one. And almost every vehicle bore multiple decorative magnets that proclaimed the occupants' activities, possessions, and affiliations.

Reading them as they flew by, Vivien knew what schools their children attended, how many sports they played, where they vacationed, what diseases they wanted to wipe out, and who they'd voted for as well as where they worshipped and exactly how proud they were to be an American.

"Why does everybody have so much personal information plastered all over their SUVS?" she asked.

"Hmmm?" Melanie asked, her gaze following Vivi's finger to the Ford Expedition in front of them. It sported a cutout family that included a mother, a father, two children, and a dog. Beneath these figures were spheres for an elementary and middle school, the logo for a youth baseball team and a cheerleading megaphone as well as an "I'd rather be playing golf " b.u.mper sticker, a Girl Scout trefoil, and an Atlanta Lawn Tennis a.s.sociation magnet.

Melanie shrugged, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. But Vivien was already playing with the opening hook of a possible column. In the suburbs people don't wear their hearts on their sleeves; they put them on the backs of their minivans. She smiled as she fiddled with the wording, relieved. She'd thought it might take a couple of days to come up with a first topic, but they weren't even at Melanie's and she already had a solid idea.

The fall foliage might have faded, but despite a recent drought, plenty of shades of green dotted the landscape. The man-made landscape wasn't quite so impressive. Banks, gas stations, and drugstores dominated the busiest corners. Big-box retailers like the Home Depot, Target, and Wal-Mart edged up to half-empty strip centers each with its own nail salon, dry cleaner, fitness center, or cell phone store. Fast-food chains had apparently mated and reproduced.

There was plenty of everything a family might need. But nothing was as plentiful as the subdivisions they lived in. The newest of these, especially those still under construction, were fronted by signs announcing the price range of the homes inside.

"Why do they tell everybody how much the houses cost?" Vivien wondered aloud. "Do you have to show a financial statement to look at one?"

Melanie shrugged again, clearly unperturbed by the idea that everyone would know what you could afford or chose to spend. "I don't know," she said. "But when you meet someone around here one of the first things you ask is what subdivision they live in. When they answer, you know right away where they . . . fit."

"Fit?"

Melanie nodded. "Think about how it is in New York," she said. "If I live on the Upper West Side like you do, who am I?"

"Well," Vivien didn't have to really think about this one. "You're probably upper middle cla.s.s and a liberal Democrat."

Melanie nodded. "And in the East Village?"

"You're more likely to be gay, artistic, and apolitical except for gender issues."

"Long Island?"

"If you live in the right neighborhood, you're Republican, wealthy, and well educated and your husband spends a lot of time on the LIRR." Vivien smiled.

"Well, here in the suburbs we have country club and swim/tennis communities. Gated or not gated. Under a million dollars or over. Pemberton school district or Kilborn. If you put all the details together, you have a clear idea of a family's income and standing, sometimes even their religious affiliation."

"So you don't really need all the extra clues on the back of their cars?" Vivien asked.

Melanie laughed. "Maybe that's just sort of a cheat sheet for the out-of-towners. Actually, you can tell most of those things just by what vehicle somebody drives."

"They're all SUVs, Mel. What's the difference?"

"I'm surprised at you, Vivi," Melanie teased. "You're an investigative reporter. You're not using your powers of observation. Take that for instance." She nodded toward a shiny black vehicle pa.s.sing on their left.

Vivien squinted to see the emblem on the hood; she'd barely driven since moving to New York. Cars were not something she spent any time thinking about. "It's a Mercedes."

"Right," Melanie said in the tone of a teacher leading a student. "But is it C- or E-Cla.s.s? An older model or brand-new? And what about that one?" She pointed to a silver vehicle that also had a Mercedes emblem coming up on their right. "Is that the forty-five-thousand-dollar ML350 or the sixty-thousand-plus crossover?"

Vivien shrugged. "Why do they spend so much on . . . transportation?"

"Because here you spend a ridiculous amount of time in your car. And because what you drive says almost as much about who you are, as how much you have. A two-seater Mercedes convertible and you're probably a divorced father or a trophy wife. Or my incredibly annoying neighbor Catherine Dennison, whose divorce settlement has enabled her to live in a style far beyond that to which she was accustomed. A Volvo sedan or SUV? You're late thirties, early forties, fairly conservative with at least one child in private school."

As Melanie warmed to her topic, Vivien wished she could whip out a tape recorder. "That woman over there driving the Porsche Cayenne? She hasn't really accepted who she's become. Or the fact that all of her driving will take place in a three-to-five-mile triangle between school, the grocery store, and the dry cleaner. And her husband doesn't want her to.

"It's suburban Morse code; you just have to know how to decipher it."

Pleased with all the valuable information she'd already gleaned, Vivien vowed to stick with her interpreter as much as humanly possible. But as Melanie turned the van into her neighborhood, Garrett Farms, an all-too-familiar tidal wave of exhaustion swamped Vivien. In the garage her sister parked the minivan next to a gold-colored Toyota SUV.

"I sold J.J.'s BMW and bought the RAV4 used for Shelby," Melanie said when she saw Vivi looking at it.

"She doesn't drive it to school?" Vivien asked, stifling a yawn.

"Not since I found out she wasn't actually going to school, when she was going to school."

"Oh."

Melanie looked like she was about to say more but then apparently thought better of it. Vivien suspected her sister was just waiting for her to ask, but the exhaustion was a living thing now, weighting her limbs and d.o.g.g.i.ng her steps. They entered through the eat-in part of the large, cheery kitchen with its dappled granite counters and deep maple cabinets. The family room, which extended from it, had floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a heavily wooded backyard and French doors that opened onto a bricked patio. A big-screen television hung above the fireplace. The back stairs angled upward on their right.

Vivien felt the last bit of her energy drain out of her. "I hate to be a poor guest," she said. "But would you mind if I took a little nap?"

Melanie looked at her more closely. "You do look really tired. Do you think you're coming down with something?" She put the back of her experienced mother's hand to Vivien's forehead.

Just a baby. Vivien sincerely hoped this couldn't be gleaned from a hand on a forehead. Another yawn escaped.

"You're in the guest room at the top of the stairs." Melanie reached out. "Here, give me your bag."

"No, no," Vivien protested. "I've got it." She grasped the handle of her suitcase more tightly.

"There're fresh towels in your bathroom," Melanie said. "The kids won't be back for another hour and a half or so. Dinner'll be around six thirty."

"If I'm not up, will you wake me then?" Vivien asked.

"Sure." Melanie looked away, a sure sign that she was disappointed.

But Vivien didn't have the energy to apologize or suggest some sisterly gabfest. If she didn't get into a bed soon, she was going to be horizontal right here on the floor. Squaring her shoulders, she began to heft her suitcase and laptop up the stairs, grateful she hadn't had more expandable clothing; what she'd packed was much too heavy already.

A SHARP KNOCK on the door woke her from a deep sleep. Groggy, Vivien rubbed the sleep from her eyes and managed to pull herself up on her elbows. "Come in!"

The door creaked open and a shaft of light from the hallway sliced into the darkened room. Shelby stood in the center of it spotlighted like a performer on a stage. "Mom told me to tell you that dinner's ready."

There was no welcoming smile, no launching into her aunt's arms like Shelby used to do as a little girl when the amount of enthusiasm had nothing to do with how often Vivien appeared. Or how long she stayed.

Vivien took in the skintight jeans that perched low on her hips, the equally tight layered Ts that molded to the curves of her body and drew attention to the fully developed b.r.e.a.s.t.s. It had been almost a year since Vivien had seen her niece and the difference was startling; as a sixteen-year-old, Shelby had been all arms and legs, awkward as a Great Dane puppy trying to find her feet. At seventeen, she looked like she'd slunk out of a music video, the kind where the female object seethes with barely suppressed s.e.xuality. Her shiny dark hair was board straight and hung well below her shoulders. Dark lashes framed heavily made-up eyes that were the same clear green as J.J.'s. Her full lips carried the bright sheen of gloss; they seemed intentionally pursed, as if showing any hint of teeth might somehow be construed as a sign of welcome. Or weakness.

"Thanks." Vivien sat up all the way and swung her legs over the side of the bed, gingerly checking for her old friend, nausea, pathetically grateful to discover it still absent. She yawned and shot a glance at the bedside clock, surprised to discover she'd slept for almost four hours. Her once-crisp blouse and pants attested to how deeply she'd slept.

Shelby still stood in the doorway watching her in the same way one might watch an unusual specimen at the zoo. Vivien straightened slowly, trying to regain her equilibrium, then walked toward the doorway. Any last thought of a hug fled as Shelby shrank back into the hallway. Careful not to react, Vivien stepped into the hall, pulling the door shut behind her. Shelby's perfume hit her full force, something too heavy and too musky for a girl her age, and Vivien regretted how sensitive her nose had become. When she moved toward the stair, her nose encountered a whole new aroma. She sniffed carefully, waiting for the smell of food to trigger the nausea, but miracle of miracles, for the first time in ages, the response triggered was hunger. She sniffed again, this time appreciatively. Her stomach rumbled loudly in response.

"We're finally having real food now that you're here." Shelby sniffed, not in appreciation of the smells that were now making Vivien's mouth water, but with palpable resentment.

Vivien, who had subsisted on saltines and 7UP for longer than she cared to remember, was unable to feel even a twinge of sympathy. "Is that lasagna?" She tried not to salivate as she turned to her niece for confirmation.

"From scratch." The words were a condemnation.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Suddenly ravenous, Vivien started down the back stairs, not pausing to see whether Shelby followed or not.

"Oh, my G.o.d," she said as she reached the bottom step. "Have I died and gone to heaven?"

Melanie looked up from the salad she was mixing. A basket of garlic bread slices sat on the counter. "You were sleeping like the dead when I checked on you a while ago. If you hadn't been snoring, I would have called nine-one-one."

Vivien ran a hand through her hair and ignored the snoring comment. It was impossible to feel this hungry and insulted at the same time.

"Want a gla.s.s of wine?" Melanie held up a winegla.s.s and swirled the deep red liquid in the bottom. Vivien salivated again. She'd always been an indifferent drinker, enjoying a gla.s.s or two socially. Now that she couldn't have alcohol, it had become much more attractive. "Um, no. Thanks." She averted her eyes so that Melanie wouldn't see the lie in them. "I'm afraid it might put me right back to sleep. Maybe I am coming down with something . . ."