Girl in the Arena - Lise Haines [33]
—They could shoot it in a similar style to your tour, Allison likes to tell her. —I could wear my large sunglasses. I know our home isn’t as big as the White House, but it is impressive.
—You’d want to give them the history behind the collection, Jackie always says, turning her teacup so the lipstick print faces away from Allison. —How the first book was purchased, what it means to you personally, how each husband enlarged upon or codified the collection. Why don’t you visit us at Hyannisport this summer and we’ll discuss this at length?
In many ways, I think it has been Allison’s most simpatico Living experience—sitting with the president’s femme like that—because Jackie was frozen in a particular slice of time with Jack, and Allison could relate. Sometimes Allison mimics Jackie’s honey-on-melon voice. Coming home from school, I’ve walked in on her giving the tour to the walls. If Allison could be frozen in time, I don’t know which husband she would have about. I suspect Mouse. I imagine she still retained a hopefulness about things then.
Now I drop into an overstuffed library chair across from hers and she hands me one of the bottles of water with Tommy G.’s name printed on the label. It has an illustration of Tommy pouring water over his head, fresh from competition, streams of diluted blood finding his abdominal muscles—the deeply quenched look. We have about three thousand bottles in the basement up on shelves in case it floods.
we know not what we do.
—Mark and Lloyd left, she says, and runs her hands along the arms of her chair, up to the edge and back again.
—Thad told me he took a fall.
—Barely a scratch. But he was pretty startled. Have you had lunch? she asks.
She looks into her glass, clinks the ice cubes together.
—I’m fine.
—You’re always fine, but have you eaten? she asks.
—Yes.
Though now that I think about it, I guess I haven’t.
—Do you think Thad’s predictions are getting a little worse? I ask.
—It’s possible he needs his meds rebalanced.
—Maybe he needs to get off his meds.
God, she’s even dressed like Jackie today, in one of those straight, trim suits, belted at the waist, a smart little jacket. Black, of course, for mourning. She looks as weary as I am.
—Don’t start, she says.
—Okay, well . . . I wanted to tell you I’ve decided to get a full-time job. To help out, I say.
—I spoke with the president of Wives College again. Their doors are wide open and she’s assured me they could offer you a full scholarship. You and Uber could have a long, protracted engagement. That would give you time to think things through.
—I already know how to dress a wound. I know the bylaws, how to comport myself in public.
She unpins her pillbox hat and puts it down on the table next to her.
—How to comport yourself in public? Like making insane statements about wanting to be a gladiator?
—I got tongue-tied. Can we just let it go?
She rubs her fingers into her face as if the deep musculature is in pain.
—I meant to say wife, gladiator’s wife.
—No you didn’t, she says.
—How do you know what I meant to say? All I can think about right now is Tommy.
—I just do, and yes, that’s all any of us are thinking about.
—Okay, well, maybe if it’s a choice, I’d rather fight for something than have it carved out for me.
I ache when she picks up the hat and spears the stiff fabric with the pin. I know she’s at the outer limits of frayed, but she insists on talking.
—You make my entire life sound ridiculous, she says.
—You chose your life. And that’s a whole lot different than someone assigning a husband to you because of some obscene rule. And by the way, it was your husbands who taught me how to use a sword.
—What are you talking about?
—You don’t remember the plastic sword and shield Mouse gave me, with the vinyl belt and greaves? I was six, Allison.
—That