Becoming Mrs. Lewis(65)
“What can I do?”
“I don’t know. Sit here and drink with me?” I smiled at her. “Bill asked me, actually asked me, if I would just agree to be a threesome with Renee. A threesome!”
“Oh, that is horribly distasteful.” Belle shuddered. “And meanwhile you’ve fallen in love with England.”
“Yes, but not just the country—also the friends and the land and the Lewis brothers.”
“Let’s remember that I’ve seen you in love many times, Joy.” She paused and leaned forward as if someone were eavesdropping on us. “Are you in love with C. S.?”
“No.” I took another sip of sherry. “I’m confused. I miss them both as if I’d known them all my life, but it’s more than that . . . About Jack, I don’t know. This time it’s not just about some physical need. For goodness’ sake, the man smokes sixty cigarettes a day and then his pipe in between. He’s seventeen years older than I am. But he still has this great gusto for life—for beer and debate and walking and deep friendship. Christianity most definitely has not turned him into a dud. This isn’t some lust-fueled fantasy. It’s the connection between us. The discourse. The empathy. The similar paths. This isn’t an obsession with getting something, Belle. It’s the feeling of finally coming home. It’s confusing at best.”
Belle leaned back in her chair, patted at her lipstick with a napkin before taking a sip of her wine. “I don’t want you to make a huge mistake that will destroy your family for good.”
“Destroy my family? As if that isn’t already done?” Heat rushed into my cheeks, a fiery determination. “I know my past mistakes, Belle. Even in my marriage I see my mistakes. This isn’t all about blame. And I’m not sleeping with Jack. I just love him, and his brother also, but in different ways. We feel like a family. It’s a fact as inescapable as breathing.”
“But that’s what I mean. I’m not being cruel. You know I love you. But you fall in love passionately, and then you don’t listen to reason.”
“Does love have any reason?” Tears rose easily, and I almost longed for the days when I wept only with rage.
“No, it doesn’t. But you do. Why would anyone leave New York?”
“Belle.” I leaned forward with the urgency to make her understand. “My husband is sleeping with my cousin. He is ‘in love.’ He is ‘more married’ to her than he ever was to me, he says. For so long I’ve been required to subvert who I am to be who men want or need me to be, and in England, with those friends, that isn’t true at all.”
Belle’s eyes filled with tears. “I wish I could have been there for you.”
“You’ve always been right there with me. Always. Remember the night I won the Russell Loines Award? When a thousand dollars seemed like a million? It was this great triumph, and I was haughty because Robert Frost had won the same award several years earlier. I took you to the awards ceremony and got so deep into the cups I could barely speak at the microphone. You took care of me.”
“I do remember,” Belle laughed. “Of course I do.”
“And you were there to help me celebrate when I came home from the inferno and infestation of Hollywood. You remained friends with me during the days of Communism, inviting me to your parties and your house. Remember when I got in a screaming match with your pal Kazin? You’ve seen the worst of me, Belle. And I’m trying to tell you that I’m the best of me when I’m with Jack.”
A waitress with bright-red hair arrived, and after we’d both ordered the salmon, Belle rubbed her hands together and then folded them as if in prayer. “I want you to find peace without running away.”
Fortitude rose in me. I glanced around the dining room and lowered my voice. “I’m not running away. I’m running toward. It’s a quiet and intellectually stimulating life I want to make there. I know I sound irrational. But there is a life to be had in England, in London, and it’s a life I want.”
“Your sons?”
“They will be better off for it.” I gave it one more try. “Belle, for some reason I’ve believed that I needed to withstand the infidelities and furies, that it was my job and duty as a wife. But that’s not true. I have my faults, no doubt about that. But my faults do not mean I must stay and endure his.”
“That’s as solid a truth as I’ve ever heard you utter.” Belle’s curls bounced with her acquiescence.
I steered away from the subject and turned my attention to her life. “How is your writing?” I asked. “And how are Jonathan and Thea?”
“Oh, like yours, the kids take buckets of my time. But I’m still writing articles for Esquire and working on a novel about an English teacher in New York City. I’ve titled it Up the Down Staircase. Sounds exciting, right?” She rolled those beautiful eyes and laughed that beautiful laugh. “It will probably never see the light outside my writing room.”
“Anything you write is enthralling. I still remember the pangs of envy when I read your poems in our dorm room.”
She smiled and reached across the table for my hand. “I don’t believe I’m the one who won the Yale Younger Poets prize or had my first book of poetry published at the age of twenty-two. I believe your envy is misplaced, my friend.”