A Week as Andrea Benstock Read online

  They had first-class seats on the flight from New York to Puerto Rico. The seats were more comfortable than in the tourist section, and the drinks were free. She told him she had never flown first class before.

  “You don’t want to get used to it,” he said. “It’s a ridiculous extravagance.”

  “Then why are we doing it?”

  “Because I feel ridiculously extravagant.”

  “You nut.”

  “Hell, this is my wedding day. I can’t go and sit among the peasants on a day like this. And I certainly can’t expect my wife to sit among the peasants on a day like this. Do you want to know something?”

  “I would love to know something.”

  “It’s a good thing, because I would have told you anyway. I like being married.”

  “How can you tell so soon?”

  “I don’t know, but I can. Can’t you?”

  “I suppose so. I just like being here with you, and I guess married makes it even nicer.”

  “Give me a kiss.”

  “Ah, that’s much nicer than kissing all those people at the club. Much nicer. But it wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “The wedding or the reception?”

  “Both. I’m glad we kept the wedding small. I would have loved to pass up the reception, but I suppose that was out of the question.”

  “No, they had a right to that much.”

  “Our parents? Or the guests?”

  “I meant the parents, but in a way the guests too. By the way, do you know what your father did?”

  “What?”

  “I thought he might have told you. You know, I think he’s as fine a man as I’ve ever met. I thinka lot of your mother, as far as that goes, but your dad’s really remarkable. He’s the kind of man I’d like to be when I grow up.”

  “I like that, when you grow up.”

  “Well, I mean it. In a funny way he reminds me of a professor I had at Cornell. A good many years older than your father, and very much the academic type, but there was something similar about them. I had a course in Contemporary European History with him, Europe since 1815, and it was the best course I ever took in my life. I think it was his influence that made me consider teaching. In fact I know it was. Hiram Carruthers, the first and only person I ever met named Hiram. You’d expect a hayseed with a name like that, but he was very much the Ivy League cosmopolitan.”

  “You still didn’t say what my father did.”

  “I didn’t, did I? Hiram Carruthers led me off the track. Well, your father slipped me an envelope at the reception, and did it with a lot more grace than I slipped the envelope to Rabbi Farber.”

  “And there was more in this envelope, I take it.”

  “There was a check for five thousand dollars in this envelope. I was sure he would have mentioned it to you. I looked at it and thought at first it was five hundred, which would have been damned generous, but it was five thousand.”

  “That’s too much.”

  “That was precisely my reaction, and it was just what I said to him. He told me he’d figured on spending that much on your wedding, and that he thought it was sensible of us to keep the wedding small, but that there was no reason why our decision should let him off the hook cheap. He put it better than I am, but that was the gist of it. It’s far too much. I wanted to return it—”

  “No, I don’t think you can do that.”

  “Neither do I. Five thousand dollars. If we were younger, just out of school, that would make the difference between scraping by and living decently for the first few years. But I make enough money for us to live on, and I like the idea of us living on what I make.”

  “So do I. Very definitely.”

  “I’ve been trying to think what to do with the money. If we were going to buy a house we could use it for the down payment, but I wouldn’t want a house now, not for just the two of us, and by the time we’re ready for a house I’ll be able to afford the down payment myself. I think I know what I’m going to do with the money.”

  “I bet I know, but I want you to tell me.”

  “I’m going to put it away for our kids’ education. That’s if you approve, of course.”

  “I win my bet. I just knew you were going to say that. And of course I approve.”

  “Five thousand dollars will just about see a kid through a decent college. Well, it’ll cover tuition, anyway. Of course college costs are going to go up, but by the time we have children ready for college that five thousand will have grown a great deal. I’ll have to talk to somebody when we get back to Buffalo. I don’t know what’s the best way to invest it, stocks or mutual funds or some sort of insurance plan. I do know I’m not going to let it sit in a savings bank, but I’m not going to gamble it away, either. I’ll talk to Hal Ginzburg at Bache, and I’ll also talk to a fellow I met for the first time this afternoon. A friend of your dad’s, very tall and thin with a droopy moustache. Arthur something, but I don’t remember his last name.”

  “Vogel. Uncle Art Vogel.”

  “Oh, he’s your uncle?”

  “No, it’s an honorary title. Did you have to call all your parents’ friends Aunt and Uncle? There must be a point where it’s time to stop, but I still feel uncomfortable calling them by their first names.”

  “No, we didn’t have that. But I knew a fellow at Cornell who grew up thinking that an honorary aunt and uncle from another city were his real aunt and uncle. He didn’t know just how they were related, but it never occurred to him that they weren’t, and it caused a problem.”

  “How would it cause a problem?”

  “Well, he thought their daughter was really his cousin. And one summer they were all at the same resort together, and his little cousin seemed to be very available, but he knew it would be incestuous so he never even considered it. He was sorely tempted, as they say, but he kept his hands to himself. Then a few months later he found out Aunt Whozit and Uncle Whatsit were just his parents’ very good friends, but by that time Cousin Hepzibah was miles and miles away.”

  “I hope her name wasn’t really Hepzibah. Does the story have a happy ending?”

  “If it does, I never heard it. He tried to salve his wounds by screwing his way through Sigma Delta Tau. A heroic ambition, and better than drinking yourself to death. I don’t seem to want this cigarette after all. Want to finish it for me?”

  “Sure. It’s good we smoke the same brand.”

  “It’s one of the reasons I married you.”

  “Tell me the other reasons.”

  “Because I hate my mother’s cooking.”

  “Not because I’m sensational in bed?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know about that. I know you’re sensational on a couch.”

  “I’ll miss that old brown couch.”

  “Well, it’ll miss you. It’s permanently imprinted with the impression of your very nice little ass.”

  “Ha! I married a crude man.”

  “That can’t be a surprise to you.” He yawned. “Would it be terribly unromantic if I took a little nap?”

  “I wish you would. You’ve looked tired all afternoon.”

  “I couldn’t sleep last night.”

  “Then close your eyes and put your seat back. Go ahead.”

  “It does seem unromantic, though.”

  She kissed him lightly on the lips. “Nonsense,” she said. “It sounds like a very married thing to do. I like the idea of us doing married things. I like that very much.”

  He fell asleep almost immediately. She sat for a few minutes watching him sleep. When the stewardess came by she asked for a magazine and a cup of coffee, but she abandoned the magazine after leafing through it very briefly. It was more pleasant to sit sipping coffee and watch her husband sleep. He looked very vulnerable now, his honest face open in repose. She could see no weakness in his face, not when he was awake and not now while he slept, but she felt stronger herself now. This was her man, sleeping beside her, and she realized that this was a sight she would
be seeing for the rest of her life. This was the man who would share that life with her.

  There were so many things she did not know about him. She would be sleeping next to him for the rest of her life, yet now she did not know whether he slept nude or in pajamas, whether he shaved at night or in the morning. In a week’s time she would be making his breakfast, but at the moment she did not know what he liked for breakfast, or if he was talkative in the morning.

  She realized with some surprise that she knew less about him, knew him less thoroughly, than she had known several other men in her lifetime. She and Mark had never spent more than a couple of hours at a time in lovemaking. They had never spent a night together or been in a real bed together. There were men she had slept with, men she had spent weekends with.

  He knew, certainly, that there had been men before him. But he did not know—and would not know—the number of men who had been to bed with her, or the depth of certain relationships she had experienced. Indeed, there was at least as much about her that he did not know, and she suspected that his ignorance of her was somewhat greater than her ignorance of him. He was, unless she was greatly mistaken, a much simpler person than she was. No, simple was a bad word, it had negative connotations which she did not mean at all. He was a less complicated person than she, he had led a less complicated life, and she recognized this without feeling in any way superior to him for the recognition. The relative simplicity of his life was unquestionably one of the things about him that had attracted her.

  One had to simplify, to draw back, to be careful.

  She picked up her magazine again and tried to get interested in an article about Jackie Kennedy’s redecoration of the White House. She looked at the pictures but couldn’t keep her mind on the text. She could not make up her mind about Jackie Kennedy, now respecting the woman, now finding in her aspects of several girls at Bryn Mawr whom she had found intolerable.

  But we’ve got something in common now, she told Jackie’s photograph. We’re both a couple of housewives with places to furnish. Of course yours is a little more elaborate, and you’ll probably be doing more entertaining….

  Well, Mark Benstock would never be President, and thank God for that. And they would not live in a white mausoleum on Pennsylvania Avenue but in a two-bedroom apartment on Kenmore Avenue, with leaded glass windows and a woodburning fireplace. The smaller bedroom would be Mark’s den. They would eat their breakfasts at a table in the kitchen. (Her prior experience with apartments was limited to New York, and the idea of having an apartment kitchen large enough to eat in delighted her.) And when Mark came home from the office she would meet him at the door with a cocktail, and they would dine in the dining area of the L-shaped living room. On winter nights she would have a fire laid in the fireplace, and after he had his cocktail he would fight it.

  She closed the magazine and went on imagining their life together. They would spend a great deal of time alone together, certainly, but it would also be important for them to have friends. During their courtship they had kept pretty much to themselves. Now they were married, and before long people would be inviting them over and they would invite people to their apartment in return.

  It was not hard to guess who their friends would be. Many of the couples they would see socially had been at the reception earlier. There would be old friends of his and old friends of hers. Pal boys and their wives, Phi Ep girls and their husbands.

  She thought suddenly of that New Year’s party. But it would not be like that. She and Mark would have as friends people very much like themselves, and the women would not talk of toilet training while the men talked of cars and football. It would not be like that.

  The landing at San Juan Airport was smooth, and it was not until the plane had taxied the length of the runway and come to a complete stop that she realized she had been afraid of this flight. She had never been conscious of fear, but now she felt as if she had been relieved of a burden, and she figured out what it had consisted of. She was too happy, too safe and secure, and evidently she had read too many sad stories and seen too many bad movies not to expect tragedy.

  The air was warm and heavy, with an almost musky scent on it. She experienced an odd sense of deja vu as they walked from the plane, and it was a moment before she knew what it was. The air had had just this quality in Florida. She had been there twice, once during high school when her parents took her to Miami Beach during Christmas vacation, and once when she and several college classmates took a reluctant part in the Easter pilgrimage to Fort Lauderdale.

  She went with Mark as he collected their bags. On the way to the hotel’s courtesy car he said, “I think you’ll like the Flamboyan. It was brand new when I stayed there and the staff was a little rusty, but even so it was a pretty decent place to stay. I figured I’d play it safe and pick a place I knew was all right.”

  “That was two years ago?”

  “Well, a year and a half. The week before Christmas.”

  “I hope they don’t give us your old room.”

  “That’s not too likely, since I booked a suite. But why did you say that?”

  “Because I’m jealous enough of the girl you took along as it stands.”

  “I went all by myself and you know it.”

  “Poor baby. All alone in romantic Puerto Rico.”

  “It was about as romantic as old tennis shoes.”

  “Oh, come on. You must have picked up a senorita or two.”

  “All I picked up was a very light case of sun poisoning. Oh, I bought a couple of drinks for a girl. A secretary from Brooklyn who’d been saving all year for a glamorous week in the sun.”

  “I hope you made her dreams come true.”

  “Not unless she had very masochistic dreams. I bought her two Apricot Brandy Sours, and don’t ask me how I remember what she drank. I bought her two Apricot Brandy Sours and excused myself to go to the men’s room, but instead I went to my own room and read the newspaper and went to bed. I can’t believe that was the end she had in mind for the evening. It wasn’t what I had in mind, either, but it turned out to be what I wanted.”

  “She must have been flat chested.”

  “How well you know my fetishes. No, as a matter of fact she was built like the proverbial brick outhouse, or otherwise—”

  “You would never have bought her a drink in the first place.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right. Actually she was good-looking enough. But her voice was like chalk on a blackboard. I can stand some Brooklyn accents, but on top of that her voice was shrill and nasal at the same time, and—”

  “I know the voice.”

  At the hotel desk she looked over his shoulder as he signed them in. Mr. and Mrs. Mark Benstock, 803 Kenmore Avenue, Buffalo, New York. A bellhop took their bags and led them to the elevator and then to their suite. He started to check the bathroom but Mark told him everything was fine and gave him a dollar. When the door closed he took her in his arms and kissed her. She clung tightly to him and the kiss lasted a long time.

  “Mrs. Benstock,” he said.

  “You know, I don’t think it’s going to be hard to get used to the name. I think I’m used to it already.”

  “Just don’t get tired of hearing it.”

  “Not for a minimum of a hundred years. Oh, isn’t that nice, there’s a bowl of fruit.I hope it’s not wax. No, it’s real fruit, and there’s a card. ’Congratulations and best wishes from the staff and management of Hotel Flamboyan.’ Congratulations and best wishes, so they know this is a honeymoon.”

  “Unless they congratulate people who are having affairs. Somehow I doubt it.”

  “Somehow so do I.”

  “Does it bother you? That they know?”

  “Should it? I’m in love and I’m happy and I’m married and I don’t care who knows it. My God, the bedroom’s even bigger than the living room. And what a big bed. Did I tell you my mother said we should get twin beds? ’You’ll get a better night’s sleep, dear, and that’s importan
t even if it’s not so romantic.’ Fat chance, mother dear. Do you suppose we’ll ever want twin beds?”

  “Not for a minimum of a hundred years, as someone said recently. There’s an icebox in the living room, incidentally, and unless they fouled up it’s not empty. Let’s just see. Ah, they followed instructions to the letter. They even got the brand right.”

  “Mumm’s Cordon Rouge. What a wonderful man I married.”

  “I’d glad you realize it.”

  “Now all we need is a leather couch.”

  “And a terrible party to go to first. Should I call the desk and order up a dozen Polacks and a couple of bottles of Schenley’s?”

  “I’m sure they’re fresh out. Of Polacks, anyway. But calling the desk reminds me.”

  “You must be starving.”

  “That’s what it reminded me. Do you mind waiting? Am I blushing? I think I am.”

  “You are.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

  “I kind of like it. The blushing bride. No, I don’t mind waiting. In fact there’s something nice about the idea of not having to rush. We’re old married folks. We can go downstairs and eat a civilized dinner. Maybe take a turn at the casino, catch a show at the nightclub—”

  “That’s a little too civilized, but the dinner sounds good.”

  “I’ll tell you what. I need a shave, so why don’t you unpack and freshen up and then we’ll go downstairs before they close the kitchen.”

  In the dining room he ordered a Rum Collins for himself and a Daiquiri for her. “No, let me change that,” she told the waiter. “I’ll have an Apricot Brandy Sour.”

  “You lunatic.”

  “I was going to use my Brooklyn accent but I chickened out.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Now I couldn’t. I’m too self-conscious. In New York everyone made fun of my Buffalo accent. ’Aaandrea.’ I got the same thing at Bryn Mawr, but there I was naive enough to think it was something to be ashamed of, and I carefully cultivated a Main Line accent. Or what I thought was one. Then I would have to lose it very deliberately when I came home for vacations. In New York I decided I would rather sound like myself than go native.”