Only Flesh and Bones Read online

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Oh my God, the third degree. I truly wasn’t up to this. Not now, not here, in downtown Denver, where my mind was riled by the raw stench of business maneuverings. If confronted when in such a mood, I was sure to pull a sulk and sound as shallow as the suit-encased businessheads all around us sounded to me. I took a breath and let it out in a long sigh. And I reached for the truth, wondering what it might be. “I’m not sure,” I said.

  Julia Richards relaxed a notch. “At least you’re honest.”

  “I try to be.”

  “You sound like Miriam, you know that?”

  “How? What was she like, I mean to talk to?” I tried to keep the note of longing out of my voice, but failed.

  “You never met her?”

  “No.”

  For a moment, Julia looked away, the activities of the street reflecting on the lenses of her glasses. “She was a very vulnerable person.”

  I was just opening my mouth to ask, In what way, when Julia looked back at me and asserted, “That’s a compliment, in case you don’t know.”

  I closed my mouth. The conversation was going to go wherever Julia wanted to take it, and that was that. I waited until she spoke again, watching her, trying to divine from her posture, her gestures, and her tone of voice how she felt about her departed friend. At the time, I thought: impatient. Now, I think: sad and lonesome.

  “You’re young yet,” she said. “Early thirties? Yes? And I’m guessing you’ve never married.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s not a matter of clairvoyance; you don’t wear a ring on the third finger of your left hand, and while you don’t seem very confident, you don’t look like you’ve been rendered that way by a man. There are signs. I could list them, but I won’t. I don’t have time, and you’re young enough to deny it even if you understood.”

  Defending myself against I knew not what, I said, “I haven’t had children, either, but I care about Cecelia.”

  Julia closed her eyes and opened them again, very slowly. “Point to you. It’s an unpopular decision not to have children. But they do deserve our love,” she said, her voice a few decibels quieter. “Well. Suffice it to say that Miriam was a rather naïve woman who gave up a lot of her power to her husband. You don’t know what that means, because you haven’t made that mistake yet. It means you’re always frustrated, waiting for this man to be the prince charming you’ve read about, wondering what you’ve done wrong that you’ve got a mate but still aren’t happy. With Miriam, it took on the character of making her pout. It wasn’t attractive, not to men and not to women. It made her seem remote and uninterested in other people, so needless to say she spent a lot of time alone.”

  “‘Alone,’” I repeated, evaluating the word. It seemed to fit that the woman who had entrusted so much of herself to her journals might have been too solitary, at least on an emotional level, for her own happiness.

  “Yes, too much time alone. Not a good thing when you’re as ignorant as Miriam was.”

  “Ah,” I said, politely agreeing rather than be caught denying her declaration of reality. I mentally compared the woman sitting across from me to the portrait Miriam had painted of her in her journal. Hadn’t she described Julia as being lusciously at ease, dancing from room to room in her new home and her new freedom? I wondered what had happened over the intervening years to leave her so abrupt and—I reached into my heart for the resonance I was picking up from her, trying to place it—disappointed?

  “Yes, Miriam was bright, but not smart.” Julia crunched onward through her indictment of her departed friend, laying out her judgments as an impatient gardener turns over last year’s soil and weed stalks with a spade. “Or perhaps the word is shrewd. She was not shrewd. I often wondered why I spent so much time with her, but I’d known her forever, and there’s a lot of value in being around someone you’ve known that long. She was a touchstone, a link to the past. Let me know how far I’d come. And she had a good heart,” she added, almost as a consolation prize.

  No, not disappointed. Despairing? I stared at Julia’s hard blue eyes, trying to plumb their depths as she had mine. And yes, found that small despair that eats at people who expect more of themselves. With a jolt, I realized that her crushing judgments were an attempt to assign her pain to Miriam.

  As if reading my thoughts, Julia stiffened. The little muscles along the lower lids of her eyes tightened, telegraphing a warning.

  I slouched down submissively and stared into my water glass. “I guess you’re right. I’ve never been married, not even lived with a guy for very long. I—”

  Julia interrupted. “Did you have any substantive questions to ask me, or are you just fishing?”

  I smiled bleakly. “Just fishing.”

  Our salads arrived.

  Julia picked up her fork and put it down again. “You know, I really am on a tight schedule today. I’m going to take my salad to go. If you insist on looking through Miriam’s rather sophomoric attempt at immortality, you can come back to my office and read it there. But you must understand that what you read stays with you and doesn’t go any farther. Miriam’s wish was that Joe never see her writings, ever. As custodian of her journal, I insist that you use the information only in your efforts to help Cecelia, and never repeat any of it to anyone. And you must promise to keep an open mind. And an open heart.” Having delivered this edict, she added in a smaller voice, “There are things waiting for you down the road of life you can’t see from where you’re sitting.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  THE journal that Miriam Menken had stored with Julia picked up where the previous one had left off. Apparently the women’s retreat Miriam had attended with Julia stressed positive visualization, as there was a spate of entries that said things like “I am happy and enjoying the best years of my life,” written twenty times over. After a few weeks’ worth of such hopeful platitudes, the journal lapsed back into unadulterated bitching. By Christmas, she seemed sick of her own irritability, and announced a New Year’s resolution to think about something else for a while. For the next six months, she recorded mundane events, but in July, her resolve collapsed back into a black rage. The first entry that month said it all:

  July 3

  Tonight I really lost my temper with Joe, worse than ever. He just stared at me like I was something mildly boring on TV. No wonder I’m a bitch, it’s six months since we even tried. He says why don’t I take a vacation and get some rest, like my problem is I’m tired! You bet I’m tired. I’m tired of his never listening to me, never even trying to give me what I want, and I don’t just mean sex.

  I suppose most other women would be happy just having a man who always comes home and brings a fat paycheck, but when I lie there next to him at night, I just want to scream, or scratch his thighs and make him bleed. Am I tired? No, I am depressed, and there seems no way out of it. Maybe he’s right, I need a nice long rest.

  I keep wondering if he’d mind if I had an affair. Or if he’d even notice.

  July 15

  Cecelia’s birthday. She’s twelve years old today and may as well be twenty. Her sulking has gotten much worse, and all she wants to do is be with her horse. Soon she’ll be a teenager, and then she’ll be off. Then what will I do with myself?

  On such desperate notes, the journal continued through the end of December. Then the first month of the new year brought a jolt that was somehow no surprise:

  January 18

  I saw Chandler today. I thought I was dreaming. I was coming out of the Brown Palace Hotel after lunch with Julia, and he was just crossing the street. I stopped in the doorway and Julia banged into me, and she wanted to know what had made me stop. Of course, I didn’t tell her.

  Maybe I was dreaming. Chandler Jennings happened to me over twenty years ago and a thousand miles from here. And he wouldn’t look like that anymore, would he? Not that good! But this man moved like him.

  January 20

&nb
sp; It was him. Tonight when I met Joe for dinner at the brew pub on Wyncoop, he was sitting two tables away with some men. Luckily, Joe was seated with his back to him, but then, maybe he wouldn’t know him anyway.

  I couldn’t eat. I tried not to stare, but finally he looked up and saw me. I don’t think he knew me right away. He got up and left the table for a while, and just then Joe got up and went to say hi to the men he’d been sitting with. I had to go to the women’s room, and it’s downstairs and along a narrow hallway, and when I came back out, he was there, blocking the way. He came right up to me and stood close to me and said, “You’re Miriam Benner, right? I thought that was you.” He gave me that smile I remember, and it took me right back.

  All right, I’ll be more honest with myself: I got weak in the knees, just like I did the first time I ever saw him, only this time it was almost frightening. But delicious, too.

  It was automatic after all these years as Mrs. J C. Menken to just say hi and walk on by, but he stopped me. He put a hand on my shoulder and kind of squeezed it and said, “You look wonderful,” and his eyes were glowing with that hunger of his. How long has it been since Joe spoke to me that way? I was so sure I’d lost my looks.

  Chandler asked if I was living here, and all of a sudden I couldn’t stand to tell him that yes, I’m a housewife right here in Metro Denver and that’s my brain-dead husband I was sitting with. So I just kind of smiled and nodded and he said great, we should get together. Then he squeezed my shoulder again and he was gone.

  All the rest of the evening all I wanted to do was get home so I could write this all down because it felt so good, but now all I want to do is cry.

  February 17

  Today at last I saw Chandler again, and this time I was ready. I was skiing up at Vail with Julia, and thankfully I had on that really great outfit that shows off my legs, or what’s left of them. I’d quit skiing before Julia and was waiting in the lodge and there he was talking to someone in the bar. He’s kept his hair, a real thick ruff, though the gold is shot with gray now. His face still has that boyish grin, really devastating with a few more lines in his face, and those eyes still have that wild shine. All these years I’ve remembered that face and dreamed of it when I wanted to have orgasms, and here it was almost unchanged. It was almost scary, like that kind of face and spirit aren’t supposed to be on the face of a man past forty. I don’t know how to describe that any better—it’s just that he seemed oddly sad, even though he was looking so lively, like he’d left something important in his life undone. He wasn’t dressed for skiing, just those nice heavy corduroy slacks and a thick turtleneck sweater and casual shoes. But he made quick work of checking out my outfit and he did pause at my thighs and smile.

  I get to dream, right?

  February 23

  I had words with Joe again tonight. Just that: I had words with him. He hardly said anything, except, “Now Miriam, I know it must be hard when I’m gone so much. But you’ll do fine, you always have, right?” And then he gave me one of those little pats on the knee he’s so good at.

  The next six weeks of entries held an outpouring of dreams and fears that she had indeed lost her looks. And her mind. Spring found Miriam fighting her way out of a serious depression and into an attempt at hope:

  April 5

  Back to life, damn it!

  Joe is up in Wyoming, something about a death on one of the drilling rigs, and Cecelia is on a school trip. Tonight I’m going to do something fun!

  April 6

  I dressed in jeans and a bulky sweater and went down to Denver to a little jazz club called El Chapultepec. It has a cactus in neon out front and another sign that’s an arrow that says “EAT.” The music was terrific!

  April 8

  Went to El Chapultepec again. It was wonderful! Just for starts, the bartender recognized me and gave me a nice smile, but then I saw Chandler.

  He was sitting at a booth with some other people. A woman was next to him. I couldn’t tell if she was with him, but when he saw me, he gave me that look!!!

  I can’t sleep for thinking about him. I can’t stop thinking about Chandler’s beautiful bristly mustache, how it would feel brushing against me as he kisses me here and there and here again … .

  I have to stop thinking like this.

  April 9

  Joe is home but I told him I was meeting Julia and had him stay home with Cecelia.

  I went to El Chapultepec.

  He was there again. This time, it was as if we had planned to meet. He was alone at the same booth, and when he saw me, he gave me his slowest smile and slid over to make room for me, leaving his arm on the top of the seat. Later, when the band played a slow number, we stood up and danced. There wasn’t much room between the booths and the bar, so we had to stay close.

  Now what do I do? He never said anything out of line. We sat down again and just talked about this and that, but I could still feel his warmth, as if he was still touching me. Before I knew it, I had had too many beers to drive home to Genesee, so we had to walk around town for a while. He took me to the Fairmont and we had coffee in a far corner of the lobby, back where no one could see. Then it was late and he said he’d better run me back to my car as he had an early business date, even though tomorrow’s Saturday.

  Where is he staying? Is he still married? I didn’t even ask. But I did give him my number.

  April 20

  He called. At first he said he was just thinking of me and then said why didn’t we have lunch? I said sure, telling myself that I get to have friends that are men, and it was lovely. We met at a little café in Evergreen where there was water running from a fountain making enough sound that people couldn’t overhear us, and we talked and talked and talked.

  Then we realized that it was almost three and I had to go get Cecelia from school. Parting in the lot he gave me a little hug and said we had to stay in touch.

  April 28

  I haven’t heard from him. I hope everything is okay.

  Joe just sits at the dinner table reading the Wall Street Journal and talking about how incensed he is about this industry or that commodities price. I want to slap him!

  May 5

  He called! He said he’d try to make time when we could be together later in the week and “just talk.” How I wish it could be more!

  May 8

  I’ll just tell it straight. He called and came to the house. Said why spend the money at a restaurant when all he wanted was to look into my eyes and see me smile. I left one of the garage doors open and he drove right in and closed the door behind him, just as if we’d planned it. Then he came inside and we went straight to the daybed in my sitting room and it was just like twenty years had never happened. He hit every nerve just like before, and we were hot and sweating and right there in the middle of the rug on the dark gray sheepskin just like I’ve tried so many times to interest Joe, but he never would. The fleece felt like velvet against my back.

  May 10

  I can’t think of anything but Chandler. Thoughts of him fill me up so much that I can’t even think how I really feel about what I did. Am I a bad woman? I’m not in love with him. He’s just a friend, but he gives me something Joe never has. All these years I thought Joe was just keeping it from me, but now when I line the two men up in my mind for an instant, it’s like they’re two separate species, and I think that of course Joe is capable of being sexual, but Chandler is different. He’s sensual.

  Joe thinks I must have the flu or something. I told him yes, that I’m a little under the weather. Cecelia sits over in the corner of the kitchen and watches me, like she knows exactly what’s going on. I tell myself I’m being paranoid.

  May 19

  Chandler hasn’t called!

  May 21

  Just when I was losing my mind, he called and came up here at lunchtime and suddenly it was three again. I feel delicious and relaxed and scared and slightly sick all at the same time.

  I am a very bad woman.

 
; June 14

  He visits me often now, sometimes two and three times a week. I’m in a trance. The sex always seems like it’s going to be so wonderful, such an extravagant, secret thing to do, but then afterward I feel half sick. I try to put it out of my mind, but then the next day I find myself watching the phone, as if I can make it ring. What am I going to do when school’s out and Cecelia’s home all the time?

  July 6

  Cecelia is being awful. She mopes around watching TV, and won’t leave the house. Stares at me a lot. I tell myself she can’t know. Can she? How I wish she’d just go visit a friend, maybe ride her horse. When Chandler calls, I have to say that Cecelia is home, but to try later.

  July 25

  Today I saw Chandler’s car go by on the road. Cecelia saw it too, and turned around and looked at me.

  July 31

  She does know. I overheard her talking to her friend Heather Wentworth, whispering about how “the man with the gold BMW was here again.” How could I be so stupid? Heather lives right up the street and her mother just sits around all day drinking, staring out the front window. Where did I ever get the idea that just because I feel so alone here, nobody notices me? What if it gets back to Joe? Do I want that to happen? And how could I have thought this so important I could let it get between me and my daughter?