A Portrait of Marguerite Read online

  As I finished my vow, the rain stopped, which I took as a sign I was doing the right thing. I sat down on the front steps, my elbows resting on my knees. I heard a car approaching, and a few seconds later, Tim’s BMW sped around the corner and skidded to a stop. I closed my eyes for a moment. I’d just sworn off the male half of the human race, and here I was, already being confronted with one of them. What should I do? How should I react? My mind was spinning like a penny flipping through the air, not knowing whether it was landing heads or tails.

  Tim bopped out of his car. “Hi, there, pretty lady. I know I’m a little early, but I couldn’t wait. Hey, who answered the phone when I called?”

  “A friend.” I gave him the abridged version of my traumatic morning.

  Tim took my hand and pulled me to my feet. “Poor baby, come here.” His hands grasped my waist, and his lips puckered for a kiss.

  I drew back. “Tim, this isn’t working.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I hated conflict, hated having people mad at me, hated hurting others’ feelings. “I don’t think we should date anymore.” The words slid out before I could think them through, which was just as well.

  His cheery expression wilted. “But we’re so good together.” When I didn’t agree, he said, “Why are you doing this?”

  “You’re a wonderful guy, but I’m going through a crazy time right now.” A pang of self-doubt shot from my legs up to my shoulders, almost forcing me to recant my words. Was I making a dreadful error? No. “I’m sorry.”

  He snorted a chuckle, his upper lip curling up to expose his square front teeth. “Let me get this straight. You’re dumping me? That’s a laugh.” He stomped back to his car, then yelled across the hood, “You’re lucky I ever took you out.”

  At eight o’clock the next morning, my doorbell rang several times in rapid succession, sounding like a smoke alarm. Charlie barked from the kitchen, but remained in his basket, his legs sore from his foray into the neighborhood. He must have pulled a muscle somehow.

  Still in my bathrobe, I squinted through the peephole to see Darla’s face reduced to the size of a Cheerio. What was she doing here? Phil must be out there too. I decided not to open the door. I was in no mood for entertaining those two, and I knew I looked terrible. As I tiptoed into the living room, someone’s knuckles rapped urgently on the door, and then the bell rang again. I turned back and cracked the door a couple of inches.

  Darla stood alone. “May I?” she said. With her shoulders thrown back, she shoved the door open and barged across the threshold. A mass of cold air flooded the hallway. I peered past her at the Porsche 911 Carrera sitting out front, a sign her boutique was flourishing.

  “What do you want?” I assumed she was looking for Phil. What else could it be?

  “Henry called Philip last night to tell him the good news. Apparently you two have something going.”

  If she only knew how wrong she was. “No, we don’t, not that it’s any of your business.”

  “I wish I were wrong.” She sounded like she was announcing a death in the family. “Henry said he’s falling for you.”

  “Don’t believe it.” I relived the awkward moment he and I shared in this same spot less than twenty-four hours earlier. “Now, please leave.”

  “Philip thinks it’s great,” she continued as if she hadn’t heard me. “He said we can all hang out together, double date, be friends. He thinks you’ve changed into a perfect little princess, but you don’t fool me for a minute.” Spittle flew from her mouth and landed on my shoulder. “We both know you wanted to kill his unborn son. And you would have if he hadn’t stopped you.”

  The lump in my throat made speaking difficult. “But I didn’t go through with it.”

  “Your intention was there. Any woman who’d want to kill her own child is evil.”

  “But I was so young back then.” I felt a place deep inside my abdomen cramping, sending an ache across my belly. “And I was scared to death.”

  “You weren’t too scared to get yourself pregnant, were you? Philip thinks it was an accident, but you and I know better.”

  I said nothing. It would be futile to argue with her.

  “When he refused to marry you, you threatened to have an abortion, out of revenge.” Her tirade rebounded off the walls. “It’s the oldest trick in the book.”

  “That was nineteen years ago. And I live with that guilt every day. Don’t you think that’s enough punishment?”

  “You don’t look like you’re suffering to me. But you will someday. God will have the last word.”

  Her words pierced my eardrums like shards of glass. I had to get her out of my house. I inched toward the door, grasped hold of the knob.

  “We heard through Rob that you were over at Andrea’s parents’, probably pushing for Andrea to have an abortion,” she said. “Your solution to everything.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  She moved halfway through the doorway, then she swung around, bringing with her a fresh round of contempt. “You stay out of my life. Unless you find a way to do that, I’ll tell Rob everything. And how about Henry? Wouldn’t he be surprised to find out what you’re really like? Not to mention Lois Grimbaldi.”

  “Please.” My hand reached out, but I was afraid to touch her arm. “Why are you doing this? What do you want?” I was ready to pay whatever it took.

  “I want you to disappear, to vanish from the face of the earth.” Her nostrils flared. “Steer clear of Philip and Henry. It wouldn’t work out with him anyway. He loves his wife. He still has her picture in his bedroom. You must have seen it. Or haven’t you wormed your way into his bed yet?”

  I ignored the slam.

  “You’re not his type. Henry’s a godly man who deserves someone better. I happen to know the perfect woman for him. My friend Vicki has had a crush on him for years. She’s just like Barbara—virtuous. Unlike you, she’s been saving herself for the right man. Once you butt out, she’ll have a chance.”

  She shot me one more look of scorn. “Women like you make me sick.” She whirled around and strode down the front steps.

  Listening to her car rumble down the street, I shut the door and leaned against it. At first, I thought I was fine, but then I felt my features contorting, and a moment later tears rushed out of my eyes. I covered my face with my hands and cried.

  Everything Darla said about me was true. When I fell into bed with Phil, I made no effort to protect myself, as they say. I assumed he would marry me if I got pregnant. Sure, he would be upset at first, but he would get over it in a few days, and we would live happily ever after. When I missed my period, I experienced a short-lived time of euphoria, followed by debilitating morning sickness and regret.

  I remembered breaking the news to Phil. He took on the look of a man who was being sentenced to a lifetime imprisonment in Siberia. “How could you let this happen?” he yelled. “I’m too young to be a father, and I’m sure not ready to get married.” His words almost bowled me over.

  During the next few weeks, I felt like an alien had invaded my body. One day, after a miserable hour of vomiting, I called a woman’s clinic. That afternoon, I went in, and the nurse assured me these predicaments happen all the time. “You don’t want to bring an unwanted child into the world, do you?” she asked. No, I didn’t want the baby. I’d been stupid, I was losing Phil, but I could set things right again. I made an appointment to go in the next day to eradicate my horrible mistake.

  The next day as I dressed to go to the clinic, I listened to my clock ticking, and it occurred to me that the unborn fetus’s heart was also beating. I stood paralyzed by indecision. Was I doing the right thing? Was there another way out of the nightmare? Then I felt nausea churning through my gut like the onset of food poisoning. I raced to the bathroom. Leaning over the toilet, I lost the only meal I’d eaten in twenty-four hours.

  As I was getting in my car, Phil raced up in his old Volkswagen van. “Stop,” he said. “Don’t do it.
It’s my child too.” He wept, tears streaming from his eyes. “Okay, you win. We’ll get married.”

  Seven months later, Rob was born, yellowed with jaundice. He remained a sickly baby who suffered from eczema and colic. I remembered his legs kicking frantically as he screamed through the night. I tried to breast-feed him, but I developed one breast infection after another. Feeding time was a painful ordeal for both of us. Several months into Rob’s life, I felt depleted and resented my infant son. Days passed when my staggering depression drove me to consider giving him up for adoption. Wouldn’t Rob be better off in a real family with a mother who didn’t cry all the time and a father who wasn’t a drunk? I reasoned.

  Now Rob and Andrea stood in the same boat. Maybe it would be better if Andrea … “No.”

  I clutched my chest and imagined myself cradling my new grandchild. Andrea didn’t have the right to steal that baby from me.

  Later that afternoon I sat at my desk in the office. I’d just spoken to Sherry Henrick and had encouraged her to drive by a fixer-upper the couple had looked at several months earlier but thought needed too much work.

  “The listing agent said the sellers are desperate,” I told her. “They’ll consider any offer. With the money you save, you can paint the interior and install new carpet. Remember, the house has a cute breakfast nook and is within walking distance of the elementary school.” Sherry, speaking in monotone, said she would think about it.

  I opened the Basetti file and called the listing agent for the home Mr. Basetti and his wife wanted, only to find I was too late. “We accepted an offer last night,” the agent said. “But there’s a contingency. The buyers are waiting for the sale of a piece of vacation property that’s supposed to close in a few days. We’ll look at your client’s offer as a backup—as long as it’s full price.”

  I cracked another of Lois’s files and called the young man who hadn’t given the lender verification of his income. He owned his own business—some sort of a consulting firm—and said he resented the bank treating him like a liar. “I’ve never needed verification before,” he told me. “I took out a loan for a new car last month, and that bank was thrilled to lend me money.”

  I explained that any mortgage company would require copies of his income-tax forms as proof of earnings. “It’s a matter of policy,” I said. “I’d have to do the same thing.”

  As I hung up, Laurie straggled in unannounced. I’d left her a recorded message several hours earlier saying, “My dear friend, we need to talk.”

  Laurie collapsed onto the chair next to my desk. She looked bedraggled. Limp bangs hung across her eyes, and she wasn’t wearing lipstick. I tried to remember if I’d ever seen her without lipstick. Once, I recalled, when she was in the hospital after giving birth, and once when she had strep throat.

  “Something wrong?” I asked, pushing my paperwork aside.

  “Dave was badgering me so much last night, I told him everything.” She whispered so my coworker sitting on the other side of the partition wouldn’t hear. “That I was attracted to a guy and had lunch with him, but nothing happened. That was a big mistake. Dave went ballistic and threatened to hire a private detective to follow me, get copies of my cell phone bills, and find out who I’ve been calling.”

  I heard voices approaching and glanced up to see two agents wandering past.

  “Let’s go somewhere more private,” I said, getting to my feet. I led Laurie down a short hallway to the conference room. I scanned the room through the floor-to-ceiling windows to make sure no one was sitting at the hefty table that dominated the small space. On one wall hung a print of Mount Rainier, and crushed in a corner stood an artificial ficus tree. Once inside I closed the door, then swiveled two chairs so they faced each other.

  “Did you two get a chance to speak again this morning?” I asked as we sat down. I knew Laurie wasn’t the type to come groveling with an apology. She and I had suffered a spat several years before, and I’d been the one to call and patch things up.

  “No. Dave slept on the couch.” The corners of her mouth dragged down. “When I got up this morning, he was gone.”

  “Maybe this is a good time to make an appointment with a marriage counselor. Dave’s feeling crushed, but I’m sure you two can resolve this issue.”

  She raked her fingers through her bangs, but they flopped back across her forehead. “I guess, but I don’t know if Dave would go. He’s acting so high and mighty, like he’s never done anything wrong in his life.” She worked her wedding ring up to her knuckle, then shoved it back down again. “When I think of all the nights he’s stayed out late at supposed business meetings, and I haven’t had a clue where he was, it makes me wonder what he was really doing. I’m always the one waiting at home like a cocker spaniel with his newspaper and slippers.”

  “That’s not fair. I have meetings at night, and they’re strictly business,”

  She covered her mouth as she yawned. “I’m going home to take a nap,” she said, standing. “We can talk more tonight on the way to class. What time shall I pick you up?”

  Through the window, I watched several people walk by, their voices sounding as though they were submerged in a fish tank. “I’m not going,” I said, avoiding Laurie’s eyes.

  “But tonight’s our last class. Henry promised us a live model. You don’t want to miss that.”

  “I can’t go.” I had little doubt Darla would follow through with her threats if I spoke to Henry again. And who cared about a dumb drawing class? I had more important matters on my mind.

  She scrutinized my face. “You don’t look so good.” She slid back on the chair and scooted it close until our knees were touching. “What’s wrong? Is it Tim?”

  “We’re not dating anymore.”

  “You poor little thing. What happened?”

  “It was my idea, and it may have been the stupidest move of my life.” I pictured myself dining alone at a restaurant at the age of ninety. “Tim was upset, but he seems pretty resilient.” I affected a weak laugh. “When I called him this morning to make sure he was okay, he sounded happy as a clam. Seems he dropped by his old girlfriend’s house on the way home from mine. Guess they got back together.”

  “That does it, you’re coming tonight. You don’t want to miss your last chance with Henry.”

  “All he wants from me is friendship—which is for the best.” If that were true, why did it hurt so much to say it? “Thanks to Phil’s big mouth, Henry won’t even want me for a friend anymore.” I stared at my hands in my lap. “Anyway, I’m not good enough for a man like him.”

  She tossed me a look of disbelief. “Not good enough? You’re perfect.”

  “I’m anything but perfect. There’s so much you don’t know about me.”

  “I don’t need to know any more about you. I love you just as you are.”

  Stephanie sauntered by and stopped short when she noticed me. She knocked on the door, then let herself in.

  “A Darla Bennett just called for Lois,” she said, handing me a slip of paper with Darla’s telephone number written on it. “It sounded important. I told her the person who was handling Lois’s sales would get right back to her.”

  I reminded myself of a lioness stalking its prey as I waited inmy car for the source of all my problems—Phil. Parked in the lot behind his five-story apartment house, I turned off the engine and listened to it die. Sitting in silence, I recalled the day Phil and I attempted to reconcile—almost a year after our breakup. I’d felt naive optimism as I entered his slummy one-room apartment in the University District and thought how miserable he must be living there by himself. Scanning the open cupboards, I saw no trace of alcohol, and the room smelled as though it had been recently scrubbed. He’d prepared a lunch of tuna sandwiches served on paper plates, which I found sweet, and we dined sitting on the couch. He told me how much he needed me. “You’re the only woman I’ll ever love,” he’d murmured in my ear, his breath feeling like a spring breeze.

  After lunch
he’d opened the couch into a double bed. He’d gently pulled me onto it, and I’d relaxed in his embrace, remembering how much I cared for him. I’d clung to him, never wanting to leave the safety of his arms. Several hours later as I prepared to go, I noticed something made of shiny black fabric lying on the floor between the crack of the couch and the mattress. I reached down to find a pair of women’s panties. My hand shaking with fury, I flung them at him. Then I stormed out the door.

  That pathetic scene still made my chest sink, as if Phil’s barbed hook remained lodged in my heart after all these years, pulling me back in time. Maybe it was possible to be addicted to another person, I thought, but after today I would finally be free.

  Phil’s Saab sailed into the parking lot. He got out and, with a spring in his step, headed for the building’s back door. The sight of him looking so cheerful ratcheted up my fury another degree. Eighteen years of harbored bitterness rolled back into place like an army deploying for battle. I vaulted out of my car and followed him.

  “Phil!” I yelled.

  His face showed friendly surprise. He pulled open the apartment house door, and I brushed by him, my elbow hitting his arm. I marched up the stairs and around the corner to his familiar door. I’d been to his apartment a few dozen times to pick up Rob, back before he could drive. Each time I’d been reminded of what a slob Phil was: dirty dishes stacked high in the sink and piles of cigarette butts collected in the huge ashtray he’d made in ceramics class in college.