Oklahoma!

Edward M. Cohen

Saturday started badly with Whitney Houston belting him awake on a golden oldies station. Once her sunny song had slithered to a conclusion, the forecast was for rain, fog, dangerous driving. If possible, stay home. If not, wear your rubbers. 

He had left on the alarm clock because the schedule called for him to take the subway to Grand Central, hop the train to Glen Cove, grab a cab to Claire's, and from there they would drive to Southampton with her daughter, Betsy; hours of pressured travel when he needed a break after a week of teaching.

Claire had promised to have the minivan loaded upon his arrival in Glen Cove and, with luck and bribery, Betsy would also be ready so they could arrive at Southampton in time for a scrumptious lunch on the beach. The plan had sounded fine at firs,t but he hated being forced awake at the same dark hour on a Saturday as he was every weekday; not even the prospect of adoring students before him, but that of damp limp hot dogs.

The three of them would drive out together in the van because Ben, Claire’s husband, had a busy Saturday periodontal practice, but he would follow on Sunday in the BMW. That way, Ethan and Claire could have one glorious night together and it would all seem kosher because Ethan was scheduled to direct the school production of Oklahoma!, so, as far as Ben was concerned, Claire was doing a little nudging to get her daughter the lead. Besides, this way, Ethan could drive Betsy back on Sunday in the BMW for her tennis lesson, leaving Claire and Ben out there alone, but the joke would be on Ben who would be grateful to Ethan for getting Betsy out of their hair, while all the time Ben was fucking Claire, she would be thinking of Ethan.

He and Madeleine had had a BMW in their glory days: she, an up and coming designer; he, an up and coming actor, invited everywhere because they looked so good (they had even made the pages of W), laughing at their overdrafts. Although they had never been in the Southampton league, they had often rented on Fire Island, where the rest of the up-and-comers schmoozed. This was before she took him to the cleaners in their divorce and he had been forced to start teaching.

He wore his poncho, work boots, backpack, as if he were off to mount a hilltop, not a mistress, and took a moment to compliment himself — beard trimmed, hair styled. His gorgeous eyes sparkled in the morning; every girl he had ever slept with had said it. As had every boy. His lover, Daniel, said they were deeply set, sad but shining. Daniel, a hip young director, tended toward the dramatic. He also tended to condescension because he was currently working in the theatre and Ethan was not.

Ethan raced from the apartment onto the subway, through dismal corridors to the Long Island Railroad, onto the express and off at Glen Cove. On the other platform, suburban dads who had to work on a Saturday stared, as if he were arriving to tend their gardens and fuck their wives. He could have called Claire to cancel. He could have called Daniel to confess. He could have joined the real men on the opposite side of the platform and, instead of fucking Claire, returned to the city, allowing Daniel to fuck him.

There was a cab waiting so he took it, wishing he hadn't thought of Daniel — waking, phoning, getting the message. He hadn’t told Daniel he was going away for the weekend. He had wanted Daniel to worry. He was so goddamned smug, constantly coming up with brilliant ideas for Oklahoma! which Ethan stole because, they both agreed, in order to be good, it had to be new.   

Arriving at Claire's door, he saw that the BMW was gone. So Ben had already left. She appeared in cut-off jeans and a T-shirt, manicured toes in thongs; her curls were so wired they could have transmitted top ten hits from the local radio station.

"You look adorable," he whispered.

"She's not ready!  She's been on the phone all morning!  From seven-thirty!  Who can she be talking to at seven-thirty?  She says she doesn't want to go!"

“You could say 'good morning,'" he mumbled.

"The weather is so awful it'll be hours before we get there."

"Take it easy..."

"I'm such a wreck, I'll smash the car."

"I'll drive."

"Have you ever driven a minivan? It takes some getting used to, you know."

"Whatever's going on, don't take it out on me. I just got here. Remember?"

"BETSY!  MR. GRAYSON IS HERE!"

"I'm the good guy, remember?" He grazed her cheek with his fingertips.

She glared at him in disbelief. "I don't know where she is!" she whispered, then: "BETSY! ARE YOU READY?"

Betsy appeared at the top of the stairs, a clone of her mother, only her shorts were shorter, her thighs firmer, her nipples pointier. "Hi," she cooed to him. "Everything's cool, Ma. Tracey Goldsmith is going out also. So I'll have someplace to hang while you old folks take your naps. Why don't you offer Ethan a cup of coffee?  I'll be ready in a sec."

And she was gone.

"Are you going to let her call you ‘Ethan?’" Claire whispered. "I won't have it."

"Claire, honey. Calm down."

"And you can't call me ‘honey’ in front of her. Has everybody lost their mind?"

"Maybe I'd better wait in the van. Is there anything you need me to carry?"

"Sit in the front passenger seat. I want you up front with me. Go and do it now."

"Don't order me around, Claire. I’m not feeling so well, myself."

"BETSY, I'M COMING. WE HAVE SOMETHING TO DISCUSS!"

When mother and daughter re-appeared, dragging suitcases and shopping bags, he raced in the rain to help them. Betsy gladly turned over her burdens and returned to the house for her Walkman, but Claire paraded to the van, soaking wet.

"Didn't I tell you to stay in the front?  If you give up your seat, she'll claim it. I don't want her sitting next to me!"

"Claire, please..."

"She knows, you see. She may not know what's going on, but she knows this weekend is important to me and she’s intent on screwing it up."

Now she was leaning against the fender, crying. The shopping bags in her arms were shredding.

"Let me have some of those."

"I can do it!"

Alternately dominating and helpless, she had him reeling. Dampness brought out his allergies. Claire got behind the wheel, revved up the motor, honked the horn for Betsy, who, eventually, tumbled into the back seat. "I usually sit up front when Daddy drives because I got carsick when I was little. So Mom always sat in the back and hated me for it. Am I right, Mom?  But, I’m a big girl now, so, if she wants you up front, Ethan, that's the way we'll do it."  

"Let's get one thing straight. I don't think its right for you to call him 'Ethan.' Come Monday morning, you're going to have to call him ‘Mr. Grayson.’"

"Don't you think I can handle that, Mom?"

"The fact that he's my friend doesn't make him your friend. He's still your teacher!"

"Well, not actually her teacher, Claire. She's not in any of my classes."

"But you’re going to be her director," Claire corrected, “in Oklahoma!”

"Mom's not aware that things have changed since the olden days, Ethan. In Glen Cove High, Ma, some of the teachers are dealing drugs. Some of the girls are having affairs with their teachers, present company excluded, of course!"

"What do you think, Ethan?"  Claire pleaded. "It's obvious we parents have no authority over our children any more. I had hoped that their teachers still did."

Mother and daughter awaited a response. He wanted to announce that this weekend had been a mistake. Instead he smiled. "I don't care what the students call me. So long as the respect is there."

A reasonable answer, he thought, but Claire turned to the road, nerves in her neck twitching.   

Betsy vanished as soon as they arrived; off on her bike in the rain, head in her earphones.

"Can you get electrocuted with a Walkman in the wet?" Claire mused.

"Oh, Ma!"

And she was off, her T-shirt hiking up in the back, a flash of flesh at the waist.

“Kids,” Claire sighed.

"Kids..."

They smiled at each other. But she didn't come close for a kiss. He did not reach for her. They had been lovers since the beginning of the term. At first, he had rushed over to her house on every break, every lunch hour, every time Ben worked late and it also happened that Betsy was invited to a friend's and Claire could dismiss the housekeeper early — a miraculous confluence of events that had everybody's beepers ringing so, by the time he got there, the fucking was frantic. But now, the semester was drawing to a close and he was tired, yet he still had Oklahoma! ahead of him. If he were with Daniel now, they could have talked about the show. Ethan couldn’t wait to tell the kids about his radical take on the script — of course, he couldn’t credit Daniel — and see all their adoring eyes light up. He should have told Betsy in the car. She would have been agog.

Claire sat in an overstuffed easy chair, he on the sofa, rain shimmering against the picture window. Though still early in the day, there were so many shadows that Claire turned on a crook-necked lamp. "That'll do until the power goes. Then we'll light candles," she said.

"I'd like that."

She had brought out a half gallon of California Red and plunked it down on the floor between them. But she did have exquisite goblets, light to the touch, iridescent and romantic. Cheap wine in expensive glasses was very Claire, he thought.

At Parent-Teacher Night when they had met, she seemed so easy to talk to. Signals transmitted, signals received, they slid into sex as into a bath, a brushing of bodies in the parking lot as he helped her into the car. Their brains, their voices, their bodies were in sync from the very first.

Nowadays signals were constantly clashing. The more he withdrew, the more she demanded. He was never available when she needed him, she claimed. He countered that she expected him to be at her beck and call in between her other appointments. What neither could say was what they both knew. They had concocted this crazy weekend plan as a way to stall the inevitable.

She was babbling on about the house, how she and Ben had bought it as young parents, before the Hamptons got to be the playground of the Spielbergs and Martha Stewart. It had just been a summer cottage, and, over the years, they had winterized, expanded, furnished, planted. She stopped short, her eyes glazed over. She fell into silence. It gave him his chance.

"Claire, I have something to say and it's going to be hard."

"Oh, God, no. Nothing else. This weekend was supposed to be a treat. It's been nothing but misery from the minute I got up..."

"I won't go on if you don't want me to."

"Don't be an idiot. Now, that you've started. Hit me with everything you've got.”

"I've met someone, Claire, a man. I never told you, but I've always been bi..."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this." 

"For the first time anyway, I think that this is real love."

"You must be out of your mind."

"I was never in love with Madeleine, you know that. I married her to impress my parents. Whatever was between you and me was... well... a matter of mutual comfort. Let's be honest. We always swore we'd be honest with each other."

"I don't remember swearing that."

He wanted to go back to the city, he went on, as she, jaw agape, was finally silenced. He had deceived his male lover by coming here and now he regretted it. What Claire had planned was not going to happen because Ethan had Daniel on his mind and wanted to be in his arms, not hers. Surely, she could understand.

"I don't understand anything anymore. As the day goes on, I understand less. Maybe it's me who’s crazy."

It wasn't that he hadn’t looked forward to this weekend; he had been thinking about it all week. But he had underrated his attachment to Daniel. The last time he and Daniel had been together, he had thought of telling him about Claire, but Daniel had been helping him prepare for Oklahoma!  and Ethan had thought it would be wiser not to bring her up. Now he felt differently. When he was with a man, it seemed, he thought of being with a woman. When he was with a woman, he thought of being with a man.

"I'm going to take a nap," she said.

He had expected her to be sympathetic, to comfort him; maybe even to kiss him on the cheek and commend him for his daring. On the other hand, he would have been pleased had she been shocked, upset, tearful, angry. What he wanted was a reaction.

Instead, she emptied her glass in one gulp, got up in silence, turned off the lamp and left him alone. He did not know what that meant. Nor what to do next. He couldn't get to the train station without her. Unless he called a cab. He didn't know where the phone books were kept. Now that he thought of it, returning to the city after the long trek out did not seem appealing. Daniel would certainly be sullen and angry.

The only thing he could do was sit and wait in the dark until adorable Betsy returned.