• • •
STILL, broad-spectrum uneasiness led to a long lunchtime conversation outside the hospital with Albertine only yesterday.
“Why didn’t you like him?” Veblen wanted to know.
“So you’re having doubts.”
“No, but even if I were, it’s normal, right?”
Albertine, who specialized in doubts, who pointed out the shadow side of human nature at every turn, who swore allegiance to ambivalence and ambiguity, whose favorite color was gray, sounded concerned. “What kind of doubts?”
“No, you’re supposed to say ‘Of course! Everyone feels that way!’”
“I don’t have enough information. Maybe you should listen to your doubts this time.”
“Listen to my doubts?”
Albertine described a vitamin salesman from San Bruno she’d doubted a few times before finding out he was a meth freak. Another recent doubt was over a gambling landscaper from Marin. Veblen sensed a note of triumph in Albertine when she described her apperception of the man’s flaws.
“Is it possible you wouldn’t like anybody I liked, just because?”
“I could see the possibilities. He’s really nice looking, and he’s not as alpha as he wants you to think.”
Veblen tried to explain her mild feeling of doom, how it was like there was some kind of terrible alchemy under way, how it was like she was rushing toward a disaster, and how it didn’t make sense because she was also excited and happy.
“Just be sure it’s not a growing awareness that Paul’s all wrong for you and will ruin your life,” Albertine said, and then asked: “Have you read Marriage: Dead or Alive?”
Veblen said no.
“It’s the magnum opus of Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig. He says marriage is a continuous inevitable confrontation that can be resolved only through death.”
“How great! Does it have to be that way?” pleaded Veblen, feeling worse than ever. “I’ve already had a continuous confrontation that can be resolved only through death, with my mother.”
“Exactly. All the more reason you’re projecting impossible romantic fantasies onto Paul.”
“Who the heck is Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig?” Veblen snarled.
As her friend told her more about the brilliant Jungian and the ponderous message of Marriage: Dead or Alive (“That a decent, responsible society not only allows, but actually encourages, young people in their complete ignorance to bind themselves permanently to the psychological problems which their vows entail, seems incomprehensible. The more life expectancy increases, the more grotesque this situation becomes….”), Veblen began to see how ill-equipped she was to hack out a life with someone. Anyone! She’d end up bossing him around like her mother or grinding up his stuff in a wood chipper like her grandmother. Not for her. No way!
She’d been with Paul for about four months, without much of a misunderstanding. Her unvoiced needs were in remission, and Paul was impressively constant. Sure, there had been minor disagreements, moments pinched by disappointment over how to treat squirrels or value material possessions, but overall, she felt that Paul fit her romantic ideal as a man and avatar in the world. She found new things to love about him all the time: the way he always, always dropped his wallet when he pulled it from his pocket; the way he made fires in her tiny fireplace, blowing on scraps of wood and pinecones he gathered on walks; the warm smell of his head; the way he was generous and he’d bring beer or wine or cookies to her house whenever he came; how he’d help her with any chore that needed doing; the way he read the paper every morning, completely absorbed; the way he pored over military histories, biographies of generals, and epics about the sea — hearty, manly tales of bravery and adventure. He agreed it was good to avoid grocery carts with wadded tissues in them. He loved tacos as much as she did. If she sneezed, he’d laugh and say she sneezed like a cat. He took her to classical music concerts and knew all about the composers and the works. When she said she couldn’t go out to a movie or a concert because she had to meet a deadline for the Diaspora Project, he didn’t make a word of complaint.
Look at how tiny their troubles were! One recent evening the winds came barreling through the Golden Gate, down the peninsula from the north, unusually frigid and fierce, tearing flowers from their stems, clearing dead wood from the treetops, and then it hailed. Ice pellets scarred fresh young leaves and made drifts under the rain gutters, and children ran outside to gather them, and screamed in surprise when they discovered how they froze their hands. It was a night for comfort food, and Veblen prepared turkey meatballs for dinner, well seasoned with rosemary and sage, under a tangy homemade ragù, along with artichoke risotto and a salad, but when she mentioned she’d used turkey he blanched, as if she’d revealed she’d made them with grasshoppers or grubs. During the meal, he appeared to devour what was on his plate so fast he had to go to the kitchen several times to get more.
“Mmm, delicious,” he kept saying. “Turkey balls rule.”
“Not bad,” Veblen said.
“But let’s not have them too often, though, or else they’ll lose their impact.”
“Okay,” said Veblen.
Later that evening, as she was cleaning up, she opened the trash container, and sitting on top, almost in rows as if arranged for viewing, were the turkey balls Paul pretended to have consumed. She started to laugh and asked why he didn’t say something. “Alternately, you could have hidden them better, and I never would have known.”
He said he was sorry, that he hadn’t wanted to spoil dinner.
“But you wanted me to find them later?”
“Mmm. I meant to come back and cover them. I spaced out. Sorry.”
The passive-aggressive lapse seemed duplicitously boyish and charming, but Albertine had been quick to tell her it was a missed opportunity for individuation.
After all, it was unrealistic to expect Paul to be her twin, to think they would react the same way in every situation, always be in the same mood, though there was no denying she craved that. She must withstand all differences, no matter how wrenching and painful. For instance, Paul didn’t like corn on the cob. Of all things! How could a person not like fresh, delicious corn on the cob? And how could she not care?
“I don’t like biting the cob and the kernels taste pasty to me,” Paul had told her.
“Pasty? Then you’ve had really bad corn. Good corn isn’t pasty.”
“Don’t get mad. It’s not like corn is your personal invention.”
“But it’s impossible. Everyone likes it.”
“People with dentures don’t like it.”
“What are you trying to say? Do you have dentures?”
“No! I’m just saying they are a sizable slice of the population.”
“Not anymore. These days most people get implants.”
“Not in rural areas.”
“Okay, fine, whatever! But eating corn together, we’ll never be able to do that?”
“I like other vegetables!” Paul practically yelled.
“Corn is more than a vegetable, it’s practically a national icon.”
“I’m unpatriotic now?”
“If you don’t like corn, it means I’ll probably stop making it. We won’t go on hunts for the best corn stands in summer, driving all over until we find them. You won’t be motivated to shuck it for me. The sound of me gnawing on it will annoy you, so I’ll stop having it. It’ll gradually become a thing of my past, phased out for good.” Veblen was almost ready to cry, and she had reason. Anything and everything her mother disliked had been phased out of her life for good.
“So it’s me or the corn?”