SECOND BEST

Looking back on it now, perhaps I should have known that Arlen’s ex would continue to cast a shadow over her second marriage. Harry was a considerate and attentive partner, eminently reasonable and understanding even when Arlen was at her most strident and irrational. But he didn’t have the dash or swagger that her first husband did—the aggressiveness and machismo that Arlen admired in a man. In the end, I believe, Harry came to know that in Arlen’s regard he would never be more than second-best.

­What’s more, he hadn’t been able to finish his Ph.D. with dispatch, as he’d hoped, but was forced to start over when his advisor found some problem in his work. So Arlen went on slogging away at a job she loathed while Harry continued to be supported by his parents. Also, he gained weight—and Arlen had a violent prejudice against “fat” people (as well as “retarded” people—her word—and gays) and used to call him a “fat slob” to his face, once even when his parents were visiting.

Angrily, I wrote:

Affixed

 

She is exasperating.

A surrealistic portrait would depict her

with a cube of concrete for a head.

She walks into every experience with a bias—

often outrageous—

to which she is so tenaciously affixed

that experience cannot pry her loose.

She is a slave to her prejudices,

like the hapless owner of a big, brutish dog

that drags its mistress around forever on a calamitous run.

And there was another incompatibility: Arlen wanted a companion to go places with, but Harry was more comfortable living a hermitic life amid his books and his music. He was a night owl, while she was a day person, so they ended up in separate bedrooms. As she became more and more dissatisfied that her life was not working out the way she’d imagined, Harry bore the brunt of her anger with patient stoicism. Eventually he went into therapy with Helen. I’ll always remember him confiding in me how troubled he was by several things she’d said to him, among them, that bad thoughts were as reprehensible as bad deeds—and I’m saddened for him that he took her opinion to heart.

As for my relationship with Arlen, her need for emotional support was constant, and though she might be appreciative of any sympathy or advice I offered, she never seemed able to remember anything I’d said, so that I kept having the same conversations with her over and over again until I wound up feeling utterly depleted from the effort.