WHEN I CAME TO BED, Albertine was reading, quite openly, the latest issue of Manhattan magazine. “Listen to this,” she said. “It’s my horoscope: ‘For years now, you’ve felt like you were riding on a roller coaster through an emotional nightmare on stormy seas. One day you’re up, next day you’re down. One day everything you touch turns to gold, next day you’re overwhelmed by literally myriads of kinds of tumultuous developments in your business and personal life. Due to the damage that these stormy experiences have done to your head, your heart, and your pocketbook, your emotions have been strained to the limit, and beyond that even. But cheer up! Soon your ship will come in . . .’ and so on,” she said, and she tossed the magazine aside. “Who reads this junk? Who writes this junk?”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “That sounds uncannily accurate to me. It’s as if they knew you.”
“Are you kidding?” she said. “If my ship comes in, it’s sure to be sinking.” She waited for me to laugh, and when I didn’t she started tickling me and said, “Just kidding, Peter. That was supposed to be a joke.”
“Ha,” I said.
She climbed onto me and said, “I thought your reading was wonderful, and I think the whole book is wonderful and I hope you noticed that I did not fall asleep, not even for a second.”
“Just kidding?”
“No kidding.”
“You are completely useless as a critic.”
“Why?”
“Because you love me.” I waited for her to agree, and when she didn’t I asked, “Don’t you?”
Her answer was a silent but convincing yes. If she was kidding, I didn’t care.
Later, when she was asleep and I was still awake, I watched her sleeping, apparently untroubled, free of anxiety, secure, and I made a silent promise that I would find a way to keep her feeling that way — some way, any way, whatever it took. No worries. No kidding.
[to be continued]
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