Where the God of Love Hangs Out - Amy Bloom [78]
She smoked like a chimney and wrote about whatever came into her head, but only for a few pages and then she ran out of steam. She wrote about the man who sat next to her in the workshop, a seventy-five-year-old engineer from Salt Lake City, trying desperately to come out of the closet after sixty years and a wife, two kids, and six grandchildren. The engineer invited Macy out for a drink after class and they found a small table at a bad restaurant. He put his hand on Macy’s and said, Dear, I love men. I know, Macy said. Everyone in their workshop knew; the engineer wrote about thighs like steel girders and asses like ball bearings and biceps like pistons. It’s fine, Macy said. I love them, too. The engineer said, Women, I mean their private parts, make me want to vomit. Present company excepted, of course. Well, then you’re making the right choice, Macy said. She swallowed her vodka gimlet and went to another reading. She went to every reading and performance that was scheduled and she went late, in hopes of finding a seat next to a good-looking man, or even just a nice man, and she stood in line to have books signed by people she thought were complete idiots, just to improve the odds. She wrote down a few other things that happened at the writers’ conference, in a lavender suede notebook, and then she threw the notebook into the dumpster.
The day after he and Macy had had their tête-à-tête in the coffee shop, Ray stopped in on his way home.
“I hope I’m not keeping you,” Ray said.
Randeane smiled and said he wasn’t and she poured his coffee.
“Randeane,” Ray said. “That’s sort of a Southern name, isn’t it?”
“Left-wing Jewish father, hence the Jewfro”—she ran her fingers through her curly hair—“and white-trash Pentecostal mother, hence the Randeane and the inability to finish my thesis. Yourself?”
Ray said that his parents weren’t that interesting. English peddlers on his father’s side, Norwegian farmers on his mother’s, and really not much to them.
“Well, take some scones home. I’ll just have to toss them tomorrow and I will be goddamned fuck-fried if I’m going to stay up and make bread pudding all night.”
“Absolutely not. Someone must be waiting up for you,” Ray said, and he thought that although it was difficult to imagine dying of embarrassment at his age, it wasn’t impossible.
“Not really,” Randeane said, and she handed him a shopping bag of scones.
Neil had come to Ray a few weeks after the coconut cake dinner and told his father that he planned to ask Macy to marry him. Ray meant to say, Congratulations, but he heard himself say that although people of his generation married for life, he, personally, thought it was one of the worst and stupidest ideas ever foisted on mankind, second only to Jesus died for our sins, which was just ridiculous. Neil looked at him, a little cow-eyed, and Ray meant to shut up but instead he said, Everyone who gets divorced feels betrayed, whichever side you’re on. But what’s worse—everyone who gets married feels betrayed. The other person will let you down, son—they can’t help it. We are all basically selfish beasts, and also, your wife will love your children more than she will ever love you. You’re just the hod carrier, kid. You know what your mother says: You promised to love me for better or worse, Ray Watrous.
Neil said, “I understand, Dad. I mean, I do.” He put his hand on Ray’s shoulder and Ray was sorry he’d opened his mouth. “It’s a little different for me and Macy. It’s just different for us.”
“I’m sure it is,” Ray said. “She’s a lovely girl. Let’s not keep our brides waiting.”
A lot of Ray’s friends called their wives their brides. Ray referred to Ellie that way once, in The Cup, saying, “I’ll bring some of these bagels home to my bride,” and Randeane flinched.
“That’s an awful expression,” she said. “It’s like you keep her in a closet with a white dress and veil. Your very own Miss Havisham.”
“Not at all,” Ray said. “It shows I still think of her the way I did when we were first married.