I wasn't sure what to make of Dallas. Compared to Houston, it was squeaky-clean, cosmopolitan, tightly hinged. Fewer cowboy hats, much better manners. And Dallas was a lot more politically consistent than Houston, which had drastic public policy swings from election to election.
Dallas, so tasteful and composed, seemed to feel it had something to prove, like a woman who was too concerned about what to wear on the second date. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that unlike most great cities of the world, it had no port. Dallas had become a player in the 1870s when two railroads, the Houston and Texas Central and the Texas and Pacific, both met and crossed at a ninety-degree angle, thereby making the city a big commercial center.
Nick's family all lived in or around Dallas. His parents had divorced and married other people when he was still a kid. Between all the stepsisters and stepbrothers, and half sisters and half brothers, and the full-blood siblings, I had trouble figuring out who belonged to whom. It didn't seem to matter, though, because none of them were close.
We bought a small condo with two parking spaces and access to a community pool. I decorated the condo with cheap, brightly colored contemporary furniture, and added some baskets and Mexican ceramics. In our living room, I hung a huge framed reprint of an old travel poster, featuring a dark-haired girl holding a basket of fruit beneath a huge banner reading, VISIT MEXICO: LAND OF SPLENDOR.
"It's our own special style," I told Nick when he complained that our furniture was crap and he didn't like Southwestern decor. "I call it 'Ikea Loco.' I think I'm onto something. Soon everyone will be copying us. Besides, it's all we can afford."
"We could afford a fu**ing palace," Nick replied darkly, "if your father wasn't such an as**ole."
I was taken aback by the flash of animosity, a lightning strike that had come out of nowhere. My pleasure in the condo was an irritant to Nick. I was just playing house, he told me. When I'd lived like middle-class people for a while, he'd like to see if I was still so happy.
"Of course I will be," I said. "I have you. I don't need a mansion to be happy."
It seemed at times that Nick was a lot more affected by my changed circumstances than I was. He resented our small budget for my sake, he said. He hated that we couldn't afford a second car.
"I really don't mind," I said, and that made him angry because if he minded it, so should I.
After the storms had passed, however, the peace was all the sweeter.
Nick called me at work at least twice a day just to see how things were going. We talked all the time. "I want us to tell each other everything,'' he said one night, when we were halfway into a bottle of wine. "My parents always had secrets. You and I should be completely honest and open."
I loved that idea in theory. In practice, however, it was hard on my self-esteem. Complete honesty, it turned out, was not always kind.
"You're so pretty," Nick told me one night after we'd made love. His hand moved over my body, coasting up the gentle slope of my chest. I had small breasts, a shallow B cup at most. Even before we were married, Nick had laughingly complained about my lack of endowment, saying he'd buy me implants except a pair of big boobs would look ridiculous on a woman as short and slight as me. His fingertips moved up to my face, tracing the curve of my cheek. "Big brown eyes . . . cute little nose . . . beautiful mouth. It doesn't matter that you don't have a body."
"I have a body," I said.
"I meant boobs."
"I have those too. They're just not big ones."
"Well, I love you anyway."
I wanted to point out that Nick didn't have a perfect body either, but I knew that would start a fight, Nick didn't read well to criticism, even when it was gentle and well meant. He wasn't used to anyone finding fault with him. I, on the other hand, had been raised on a steady diet of critiques and evaluations.
Mother had always told me detailed stories about her friends' daughters, how well behaved they were, how nice it was that they would sit still for piano lessons, or make tissue-paper flowers for their mothers, or show off their latest ballet steps on cue. I had wished with all my heart that I could have been more like those winsome little girls, but I hadn't been able to keep from rebelling against being miscast as a smaller version of Ava Travis. And then she had died, leaving me with a mountain of regrets and no way to atone.
Our holidays — the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas, the first New Year's — were quiet. We hadn't joined a church yet, and it seemed that all Nick's friends, the ones he said were his family, were occupied with their own families. I approached cooking Christmas dinner as if it were a science class project. I studied cookbooks, made charts, set timers, measured ingredients, and dissected meat and vegetables into the appropriate dimensions. I knew the results of my efforts were passable but uninspired, but Nick said it was the best turkey, the best mashed potatoes, the best pecan pie he'd ever eaten.
"It must be the sight of me in oven mitts," I said.
Nick began stringing noisy kisses along my arm as if he were Pepe Le Pew. "You are ze goddess of ze keetchen."
The Darlington had been so busy during the holidays that I had had to work overtime, while Nick's job bad eased up until after New Year's. With our unsynchronized schedules, it was frustrating and time-consuming for him to drive back and forth all the time. Nothing was ever finished . . . the condo was always a mess, the fridge was seldom stocked, there were always piles of dirty laundry.
"We can't afford to take all my shirts to the dry cleaner's," Nick said the day after Christmas. "You'll have to learn how to do them."
"Me?" I had never ironed anything in my life. The proper pressing of a shirt was a mystery of the universe akin to black holes and dark matter. "How come you can't do your own shirts?"
"I need you to help. Is it too much to ask for you to give me a hand with my clothes?"
"No, of course not. I'm sorry. I just don't know how. I'm afraid I'll screw them up."
"I'll show you how. You'll learn." Nick smiled and patted me on the backside. "You just have to get in touch with your inner Martha Stewart."
I told him I had always kept my inner Martha Stewart chained in the basement, but for his sake I would set her loose.
Nick was patient as he took me step by step through the process, showing me exactly how he liked his shirts starched and ironed. He was particular about the details. At first it was sort of fun, in the same way grouting is fun when you first do it . . . until you face an entire bathroom full of tiles. Or a laundry basket crammed with unwashed shirts. No matter how I tried, I could never seem to get the shirts exactly the way Nick liked them.
My ironing technique became the focus of a near-daily inspection. Nick would go to our closet, file through the row of pressed garments, and tell me where I'd gone wrong. "You need to iron the edges more slowly to get all the little creases out," or, "You need to redo the armhole seams."
"You need to use less starch."
"The back's not smooth enough."
Exasperated and defeated, I finally resorted to using my personal money — we each had the same amount to spend each week to have Nick's shirts professionally laundered and pressed. I thought it was a good solution. But when Nick found a row of shirts hanging in plastic coverings in the closet, he was pissed.
"I thought we agreed," he said shortly, "that you were going to learn to do them."
"I used my own money." I gave him a placating smile. "I'm ironing deficient. Maybe I need a multivitamin."
He refused to smile back. "You're not trying hard enough."
I found it hard to believe we were having an argument over something as trivial as shirts. It wasn't really about the shirts. Maybe he felt I wasn't contributing enough to the relationship. Maybe I needed to be more loving, more supportive. He was going through stress. Holiday stress, work stress, newlywed stress.
"I'll try harder," I said. "But sweetheart . . . is there anything else bothering you? Something we should talk about besides ironing? You know I'd do anything for you."
Nick gave me a cold stare. "All I need is for you to fu**ing get something right for a change."
I was angry for approximately ten minutes. After that, I was suffused with fear. I was going to fail at marriage, the most important thing I had ever tried to do.
So I called Todd, who sympathized and said everyone had stupid arguments with their partner. We agreed it was just part of a normal relationship. I didn't dare talk to anyone in my family, because I would have rather died than let Dad suspect the marriage wasn't going well.
I apologized abjectly to Nick.
"No, it was my fault," he said, wrapping his arms around me in a warm firm hug. His forgiveness was such a relief, I felt tears spring in my eyes. "I'm asking too much of you," he continued. "You can't help the way you were brought up. You were never expected to do things for other people. But in the real world, it's the small gestures, the little things, that show a guy you love him. I'd appreciate it if you'd make more of an effort." And he rubbed my feet after dinner, and told me to stop apologizing.
The next day, I saw a new can of spray starch in the laundry closet. The ironing board had been unfolded and set up for me, so I could practice while Nick started dinner.
We went out one night with two other couples, who were guys from the construction firm Nick worked at, and their wives. I was excited about doing something social. It had been a surprise to discover that although Nick had grown up in Dallas, he didn't seem to have any old friends to introduce me to. They had all moved away, or weren't worth bothering with, he had told me. I was eager to make some friends in Dallas, and I wanted to make a good impression.
At lunch hour I went to the hotel salon and had one of the stylists trim several inches of my long hair. When she was finished the floor was littered with wavy black locks, and my hair was medium-length and sleek. "You should never let your hair get longer than this," the stylist told me. "The way you had it before was too much for someone as petite as you. It was overwhelming your face."
I hadn't mentioned to Nick that I was getting a haircut. He loved it long, and I knew he would have tried to talk me out of it. Besides, I thought once he saw how flattering it was, not to mention easier to care for, he would change his mind.
As soon as he picked me up, Nick started to frown. "Looks like you've been busy today." His fingers were tight on the steering wheel.
"Do you like it? It feels great." I shook my head from side to side like a hair model. "It was about time I had a good, healthy trim."
"That's not a trim. Most of your hair is gone." Every word was edged with disapproval and disappointment.
"I was tired of my college look. I think this is more polished."
"Your long hair was special. Now it looks ordinary."
I felt as if someone had just emptied a syringe of liquid anxiety into my veins. "I'm sorry if you don't like it. But it was too much work. And it's my hair, anyway."
"Well, I'm the one who has to look at you every day."
My skin seemed to shrink until my body was compressed in a tight envelope. "The stylist said it was overwhelming my face."
"I'm glad you and she think the world needs to see more of your goddamn face," he muttered.
I endured about fifteen minutes of thick, choking silence while Nick maneuvered through the six o'clock traffic. We were going straight to the restaurant to meet his friends.
"By the way," Nick said abruptly, "just so you won't be surprised, I've told people your name is Marie."
I stared at his profile in complete incomprehension. Marie was my middle name, the one no one had ever used unless I was in trouble. The sound of "Haven Marie" had always been a sure sign that something had hit the fan.
"Why didn't you tell them my first name?" I managed to ask.
Nick didn't look at me. "Because it makes you sound like a hick."
"I like my regular name. I don't want to be Marie. I want — "
"Jesus, can't I just have a normal wife with a normal name?" He was turning red, breathing hard, the air clotted with hostility.
The whole situation felt unreal. I was married to a man who didn't like my name. He'd never said anything about it before. This isn't Nick, I told myself. The real Nick was the guy I'd married. I glanced at him covertly. He looked like an ordinary, exasperated husband. He was asking for normal, and I wasn't altogether certain what that was.
I worked to steady my own breathing. We were almost at the restaurant — we couldn't walk in there looking like we'd just had a light. My face felt as if it had been coated with glass. "Okay," I said. "So we'll be Nick and Marie tonight."
"Okay." He seemed to relax a little.
After that evening, which had gone well, Nick hardly ever called me Haven, even when it was just the two of us. He said it would be too confusing when we went out with other people, if I wasn't used to being called Marie. I told myself it could be a good thing, this name change. I would let go of my past baggage. I could become whoever I wanted, a better person. And it pleased Nick, which I wanted desperately to do.
I'm Marie, I told myself. Marie, the married woman who lives in Dallas and works at the Darlington and knows how to iron a shirt. Marie, whose husband loved her.
Our marriage was like a machine I learned how to operate Inn never understood the inner mechanisms that made it work. I knew how to do the things that kept it running smoothly, all the minor and major requirements that kept Nick on an even keel. When Nick was happy, I was rewarded with affection. Hut when something had set Nick off, he would become sullen or irritable. It could take days to coax him back into a good temper. His changeable mood was the thermostat that regulated our household.
By the time our first anniversary approached, I realized that Nick's bad days, the days I was required to sympathize and compensate for every small injustice done to him, were outnumbering the good days. I didn't know how to fix that, but I suspected it was my fault. I knew other people's marriages were different, that they didn't constantly worry about how to anticipate their husbands' needs, they weren't always walking on eggshells. Certainly my own parents' marriage hadn't been like this. If anything, the household had revolved around my mother's needs and wants, while my father showed up every now and then to appease her.