by C. Spencer
“Not to say what?”
“Would you have ever imagined,” she says, “the two of us here, like this? Me in a tiff about, of all things, my wife, and you—”
“Contemplating the bitter end of life itself?” I say. “No.”
And again, there’s that look. Distant, you could say, but plenty focused at the same time. It’s the kind of look one might give if they didn’t know what to say or how to say it.
Then a breeze shifts a few highlights in her hair that frame that recent facial, her chin raised. She’s playing single-handed, balancing that glass in the left. “I wasn’t saying you’re unqualified,” she says.
“As a parent? I would certainly hope not.”
“Though I couldn’t exactly see myself as one,” she says. “And besides, just listen to me for a second. What if this girl decides to go back one day, you know, to her ex. For the sake of the child. Then what? Have you even considered that potential outcome?”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” I say as I down her knight. Next, she’s tossing me that Don’t hate me look. “It wouldn’t happen,” I repeat.
“Do what you want,” she says.
“I plan to.”
“I hope it works out.”
“You know I can’t leave this girl.”
“And when have I ever heard you say that?”
But I’m focused on the board, considering my next move, when…You know that pressure? That pressure after you’ve sunk into the most uncomfortable subject you could ever imagine and you don’t want to go there, but they do. So they’re on you, staring, and won’t let up. That’s the look I’m getting.
“You’ve fallen in love with her,” she says.
“Not quite,” I say. Then I head into the kitchen to loop that song again. And by the time I get back, she’s downed my rook. I take a seat, contemplate strategy.
“Can I confide?” she says.
“Yeah, whatever,” since that move right there will be the end of me.
“Rae,” she’s saying in this so-Rebecca way. “I mean a really important something.”
“All right then,” I say.
“As in, I can’t have you repeating this to anyone. I’m serious.”
Rebecca, never one short on drama. “Why?”
“Because I might be thinking—I don’t know,” she says, running a palm up her arm. “I might be thinking about some sort of separation. Maybe.” Next thing, she’s skimming her glass of wine along the length of her neck as if trying to cool herself off. “This is good, isn’t it? It’s imported. We found it on our wine tour in Tuscany. Tami had four cases of it shipped back home. She was saving it for a special occasion.”
“Thanks for sharing that with me after the fact,” I say, eying my empty glass.
“The thing is,” she says, then drifts off into another one of her ungodly pauses. “Listen, if I share something, you can’t think differently of me. You have to promise me that. Because there’s so much more behind it.”
“Isn’t there always?” I say as I try to piece it all, her stare, the hush-hush. “Isn’t this the only reason to get married,” I say, “that scandalous affair on the side?”
“That scandalous affair,” she says with a look that tells me everything. “Have you ever had to make the most impossible decision,” she’s saying, bending across, breasts nearly knocking off her queen, not that I’m looking, “like, the kind with no right or wrong? Just…whatever. So it’s you alone wondering, Where do I go? That shit you deal with when you’re just graduating college, when you’re picking a career, a life—not now. What do you do?”
“My advice?” I say. “Don’t put anything in writing. Or on a credit card.”
“Be serious,” she says.
“Why?”
“Because, because. This is hard.”
“Then stay miserable,” I say.
“And suck it up, as if I could, and for how long? And what if staying means leaving the person I want more than life itself?” she says. “It’s…heartbreaking.”
“What’s heartbreaking?”
“It’s heartbreaking when I have to tell her we’re not going to do this…because I’m married to a woman whose family won’t even acknowledge my existence, and she’s perfectly fine with that. Tami won’t change. So why do I keep expecting her to? And the next thing, guess who’s jumping in to take her place? And she gets me. Who does that, drops everything? And why does she think I’m everything? She thinks I’m perfect.”
“You are blessed with good genetics.”
“Right…she says that now, until it’s six a.m. and I drank too much last night. That’s how it goes.”
“What shallow people you’ve wasted your precious time with.”
“You think?” she says. “Maybe that’s the reason. Maybe that’s why it’s never about what I want. And perhaps that’s my own fault.”
“Perhaps. But that’s certainly not my philosophy,” I say. “What I want is the only thing that matters. So maybe that’s where I’m going wrong.”
“Wrong if you’re hoping to end up like me,” she says. “I’m not even sure if I love Tami. Who knows? What if I don’t? How would I know? Or maybe I’m trying to convince myself. To justify my life. So I’m not so torn, that’s all.”
That song fades into the next as the sky settles. Next she sparks a candle. “I can’t believe you waited so long to tell me about this. You know, I love this stuff,” I say. “So, what’d you do, meet at some grocery store as the two of you were squeezing various melons?”
“Something like that,” she says. “We were actually having dinner here, the four of us, something Tami concocted. She’s had it in her head for a while now that we need to make more couple friends.”
“So you’re saying this woman is married, too?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“You guess?” I say.
“But here’s the thing. She didn’t sit next to her wife. She sat next to me, which was odd. And there I was, shaking the entire time. You know the way you can just tell? You can feel how close someone is, when it’s too close and you can’t turn or look. So how does that happen? I’ve never felt so nervous in all my life, watching her. Then she followed me into the kitchen. And I was putting it all away or at least trying to. And they were out there talking, I guess. We could hear them. But she just gives me this look. It’s hard to explain. And the next thing, I was slicing cherry pie. And she comes up from behind and reaches around me and kept saying…she kept saying that she couldn’t take her eyes off me. It’s so wrong to want her this way. But it was an absolute mess, that pie. I don’t know how that happened. It just went somewhere before I knew what I was doing.”
“Sounds like you have a nice little arrangement.”
“So why does it feel so awful?” she says.
Then it dawns on me, she hasn’t made a move in how long?
And it’s her turn, apparently.
“Checkmate,” she says.
The next day I’m at Archipelago’s people watching, pigeons clustered around the legs of the table, as Madisen saunters up with that distinct air of Monday—unraveled. Her shirt loosely tucked from a half day at the office. And this is how it goes. Right when I was beginning to find my rational and sensible in any of this, right as I’m beginning to step back, reflect—she fixes that gaze on me, peruses me as she makes her way around a bunch of strangers, trailing fingers along the back of that bench with that look she always has, and I’m an absolute mess again.
Before this reaching sort of kiss that doesn’t end even as she draws back to find her seat. And what do you even say to that?
You don’t. You just sit back since it’s not the kiss per se but where it always takes me. And that’s exactly where my mind’s going. As that musician’s going on with his pathetic love song.
Meanwhile, I follow her gaze to that gathering, a crowd, down the way—then to the waitress, this woman beside her with her bag of tea. Then down to
her own nails.
“I’m having an I need Prozac day,” she tells me, slipping a hand under the table until I feel it along my thigh, and that really doesn’t help.
“It becomes you,” I say. “By the way,” I add, leaning in, “you look so painfully gorgeous right now.” And she almost smiles.
“But have you ever felt as if you’re the only sane person in the universe?” she says. “I think I’ve become something of their office therapist. And I’m so far behind. But still, I could not wait to…well, to be right here.”
“Do you always work late?” I say.
“I will tonight,” she says.
“And that’s my fault.”
“It’s not your fault at all,” she says.
“I won’t keep you then,” I say.
“Keep me as long as you’d like,” she says, and we tip our heads. “But I’m sure you have a million things to do.”
“Nothing that couldn’t wait another hour,” I say, weaving fingers between hers.
“And everything’s all right?” she says.
“Everything’s fine,” I say. “Why do you ask?”
“Body language,” she says.
“So,” I say brushing my lips against hers until I feel the heat of her breath. “Is this better?”
“It is,” she says grinning.
“But…?”
“But,” she says, “tell me I don’t have to go back to work.”
“I don’t want to either,” I say.
“You’re so impossible,” she says. And I just shrug it off. “So what’ve you been thinking about?”
“I’ve been wondering how all of this works,” I say.
“However you want it to work.”
“And why you didn’t feel comfortable telling me something like that.”
“I haven’t exactly been clear minded,” she says. “I wanted to do it right. I wish I could do it right. I screwed up.”
“As if you ever could,” I say.
“Because I can’t imagine how weird this must be,” she says.
“It’s not weird,” I say, “just different.”
“Unsettling,” she says.
“No.”
But her face is calm. “You have a beautiful laugh,” she says.
“What,” I say, “my nervous laugh?”
“Are you nervous?”
“No,” I say, but that’s a lie.
“What if I stop by, say, eight, eight thirty?” she says.
“Sure.”
“Will you be home?”
“Where else would I be?” I say.
Then she does this um thing followed by, “I mentioned this to Aline.”
And just that name, Aline, this casual, flippant tone, it does something and not in a good way. Since now it’s okay to pass time like this and bring an ex up?
“That’s to say, I gave her a heads-up so she knows what to pack. We’re still on for this weekend, I hope?”
“And how close are the two of you?”
“How close?” she says. “We talk, not often.”
And that’s not to say I’m angry or jealous. “Are we talking that one-size-fits-all friendship bucket?”
“No,” she says. “I wouldn’t exactly put her in any bucket.”
“But where would you put her?” I say.
The waitress steps in, gets Madisen’s order. “Fritters, chickpea, side salad. Just vinaigrette, please.” And for some reason, her interruption centers me—as I listen to Madisen. Watching her. Because it’s as if, when you’re around her, you’re the focus of her universe. The only thing that matters. Even if you just so happen to be a server taking her order.
And once we’re alone again, if you can call it that, I slide in, tightening her knee between mine.
And her gaze skims my lips. “Are we going too fast?” she says, and I catch that scent, her hair. “Should I worry?” But I can feel her palm between my thighs and her lips at mine—and I guess I’ve forgotten the question.
Chapter Fifteen
Introductions and Otherwise
Madisen
July hits with its bouquet of chrysanthemums, fresh wood chips, and cut grass. Read Zyrtec into that. As I peer at two clean-cut boys who burst past my car, eye us, then bolt off high on hormones.
I’m sinking into the driver’s seat while Rae fastens her seat belt and I text Aline. Leaving now.
Adding Tidy Cats, coffee beans, and vitamin B12 to my grocery list before I forget.
“I’m so, so sorry,” Rae’s saying with her not-sorry grin.
“But why?” I say. “That we’re late, or that you stole the last drop of coffee?” Hoping I don’t come off as nervous as I feel. To be honest, nervous is an understatement.
“That we’re late, of course.”
“So why not share a shower?” I say.
“It saves time,” she says, adding a shrug. “And hey, sorry for taking that last cup.”
“Why do I forgive so easily?” I say as the engine turns, and I’m wondering how she can get me so worked up like this and praying to God Aline won’t be too bent out of shape over this whole hour-late thing. Hoping she doesn’t keep me there, embarrass me, or converse for no apparent reason, dragging it out to no end the way she has been. Since I would just as soon stop in and do what we need to do.
But in any regard, it’s not as if I can divulge any of this, you know, talk it out so it might not feel quite so unbearable. Given there’s one topic I can’t bring up—or at least need to stop bringing up—with Rae, and that’s my ex.
“You must love your early weekends,” she says.
“I’ll love it a lot more once I’m caffeinated,” I say as I lower my visor, glance at the mirror, check myself, and I look all right, applying lip balm. While Rae settles on a track and starts singing along inaudibly to whatever this is. And she knows every word. I don’t. I don’t even know what song this is, which makes me feel so out of it.
But you know, it’s one of those moments where Aline would’ve belted it out, at least on any of our tension-filled road trips to visit Mother, just to amuse me—provoke me is what it did.
Unlike Rae, who’s more aloof, more laid back, reserved. She doesn’t try to cheer me up or change me.
And let me just pause right here to say, I’m okay with this. I really am. Two women I’ve been hugely involved with are meeting face-to-face in a matter of minutes. Who wouldn’t be okay with it?
Not helping matters is this brooding look Rae’s giving me. Because why can’t I ever think or reason around her? I can’t.
Then I’m back on Aline, the kid, what’ll we do for dinner?
And I’m pretty lost in my thoughts when I hear, “I look all right?” Breaking my concentration. But it’s not a question, really. It’s a statement. Since, glancing over, she’s almost gloating, delighting in it, wallowing, professing, “I’m afraid she won’t like me.” As I pull out into traffic, and I can sense her fingers trickling up the nape of my neck, and please.
“Aline?” I say chuckling. “She won’t care.”
But that sigh of hers, it’s so suggestive. She doesn’t even mean for it to be, but it is. And next, she’s checking her phone, which I crane my neck to see, but who can tell. Still that much carries us for the next however many miles through the loudest part of our silence.
That and another one of my fabricated conversations with Mother because I don’t agree with a thing she keeps on about. So why do I even try to gain her approval, her support? And why does she need to be so, I don’t know, critical about every insignificant thing I do?
And please don’t ever let me do the same to Jordan, criticize.
“I can’t believe you brought this book,” Rae says as she draws an elbow through bucket seats, and my thoughts swim back. “Not exactly a beach read,” she says, flipping.
“And what constitutes a beach read?”
“Something that doesn’t require a yellow highlighter pen,” she says.
“T
his doesn’t require a highlighter,” I say.
“Were you always this way?” she says.
“Always what way?”
“I don’t know…studious?”
“A nerd, yes,” I say. “I thought you were going to say—”
“What?”
“Nothing,” I say. “My mind’s somewhere else.”
“Did she respond?”
“Aline?” I say, and here come those nerves again. “Maybe. I don’t know. Did you bring…whatever that is?”
“It’s in the back seat,” she says.
“I won’t read the entire time,” I say. “I promise. I’m used to doing this alone, and she wants to run around.”
“And you’re not the run-around type?” she says.
“Not exactly,” I say. And all right, that makes me laugh. “Can I ask you something?”
“Why does this somehow feel like a trick question?”
“It’s not, but I’m wondering. Do you find me selfish?” I say.
“Why would you ask me that?”
“I don’t know, curious…overall, generally,” I say as I line the car up with the curb. “Like not telling you, for example? That sort.”
“Not telling me?”
“And other things,” I say.
“Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” I say.
But what is she doing? She’s so close, and I mean, does she plan on kissing me—here in the car? She’s not, though.
“I don’t think you’re selfish at all,” she says, but her voice sinks to a whisper. “What could change this?” she says. “I think you have high standards.” High standards, but what does that mean? And still, she’s not doing anything at all except watching my lips, but how I want her to. Because this is going on until I’m flooded with…I’m not even sure. And why don’t I ever know how I feel with her? Just that it’s good. Just that I can’t help but follow her lead. And perhaps the best part about being here like this is that she gets me out of Aline, out of me, out of this conundrum because how am I supposed to behave as they shake hands? That’s to say, will they? Because maybe they won’t. And what’s my introduction? This is Rae? No, I’d like you to meet Rae. Or Aline, Rae. Rae, Aline. Help me here.
