Joy Williams - The Visiting Privilege - New and Collected Stories

—

When Sam returned to the table in the Hot Shoppe on the New Jersey Turnpike after learning about his divorce, Elizabeth didn’t look at him.

“I have been practicing different expressions, none of which seem appropriate,” Elizabeth said.

“Well,” Sam said.

“I might as well be honest,” Elizabeth said.

Sam looked at his toast. He did not feel lean and young and unencumbered.

“In the following sentence, the same word is used in each of the missing spaces, but pronounced differently.” Elizabeth’s head was bowed. She was reading off the place mat. “Don’t look at yours now, Sam,” she said, “the answer’s on it.” She slid his place mat off the table, accidentally spilling coffee on his cuff. “A prominent _____ and man came into a restaurant at the height of the rush hour. The waitress was _____ to serve him immediately as she had _____.”

Sam looked at her. She smiled. He looked at the child. The child’s eyes were closed and she was hmming. Sam paid the bill. The child went to the bathroom. An hour later, just before the Tappan Zee Bridge, Sam said, “Notable.”

“What?” Elizabeth said.

“ Notable. That’s the word that belongs in all three spaces.”

“You looked,” Elizabeth said.

“Goddamn it,” Sam yelled. “I did not look!”

“I knew this would happen,” Elizabeth said. “I knew it was going to be like this.”

—

It is a very hot night. Elizabeth has poison ivy on her wrists. Her wrists are covered with calamine lotion. She has put Saran Wrap over the lotion and secured it with a rubber band. Sam is in love. He smells the wonderfully clean, sun-and-linen smell of Elizabeth and her calamine lotion.

Elizabeth is going to tell a fairy story to the child. Sam tries to convince her that fables are sanctimonious and dully realistic.

“Tell her any one except the ‘Frog King,’ ” Sam whispers.

“Why can’t I tell her that one?” Elizabeth says. She is worried.

“The toad stands for male sexuality,” Sam whispers.

“Oh, Sam,” she says, “that’s so superficial. That’s a very superficial analysis of the animal-bridegroom stories.”

Sam growls, biting her softly on the collarbone.

“Oh, Sam,” she says.

—

Sam’s first wife was very pretty. She had the flattest stomach he had ever seen and very black, very straight hair. He adored her. He was faithful to her. He wrote both their names on the flyleaves of all his books. They went to Europe. They went to Mexico. In Mexico they lived in a grand room in a simple hotel opposite a square. The trees in the square were pruned in the shape of perfect boxes. Each night, hundreds of birds would come home to the trees. Beside the hotel was the shop of a man who made coffins. So many of the coffins seemed small, for children. Sam’s wife grew depressed. She lay in bed for most of the day. She pretended she was dying. She wanted Sam to make love to her and pretend that she was dying. She wanted a baby. She was all mixed up.

Sam suggested that it was the ions in the Mexican air that made her depressed. He kept loving her but it became more and more difficult for them both. She continued to retreat into a landscape of chaos and warring feelings.

Her depression became general. They had been married for almost six years but they were still only twenty-four years old. Often they would go to amusement parks. They liked the bumper cars best. The last time they had gone to the amusement park, Sam had broken his wife’s hand when he crashed head-on into her bumper car. They could probably have gotten over the incident had they not been so bitterly miserable at the time.

—

In the middle of the night, the child rushes down the hall and into Elizabeth and Sam’s bedroom.

“Sam,” the child cries, “the baseball game! I’m missing the baseball game.”

“There is no baseball game,” Sam says.

“What’s the matter? What’s happening!” Elizabeth cries.

“Yes, yes,” the child wails. “I’m late, I’m missing it.”

“Oh, what is it!” Elizabeth cries.

“She’s having an anxiety attack,” Sam says.

The child puts her thumb in her mouth and then takes it out again.

“She’s too young for anxiety attacks,” Elizabeth says. “It’s only a dream.” She takes the child back to her room. When she comes back, Sam is sitting up against the pillows, drinking a glass of Scotch.

“Why do you have your hand over your heart?” Elizabeth asks.

“I think it’s because it hurts,” Sam says.

—

Elizabeth is trying to stuff another fable into the child. She is determined this time. Sam has just returned from setting the mooring for his sailboat. He is sprawled in a hot bath, listening to the radio.

Elizabeth says, “There were two men wrecked on a desert island and one of them pretended he was home while the other admitted—”

“Oh, Mummy,” the child says.

“I know that one,” Sam says from the tub. “They both died.”

“This is not a primitive story,” Elizabeth says. “Colorless, anticlimactic endings are typical only of primitive stories.”

Sam pulls his knees up and slides his head underneath the water. The water is really blue. Elizabeth had dyed curtains in the tub and stained the porcelain. Blue is Elizabeth’s favorite color. Slowly, Sam’s house is turning blue. Sam pulls the plug and gets out of the tub. He towels himself off. He puts on a shirt, a tie and a white summer suit. He laces up his sneakers. He slicks back his soaking hair. He goes into the child’s room. The lights are out. Elizabeth and the child are looking at each other in the dark. There are fireflies in the room.

“They come in on her clothes,” Elizabeth says.

“Will you marry me?” Sam asks.

“I’d love to,” she says.

—

Sam calls his friends up, beginning with Peter, his oldest friend.

“I am getting married,” Sam says.

There is a pause, then Peter finally says, “Once more the boat departs.”

It is harder to get married than one would think. Sam has forgotten this. For example, what is the tone that should be established for the party? Elizabeth’s mother believes that a wedding cake is very necessary. Elizabeth is embarrassed about this.

“I can’t think about that, Mother,” she says. She puts her mother and the child in charge of the wedding cake. At the child’s suggestion, it has a jam center and a sailboat on it.

Elizabeth and Sam decide to get married at the home of a justice of the peace. Her name is Mrs. Custer. Then they will come back to their own house for a party. They invite a lot of people to the party.

“I have taken out obey, ” Mrs. Custer says, “but I have left in love and cherish . Some people object to the obey .”

“That’s all right,” Sam says.

“I could start now,” Mrs. Custer says. “But my husband will be coming home soon. If we wait a few moments, he will be here and then he won’t interrupt the ceremony.”

“That’s all right,” Sam says.

They stand around. Sam whispers to Elizabeth, “I should pay this woman a little something, but I left my wallet at home.”

“That’s all right,” Elizabeth says.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Sam says.

They get married. They drive home. Everyone has arrived, and some of the guests have brought their children, who run around with Elizabeth’s child. One little girl has long red hair and painted green nails.

“I remember you,” the child says. “You had a kitty. Why didn’t you bring your kitty with you?”