Elaine was at her best on the telephone. She used it as an actress uses a role, to project her personality and at the same time to hide behind the projection. As a real doctor’s wife she could have spent a great deal of time on the telephone, leaving the details of the house and the three children to a maid. As a dentist’s wife, she couldn’t afford a maid. She couldn’t even afford a second car, so that when she needed the Oldsmobile for shopping or errands, she had to drive Gordon to work in the morning and call for him when he had finished for the day.
She went around to the back door of Number Seven and let herself in. She could hear Gordon moving around in the lab, whistling. Elaine was, by nature, extremely suspicious of music or happy sounds in general, and she wondered what Gordon had to whistle about on such a hot day, with the house payment overdue and the tuition fee of Judith’s school raised again.
The medicinal smell in the office made her cough. Gordon heard the cough and came out of the lab into the hall, carrying a full set of dentures in his hand.
Elaine turned her eyes away. “Honestly, Gordon.”
“What’s the matter?”
“You know I can’t stand the sight of — those things.”
“Oh. Sorry.” He put the dentures in his pocket. “I’m not quite ready to leave yet.”
“I was hoping you would be. The children have been looking forward to this all day. You know how they adore the beach.”
“Beach?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”
“No. I—”
“But you have. I knew as soon as I walked in that you’d forgotten.”
“I have other things on my mind, Elaine. I can’t remember everything.”
“We talked about it only this morning. You said at breakfast that it was going to be a hot day, and I said, let’s get Ruth to look after the baby and you and I and Judith and Paul will go down to the beach... You couldn’t possibly have forgotten.”
“No.” He couldn’t possibly, but he had. He remembered Elaine mentioning Ruth, but after that his mind had wandered because the name Ruth had reminded him of the name Ruby.
Elaine was watching him, not reproachfully as she had at first, but with careful intensity like a cat about to pounce.
“I hate to mention this, Gordon, but everyone has noticed how absent-minded you’ve become lately.”
“I’ve been working pretty hard.”
“Hard work or not, you still have ears. You heard me talking about going to the beach this afternoon.”
“Yes, I suppose I did.”
“But you didn’t care.”
He put his hand in his pocket. The dentures felt cold and smooth to the touch, not like real teeth, which were warm and often a little rough. The owner of the dentures needed them by tomorrow morning. Elaine needed to go to the beach. It was up to Gordon to decide whose need was the more urgent.
He said, “I didn’t really promise that I’d have the afternoon free, Elaine.”
“You implied a promise.”
“I’d like to go to the beach as much as you, perhaps more.”
“I’m not concerned with myself. It’s the children. You know how much they enjoy the water.”
“I know how much they don’t.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing.”
He was sorry he’d spoken, even though it was the truth. Like Elaine, both of the children were afraid of the water, and yet the beach seemed to hold an intense fascination for all three of them. Elaine would sit staring uneasily at the waves and wonder aloud about the tides and complain about the sand fleas. Paul would wander off by himself to pick up a group of strangers who would be very amused at first by his antics, then bored by his demands for attention, and finally exhausted and unkind. Judith, the seven-year-old, had a subtler approach to self-satisfaction. She would dig vast holes in the sand, large as graves, some of them, and here she would sit and eat her way through the contents of the picnic basket. A day at the beach, which always seemed so much fun for other families, was often a nightmare for the Fosters. Neither Gordon nor Elaine knew why this was so, but in self-defense each blamed the other.
“I don’t care about myself,” Elaine said. “I’m used to disappointments, all kinds, all sizes.”
“I guess you are.”
“It’s the children I’m thinking of... Other families go places together, even the Harrisons, and he’s a real doctor. I saw them at the horse show, the night you worked late.”
Gordon rubbed his eyes, knowing what was coming, yet feeling utterly powerless to stop it.
“You work late so often recently.”
“I have to.”
“If your practice is really that good, perhaps it’s time to hire an assistant.”
“I couldn’t make ends meet if I did.”
“They’re not meeting too well right now.”
“Well, I’m doing my best.”
“Yes. Yes, I really believe you are, Gordon.”
She sounded so sincere and kindly that he turned to look at her in surprise. She was a tall woman, nearly as tall as he. Her self-assured manner, her air of owning the world, had been one of the first things about her that he had noticed and admired. As the years passed Gordon had come to realize that it was not an air or a manner; Elaine really did own her world, and she allowed him to live in a little corner of it at a rent that he found it nearly impossible to pay.
“The trouble with some people’s best,” Elaine said, “is that it isn’t good enough.”
“Nothing will ever be good enough for you, Elaine.”
“Other women are more easily satisfied, are they?”
“I don’t know... I don’t even know what we’re talking about, money or sex.”
“You know I never discuss sex,” she said stiffly.
“Then it must be money. Is that what you want, Elaine? Money?”
“All I want is for our family to be together, to have a decent home life, with warmth and affection.”
“I’d like that, too.” But he knew that what Elaine meant by warmth and affection was not what he meant. To Elaine, warmth was gay conversation in front of the fireplace after dinner, and affection was a quick hug or a peck on the cheek, and, “Not now, Gordon, the children might still be awake—” or it was getting late, or she was tired, or she thought she heard the baby stirring upstairs or a prowler out in the yard.
She stood twisting her wedding ring, pulling it up over the second joint of her finger and pushing it back again. Up and over, over and down, with the diamonds glittering like tears. “What a lovely scene this has been, eh, Gordon? And what a charming couple we make. Somebody called us that once — remember? — a complete stranger said it when we were walking down Main Street on a Saturday night.”
“I think that’s what you really want out of life — to be one half of a charming couple walking down Main Street on a Saturday night.”
“I don’t know what you mean. All I know is that this whole argument started because I made a simple little request. I wanted you to take the children to the beach like any normal father.”