“Gail always is a troublemaker, isn't she? …What about the sweetbreads?” As he had the night before, Doug was dismissing what she was saying, and it made India feel lonely as she looked at him over her menu.
“I think she's still sorry she gave up her career. She probably shouldn't have,” India added, ignoring his question about their dinner, and thinking that Gail probably wouldn't be having lunch with Dan Lewison if she had something else to do, but she said nothing to Doug about it. “I'm lucky. If I go back at some point, I can pick and choose what I do. I don't have to work full-time, or go all the way to Korea to do it.”
“What are you saying to me?” He had ordered for both of them, and faced her squarely across the table, but he did not look pleased by what she was saying. “Are you telling me you want to go back to work, India? That's not possible and you know it.” He didn't even give her a chance to answer his question.
“There's no reason why I couldn't do an occasional story, if it was local, is there?”
“For what? Just to show off your photographs? Why would you want to do that?” He made it sound so vain, and so futile, that she was almost embarrassed by the suggestion. But something about the way he resisted it suddenly made her feel stubborn.
“It's not a matter of showing off. It's about using a gift I have.” Gail had started it all the day before, with her pointed questions, and ever since, the ball had just kept rolling. And his resistance to it made it all seem that much more important.
“If you're so anxious to use your ‘gift,’ “ he said in a mildly contemptuous tone, “use it on the children. You've always taken great pictures of them. Why can't that satisfy you, or is this one of Gail's crusades? Somehow I feel her hand in this, or is Raoul getting you all stirred up? He's just out to make a buck anyway. Let him do it using someone else. There are plenty of other photographers he can send to Korea.”
“I'm sure he'll find one,” India said quietly as the pate they had ordered was put on the table. “I'm not saying I'm irreplaceable, I'm just saying the kids are getting older, and maybe once in a while I could do an assignment.” She was beginning to feel dogged about it.
“We don't need the money, and Sam is only nine, for heaven's sake. India, the kids need you.”
“I wasn't suggesting I leave them, Doug. I'm just saying it might be important to me.” And she wanted him to understand that. Only the day before she had told Gail how little she cared about having given up her career, and now, after listening to her and Raoul, and Doug belittling her the night before, suddenly it all mattered. But he refused to hear it.
Why would it be important to you? That's what I don't understand. What's so important about taking pictures?” She felt as though she were trying to crawl up a glass mountain, and she was getting nowhere.
“It's how I express myself. I'm good at it. I love it, that's all.”
“I told you, then take pictures of the kids. Or do portraits of their friends, and give them to their parents. There's plenty you can do with a camera, without taking assignments.”
“Maybe I'd like to do something important. Did that ever occur to you? Maybe I want to be sure my life has some meaning.”
“Oh, for God's sake.” He put down his fork and looked at her with annoyance. “What on earth has gotten into you? It's Gail. I know it.”
“It's not Gail,” she tried to defend herself, but was feeling hopeless, “it's about me. There has to be more meaning in life than cleaning up apple juice off the floor when the kids spill it.”
“You sound just like Gail now,” he said, looking disgusted.
“What if she's right, though? She's doing a lot of stupid things with her life, because she feels useless, and her life has no purpose. Maybe if she were doing something intelligent with herself, she wouldn't need to do other things that are pointless.”
“If you're trying to tell me she cheats on Jeff, I figured that out years ago. And if he's too blind to see it, it's his own fault. She runs after everything in pants in Westport. Is that what you're threatening me with? Is that what this is really about?” He looked furious with her as the waiter brought their main course. Their romantic night out was being wasted.
“Of course not.” India was quick to reassure him. “I don't know what she does,” she lied to protect her friend, but Gail's indiscretions were irrelevant to them, and none of Doug's business. “I'm talking about me. I'm just saying that maybe I need more in my life than just you and the children. I had a great career before I gave it up, no matter how unimportant you seem to think it was, and maybe I can retrieve some small part of it now to broaden my horizons.”
“You don't have time to broaden your horizons,” he said sensibly. “You're too busy with the children. Unless you want to start hiring baby-sitters constantly, or leaving them in day care. Is that what you have in mind, India? Because there's no other way for you to do it, and frankly I won't let you. You're their mother, and they need you.”
“I understand that, but I managed the story in Harlem without shortchanging them. I could do others like it.”
“I doubt that. And I just don't see the sense in it. You did all that, you had some fun, and you grew up. You can't go back to all that now. You're not a kid in your twenties with no responsibilities. You're a grown woman with a family and a husband.”
“I don't see why one has to preclude the other, as long as I keep my priorities straight. You and the kids come first, the rest would have to work around you.”
“You know, sitting here listening to you, I'm beginning to wonder about your priorities. What you're saying to me sounds incredibly selfish. All you want to do is have a good time, like your little friend, who's running around cheating on her husband because her kids bore her. Is that it? Do we bore you?” He looked highly insulted, and very angry. She had disrupted his whole evening. But he was threatening her self-esteem, and her future.
“Of course you don't bore me. And I'm not Gail.”
“What the hell is she after anyway?” He was cutting his steak viciously as he asked her. “She can't be that oversexed. What is she trying to do, just embarrass her husband?”
“I don't think so. I think she's lonely and dissatisfied, and I feel sorry for her. I'm not telling you what she does is right, Doug. I think she's panicked. She's forty-eight years old, she gave up a terrific career, and she can't see anything in her future except car pools. You don't know what that's like. You have a career. You never gave up anything. You just added to it.”
“Is that how you feel? The way Gail does?” He actually looked worried.
“Not really. I'm a lot happier than she is. But I think about my future too. What happens when the kids are gone? What do I do then? Run around taking pictures of kids I don't know in the playground?”
“You can figure that one out later. You'll have kids at home for the next nine years. That's plenty of time to figure out a game plan. Maybe we'll move back to the city, and you can go to museums.” That was it? All of it? Museums? The thought of it made her shiver. She wanted a lot more than that in her future. From that standpoint, Gail was absolutely right. And in nine years, India wanted to be doing a lot more than killing time. But in nine years it would be that much harder to get back into a career, if Doug would even let her. And it didn't sound like it from what he was saying. “The kids are much too young for you to be thinking about this now. Maybe you could get a job in a gallery or something, once they grow up. Why worry about it?”
“And do what? Look at the photographs other people took, when I could have done it better? You're right, I'm busy now. But what about later?” In the past twenty-four hours, the whole question had come into sharper focus for her.