Page 38 - WTP Vol.X #8

The Ideal Audience (continued from page 24)
and moved into one of the cheap modern apartments closer to campus which he had always hated. He still hadn’t invited her to see it.
A swell of anger rippled through Nini, and she cursed Jack. Thanks to him her patients’ stories no longer distracted her from her own messy life. Instead, all
her talk with Livy about her philandering father had plunged Nini deeper into despair. Except for that one foolish moment in Rome, for forty years she had trusted her husband, only to find out that he’d been slinking around with a colleague in his history department
who was young enough to be his daughter. But Nini knew better than anyone that beneath Jack’s brilliance and charm lay a sinkhole of insecurity that even his Pulitzer couldn’t defeat. A fling with a younger woman, she imagined, might soothe his fears about aging and waning masculinity. Still, Nini had been shocked. What else had she been wrong about? Maybe he really had been with that woman in Rome. She couldn’t trust her own judgment anymore.
She and Jack had known each so long they were like two different trees that had fused together. The only time their marriage had faltered was when they couldn’t have children (his problem, not hers, she reminded herself as she lay on the couch), but they’d survived those years. Their shared history was as critical to her sense of self as her childhood was to her early development. Despite his narcissism and irritating emotional blindness, Nini loved him. His betrayal seemed almost criminal.
She groaned and massaged her temples. The Fioricet was taking its time.
Now, when she wanted to be close to him, she stood in his closet and buried her nose in one of his old jackets or his worn Irish sweater. Closing her eyes, she tried not to imagine herself alone forever. She was prepared to fight for him for as long as it took, but at the moment, she thought wryly, she could use a dollop of Livy’s magic.
~
At four o’clock the following Thursday, Livy blew into Nini’s office, dressed in open-toed sandals and a yellow sundress printed with elephants, her favorite imperiled wild animal. “The females rock their babies to sleep and make lifelong friendships,” Livy had explained. Today her toenails were emerald green, her hair streaked with turquoise, her slender arms bare. To Nini she seemed to ooze youth and sexiness.
Too much sexiness for a meeting with her father.
“Are you ready?” Livy asked, flopping into her usual chair.
“Are you?”
“I’m fine. I asked about you. Are you nervous?”
“Me? I can handle your father. Maybe you’re the one who’s nervous. After all, last week you weren’t so sure you wanted to do this.” Nini glanced at the small silver clock on her desk, a present from Jack on their twenty-fifth anniversary. It was quarter past.
“He’ll be here. He’’s always late. He likes to keep people waiting. It’s a Hollywood thing. The last one in is the most important.” Livy crossed her arms and looked at Nini. “By the way, Dr. P., you look terrific.”
“Thank you.”
In fact, for the session with Livy’s father, Nini had dressed with particular care: pale green linen pants, a white silk shirt open at the neck, her indigo Dior scarf and newest Aquazzura flats. Clad in her person- al protective armor, she felt ready to take on anyone, even a supposed charmer like Mr. Weinberg. After all, she was proud of her high cheekbones and sapphire eyes and liked her new silvery-blonde hair. Men still found her attractive, she knew, because since Jack’s affair, she’d had a little intrigue of her own. Partly she’d done it out of spite, but mostly because she missed being touched.
They heard the front door open and Livy jumped up. “I’ll get it.”
Nini stood and straightened her shoulders, her left thumb toying with her simple gold band. She heard Mr. Weinberg bound up the stairs, then watched
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