What did Annie picture during the eternity of ten minutes? No beach. No palm trees. No piña coladas. Instead, she imagined snow piling on her roof and lacing the windows, icicles fringing the eaves, snow angels etching the drifts, the radiators clanging with steam. And her in bed with Sam. Sam’s arms around her.
Snug. Protected. Safe.
Now, lying rigid in her own tunnel of misery and regret, she struggles to ignore the impending call from Dr. Revere. No matter what the news, it’ll come too late. Her husband can’t even bear the touch of her toe against his ankle. She needs to face the truth: that she’s been replaced by a woman with an instant family who is young enough to ensure many more years of fertility uncompromised by unpronounceable syndromes.
For a long time she stares at the ceiling, its vast blackness a perfect metaphor for her mood. Once, full of hope and the future, she and Sam pasted stars in the baby’s room, fluorescent stars that Sam meticulously applied, consulting an atlas of the constellations, insisting on an exact replica. “When our baby opens his or her eyes, he—or she—will behold the delights of the universe,” Sam said.
They scraped the stars off after their little girl died. There would be no delights of the universe for either of them.
* * *
In the middle of the night, Sam flops over and drapes an arm around Annie. Annie, still awake and fused into MRI paralysis, holds her breath. His hand skirts her biopsy scar and finds her breast. For an instant, a flame of joy leaps up inside her. Only to be doused when he recoils, looking stung by his own instinctive gesture. She hears a muffled, sleep-slurred “Sorry.”
Sorry? For touching his wife?
“Didn’t mean to,” he adds, and inches so far away from her that she’s afraid he might tumble to the floor.
She touches her breast where his hand rested. The one spot of warmth along her chilled flesh. Funny that, in a long marriage, you never forget the old moves, the same way you never forget how to ride a bike—even if you haven’t climbed onto your ancient Schwinn in seventeen years. Perhaps the body remembers when the mind has moved on.
Moved on to other breasts, other bodies in bed.
Chapter Twenty-Three
It’s after nine when Annie wakes up. Sam’s side is now empty. He’s slipped off to work without a peep. She wonders if he remembers how he reached for her in the middle of the night. How an unconscious repetitive motion must have kicked in despite his conscious resentment. She rubs her jaw; it aches, no doubt from grinding her teeth, a sign of repressed anger, according to Rachel.
Rachel is right. She’s angry, a teeth-grinding, insomnia-inducing fury too strong to be repressed. She is mad that her husband won’t touch her, mad that while she was away seeking a stay of execution, he was at home performing his own execution on their marriage.
She drags herself out of bed and starts to reach for her robe. Before she can grab it, she spots Sam’s robe puddled on the floor. She picks it up. She slides her arms through the sleeves, which hang several inches beyond her hands, the hem dragging behind her like a bridal train. She winds the belt around twice and knots the frayed ends.
She hitches up the bathrobe, then pads down the stairs. On the kitchen table sits a waxed-paper Bunyan wrapper scattered with onion and pepper scraps. She hardly requires the little gray cells of Hercule Poirot to conclude that Sam ate last night’s discarded sandwich this morning—the funeral-baked meats did coldly furnish forth the breakfast table. His stomach was clearly not affected by any kind of estrangement. She turns away from the table. Right now, even an invalid’s dry toast and soft-boiled egg seem unpalatable.
What will she do today? Perhaps she should call her mother. The sensible thing would be to act as if this is just another ordinary morning.
She should push aside all worries about a failing marriage, her own mistakes, the fertility report. Rather, she’ll clean the kitchen, shower, dress, go in to work, keep to a regular schedule. She’ll pretend that everything is all right on the yet-again fake-it-till-you-make-it principle.
Plan in place, she is loading the dishwasher when the phone rings. “You’re back,” accuses Rachel. “It’s about time.”
“And good morning to you too.”
“Was I ever going to hear from you?”
“We got in late—latish. And then I overslept. In fact, just woke up.” Annie adds the beans to the grinder and presses STRONG. “How did you find out I was back?”
“Megan bumped into Ambrose at the market. He had the longest grocery list she’s ever seen. For your mother.”
“Yes, well, he’s excited to wine and dine her. Unlike some people.”
“Meaning …?”
“Never mind.”
“I’m glad you listened to my advice and hurried home. I was worried.”
“And with good reason, I gather.”
“Difficult to tell. But now that you’re here, everything will sort itself out.”
“I’m not so sure. Sam’s barely speaking to me.”
“Not surprising. You have been away for more than two weeks. With a mother who drives you nuts.”
“Sam pointed out the same thing. He resents my going. He’s been so aloof since I came back.” She tightens the belt on Sam’s robe. “Frankly, I’m angry at him too.”
“Turning the tables—a common coping strategy.”
“Rachel!”
“You expected him to fling his arms around you and jump for joy?”
“Sort of hoped.”
“Me too. That would have been the quick fix.”
“No such luck. Considering the alarms you raised, I hardly anticipated the red carpet treatment. But I didn’t count on the total cold shoulder either. Isn’t the way he’s acting a little suspicious?”
“Not necessarily.”
“There are children’s presents wrapped up in the closet.”
“Which signifies nothing.”
“Come on. You’re the one who warned me to hurry home, who told me Megan …”
“When I thought about it later, after I talked to you, I wondered if Megan and I were overreacting. There’s no real evidence. Just Megan’s report of a little flirtation. Not that I’ve ever known Sam to flirt.”
“You told me Megan doesn’t dramatize.”
“What matters, Annie, is that you’re here now.”
“Last night he moved so far away from me he might as well have been sleeping on the floor.”
“Understandable,” Rachel says. “It’s human nature. I remember when Ted and I went off once on vacation, trying to repair our marriage. We left Megan with her favorite babysitter and tons of treats. Still, we had to wrench our way out the door while she clung to our legs. Three days later, the babysitter reported Megan inconsolable and we cut our trip short. From the minute we returned, she ignored us. Wouldn’t even open the gifts we brought her. Our very presence, instead of instilling happiness and relief, reinforced the fact that we’d been away. It took almost a week for things to get back to normal. Both my child development books and the pediatrician confirmed this was a common way for children to behave after a separation.”
“But Sam’s not a child.”
“Don’t be so sure. He’s certainly having a toddler’s little tantrum. My advice to you is to keep to your ordinary schedule, act as if nothing has changed.”
“What other choice do I have?” Annie pours the coffee into a mug that reads World’s Best Wife and adds a teaspoon of sugar.
“That’s the spirit,” Rachel cheers. “I am sure everything will be fine. Really,” she adds. “Whoops. Look at the time! I’ve got a meeting at school. I’ll call you tonight to confer. Wait, no can do. Have a date.”
“Talk about burying the lede.”
“Ha! Yes, lots to discuss. We’ll speak soon.”
Annie finishes her coffee, strips off Sam’s robe, and heads for the shower. She takes extra care with what Ursula would call her toilette. She lathers the lavender soap from her forehead to her toes until she
smells like a field in Provence. After she shampoos, she glops on conditioner, waiting more than the suggested three minutes before rinsing. She shaves her legs and armpits—areas that ordinarily remain untouched until bathing suit season. Instead of slicking her wet hair back, she blow-dries it into waves. She applies makeup, hewing to the chart the cosmetic expert diagrammed. She outlines her eyes in a smoky charcoal and pats blush on the apples of her cheeks. She pulls on old jeans and a new cashmere gray sweater that accents her shape rather than flour-sacks it. She’s ready to face her public, as Ursula would say.
* * *
There’s a commotion in the parking lot behind Annie’s Samwich shop. A huge van—Maine Moose Movers—looms over the asphalt eyesore, blocking a line of cars from exiting. Horns blast. Motors idle. Drivers shout out of rolled-down windows at the self-appointed amateur attempting to direct traffic. Stopped on a ramp halfway between the ground and the open back of the truck rests a crate the size of a hippopotamus. This tilts on a dolly, which, Annie hopes, has a fully engaged and heavy-duty brake. Sam seems to be arguing with the movers, identifiable by their antlered hats and Moose-decaled fleece jackets. A crowd of onlookers has assembled. Among the regulars, Annie picks out a young, oh so young, woman whose logo-dappled apron designates her as staff. Sam is waving his arms and shaking his head.
Annie turns off the ignition, climbs out of the car, and heads toward the van.
“I didn’t order this,” Sam is saying.
“Here’s the bill of lading.” The mover, whose bulk is a credit to his profession, sweeps a clipboard under Sam’s nose. “It’s got your name and this address and”—he points a stubby finger—“it says right here, paid in full.”
“Well, you’ll just have to take it right back where it came from. There’s obviously been a huge mistake.” Sam nods toward the shop. “What the hell’s in that crate anyway? A herd of moose?”
“Ha-ha-ha,” a second man, skinnier but hardly skinny, replies. “A real jokester, that one.”
“Beats me,” the first man says, shaking his head so hard the antlers bob and sway. “Some kind of kitchen supply thingamabob.” He leafs through the clipped pages. “Called”—he peers closer—“a combi.”
Sam’s eyes snap open; his jaw drops. His face, bathed in a beatific glow, softens with longing. Smitten, he stares at the crate the way he used to gaze at Annie; the eighth wonder of the world, his expression would convey. “A combi,” Sam swoons, lingering on each letter like a poet declaiming his favorite line of iambic pentameter. He heaves a sigh of loss and regret. “It must be meant for another restaurant.”
Annie steps forward. She is starting to feel more hopeful. Forget moral integrity. Forget marital pride. Forget honorable intentions and ethical actions. Maybe she can buy Sam’s affections. Maybe the way to this particular man’s heart is through the shameless bribe of a multipurpose, cutting-edge miracle of technology. “Excuse me,” she interrupts.
Sam nods in her direction. “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”
“Actually, I do.”
“Would you mind explaining?”
“Well,” she begins, “since you—we—hope to expand, part of my reason for going to New York was to do some research …”
“You could have fooled me.”
She forges on. “So, I took the subway to Greenpoint. It’s in Brooklyn.”
“I know that.”
“Which is the center of a lot of new and fascinating family-owned restaurants and cafés.”
“I know that too. Wednesday’s dining section of the Times actually gets distributed here in the boonies.”
“Isn’t the subway dangerous?” Ray Beaulieu, a local, cuts in. “All those pickpockets and juvenile delinquents and terrorists and crazy people ready to push you onto the tracks?” He jiggles his folded copy of the Passamaquoddy Daily Telegram as if its pages bear witness. “I hear they’ve got rats.”
“The subway is perfectly safe,” Annie says. “Though there are rats,” she points out, the look what I go through for the sake of the shop, for the sake of you subtext directed toward Sam.
“I’ve seen them myself,” chimes in the Maine Moose mover. “They’re as big as raccoons. And the teeth on them …”
“I visited some amazing places,” Annie continues.
Does Sam even hear her? His eyes are glued to the combi crate. He touches a board of rough wood the way she herself stroked the combi’s stainless-steel surfaces. She glances at the young woman. Who looks bored. What other two people in this world would be so enraptured by an oven as she and Sam? Who else would bond over an appliance?
“So …” She waves a hand at the combi. “I wandered into a little shop called Joe and Mary’s. Joe was selling the business. Mary, his beloved wife, had died after”—she picks a number—“seventeen years of marriage. Just like us, Sam,” she embroiders. “He was heartbroken. Heartbroken.”
“Sounds like my wife’s brother’s cousin,” Ray Beaulieu puts in. “Missed the whole fishing season when his wife passed. And he couldn’t stand her.”
Annie ignores this. “He offered me the combi, hardly used, for a great price. I wrote out a check on the spot.”
“You didn’t think to consult me?” Sam asks.
“You weren’t exactly available to consult. Anyhow, I knew you’d be thrilled.”
“There’s no way of your knowing that,” Sam objects, even though his whole face, his whole posture, states otherwise.
Despite last night, his resentment, her despair, Annie experiences a sense of triumph.
He’s not going to give her any credit. On the other hand, his quick signature of the bill of lading, his directions for unloading (easy, careful, watch the top, don’t chip the surface, secure the shelves), his negotiations with Maine Moose Movers to cart away the old ovens and a storage cabinet to make room for the behemoth, his excited comments to the audience at large (I’ll have to go back to the blueprints and reconfigure stuff), and his acceptance of the accompanying colossal user’s guide, which he clutches against his heart like a politician’s spouse hugging an oath-of-office Bible—these are all signs that Annie has done something right.
* * *
After a series of Herculean feats, the combi at last rests in its place of honor. Sam beams with paternal pride. He swabs a rag all over the Moose Movers’ fingerprints, rubbing until the surface is back to its pristine radiance. Perhaps the oven is taking the place of a pet. Or a baby …
Or a wife.
“Hey, any more coffee?” shouts a customer from the front room.
His combi-worship put on hold, Sam instructs the new hire to fill the coffee cups and clear the tables. He makes a perfunctory introduction—“Annie, Juliette. Juliette, Annie”—as they crowd together in the kitchen with combustible three-on-a-match proximity.
Annie shakes Juliette’s hand. She is pretty, her good looks only slightly mitigated by the wad of gum she’s working at the side of her jaw. Annie tries to read Sam’s body language, to calculate the degree to which her husband is playing the role of Juliette’s future, past, or present Romeo. But right now, all feeling, wonder, romance, passion, and attention are directed at the combi. Sam is opening drawers, pulling out shelves, punching buttons.
Annie glances down at Juliette’s open-toed, shiny red platform shoes. “Joe, the guy I bought it from, says the oven does so much of a kitchen’s work that you’ll be able to let some of the help go,” she informs Sam.
Sam’s not listening. He slaps the side of the combi. “Boy, you’re a beauty,” he croons.
* * *
By the time Megan arrives for her four o’clock shift, Annie’s on automatic pilot. There is something to say for the comfort of slicing, dicing, chopping, peeling. She’s so far into the zone that when Megan hugs her, she jumps, startled, brought down to an earth she’d rather not visit yet.
“Sorry,” Megan says. She gives Annie another hug. “I’ve missed you so much.” Then adds, “All of us have.”
What should I do next, Sam? Where should I put this? Is it half-and-half or whole cream Mrs. Murphy likes? Juliette now asks, questions aimed exclusively toward Sam, though she and Megan could easily answer them.
Does Sam sound a little impatient with her? Only because he hates to be disturbed when he’s concentrating on something. Now he’s in a corner studying the instructions with the intensity of Ursula memorizing a script.
A second later, the plate Juliette is drying clatters to the floor. Sam stops reading, inserts a spatula to mark the page, and fetches the dustpan for her. “Oh, I am such a spaz!” she cries.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says.
“You are a saint. I’m not sure why you put up with me when I screw up so much.”
Neither is Annie, but then there’s the child and that dewy, glowing skin …
As the dinner rush nears, Sam, clearly reluctant, puts down the combi guide to get to work. There is no touching, no banging of hips, no affectionate pinch of the butt or pat on the shoulder, no napkin handed over when the onions spark tears, no sloppy kiss when everyone else’s back is turned. He doesn’t even use her name—Pass the salt; Can you hand me another dish towel; Where’s the olive oil?—his phrases designed to avoid any direct form of address. She remembers a New Yorker cartoon: a woman chops onions. More and more tears flow until the woman plunges the knife into her own heart. Annie can identify.
She escapes to the bathroom at the rear of the shop; she refreshes her lip gloss, combs her hair. The light’s dim in this unisex, purely utilitarian space, which insists that all employees wash their hands yet offers only a stingy sliver of soap. Perhaps they’ll build a designated ladies’ room in the newly expanded area, with a box of soft tissues, dispensers of hand cream and liquid sanitizers, and a vase of real flowers. Perhaps Sam can add this amenity to his blueprint. In the middle of smoothing her eyebrows, she stops. Will she still be on-site to enjoy soft tissues and fresh flowers? Will there be a spot in the blueprint for Sam’s wife? She sits on the toilet for a long time, contemplating her place or lack of it.
Minus Me Page 23
