Four Friends

by Robyn Carr

  “Well, now, they sure wouldn’t hold us,” he said with a chuckle.

  “We don’t even need anything like that,” she said, smiling through her tears. “I’m sorry, Bob. He had no right—”

  “Aw, he’s right. I’m just a fat old guy. The luckiest fat old guy in the state.” He hugged her tight. “That was so nice, what you said about me.”

  She pulled back and looked up at him. “It’s just the truth. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  He pulled her against him again, hugging her. “Andy, I’m a flexible guy but I hope you don’t come to your senses. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, too. Now, is he the only one with a key?”

  “Uh-huh. Well, there’s Gerri, but she’d never...”

  “Good. Let’s get back to our undies. I’m so happy when we’re in our skivvies.”

  She laughed. “How can you joke? That was kind of traumatic.”

  “No, it wasn’t, not really. Hardly anyone would put you and me together, if you think about it. So, like you said a while ago, we’re going to have to make sense to no one but us. That okay with you?”

  She smiled. “Oh, yes. Very okay.”

  * * *

  Gerri had arranged with Phil that he be at the house around dinnertime so she could work late. When she came into the kitchen, she saw his back as he sat in the dark out on the deck, feet up on the rail, a steaming cup of coffee on the table. He was the only person she knew who could drink coffee late in the evening and fall asleep, snoring like a tugboat within ten minutes. Caffeine didn’t bother him. During law school he’d trained himself to take sleep when it was available and manage on little when the pressure was on.

  She poured herself a small brandy. Sleep had never come easy for her, but the past couple of weeks she’d been resting pretty well thanks to hormonal intervention.

  She took her brandy outside. “Feel like company?” she asked.

  He turned toward her, sitting up. “Yeah. Sure.”

  “It’s beautiful out here,” she said. “There probably isn’t any better time of the year.” She nodded at the coffee. “That won’t keep you up?”

  He chuckled. “You’ve asked me that same question for twenty-five years. I have some work to do tonight.”

  “Are you working here? In the office?”

  “Nah, it’s just writing. I’ll shove off in a minute.”

  “Is that place okay? The guesthouse?”

  He shrugged. “Gets me by. The landlady is a stalker, the showerhead is for a woman—a short woman—and the bed could use a new mattress. Not as bad as our first apartment.”

  “I never asked, what kind of commitment did you make? As in lease?”

  “Cash up front,” he said. “I don’t want to have a lease. I want to be flexible.”

  She smiled at him, took a sip of her brandy. “You sound like a man who wants to come home.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “You have no idea.”

  “You think a couple of months mends the tear?”

  “Jesus, Gerri, I don’t know. How are you feeling about things? Because since I got back to Mill Valley, you seem to be doing a lot better. Generally.”

  She swirled her drink and laughed. “Well, I have a secret. I guess you deserve to be in on it. Not a panacea for things like affairs—that comes harder. But a big help for things like hot flashes, insomnia and mood swings. I’m trying out some hormones.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “You were always pretty stubborn about taking the cure.”

  “It’s a low dose, just to test it,” she said. “And there’s another thing—Jessie’s on the pill now. It could do a lot for her PMS, which in combination with my menopause gets us pretty ugly at times. You’re relatively safe from the women in your life.”

  “On the pill,” he said, sounding melancholy.

  “That’s probably hard for a father to accept.”

  “I have one baby girl,” he said. “I don’t want anyone to touch her. Ever. And yet the thought of her going forever untouched makes me want to cry. I can’t find a happy place. I wouldn’t trade her for anything, but we should’ve had three boys. They get out of line, you just swat ’em and don’t lose any sleep over it.”

  “We should’ve had one boy and one girl, but you lost your head.”

  He grinned at the memory. “I don’t remember the other two feeling as good to make as Matt did. I’m sure that’s why he’s so good-natured.”

  “How’s your counseling going?” she asked.

  “I hate it, but it’s probably the right thing to do. After I spend a few hours getting over the urge to just smack the little prick, I find myself thinking about things. But when I tell him that, he gets uppity and I want to hit him all over again.”

  “He’s making you talk about feelings. You’ve never liked that.”

  “Yeah. But at least I recognize I have them. That’s probably progress.”

  “Really?”

  “Here’s what men do,” he said. “Men tend to feel their feelings and are driven by them, but they hardly ever think about them, talk about them, reveal them. It bores men to do that. Men like to move a lot faster than that—they want feelings to be peripheral and actions to dominate their lives. If a man feels pain, he quiets down, internalizes, sulks. If he feels anger, he throws something. If he feels lust, he fucks. It’s basic and uncomplicated, which is what gets men in trouble. They don’t want to understand their feelings, but the women in their lives would like to know why they do the things they do.”

  She frowned. “Then why aren’t all men divorced? They feel, they do, they move on to the next driving force.”

  “Because most men know how to play the game and the game has rules. Socialization. It’s just like football,” he finished with a helpless shrug. He took a sip of coffee.

  “You might’ve ignored an important rule,” she said softly.

  He nodded. “Driven by feelings I couldn’t understand or think about. That’s why we’re doing all this crap in counseling, to see if I can work on that.”

  “Wow,” she said. “I think maybe the guy’s good.”

  “Don’t tell him,” Phil said. “Really, he gets snotty. Omnipotent. And he hates me.”

  She leaned toward him. “Think we’re gonna make it, Phil?”

  He looked down for a moment, then raised his eyes and looked right at her. “I think there’s too much right about what we have for us not to make it.”

  “Well, do you think we can get it back? Like it was?”

  A heavy moment of silence hung in the air, so long that Gerri almost spoke. “I don’t want it like it was,” Phil said.

  Her breath caught. She couldn’t speak, which was almost a first. Oh, God, she thought—he’s leaving me for real! She swallowed a couple of times before speaking. “But you said there’s so much right about us....”

  “I want it like it should be,” he said. “I’m not sure that can happen.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  He pushed back his chair and moved so he was sitting in front of her, facing her. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Everything we have together is about keeping this boat afloat. There’s isn’t a family in Marin that does it better than we do, and under more pressure than 95 percent of the people in five counties. I mean, two public servants with three kids? People don’t have that many kids anymore, but we not only have ’em, we think we wanted to. And we don’t just feed ’em and keep ’em warm, we get right into their lives and make sure they’re growing up strong and smart. And we do that while succeeding professionally and being good friends. I’ve never had a friend like you. But obviously our marriage wasn’t complete. There were things missing....”

  “Sex,” Gerri said. “We’re going to talk about not having enough sex again—”

  “No. Well, yes, we didn’t have enough of that, but that’s the other thing about men—they know how to take care of that, without even get
ting a woman involved. But what about time together when we don’t talk about work or the kids or the house? How about once in a while being so into each other we don’t even smell smoke until the house is almost burned to the ground? I want more of you than Andy gets. I want your mind, your heart and your body. I want your pragmatism, humor, good sense and passion.”

  “Phil, I’m not young anymore and neither are you. There’s nothing I can do to turn back the clock, make it all seem brand-new.”

  “I don’t want it brand-new—I’ve put in too much time for that and so have you. I want the woman I’ve loved for twenty-five years. I want us in the next stage—the richer, deeper, closer stage.”

  “It’s not like I’ve been withholding,” she said, almost pleading. “I’ve wanted more, too, but I never had an affair to—”

  “Not because you’re more decent than I am,” he said resolutely. “Because there wasn’t anything you needed. You didn’t need it, Gerri. There wasn’t an empty spot inside you. You weren’t unconsciously searching for something to fill you up inside. I’m sorry. That sounded like I was blaming you and I wasn’t. You didn’t know, and that’s entirely my fault. Hell, I’m not sure I knew. I might’ve been moving on instinct.”

  I knew. She almost said it. But instead, she shook her head. “It sounds like that same old thing again. That itch. Physical desire. Wanting to—”

  “No,” he said. “It’s way more than that. It’s intimacy. Not familiarity. Not comfort. Don’t get me wrong, I love those things about us. That we can be naked in the bathroom and talk about the stock market. I love that when we’re in trouble, we go to each other first. But I also remember a time we had to pull off the road because we were so worked up, turned on. I remember, even after the kids, that we locked the bedroom door and just held on to each other until we got sweaty. I remember when you’d jump in the shower with me and offer to wash my back...and you could never stick to business. You made me late for court a few times...”

  “It pissed you off,” she reminded him.

  “I never liked being late for court, but I sure liked not being able to stop. There were times we made love that we got laughing so hard, we almost couldn’t seal the deal. It was all about you and me—just you and me. So tight it was hard to tell where I left off and you began. And I don’t remember the kids or the jobs or the chores ever getting short-changed.”

  She looked at him for a long time. She took a sip of her brandy and put the glass down. “You got all this from your counselor?”

  “No, he’s not getting credit, if there’s credit to be had. I’ve spent two months trying to figure out why I’d cheat on the woman I love more than my life—make that five years and two months. It couldn’t have been the sex. I don’t even need much sex. It was everything that came before and after that. It wasn’t that I needed to feel desire—I feel that for you all the time. It was what I felt coming back at me. Someone wanted all of me. Wanted me enough to take risks, break rules, get hurt.”

  “Oh, God,” she said in sudden realization. “She loved you! You might’ve cared about her, but she loved you.”

  “I hurt her,” he said softly. “I hurt two women just going after what I wanted, what I instinctively needed, and the result of having done that ripped me up.”

  “Oh, God,” she said, for a moment thinking that was almost worse news than learning he had loved the other woman. He wanted to be wanted. “Phil...”

  “I love you so much,” he said. “You just have no idea how much.”

  “I don’t know what to say.” She felt a tear run down her cheek and he wiped it away with his thumb.

  “Don’t say anything,” he said. “I want you back in my life so badly, I’ll take any crumb. If we could go back to the way we were six months ago, I’d be grateful. Even if we could only go halfway back, I’d be thankful.” He pulled both of her hands into his. “But, Gerri, if we can start over, really start over, build a marriage that really serves us, I swear I’ll find a way to be more honest with you. Even if it means sitting in that little prick’s office once a week for life.”

  A huff of laughter escaped her, as did another tear. He leaned toward her and kissed her cheek, kissing the tears away. She was very close to begging him. Come back to my life, my home, my bed.

  Just as she opened her mouth, Phil spoke. “Maybe you were right about this—the separation—maybe it forced me to understand some of this stuff. Let’s think about things a little while longer. Think about what you really want. Not just the things any woman in her right mind would settle for, but what you really want. What defines the perfect marriage to you? I’ll go get a concussion from that showerhead and curvature of the spine from that mattress while we both weigh it all. It’s hell, but if we can walk through this firestorm, who knows. Maybe we can still make this right.”

  “You know I love you, too,” she said. “It was never about not loving you. I mean, I hated you, but I still loved you.”

  He grinned. “You just gave yourself away. Hated. Past tense. That gives me hope.”

  She walked him out through the garage and let him kiss her goodbye. He kissed her deeply. He put his hands on her waist and pulled her against him and kissed her in a way that made her wonder if she could fall in love all over again. Intimacy, she thought. The thing men are always accused of not wanting, not understanding. Maybe it was the thing men craved and had no idea how to meet the need.

  Phil left and she locked the doors, turned off the lights and went to her room, where she sat on the bed in the dark for a good half hour. It wasn’t fair that he had an affair and she was filled with regret. It just wasn’t fair.

  She washed her face and brushed her teeth. She snaked a hand under her nightie and smeared a little of the magic cream on her bare belly. And then her hand froze. She picked up the other tube, the one she hadn’t yet bothered to use. She squeezed a little cream onto her finger and applied it to the inside of her thigh. Then she did it again, more cream, the other thigh, rubbing it into her skin. We’ll see, Phil. We’ll see if I can meet you halfway.

  nine

  GERRI TOOK AN afternoon off to pick up Sonja at Glendale Psychiatric because Sonja didn’t want to see George at all. Ever. “So how are you going to manage your counseling appointments and all that without George?” Gerri asked on the ride home.

  “I’m cleared to drive. And Dr. Kalay suggested we try someone else for counseling—someone who might notice if I’m unwashed and half-bald. But, just once a week. Then there’s a group I’m going to. Honestly, I hate the thought of that. I hated those group sessions. Some of those people are seriously fucked up.”

  Gerri laughed in spite of herself. “This new vocabulary of yours is blowing my mind.”

  “I might’ve picked up some bad habits at the nuthouse.”

  “Any more I should be aware of?” Gerri asked.

  “Let’s just wait and see. You might catch me picking at invisible things floating in the air. I’ve completely stopped chewing my nails or pulling my hair out—that’s an improvement, huh? I never took pharmaceuticals seriously enough.”

  “Sonja, forgive me, but you got funny. When did that happen?”

  “I’m funny?” she asked. “Must be the drugs.”

  “So—you’re going to see a new counselor and go to group.”

  “Yuck. That was the price of release. They probably have G-men following me around to be sure I keep the appointments. At least I don’t have one of those house-arrest ankle bracelets.”

  “How do you handle that? I mean, if you find everyone in the group to be seriously messed up?”

  “Dr. Kalay said if you can’t be helped, then help. I’m sure I’m not qualified, but then they’re not qualified to help me, either, so we’re even.”

  Gerri pulled into Sonja’s drive. “How about having dinner at my place tonight?”

  “Would you be terribly hurt if I declined? Because I am so sick of eating with people. Sick of hearing everyone’s toilet flush, show
er run. And then there were those people who cried at night. It’s a wonder anyone comes out of that place better than when they went in. They should be worse.”

  “I would’ve thought Glendale, being so highfalutin...”

  “Yeah, well, you can dress up the zoo, but we’re all the same animals in there. For a month all I’ve wanted is to have a little time alone. I spent one night in the bathroom with towels stuffed under the door and I thought they’d have me in a straitjacket for life—but I just wanted some time alone.”

  “I can understand that,” Gerri said. “Why don’t I get you some takeout? Or run you to the grocery store real quick? Because I never thought to stock your refrigerator.”

  “Nah, don’t worry about it,” she said, opening her car door. “It’s what—a mile away? I think I can handle the store. I’ll just unpack and go grab a couple of things.”

  “Let me drive you,” Gerri said.

  “No,” Sonja said. “I’m fine to drive. I’m not groggy, not dizzy or disoriented, and I don’t have any problems being around people. And I haven’t forgotten how to use the bank card, so it’s all just routine.”

  “What if you run into women from your old yoga and meditation classes? Won’t they want to know where you’ve been?”

  Sonja shrugged. “How about feng shui rehab? Think that’ll cut it?” She got out of the car.

  Gerri got out, too, laughing. “Let me get your suitcase,” she said, opening the back door.

  “I can manage. You probably have to get back to work or something.”

  “I’m working from home the rest of the day,” Gerri said. “Let me walk you in, at least.”

  “Fine,” Sonja said. “But then I know you have things to do. And I’m on a new schedule now. I sleep a little later. I won’t be walking at 6:00 a.m.”

  “Oh, that’s going to be very hard to accept,” Gerri said, hefting the suitcase out of the back of the car. “After two years of you panting at my front door while I’m trying to pry my eyes open....”

  Sonja stopped walking and turned toward Gerri. “I’m sorry about that. I shouldn’t have pushed my agenda on you like that.”