We went our separate ways that day. I walked for miles along the ocean, and as the sun was beginning to set, I went back into town to eat some dinner. I went into a small restaurant on Bearskin Neck with a wooden sign proclaiming that the very best clam chowder in the world was served there. When I walked in the door, I saw Dennis sitting alone at a table, bent over his dinner. He didn’t see me until I was upon him, until I tapped his shoulder. When he looked up, I said nothing. He gestured to the chair opposite him, and I sat down. “I’ll give you a bite, and you can decide for yourself,” he said, holding out a spoonful of the chowder.
“I’ve already decided,” I said, and he gave me one of his famous penetrating gazes and said, “Yeah. Me, too. I decided a long time ago.”
This morning, in a chatty reverie, I told Penny about something Dennis said to me the other day. We were talking about photography and he said, “The greatest understanding of a thing is when you can’t reduce it any further.” For me, those words reverberated in so many directions at once.
We’re hosting a potluck dinner tonight, Dennis and I. We’re eating outside under the maple trees, at a long wooden table covered with a few of my sturdier quilts, set on point. When I first laid them out and stepped back to see how they looked, it was like seeing a row of people waiting for a show to start: sitting up straight, happily expectant, chatting quietly among themselves. I’d put out vases of peonies and roses, a candelabra. Now it’s time to light the candles against the gathering dusk.
I go inside to the kitchen, for matches.
In the gloaming. We always liked that phrase.
“We always liked that time of day, the golden hour.”
Yes, we liked how the colors changed, how they always seemed their richest selves, then.
I hear a burst of laughter and look out the window at the crowd of people, all so dear to me. There’s Lise and Joni and Renie and their new roommate, Paula Martinez, a stained-glass artist. Phoebe and baby Michael, who is my godson. Marianne Florin, a young woman who teaches photography with Dennis, and Jeanne Murphy, a woman with whom I work at the Arms. We’ve become very good friends, we are each other’s go-to girls. My mother is there with my stepdad; they’re seated at the head of the table, and I’m sure it’s a story my mother told that precipitated that laughter. She overdressed for the occasion in a flouncy turquoise chiffon blouse and white linen slacks and silver sandals, but I have to say she looks absolutely beautiful. There was a time when she appeared for a moment to choke on something, and Early laid his hand on her back, and looked over at her. She nodded, I’m okay, and he nodded back, and I thought my father was right to suggest she avail herself once more of the comfort of having someone to watch over her, and of watching over someone in return.
Dennis is out there, too, of course, charming the dickens out of everyone.
In the drawer, I find some matches. They’re from Fabulous Fern’s, a restaurant Penny and I loved. I put them in my pocket with misplaced tenderness.
I used to talk to Penny about a certain kind of discontent I was having in my work. I believed I was doing exactly what I wanted; yet there was something missing, there was always something missing. On a hot day in the last summer we had together, we sat on my porch drinking lemonade, the box of fortunes open, the contents spread out all over the table. I was searching for something I couldn’t name, and on this day everything that I consulted offered me exactly nothing.
“Well, look,” Penny said. “Maybe your message is off point. What is it that you really want to say? What are you just dying to tell other people? It has to be honest in order for it to really work. It has to be urgent.”
I shrugged. I had no answer.
Now I look again at the people gathered in my backyard, feeling a deep appreciation for the events that brought us all together. We are a convergence of fates, a tapestry of fortunes in colors both somber and bright, each contributing equally to the Whole.
I see how the corner of the Compass quilt lifts in the breeze and resettles itself. How, beneath the long table, you can see Riley sleeping. How people have slipped their shoes off, the better to feel the grass between their toes. How baby Michael, his blue eyes wide, has used his palm to plaster banana in the general vicinity of his mouth. How the blush of the peaches looks against the green of the bowl and how the blackened red peppers laid out on a white oval platter glisten with oil. How the tree branches filter light into an unduplicatable pattern. How a solitary lightning bug has appeared to illuminate the base of a bellflower. How plates have been emptied and filled, emptied again and filled again, and how there is still more.
This is what I want to say. This is what I want to tell. But there are no words for it. There is just the tightening of hands, the spread of an odd pressure across the chest. There is just hope.
And faith.
And love.
“Cece?” Dennis calls.
“See you,” I tell her.
I go out.
BY
ELIZABETH BERG
Tapestry of Fortunes
Once Upon a Time, There Was You
The Last Time I Saw You
Home Safe
The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted:
And Other Small Acts of Liberation
Dream When You’re Feeling Blue
The Handmaid and the Carpenter
We Are All Welcome Here
The Year of Pleasures
The Art of Mending
Say When
True to Form
Ordinary Life: Stories
Never Change
Open House
Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True
Until the Real Thing Comes Along
What We Keep
Joy School
The Pull of the Moon
Range of Motion
Talk Before Sleep
Durable Goods
Family Traditions
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ELIZABETH BERG is the author of many bestselling novels, including The Last Time I Saw You, Home Safe, The Year of Pleasures, and Dream When You’re Feeling Blue, as well as two collections of short stories and two works of nonfiction. Open House was an Oprah’s Book Club selection, Durable Goods and Joy School were selected as ALA Best Books of the Year, Talk Before Sleep was short-listed for an Abby Award, and The Pull of the Moon was adapted into a play. Berg has been honored by both the Boston Public Library and the Chicago Public Library and is a popular speaker at venues around the country. Her work has been translated into twenty-seven languages. She divides her time between San Francisco and Chicago.
If you enjoyed Tapestry of Fortunes, read on for a classic Elizabeth Berg novel, Open House, included here in full as a special bonus for eBook readers!
This is a work of fiction. The characters and events in it are inventions of the author and do not depict any real persons or events.
Copyright © 2000 by Elizabeth Berg
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York.
RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Berg, Elizabeth.
Open house: a novel / Elizabeth Berg.
p. cm.
I. Divorced women—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3552.E6996 064 2000
813'.54—dc21 99-54258
Random House website address: www.atrandom.com
eISBN: 978-0-375-50587-4
v3.0_r1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
br /> Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Dedication
Prologue
You know before you know, of course. You are bending over the dryer, pulling out the still-warm sheets, and the knowledge walks up your backbone. You stare at the man you love and you are staring at nothing: he is gone before he is gone.
The last time I tried to talk to David was a couple of weeks ago. We were in the family room—David in his leather recliner, me stretched out on the sofa. Travis was asleep—he’d had his eleventh birthday party that afternoon, the usual free-for-all, and had fallen into bed exhausted. The television was on, but neither of us was watching it—David was reading the newspaper and I was rehearsing.
Finally, “David?” I said.
He looked up.
I said, “You know, you’re right in saying we have some serious problems. But there are so many reasons to try to work things out.” I hoped my voice was pleasant and light. I hoped my hair wasn’t sticking up or that my nose didn’t look too big and that I didn’t look fat when I sat up a bit to adjust the pillow.
“I was wondering,” I said, “if you would be willing to go to see someone with me, just once. A marriage counselor. I really think—”
“Samantha.” He said.
And I said, “Okay.”
He returned to the paper, and I returned to lying on the sofa, to falling down an elevator shaft. There were certain things I could not think about but kept thinking about anyway: how to tell the people I’d have to tell. How lonely the nights would be (that was a very long elevator shaft). How I believed so hard and for so long that we would be able to overcome everything, and now I would have to admit that we could not. How wrenching it is when the question you want to ask is "Why don't you want me?" but you cannot ask it and yet you do not ask—or talk about—anything else.
“David?” I said again, but this time he did not look up.
1
I dress to bring in the morning paper. The new me. I once read that Martha Stewart never wears a bathrobe. Not that I like Martha Stewart, nobody likes Martha Stewart, I don’t think even Martha Stewart likes Martha Stewart. Which actually makes me like her. But anyway, maybe she’s onto something. You get up, you make your bed right away, you shower and dress. Ready. Armed. Fire.
I go into the kitchen to make a strong pot of coffee and to start Travis’s breakfast. French toast he’ll have today, made from scratch, cut diagonally, one piece lying artfully over the other; and I’ll heat the syrup, serve it in the tiny flowered pitcher I once took from a room-service tray. I’ll cut the butter pats into the shape of something. A whale, maybe, he likes whales. Or a Corvette. If that doesn’t work, I’ll make butter curls with a potato peeler.
I lay out a blue linen place mat at the head ofthe dining-room table, smooth it with the flat of my hands, add a matching cloth napkin pulled through a wooden ring. Wedding gift. I center a plate, lay out the silverware, then step back to regard my arrangement. I really think Travis will appreciate this.
My head hurts. My head hurts, my heart hurts, my heart hurts. I stand still for a moment, which is dangerous. So I go back into the kitchen, pull a dusty wineglass wedding gift down from the high cupboard above the refrigerator, wash it, and bring it to the dining room to center directly over the knife. Then I go back in the kitchen and select three oranges from the fruit bowl. I will squeeze them for juice just before he takes his seat.
Actually, Travis doesn’t like fresh orange juice, but he’s got to get used to elegance, because that’s the way it’s going to be from now on. Starting today. Well, starting last night, really, but Travis was asleep when the revolution started. I went to Bloomingdale’s and charged a few things last night; that was the start; but when I got home, Travis had gone to bed.
I stand straighter, take in a deep breath. This is the first day. Every day that comes after this will be easier. Later, when I think of Travis sleeping, the thought will not pick up my stomach in its hands and twist it.
All right. Butter. The whale shape does not work, nor does the Corvette, but the butter curls do, more or less. I lay them carefully over ice chips in a small bowl, then bring them out to the dining room and place them to the right of his spoon. Is that where they go? There must be some incredibly expensive Martha Stewart book on table settings I can buy. Perhaps I’ll hire a limo to take me to the bookstore, later—I don’t really feel like driving. Perhaps I will take the limo to Martha’s house. “I understand you’re divorced,” I’ll say. “You seem to be doing all right.”
Back in the kitchen, I gulp down another cup of coffee. Then I mix eggs and milk in a blue-and-yellow bowl that tiny shop in Paris, our weeklong vacation there, I stood at the window one morning after I’d gotten up and he came up behind me and put his arms around my middle, his lips to the back of my neck, add a touch of vanilla, a sprinkle of sugar. I put a frying pan on the stove put his lips to the back of my neck and we went back to bed, lay out two slices of bread on the cutting board. These hands at the ends of my wrists remove the crusts. I’m not sure why. Oh, I know why. Because they’re hard.
I sit down at the table. Stand up. Sit down. Concentrate on my breathing, that’s supposed to help.
Actually, it does not.
I check my watch. Good, only five more minutes. I take off my apron and go upstairs to my bathroom. I brush my teeth again, put in my contacts, comb my hair, apply eyeliner, mascara, and a tasteful shade of red lipstick. I straighten the cowl neck of my new sweater. It’s red, too—cashmere. I dab a little Joy—also new—behind my ears and on my wrists. Then I stand still, regard myself as objectively as possible in the mirror.
Well, I look just fine. Okay, circles under the eyes, big deal. The main thing is, what a wonderful change for Travis! Instead of him seeing me in my usual old bathrobe with the permanent egg stain on the left lapel, I am nicely dressed, made up, and ready to go. Everything will be different, starting today. Everything will be better.
I go into Travis’s room. He is messily asleep; covers wrapped around one leg, pajama top hiked high on his back, pillows at odd angles, his arm hanging over one side of the bed.
“Travis?” I say softly, raising his shade. “It’s seven o’clock.” I sit down beside him, rub his back. “Travis?”
“I’m up,” he says sleepily. Then, turning over quickly, eyes wide, “What stinks?” He puts his hand over his nose.
I stand; step back. “Perfume, it’s … Listen, get dressed and come down for breakfast, okay? I’m making French toast.”
No reaction.
“I mean, not the frozen kind. From scratch.” Please, Travis.
He sits up, rubs his head. Two blond cowlicks stick up like devil horns. He is wearing one of David’s T-shirts with his own pajama bottoms. The bottoms are too short for him, I see now. Well. No problem. Today I will replace them. Maybe Ralph Lauren makes pajama bottoms for kids. Silk ones. Monogrammed.
Travis yawns again, hugely, scratches his stomach. I look away, despairing of this too manly movement. It seems so recent that I had to step around imaginative arrangements of Legos—jagged-backed dinosaurs, secret space stations, tools for “surgery”—to wake him up. Now he hides a well-thumbed issue of Playboy under his bed. One day when Travis was at school, I inspected Miss August thoroughly. I felt like putting in a note for the next time he looked at her:
Dear Travis, Please be advised that this is not a real woman. These
are bought boobs, and pubic hair looks nothing like this in its natural state. This woman needs to find her life’s work and not spend all of her time in front of a mirror. If you went out with her, you would soon be disappointed. Signed, a caring friend.
“I don’t want French toast,” Travis says. “I want Cheerios.”
“You have Cheerios every day.”
“Right. Because, you see, I like them.”
Sarcastic. Like David. But he is smiling, saying this. It is David’s smile, born again.
“Well, today is a special day,” I tell him.
“How come?”
“We’ll talk about that later.”
“Okay, but I don’t want French toast.”
“Why don’t you just try—”
“Pleeeeeeeease????”
My God. You’d think he was begging for a stay of execution.
“Fine.” I make my mouth smile, make myself walk slowly down the stairs, one foot, then the other. I am wearing panty hose under my new jeans, and I feel the fabrics rubbing together as if each is questioning the other’s right to be there.
I go into the family room pipe tobacco and turn the stereo on to the classical station. Ah, Mozart. Well, maybe not Mozart. But close enough. It’s one of those guys. I’ll take a music appreciation class. Somewhere. Then, getting ready to sit down to dinner with Travis some night I’ll say, “Some Verdi, perhaps?”
“That’s an idea,” he’ll answer. “But maybe Vivaldi would be better with lamb.”
“You know, you’re absolutely right,” I’ll say. I will have taught him this exquisite discrimination. As a famous man, Travis will say to the interviewer, “My mother changed wonderfully when my father left us. Our circumstances actually improved. Naturally I owe her everything.”