Outtakes from a Marriage, page 7
I had no intention of calling Alison back that morning. I had just sent Ruby and Sammy off to school and Joe was in the shower. I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table with the telephone. I dialed Joe’s phone number, tapped in his code, and waited.
The first two messages were show related: an urgent plea from the wardrobe manager to return a belt and the second AD calling to announce a delayed call time. Too bad Joe didn’t listen to his messages before he took his shower, I thought smugly.
The next message was from his assistant, Catherine. He had a photo shoot lined up with GQ. A fashion shoot for television’s best dressed. And that was it.
“End of messages!” declared the automated recording.
Was it my imagination or was the Nextel voice getting increasingly chirpy? Almost teasingly pert. It was getting on my nerves. I had expected a message from the slutty girlfriend and now I felt let down. Extremely let down. Like some weird lifeline between Joe and me had been severed.
Joe walked into the kitchen, freshly showered and dressed for work, and I closed the phone.
“Coffee?” I asked.
“Yup,” he replied, and I got up to pour him a cup. “Thanks, hon,” he said, and he gave me a kiss on my forehead. Then he took a sip from his mug, flipped open his phone, and punched in his code. My heart raced. I don’t know why I found it so thrilling to know his messages before he did, but I had to steady myself against the counter while he listened. Then he slammed his phone shut. “My call time’s not till noon now. I’m going back to bed.”
“Oh,” I said, but what I thought was, I know.
The kids were in school. Catalina was out. Not long ago Joe would have lured me back into bed with him, or I might have beat him back there myself. Because, you know, who doesn’t love morning sex? There’s something so leisurely and satisfying about that time of day in an empty apartment. The kids off learning. The bed still warm. But now, now that I had to look at all aspects of our marriage with a critical eye, I could see that our sex life had started to deteriorate during the years we tried to have Sammy, and it had never fully recovered. The drudgery of ovulation calendars and fertility drugs and the cruel monthly arrival of my period had slightly soured us to each other. “It’ll get better,” said my friend Jennifer, who had been through it. “Sign up for IVF and then go back to having normal sex.” Jennifer’s son, Nathaniel, was conceived in a petri dish. We think Sammy was conceived on a block of ice, in an ice hotel. We’re not sure, but that’s what we tell people, because it’s possible, and it’s a good story. In fact, it occurred on a trip that had become part of our family lore. The trip to the Ice Hotel! It was one chapter of an oral anthology that Ruby and Joe and I had compiled over the years, which also contained tales of botched birthday surprises, a kleptomaniac house cleaner, and other amusing anecdotes of our family history that we revisited often, returning like a parched flock to a familiar watering hole.
“Remember the time we drove to Canada, Mom?” Ruby would say suddenly as the four of us sat in traffic on a hot summer day.
“You were visiting me on the set of Appalachia in Montreal,” Joe would reply. “What was that, 2000?”
“No, it was 2002! It was the winter after 9/11—that’s why we drove,” I’d reply. That first winter after 9/11, I was still of the mind-set that I’d never fly again, so Ruby and I drove to Montreal during her spring break. We spent a few days hanging around the set, being shuffled behind monitors and standing, breathless, in hushed anticipation of a scene out of context. We watched some of the dailies and met the crew.
“That was the last halfway decent thing Wyman ever made,” Joe always said when somebody mentioned the film.
Bill Wyman, the film’s director, had his wife and daughter visiting from California, and since Abby was only a year younger than Ruby, they swam in the hotel pool together each morning. The production had a long weekend coming up and Joe and I decided we should take Ruby to visit Quebec City. “Check out the Ice Hotel,” said Kate Wyman when I told her. “It’s just outside Quebec. We’re thinking of visiting there at some point ourselves.”
“The Ice Hotel!” Ruby had declared with delight. “I’ve always wanted to go to the Ice Hotel!”
Ruby had seen an article about the Ice Hotel in a scholastic magazine the year before and had been fascinated by it ever since. At one point she actually had photos of the Ice Hotel posted on her bulletin board, and it was easy to see why the place was so intriguing to her. The photos revealed what appeared to be a minimalist-inspired hotel interior—except that all the walls, floors, ceilings, and furnishings were made of ice. The beds were blocks of ice with animal pelts for bedding. The artwork was carved into the ice walls, and all of the rooms had an eerily beautiful incandescence that can only be found in a space where light bathes ice everywhere. Everything—the chapel, the lobby, the lounge—was an ethereal blue. It was a pristine winter palace, and in the mind of our daughter, to visit such a place would make us part of its magic. To not visit would be to surrender our lives to an eternity of the carpeted, upholstered, heated damnation that was our only existence.
The hotel was in a park that had other amusements such as skiing, snowmobiling, and dogsledding, and we decided to make a day of it. We would visit the Ice Hotel and also, in honor of Ruby’s favorite book, The Call of the Wild, we would go dogsledding.
That morning—a bracing, crystal-clear Canadian morning, fourteen degrees Fahrenheit in the middle of March—we drove out to the park. We decided to dogsled first and had been told to arrive at the kennels no later than ten o’clock. Apparently there were some instructions they needed to go over with us.
I was looking forward to the dogsledding. I imagined Joe, Ruby, and me all tucked into a cozy sled together with a Yukon Cornelius character standing behind us on the sled’s runners, mushing the dogs and telling us of his adventures on the old Iditarod Trail. I envisioned noble, courageous sled dogs running us across the frozen landscape, their tongues lolling happily out of their mouths, and of how it would be one of those experiences that Ruby would cherish for the rest of her life.
We arrived to find half a dozen empty dogsleds parked outside a large but dilapidated barn. The sleds were placed in a line, obviously waiting to be hitched up to the dogs, whose shrill voices rose in a cacophonous series of barks, yips, and howls from inside. As we approached the barn door, it suddenly swung open, and the three of us instantly covered our mouths and noses with our hands. The sickening stench of a barnload of dog crap blasted out into the cold morning in an almost visible gust. Then through the door lurched a pair of barking huskies dragging a burly handler along with them. The dogs were strapped into nylon harnesses and their handler was between them, a rough, calloused hand firmly gripping each harness. The dogs were so excited and pulled so hard that their front feet didn’t touch the ground, but instead pawed frantically at the air while their hind feet propelled them forward in short hopping steps. The first pair of huskies was followed by a second pair being somewhat restrained by a lanky teenaged boy, and then a third pair and another teenager. All of the dogs grinned maniacally between barks, and their upright two-by-two procession looked like the deployment of a senseless but ferocious army. “Go on inside,” said one of the handlers to us. “They’re giving the driving instructions.” I looked doubtfully toward the massive, listing barn. The cries of the dogs within sounded primitive and foreboding to me, like the lusty song of caged wolves, pent-up, frustrated, boasting of blood and danger. “Go on in,” the man said again. Ruby pranced enthusiastically toward the door and we followed her.
Inside the barn, several people stood in a semicircle around an empty dogsled. Next to the sled was a very ruddy French Canadian, who said when we entered, “Ah, here zey are! You made a reservation yesterday. You’re with ze child, yes?”
“Yup,” said Joe, who then turned to me and rolled his eyes. Later, when he told the story, he would claim that the accent was fake.
“I am Jean-Luc,” said our guide. “We will begin our safety demonstration.” His demonstration involved much jumping on and off the runners of the sled and stamping on the brake. It wasn’t until about halfway through his speech that I came to understand that we were expected to drive our own sleds.
A final pair of dogs dragged their handler past us. The dogs’ barks had built into an hysterical crescendo and Jean-Luc smiled as they passed and said, “Zey are excited.”
Excited doesn’t even begin to describe the emotion I was experiencing. Adrenaline surged through my veins like a flash flood of panic. Even I could smell my fear.
“Zee brake under your foot is this metal bar,” Jean-Luc was saying. “Ees the only way to slow down the dogs. If the dogs are running, it might mean you must stand on the brake with both feet. With all your weight. It is important not to lose control of ze dogs.”
Although the temperature in the barn was about six degrees Fahrenheit, I was beginning to sweat.
Ruby grinned with delight. Joe was clenching his jaw. A bad habit of his. Never a good sign.
“Also, very important,” said Jean-Luc, “we will tell you the name of your lead dog. There are eight dogs in a team, but you only need to know the name of ze lead dog. He is the one you talk to. Say the dog’s name, then give a command. ‘Hup’ means forward. Your lead dog will know what you want. It is very important to keep the dogs moving forward. If they stop or slow down, they might become entangled in the harnesses. If that happens, immediately call for help from one of your guides. When a dog becomes entangled, usually the other dogs will attack it, and there will be a big dogfight. So be very careful. Any questions?”
“I can’t do this,” I whispered to Joe.
“Shhh! Just listen to the guy,” Joe said, but I could tell by the way he was clenching his jaw that he was having second thoughts himself.
“Okay, let’s go!” said Jean-Luc, and we all followed him out of the barn. The dogs, all hitched to their sleds now, howled and barked and snarled with excitement. Their sleds were anchored to the ground and the dogs lunged against their harnesses, snapping at the air and at one another.
Jean-Luc began assigning sleds to people. When he came to us he said to Joe, “I think I will take your daughter in my sled. Your wife will ride with you. It’s easier for you to drive with one person.”
I was relieved that Ruby was going to be riding with a professional. At least one of us would survive. And Ruby was clearly thrilled to be riding in the first sled with a real dog musher. Joe and I were directed to the last sled, and when I climbed inside, Jean-Luc threw a filthy blanket over my lap. Then Joe stepped onto the runners behind me and our team of dogs lunged forward so hard that the sled bounced and slid sideways against the strain of the anchor.
“Jesus!” said Joe.
“Whatever you do, don’t let go!” I cried. My fear was that if Joe fell off, I would be left alone in a sled with no reins and no way to reach the brakes, behind an out-of-control pack of dogs. I imagined the dogs bolting off so fast that the sled would become airborne with me clinging to it for dear life.
“The lead dog!” I said to Joe. One of the handlers was now unfastening our anchor from the ground. “We never found out the name of the lead dog!”
“Jesus Christ, the lead dog!” Joe screamed. “NOBODY TOLD US THE NAME OF THE LEAD DOG!”
“HELP!” I shrieked.
“It’s Lobo,” the handler said calmly. He pulled the anchor from where it was lodged in the ground and placed it next to me on the sled and we were off.
The dogs threw their weight into their harnesses, and their frustrated cries turned into playful yips as the sled flew across the snow-covered parking lot. Joe and I screamed in unison at the sled’s first surge forward, and I cried, “Whoa, Lobo! Whoa, Lobo!” to the lead dog. But Lobo didn’t appear to know his name, which turned out to be okay, because after the first thirty seconds, the dogs ran out of steam. We left the parking lot and headed out over a field, the distance separating us from the three other teams growing larger and larger.
“Hup, Lobo,” called Joe. “Hup!”
Lobo had downshifted from a slow lope into a walk. He went to sniff a small fir tree and then stopped to lift his leg on it.
“Hup, hup, hup!” we called out.
Lobo released an agonizingly long stream of urine and then kicked at the earth with his hind legs. He kicked at the ground, and kicked and kicked and kicked and kicked, sending small yellow wads of snow and dirt all over his teammates and me.
“Bad dog, Lobo! Hup!” yelled Joe. Lobo meandered on, but only after pausing long enough for us to understand that he was moving forward only because he now chose to. The other dogs in our team stopped and lifted a leg or squatted at the exact same fir tree, each also sending chunks of their marked territory back into my face.
We proceeded across the field at Lobo’s lackadaisical pace, the dogs stopping every few yards to have a sniff at the ground, to relieve themselves, or just to have a friendly go at their neighbor’s genitals. The first time they came to a complete stop, Joe and I screamed, “Hup, hup, hup!” at the tops of our lungs, but the dogs didn’t get tangled in their harnesses or attack one another. They were having a leisurely morning walk and they seemed to be enjoying themselves.
“I feel like one of those dog walkers you see in Central Park,” said Joe, and I said, “Is it my imagination or is Lobo one of the most moth-eaten dogs you’ve ever laid eyes on?” Because once we had started moving, after Lobo stopped lunging and baring his fangs, we were able to get a good look at him, and it was clear he’d seen better days. His coat, where it remained, was graying. It was still thick around his neck and shoulders but started to thin out around the area of his waist, and for some reason, perhaps some kind of canine pattern baldness, parts of his bony hindquarters were completely bare. All four legs were still covered in fur, but the right hind leg was stiff and arthritic and appeared to torque sharply out to the side with each step.
“You know, I’d feel sorry for him if he wasn’t such an arrogant son of a bitch,” said Joe. “He’s not listening to a thing I say.”
“I think the handler sized us up and we got the equivalent of the old reliable nag at the dude ranch,” I said, and then we both kicked back and enjoyed the ride. The midday sun streamed down on us and I tilted my face up to catch its rays. At the end of the bright windswept field, we turned onto a wide trail that wove its way through a pine grove. The occasional clusters of grass poking up through the melting snow and the promising musky scent of thawing earth made me think of the Easter Sundays of my childhood, of starched flowered dresses and new Mary Janes. Joe squatted down behind me, giving up all pretense of “driving” the dogs, and wrapping his arms around me, he kissed me on my neck. I moved his hand down under the blanket, into the front of my parka and over my breast. The dogs settled into a pace that was just a tad slower than a normal walk and we slid in and out of the dappled sunshine, over a narrow frozen creek, and finally back out into another field that led to the barn. Joe and I untangled ourselves and Ruby turned around in the lead sled to wave excitedly back at us.
“It was like a dream!” she said, after a ten-minute showdown with Joe about why we couldn’t buy the lead dog on her team, who was also, curiously enough, called Lobo.
“Let’s get to the Ice Hotel before it melts,” I said.
The pictures we had seen of the Ice Hotel made the place look like the Winter Palace from Doctor Zhivago. The real Ice Hotel was a long, low structure that looked like a gigantic cargo vessel encased in ice. It sat in the middle of a parking lot with Dumpsters and Porta Potties set up outside. By the time we pulled up, there was already a small line of tourists waiting to get in, including the Wymans.
“That’s the Ice Hotel?” Ruby asked sadly when we joined them in line and we all wondered how anybody came up with this gimmick in the first place.
But the inside of the hotel actually bore a closer resemblance to the promotional photos we had seen. Something about the way the sun filtered through the thick blocks of ice gave the place a mod, clubby, blue-lit atmosphere. We walked through the ice foyer and the ice chapel and then into the ice lounge, where shots of vodka were being served in ice shot glasses.
“Now you’re talking,” said Joe, handing shots to Bill and Kate and me. The girls ordered hot cocoa from a waitress. As we tossed back the shots and Joe fetched us each another, I recounted our dog-sledding travails to the Wymans. The first shot had burned going down, but the second was just blissfully warm. Joe grinned at me as I described Lobo, interrupting occasionally with adjectives like mangy and shit-encrusted. We hadn’t really shared an adventure in ages and now we felt reunited by the ordeal. We were actually bent over laughing when we tried to explain just how hard it is to figure out where to look when your dog team has decided to embark on a spontaneous orgy in the middle of a snowy field.
Soon the girls had finished their hot chocolates and set out to explore each and every room in the hotel, and we set out after them. The Wymans followed the girls into one of the guest rooms and Joe and I wandered into another. It was empty except for the ice furniture and the faux fur blankets thrown across the “bed.”
“I wonder if people really stay here,” I said. “Just looking at that bed hurts my back.”
Joe swung the ice door closed and found that it bolted shut.
“Didja ever do it in an ice hotel?” he asked, and I laughed because this was an old running joke between us. Joe and I had discovered, not long after we met, that his sexual experience was a little more…limited than mine. Actually, a lot more limited. Joe hadn’t had a lot of girlfriends before we met in college—in fact, I’ve had to take him at his word that he wasn’t a virgin before me. I, on the other hand, had had a few boyfriends before we met. I never thought my sexual experiences were that vast until I met Joe and came to realize that maybe I had hung around with a bit of a fast crowd in high school.
