Читать книгу The Switch - Olivia Goldsmith - Страница 9

Sylvie had put the top down on her new car although there was a chill in the air. It was wasteful to drive with the heat pumping and the top off but she was doing it. What the hell. She’d be self-indulgent. She was almost forty. Live a little!

The groceries she’d just bought were arranged neatly in four bags across the backseat and, as she took a sharp turn, she glimpsed them in the mirror. They shifted but didn’t spill. Before the children had left she used to have to fill the backseat and the trunk of the sedan with groceries—Kenny and his friends ate like horses. Now four bags and a dollar tip to the box boy was all it took to fill the backseat and restock the larder at home.

She took a curve much faster than usual. The wind whipped at her hair. It was odd there was so much air, yet she couldn’t seem to breathe. Somehow all she could manage was shallow breaths. Maybe she should take a yoga class.

Last night, after choking down a solitary dinner of overdone chicken, she’d waited for Bob. He’d come in after midnight and he hadn’t wanted to talk. Sylvie didn’t push it. Instead, she’d lain awake most of the night, sleepless and confused. She had—

Out of nowhere a car pulled out of an almost hidden driveway on her right. Sylvie moved the wheel and the convertible swerved responsively. A van was in the oncoming lane. The slightest touch brought her car back, long before the van was a real danger to her, but she was shaken. So were the groceries. Sylvie had to admit that the convertible was beautiful to drive, but she didn’t want it. It was wrong somehow. It felt all wrong.

What’s wrong with me? Sylvie thought. Most women would give up their husbands for a car like this. Or, for that matter, give up their cars for a husband like mine. And I have both. Rosalie is right. I’m very lucky. I should be grateful. She began her litany. I’m healthy, I love Bob, he loves me, the kids are fine. It’s a beautiful sunny day, and the leaves are just starting to turn. This unease she felt, this nagging sense of dissatisfaction, wasn’t like her. Sylvie felt ashamed at her unhappiness, but it was still there, right under her breastbone. She braked for a red light, the car gliding smoothly and effortlessly to a stop.

The steering wheel under her hands was wet with sweat. The feeling that had been building in her, lodging in her chest, now moved into her throat and blocked it. She tried to swallow and couldn’t do it. It didn’t matter anyway—her mouth was so dry there was nothing to swallow. Either I’m going crazy or something is really wrong, she thought as the light turned green. A horn blared behind her. The driver hadn’t even given her a minute. She accelerated. All at once she was swept with a surge of anger—of rage—so complete that she had trouble seeing the road. She looked in the rear view mirror at the old man in the big Buick behind her, gunned the motor, and flipped him the bird.

God! She’d never done that before in her life. Road rage? What was going on?

She realized that it was more than not wanting this car. Bob hadn’t thought of her when he took it off the lot. It was a reflexive gift, not a reflective one. He hadn’t reflected, thought, for one moment about what she might want. He took her for granted. He hadn’t listened about Hawaii either. When was the last time he had listened? Sylvie didn’t want automatic gifts, no matter how luxurious. She didn’t want to be taken for granted. She didn’t want to be ignored by Bob. There was so many things she had that she didn’t want, she felt almost dizzy and nearly missed the left into the cul-de-sac. She jerked the wheel and the new tires squealed making the turn. She drove slowly on Harris Place, the street she lived on, where her mother had the big house with the white columns and where her brother had lived in the Tudor before he’d divorced Rosalie. The few other houses on Harris were all traditional, well-designed and maintained. She drove past the beds of vinca in front of the Williamsons’ and the row of gold chrysanthemums unimaginatively lined up along Rosalie’s fence. Everything appeared so right, but this foreboding, this sense that it was wrong, became insupportable. She still couldn’t breathe. It was as if the open top of the car let the entire weight of the universe in to crush her. Her house, the house she loved, loomed up.

Sylvie made a sharp right and felt the wheels of the BM W effortlessly move over the curb. She drove the car calmly across her own side lawn and, when she reached it, through the flower border, right over the zinnias. She felt an icy stillness as she proceeded onto the back lawn and engineered a carefully calculated right turn, avoiding the slate patio. The aqua rectangle of the pool was right before her and, without slowing down, she headed for it, the car, like a homing device, moving toward the concrete edge of the eight-foot diving drop. As the front wheels spun out into empty space, just before they took the plunge into the turquoise water, Sylvie was able to take the first deep breath she had taken all day.

“Sylvie! Sylvie, baby! Are you okay?”

Mildred had been rehanging the bedroom curtains and had looked down to see the L her daughter made in the lawn as she had done this crazy thing. Now Mildred stood at the edge of the pool. She couldn’t swim—never had—but she’d jump in to attempt to save her daughter if she must. Mildred was relieved then to see that Sylvie’s head had broken through the leaf-strewn surface of the water. Sylvie, a good swimmer, breaststroked gracefully over the trunk of the car and across the pool, still holding on to her purse. Her shoes had fallen to the bottom, but the shorts and blouse she had on felt surprisingly heavy, pulling her down. Still, Sylvie managed to move through the cold water to the ladder.

Mildred was panting, one hand against the ladder rail, the other hand on her heaving chest. “You frightened me,” Mildred said. There was a scream from the other side of the property and Mildred started and turned her head. Sylvie, still in the pool, couldn’t see but knew whose voice it was. “Oh god,” Mildred muttered. “I know she never washes her curtains, so what’s her excuse for seeing this?” She squatted down to get closer to Sylvie and extended her hand to help her. “Your ex-sister-in-law is waving to you,” she said.

Climbing the ladder, Sylvie turned and saw Rosalie’s dark head over the pickets of the north fence. “Trouble in Paradise?” Rosalie yelled.

Mildred, ignoring Rosalie, carefully helped her daughter out of the pool. “Why did you do that?” she asked.

“So I’ll remember where I parked?”

“Are you being flippant with your mother?”

Sylvie opened her purse, oblivious to the water that poured out, and dropped in her car keys. She snapped the purse shut. The noise it made, like a tiny sedan door closing, did not sound as solid as usual. “Flippant?” she echoed, distracted. She was a little dazed, but at least she could breathe.

“Sylvie, you do realize you’ve just done a very strange thing? If you don’t, it’s even stranger.”

Sylvie turned to look at the scene behind her. Three nectarines and a head of lettuce were now floating on the top of the pool. The car glinted up from the bottom like a silver fish lying under aspic. What had she done? And why had she done it? She put her hand up to her eyes to wipe away the water streaming down from her hair, only to realize there were also tears rising over her bottom lids. What had she done? Was she crazy? “I just want Bob to notice me,” she admitted in a whisper.

Mildred nodded, then opened the door to the outdoor cabinet that Bob had always laughingly called “The Cabana.” Oh, he was a card, Bob was. Sylvie shivered in the cool autumn air as she watched her mother take out two faded beach towels. “Sylvie, sweetheart,” Mildred said, “men don’t notice their wives. A new blonde in the neighborhood, yes. A sports car, absolutely. But after forty-six years of marriage, just ask your father what color eyes I have.” Mildred looked deep into her daughter’s own eyes. “Give it up, Sylvie.” Mildred wrapped one of the towels around Sylvie’s shoulders and handed her the other one. “For your hair,” Mildred directed. Rosalie had thrown her left leg over the fence. “What can I do?” she hollered.

Exasperated, Mildred raised her own voice. “You can move out of the neighborhood, Rosalie. You’ve been divorced from my son for three years.” Rosalie had almost managed to breach the fence. Sylvie knew Rosalie was lonely since the divorce and with her kids away, but though she tried to feel for her, Rose was shameless in her interfering with the family. She wouldn’t sell her house or leave the culde-sac; she wouldn’t stop snooping and gossiping and showing up uninvited. After her settlement from Phil had left him broke, she still insisted he had secret funds. And that everyone was better off and had more resources than Rosalie.

Now Rosalie the Resourceful got her right leg over the fence and jumped into the yard.

Rosalie made a beeline for the pool and stared into it. “Holy shit! I heard it but I didn’t see it.” She squatted down, looked at the car, and grinned. “Is this gonna be covered by the warranty?” she asked. She reached out and grabbed the lettuce, floating near the edge of the pool coping, and brought it over to Sylvie. “God, you’re a mess,” Rosalie said as she surveyed Sylvie, who was dripping like a defrosting freezer. Rosalie held up the lettuce. “Salad, anyone?” Mildred snatched it from her. “What’s happened to you, Sylvie?” Rosalie asked. “I mean, aside from the dunk? I couldn’t see you in the dark last night, but you look awful. You looked so much better the other day when I saw you with Bob leaving Vico’s. He was driving pretty fast but I could have sworn you’d lost weight. I thought you’d lost weight,” Rosalie said doubtfully, looking at the wet clothes clinging to her sister-in-law.

“I wasn’t with Bob in his car the other day,” Sylvie said. “He moves too fast.”

“He was putting the moves on you, all right.”

“Go home, you loon,” Mildred snapped and began propelling Sylvie away from the scene of the crime. Sylvie knew Mildred felt sorry for Rosalie, just like she did, but still, the woman was brash and insensitive. That’s why she’d been such a perfect match for Phil, and it had broken Mildred’s heart when they split up.

“I wasn’t in Beautiful Baby,” Sylvie called over her shoulder. Did all of Cleveland spend its free time sighting her in places she wasn’t? Next she’d be seen with Elvis.

“You’ll have to continue this little chat later.” Mildred turned her back on Rosalie and guided Sylvie gently but firmly into the house to the music room. She locked the French doors behind them and sat Sylvie down on the bench.

Rosalie, outside, tried the door handle.

“I haven’t ridden in Bob’s convertible in years. I’m not totally crazy,” Sylvie told her mother.

“Evidence to the contrary,” Mildred said, and took the towel from around Sylvie’s head. “You need a touch-up at the roots,” she added.

“I’m letting them gray and grow in,” Sylvie said.

“Then you are crazy,” Mildred told her daughter.

“Why? Bob didn’t even notice when I changed the color.”

“Well, he’ll notice this,” Mildred predicted, looking at the pool.

“My god. How will I tell him?” Sylvie felt her stomach lurch.

There was a banging on the window. Rosalie was pointing to the door lock. “As if,” Mildred sniffed. Sylvie looked at the poor locked-out woman. But she just couldn’t cope. She needed comforting now, and some calmness. Rosalie was too self-involved to offer that. For some reason, imagining Rosalie alone in her house next door made Sylvie lonely herself. Well, she realized, she was lonely. Even with her mother here beside her. She gestured for Rosalie to go away. Rosalie paid no attention.

“Maybe I am nuts,” Sylvie said, and nearly sobbed. “It’s pathetic to be so hurt because your husband is ignoring you. I just can’t figure out if he always did and I didn’t notice because the kids were around or if he’s ignoring me in a whole new way.”

“Oh, Sylvie,” Mildred sighed. “This is all so normal and predictable. I did the car thing too, back when your father was still running the lot. Maybe not as dramatically, but every time we had a big fight, I’d rear-end somebody.”

“You did? What did you tell him?”

“That the brakes failed, and that’s back when they were still calling it ‘the ultimate driving machine.’”

“So it’s hereditary?” Sylvie asked. “Being crazy?”

“From your father’s side.”

Rosalie began rattling the door. Mildred turned and surveyed her. “Isn’t it strange? She seems to think it’s accidental that she’s excluded,” Mildred observed to Sylvie. “Just remember,” she added, “I didn’t like her while she was married to Phil.” She turned her full attention back to Sylvie. “But I admit my son unhinged her. Poor thing. She’s crazy by marriage.” Mildred sighed. “Phil could make any woman nuts. Not like Bob.”

Sylvie felt the towel between her and the bench turning sodden and stood up.

“We better go upstairs,” Mildred told Sylvie. “If she can’t see or hear us, Rosalie will get tired and go home and the neighbors won’t hear her banging to get in. Otherwise this will be all over town by dinner.” Sylvie nodded, though it would be all over town by dinner anyway. Mother and daughter moved together from the brightness of the music room into the darkness of the hall. Mildred sighed deeply as she shepherded her daughter up the stairs. “Maybe the family business made all the rest of us crazy. But I thought you and Bob were immune.”

They got to the landing, where a picture from Reenie and Kenny’s tenth birthday party hung. Bob had been dressed up as a bagel, the twins’ favorite treat at the time. “Remember how much fun Bob used to be?” Sylvie asked.

“Fun? No. Intense, yes. Fun, no.”

“Yes you do,” Sylvie urged. “He was such a great dancer. And he was always playing the piano.” She lowered her voice. “The music in him has died.”

Mildred gave her a little push and propelled her up the rest of the stairs, still carrying the head of lettuce. “Oh, please, Sylvie! Those artistic dreams always die. There’s not a chiropractor in Shaker Heights who didn’t think, at one time, he had a novel in him.”

Sylvie shook her head, unutterably sad. They entered the bedroom. It was all so pleasant—the bed had an antique headboard she and Bob had bought and refinished together years ago. She’d found the chest of drawers at a Cleveland thrift shop and had painted and decoupaged it. The quilt had been her grandmother’s. It was a room with a lot of history. So why did she feel so desolate? Sylvie stood there and dripped on the floor. Mildred unbuttoned the back of Sylvie’s blouse and began helping Sylvie off with her wet clothes. Sylvie felt absolutely limp.

“I don’t know. I thought after the kids went off to college that …”

“… the two of you would … yeah, yeah, go on cruise vacations, dance until midnight.” Mildred pulled at the wet blouse, dragging it over her daughter’s head, then caressing her wet hair. “Just like your father and me,” she said. She shook her head. The gesture made Sylvie feel somehow bereft. “Where you got the idea that marriage was supposed to be romantic is beyond me,” Mildred said. “You certainly didn’t get it in my house.” Sylvie knew her mother was trying to cheer her up, but jokes were no comfort—if Mildred was joking.

Mildred turned Sylvie around to look at her. “Listen to me: you want excitement? You want affection and devotion and some nights out in the spotlight?”

Sylvie nodded her head.

Mildred brushed her hand tenderly across her daughter’s cheek. “Then take my advice: raise show dogs.”