"I don't want a bunch of reporters following my wife around and writing stories on how much my wife spends on dresses. Do you want that?" he said. "Do you want to be the laughingstock of the papers?”
"No-o-o-o-o," I sobbed, not wanting to point out that I was already beginning to be the laughingstock of the papers, so what difference did it make? I rocked back and forth on the bed, crying and crying like my heart was breaking, (which it was) thinking, What am I going to do now? What am I supposed to do now?
And now—ha ha—I am sitting here surrounded by strange new clothes. So in other words, everything that I was doing in the last year has finally resulted in getting my way. Which was wearing the same old simple black-and-white pieces I always wore before my marriage, until some fashion reporter wrote: "Can't someone get this princess a new frock?”
Which I didn't have to point out to Hubert, because it was in the Styles section of The New York Times, and that's the section he reads first on Sundays. Believe it or not. (I didn't believe it myself, when I first met him: that and the way he secretly reads all the gossip columns, scanning the items for his name. No matter what is written, he never says anything about it; and his face always remains impassive, like he's reading about somebody else, someone whom he doesn't know.) And yet, there is something insulting about all this. As if Hubert didn't want to spend money on me for the first year of our marriage because he wasn't sure he was going to keep me around.
(I so wish that we could talk about these things openly. I really did believe, when we first got married, that we would talk about everything honestly, but the opposite has occurred: We're like two people on separate islands, with only tin cans and string as a means of communication.) And so I must act slightly displeased by it all. Especially since it's really D.W.'s doing. Including the short hair. I have short white hair, and when I look in the mirror, I don't recognize myself. It's part of their plan to wipe me out and start over.
And my husband is all for it.
"I'm on board," he said. (Ugh. I hate that expression. It's so corporate America, which Hubert is not but likes to pretend he is.) "I'm on board. Ifs good for you.”
"I suppose you'll be wanting me to EXERCISE next," I said.
"Exercise is good for you," he said. At which point I told him that it's very difficult to exercise when you're so doped up you can barely lift your hand to your mouth.
When I said this, he said (suspiciously, I thought), "There is no reason to lift your hand to your mouth unless you're putting food in it." To which I smartly replied, "Actually, you have to lift your hand to your mouth to apply lipstick," and that shut him up for a minute.
We were having this conversation yesterday morning while I was still in bed, and in the middle of it the apartment buzzer began ringing incessantly. I put several pillows over my head, but if s no use. Hubert goes downstairs, then comes back up and says, "Get up. D.W. is here." Instead of staying to comfort me, he goes back downstairs and makes another pot of coffee, like he's some kind of real person (he actually takes pride in this), which I can never help but believe is a total act.
I hear some kind of commotion downstairs, and voices, and Hubert calling, "Come on, sleepyhead, come downstairs." And then D.W/s voice: "Get up! Get up, you lazy thing!" I therefore have no choice but to wrench my drugged and tired bones from the comfort of my bed. I go immediately (do not pass bathroom) downstairs with my hair in a mess, still wearing my silk spaghetti-strap negligee, which is all wrinkled and has tiny stains on it because I've basically been wearing it for four days.
Just as I enter the kitchen, I hear D.W. say, "I declare, Hubert, you get more handsome every time I see you," which nearly sets me off, because who does D.W. think he is, acting like Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind?
Hubert is dressed in a gray suit with a white oxford-cloth shirt and a yellow tie, and unless you're actually married to him, I suppose he does look pretty amazing, pouring coffee into large mugs, smiling and making light conversation about a movie he's seen called The Seventh Sense. "Why didn't I see this movie?" I ask.
He pulls me to him and puts his arm around me. "Because you were sick. Remember?”
"I wasn't sick," I say. "I was only pretending to be sick because I hate movie theaters.”
"That’s right," he says, to me and not to D.W., which actually makes me feel a tiny bit good, "because you think movie theaters are filled with germs.”
"Germs and sick people," I say.
"She's such a princess," D.W. says. "I always told her that if she didn't marry you, the only other person she could have married would have been Prince Charles.”
"I'd be dead then," I say.
"That would be a terrible tragedy. Not just for Hubert, but for the world," D.W. says unctuously.
"I'd like to be dead. I don't think it would be bad at all," I say, and I can see Hubert and D.W. exchange glances.
"Besides," I say, pouring myself a cup of coffee even though coffee is yet another one of the FORTY MILLION things in the world that makes me VOMIT, "if I hadn't married Hubert, I would have married a movie star.”
I hand my cup of coffee to D.W. "Try it.”
“Why?" he asks.
"Just try it.”
D.W. and Hubert exchange glances.
"If s coffee," he says, and hands it back to me. "Thank you," I say. I cautiously take a sip. "I just wanted to make sure it wasn't poisoned.”
My poor, poor husband. He ditched the European girl and got something much worse. Something crazy. Which he has to ignore.
"But you wouldn't be happy," Hubert says, again trading glances with D.W., "because a movie star wouldn't love you as much as I do.”
"Well," I say, "since you love me zero, what difference would it make?”
"Oh, come, come," D.W. says.
"What do you know?" I ask hatefully. And I look over at Hubert and see that closed-down look has come over his face. Again. For the millionth time. He empties the rest of his coffee in the sink and rinses his mug. "I've got to be going.”
"He's always going to that stupid office," I say casually.
"Studio," D.W. says. "When a man is the executive producer of a hit TV show on a major network, he goes to a studio.”
Hubert kisses me on the forehead. "Bye, kiddo," he says. "You two have fun today.”
I look at D.W. balefully.
"Don't," he says. "Don't say anything stupid. Especially after that completely pointless display.”
My poor husband.
I run into the living room and grab Mr. Smith, who is sniffling around the couch, and run for the door, passing the kitchen where D.W. spots me and shouts out, "Keep that beagle away from me!" And I run down the stairs, still clutching Mr. Smith, who has absolutely no idea what is going on, and I run onto Prince Street, where Hubert has just gotten into the limo (he supposedly told them he didn't want a limo, but The Network insisted). I knock on the window and Hubert lowers the glass. He looks at me like "Oh God, here's my crazy wife standing on the street barefoot in a wrinkled old negligee holding a beagle in her arms," and he says (pleasantly enough), "Yes?" And I say, "You forgot to say good-bye to Mr. Smith.”
He says, "Good-bye, Mr. Smith," and leans out and kisses Mr. Smith on the nose. Ifs all so cute, and I actually think I might be okay for the next couple of hours, but then I hear that telltale click, click, click behind me, and I turn, and there's that photographer in full combat fatigues, snapping away and yelling, "Smile!" and the limo takes off, and I hold Mr. Smith (who is struggling viciously now) over my face and run crazily down Prince Street, finally taking refuge in a news shop.
At which point the proprietor of this dirty shop with its overpriced cigarettes has the nerve to say, "No dogs. No dogs in the store." And begins waving his arms like he's just been attacked by an infestation of fleas.