The New Yorker Stories

ceilings. They bought it with his share of an inheritance that came to us when our grandfather died. Kate’s contribution to restoring the house has been transforming the baseboards into faux marbre. How effective this is has to do with how stoned she is when she starts. Sometimes the baseboards look like clotted versions of the kitchen-chair pattern, instead of marble. Kate considers what she calls “parenting” to be a full-time job. When they first moved to Saratoga, she used to give piano lessons. Now she ignores the children and paints the baseboards.

And who am I to stand in judgment? I am a thirty-eight-year-old woman, out of a job, on tenuous enough footing with her sometime lover that she can imagine crashing emotionally as easily as she did on the ice. It may be true, as my lover, Frank, says, that having money is not good for the soul. Money that is given to you, that is. He is a lawyer who also has money, but it is money he earned and parlayed into more money by investing in real estate. An herb farm is part of this real estate. Boxes of herbs keep turning up at Frank’s office—herbs in foil, herbs in plastic bags, dried herbs wrapped in cones of newspaper. He crumbles them over omelets, roasts, vegetables. He is opposed to salt. He insists herbs are more healthful.

And who am I to claim to love a man when I am skeptical even about his use of herbs? I am embarrassed to be unemployed. I am insecure enough to stay with someone because of the look that sometimes comes into his eyes when he makes love to me. I am a person who secretly shakes on salt in the kitchen, then comes out with her plate, smiling, as basil is crumbled over the tomatoes.

Sometimes, in our bed, his fingers smell of rosemary or tarragon. Strong smells. Sour smells. Whatever Shakespeare says, or whatever is written in Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, I cannot imagine that herbs have anything to do with love. But many brides-to-be come to the herb farm and buy branches of herbs to stick in their bouquets. They anoint their wrists with herbal extracts, to smell mysterious. They believe that herbs bring them luck. These days, they want tubs of rosemary in their houses, not ficus trees. “I got in right on the cusp of the new world,” Frank says. He isn’t kidding.

For the Christmas party tonight, there are cherry tomatoes halved and stuffed with peaks of cheese, mushrooms stuffed with pureed tomatoes, tomatoes stuffed with chopped mushrooms, and mushrooms stuffed with cheese. Kate is laughing in the kitchen. “No one’s going to notice,” she mutters. “No one’s going to say anything.”

“Why don’t we put out some nuts?” Howard says.

“Nuts are so conventional. This is funny,” Kate says, squirting more soft cheese out of a pastry tube.

“Last year we had mistletoe and mulled cider.”

“Last year we lost our sense of humor. What happened that we got all hyped up? We even ran out on Christmas Eve to cut a tree—”

“The kids,” Howard says.

“That’s right,” she says. “The kids were crying. They were feeling competitive with the other kids, or something.”

“Becky was crying. Todd was too young to cry about that,” Howard says.

“Why are we talking about tears?” Kate says. “We can talk about tears when it’s not the season to be jolly. Everybody’s going to come in tonight and love the wreaths on the picture hooks and think this food is so festive.”

“We invited a new Indian guy from the Philosophy Department,” Howard says. “American Indian—not an Indian from India.”

“If we want, we can watch the tapes of Jewel in the Crown,” Kate says.

“I’m feeling really depressed,” Howard says, backing up to the counter and sliding down until he rests on his elbows. His tennis shoes are wet. He never takes off his wet shoes, and he never gets colds.

“Try one of those mushrooms,” Kate says. “They’ll be better when they’re cooked, though.”

“What’s wrong with me?” Howard says. It’s almost the first time he’s looked at me since I arrived. I’ve been trying not to register my boredom and my frustration with Kate’s prattle.

“Maybe we should get a tree,” I say.

“I don’t think it’s Christmas that’s making me feel this way,” Howard says.

“Well, snap out of it,” Kate says. “You can open one of your presents early, if you want to.”

“No, no,” Howard says, “it isn’t Christmas.” He hands a plate to Kate, who has begun to stack the dishwasher. “I’ve been worrying that you’re in a lot of pain and you just aren’t saying so,” he says to me.

“It’s just uncomfortable,” I say.

“I know, but do you keep going over what happened, in your mind? When you fell, or in the emergency room, or anything?”

“I had a dream last night about the ballerinas at Victoria Pool,” I say. “It was like Victoria Pool was a stage set instead of a real place, and tall, thin ballerinas kept parading in and twirling and pirouetting. I was envying their being able to touch their fingertips together over their heads.”

Howard opens the top level of the dishwasher and Kate begins to hand him the rinsed glasses.

“You just told a little story,” Howard says. “You didn’t really answer the question.”

“I don’t keep going over it in my mind,” I say.

“So you’re repressing it,” he says.

“Mom,” Becky says, walking into the kitchen, “is it O.K. if Deirdre comes to the party tonight if her dad doesn’t drive here to pick her up this weekend?”

“I thought her father was in the hospital,” Kate says.

“Yeah, he was. But he got out. He called and said that it was going to snow up north, though, so he wasn’t sure if he could come.”