The Misfortunes of Others Read online

  “Before you arrived, Snooks, I used to eat my celery plain.”

  “Unbelievable. And you, pregnant. This is my point about Bernard not taking care of you properly.”

  “Poor Bernard.” Maya stirred her tea. “I told him to go out to the paint store and choose a color for the nursery on his own. I couldn’t handle it, I told him. It’s his responsibility.”

  “It’s not exactly what I’d call a crushing one. Since you don’t know whether it’s a boy or a girl, avoid the obvious. White, for instance, is always good. Yellow. Peach. Violet.”

  “I think he’s been looking in the fuchsia family.”

  “Has Bernard ever been noted for his color sense?”

  Maya shrugged. Snooky, gazing at her, was filled with wonder and pity. There were dark smudges under her eyes, and her fine white skin looked sallow, creased with exhaustion. “For somebody who’s creating life, Missy, you look pretty awful.”

  “I know. What time is it? Ten A.M.? Is it late enough for me to go back to bed yet?”

  “It’s always late enough to go back to bed, no matter how early it is.”

  “Thank God.”

  Bernard came into the kitchen, a gallon of paint clanking against his legs. He looked grim.

  “Sweetheart,” Maya greeted him. “Any luck at the paint store?”

  Bernard hefted the paint can onto the table. “Number four thirty-one,” he said. “Otherwise known as Balboa Mist.”

  “Balboa Mist?”

  “A very pale green.”

  Maya tapped her teacup doubtfully. “Oh, I don’t know, Bernard. Pale green? That’s not at all what I saw for that room.”

  Bernard sat down at the table. “Perhaps those of us who saw something could share that knowledge with me before I go to the store.”

  “Pale green? Well, I guess you can try it. Will they take it back?”

  “I doubt it very much.”

  “Well …”

  “I’m going upstairs to paint the room.” Bernard heaved himself to his feet. “If anyone calls for me, I’m busy.”

  “All right, sweetheart. We’ll be up in a little while to see how it’s going.”

  Bernard looked over at his brother-in-law. “I don’t suppose you’d like to help me out with the painting?”

  “Of course I would, Bernard. I’d be delighted to run the house for you and paint the nursery for you and buy all the baby clothes for you. Can it wait until after my mid-morning nap?”

  Bernard took the paint can and left the room. They could hear him treading heavily up the stairs, the paint can clanging by his side.

  Maya put her head in her hand. “Balboa Mist. It’s going to look awful.”

  “Don’t worry yourself, Missy. It’s not your concern. Bernard will take it back to the store if it’s no good. Maybe he should just go for primary colors, blue or red. You haven’t told me, by the way. Do you want a boy or a girl? Do you have a preference?”

  “I do, but I’m ashamed of it, and I’m not telling anybody.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, what if it’s a girl, and I’ve been telling everybody for months that we want a boy, for example? Wouldn’t that be awful?”

  “I’m not everybody. I’m your dearly beloved younger brother, who’s known you all his life. And I know you well enough to guess which kind of baby you want, anyway.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You want a girl, don’t you?”

  Maya gazed at him, bemused. She brushed a lock of golden-brown hair out of her eyes. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you have an older brother and a younger brother, and you’re tired of boys. You’d like to have a little girl, Maya, I know you.”

  “Well, all right, so I’d like a girl. And so would Bernard. But we’d be happy with either. Right now I’d be happy if I could get through the day without feeling so sick. Nobody ever told me morning sickness could last all day long. It doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

  “Do you want to go upstairs and lie down for a while?”

  “No, no, Snooks. You sit there and talk to me. Tell me about your adventures in St. Martin. And make me another cup of that tea.”

  Snooky was still telling her about St. Martin (“I woke up after a little nap on the beach and this sand lizard was sitting on my chest, staring at me. Gave me the chills”) an hour later when they could hear a heavy footstep on the stairs. Bernard came into the room, carrying the can of paint. There was paint on his shirt, his pants, his canvas shoes and his face. He looked at his wife glumly.

  “Balboa Mist sucks,” he said.

  “Well, I told you.”

  “I’m going back to the store.”

  “Should I go with you?”

  “No. It’s my responsibility.”

  The kitchen screen door slammed behind him, and they could hear the car starting up.

  Snooky smiled. “I can see this is going to be hours and hours of entertainment,” he said, putting up the pot for coffee.

  Over the next few days, Bernard painted portions of the room Lambswool, Victoriana, Butter Cream, Gray Wisp and Mexican Tile. After painting a section, he would stand back and gaze at it, his arms folded, for a while. Then he would put the top on the can, carry it out to the car and return it to the store. His expression grew increasingly more glum and his mood more despondent as time went on. Snooky watched all this with enjoyment.

  “I think there’s going to be a storm,” he said to his sister finally, as Bernard drove away with a can of Pistachio Cream on the seat next to him.

  “It’s getting worse and worse, isn’t it?”

  “I think his head is going to explode if he goes on like this. And he hasn’t managed to pick a decent nursery color yet, if you ask me.”

  “I know.” Maya crunched miserably on her dry, crumbly toast. “I know.”

  “One of us—I won’t say which one, My—one of us remarked days ago that color schemes were not Bernard’s strong suit. One of us.”

  “That wouldn’t be you, would it?”

  “And now my advice to you is to call in an expert. Somebody who can look at a color on a one-half-inch-square piece of paper and tell what it will look like covering a whole room. A gift which Bernard clearly does not possess.”

  “True.” Maya chewed thoughtfully. Her face lit up. “Oh, Weezy. Of course. I should call Weezy in. She has the most marvelous eye for that kind of thing. I was going to phone her today anyway.”

  “Now you’re thinking, Maya. Weezy would be perfect for this job. Give her my love when you talk to her.”

  “I will.” Maya reached for the kitchen phone and dialed. “Weezy? It’s me … fine, thanks. Well, not really, but Snooky is feeding me toast and I’m not feeling too terrible. Do you think you could do me an incredible favor? We have a bit of a problem here …”

  When Maya hung up the phone, she had a pleased expression on her face.

  “You look like a Siamese cat that just ate a bowl of cream,” said Snooky. “I assume she said yes?”

  “Of course. She’ll be over this afternoon.”

  Weezy Kaplan—her real name, which no one who knew her even casually ever used, was Louise—was one of Maya’s few childhood friends who had remained a friend throughout life. She was an artist with a small but growing reputation, and had moved to Ridgewood during the past year to get away from the frantic pace of life in Greenwich Village.

  “You can always count on Weezy.”

  “Yes.” Maya sounded relieved. “Thank you, Snooks. It was a good idea. It’s been years since you’ve seen her, hasn’t it?”

  “Five or six years. Maybe even more. How’s she doing?”

  “Great. Did you know there was an article on her work in The New York Times? About six months ago, in the Arts and Leisure section. All about how she’s an up-and-coming young artist. You know the kind of thing.”

  “Well, that’s wonderful. Famous Weezy. She must have been thrilled.”

  “Oh, she was, she w
as.” Maya tapped thoughtfully on her teacup with one finger.

  “What’s the matter?”

  She looked up, startled. “What?”

  “I said, what’s the matter?”

  “Oh …” She laughed. “Nothing, really. It’s just that since then … well, right around the time the article came out, she started getting these weird phone calls. She picks up, and there’s nobody on the other end. It’s strange, if you ask me.”

  “Nobody on the other end? The caller hangs up?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody ever says anything.”

  “Maybe her phone line has a glitch or something, Missy.”

  “That’s what she keeps telling me, except that the phone company can’t find anything wrong. And it started happening right when that article came out on her. She says it’s not related, that I’m making too much of a fuss.”

  “I see. You know, they say pregnant women can get very paranoid and suspicious. That protective maternal thing, you understand.”

  Maya leaned her head on her hand. “Is that what they say, Snooks?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Pregnant women get a lot of bad PR, if you ask me.”

  A little while later the door banged and Bernard thumped through the kitchen, a surly look on his face, a paint can clanking against his legs. “I’m going upstairs.”

  “What is it this time, sweetheart?”

  “Milk Shake. Sort of a pale brownish color.”

  “Sounds good,” said Snooky. “And you know, if it doesn’t look right on the wall, you can always drink it.”

  “It won’t look good. I know in advance that it won’t look good. And yet I feel compelled to try it.”

  “Personally, I thought Victoriana wasn’t bad,” said Snooky. “That smoky purple color. Not right for a nursery, of course, but at least not offensive to the eye.”

  “I really don’t care what you think, Snooky. I’ll be in the nursery. Hold my calls,” Bernard said to Maya.

  “You never get any calls, darling,” she said mildly, but Bernard was already clunking his way up the stairs.

  That afternoon a tall red-haired woman dressed in the most outlandish clothes—flowing red chiffon, a lacy scarf, several long necklaces and a pair of lace-up boots—let herself in at the door without knocking. She went straight upstairs to the nursery and stood in the doorway, watching Bernard as he determinedly painted the walls muddy brown. Bernard, absorbed in his task and trying not to cover himself with paint, did not notice her.

  “This is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said at last.

  Bernard straightened up slowly. “Hello, Weezy.”

  “You may not be a visual artist, Bernard, but there’s simply no excuse for this. You’re painting the nursery dark brown?”

  “It’s not a dark brown. It’s a pale—a very pale brown. It’s called Milk Shake.”

  “Pitiful. No wonder Maya was in such a state on the phone. And with the pregnancy and everything. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “I’ve tried several other colors.”

  “So I see.” Weezy regarded the walls, streaked with contrasting shades, with a disapproving expression. “Apparently Milk Shake is neither the worst nor the best of what you’ve tried. It’s simply the most recent.”

  “Yes.”

  “I hate these food names for paint colors. This one here looks like it ought to have been called Lemon Meringue.”

  Bernard examined that section of the wall. “Very good. Lemon Twist, if I remember right.”

  “So pathetically predictable. You need my services, Bernard.”

  “Maya said you’d offered yourself as an interior decorator.”

  “And just in time. Just in time, before Maya leaves you and gives birth to the child elsewhere and raises it someplace where its innocent infant eyes will never see this color of paint. Stop putting it on the wall, will you? Put that brush down right now.”

  Bernard put the brush down. He drew his arm across his forehead, leaving it streaked with paint, and sat down with a dull whumping sound on a three-legged wooden stool which he had been using to get to the hard-to-reach spots. He sighed morosely, from the heart.

  Weezy eyed him with a glimmer of sympathy. “It’s not easy, choosing the right color.”

  “No.”

  “Particularly if you don’t have an eye for it.”

  “No.”

  “And painting is hard work.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “This could be a beautiful little room. Look at that view. And the way the ceiling slants. I assume that under this incredibly hideous tile, there’s a nice oak floor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then, there’s no problem. We’ll stay away from blue or pink, so terribly boring. This purple shade you were trying here would be amusing if it weren’t so tragic, Bernard. I see the walls in … hmmm … perhaps a light creamy color … with overtones of red or gold …”

  She fell into a reverie, gazing around the room with a dreamy expression on her face. Bernard sat with his head in his hands. There was silence, broken only by the whistle of the wind through the fir trees.

  “Look at that chintz,” Weezy said at last. “I never will understand people. I never will. You and Maya rescued this house from the hands of a pedestrian soul with no taste.”

  “Yes.”

  “I see stiff white curtains, that bleached muslin look, a country look for this room. Thick enough to keep out the light when the infant sleeps. Which way does the window face? Southeast? Oh yes, you’ll need thick curtains or the child will be up at dawn, which would not suit your lifestyle at all, sweetie. Which paint store have you been haunting?”

  Bernard told her.

  “And they let you return all this paint?”

  “They let you return anything that’s not a specialty color, and I didn’t use any specialty colors.”

  Weezy threw him a look of withering scorn. “Just one of your many errors in judgment, Bernard. Here I always thought you had some visual imagination. Well, I was wrong. Now, you put the top back on Milk Shake or Egg Cream or whatever your last sorry mistake was called, and give it to me. I have some shopping to do.”

  On the way out the door, Weezy kissed Maya and gave Snooky a sisterly peck on the top of his head as he sat at the kitchen table.

  “Hello, handsome boy.”

  “Hello, sexy lady.”

  “You’re taller than you used to be.”

  “I’m not six years old anymore.”

  Weezy patted him on the head. “You’ll always be six, Snooky. Inside, you know. Outside, you just get taller.”

  “You’ve been upstairs?” Maya said.

  “Yes. It’s unbelievable.”

  “You spoke to Bernard?”

  “I’m not talking to Bernard. Did you see that lemon-yellow he tried? Is he not in full possession of all his senses?”

  “Where is he now, Weezy?”

  “I left him upstairs with his head in his hands, mulling over his lack of artistic talent. See you soon.”

  And she was gone, the screen door banging behind her.

  When she returned, less than an hour later, Bernard was standing alone in the kitchen, holding a coffee cup and gazing anxiously out the window. He took the paint can from her and put it on the table.

  “What color did you get?”

  She gave him another one of her withering looks. “I told you, that’s the first mistake you made, Bernard. I didn’t get a color with a name. I had the paint store manager whip me up something special. A little bit of this and a little bit of that. And, in case you’re wondering, we can’t return it, because it doesn’t have a name or even a number. But it doesn’t matter, sweetie, because it’s going to be stunning. Now, go out to my car and get the roll of fabric that’s in the backseat. You still have that old sewing machine upstairs? Good. I’m going to need it.”

  “Fabric? You’re going to do the curtains?”

  “No. I’m
going to lay the beautiful and, may I say, very expensive white muslin I got on the floor and use it as a drop cloth while I’m painting. Any more questions? Now, get the roll out of the car for me, there’s a good boy, and bring it upstairs. Get me an old shirt of yours, something nice and roomy—that shouldn’t be a problem, should it now?—and then vamoose. I’ll do the painting myself.”

  “No, no, Weezy, you were just supposed to pick out the paint. I’ll do the room.”

  “Thank you. Now do what I say, and then vamoose. I don’t let anybody else do my painting for me. It’s like coitus interruptus to buy the paint and not put it on the wall myself.”

  Maya was angry about this. She stormed into the nursery. “Weezy, you’re crazy. I didn’t want you to have to do the painting and make the curtains. I just asked you to pick out the right color for Bernard.”

  Weezy straightened up, paint dripping from the roller in her hand. Her wild frizzy red-yellow hair was tied back with a lacy scarf, and a child’s plastic barrettes, red and yellow and green, held back different tendrils which threatened to escape and curl onto her forehead. She had narrow jewel-green eyes and an intelligent horsey face which was illumined by her smile. She was wearing an old white shirt of Bernard’s, vastly big for her, which was rolled up to reveal her pale freckled forearms.

  “Don’t be silly, sweetie.”

  “I’m not being silly. I don’t want you to do this. Bernard can do the work. He’s happy to do it.”

  “I’m a full-service decorator,” Weezy said, rolling the paint smoothly onto the wall with a practiced hand. “Curtains, walls, even furniture, we do it all.”

  “Weezy!”

  “Go away, you’re bothering me. Get out of here. You’re pregnant, you shouldn’t be smelling the paint anyway. Now, what do you think of the color?”

  Maya looked around the room, seeing it for the first time. She smiled slowly.

  “Oh, Weezy, it’s … it’s perfect. Like a dream.”

  “It’s going to take two coats to cover those dark colors Bernard so obligingly put up here.”

  The wall Weezy had been working on was a pale creamy color with a suggestion of gold overtones in it. Awash in the afternoon sun, that part of the room glowed like a ripe juicy peach.