Market Street

by Anita Hughes

  11.

  On Saturday night, Cassie insisted Alexis take Poodles for a walk.

  “Please don’t come back until I text we are on our way to Green’s.” Cassie stood at the front door.

  “Evicted from my own house,” Alexis pouted, buttoning her faux shearling coat. “Are you afraid I’m going to go Simon Cowell on Aidan?”

  “I’m not taking any chances.” Cassie blew Poodles a kiss and shut the door.

  * * *

  Standing in front of the walk-in closet, she felt like a bride on her wedding day. Aidan had seen her naked more times than her own mother, but she couldn’t find the right thing to wear. She pulled on True Religion jeans and a Michael Stars T-shirt. Aidan wouldn’t dress up, even if they were eating at Green’s. But the waist was loose; thirty laps in the pool followed by time in the steam room had molded her body into a new shape. Even her cheeks looked narrower.

  She finally settled on a pale blue silk blouse that made her eyes look like a winter sky. She paired it with velvet slacks and a pair of Ferragamo loafers from Alexis’s collection. It was hard not to develop her own shoe fetish, with Alexis’s rows of pumps, boots, and heels just one floor away.

  Cassie moved into the bathroom and put eye shadow, blush, and lip gloss on the counter. She studied her face in the mirror, remembering the first time she went to Aidan’s house. During dinner Isabel got angry and stormed upstairs, black eyes flashing like a little gypsy.

  They had shared a bottle of Pinot Noir and had listened to the Beatles. Cassie had followed Aidan into the bedroom and they had made love quietly so Isabel wouldn’t hear. She remembered tucking her body into the curve of Aidan’s chest. She pictured all the years of making love: in their bed, on the sofa, in the hot tub in Mexico, under a blanket at Lake Tahoe.

  She tried to stop the tears from ruining the mascara she had carefully applied. The excitement of creating the food emporium slipped away. The fun of giggling with Alexis, sharing ice cream and late-night manicures disappeared.

  She wanted to rewind time and erase Molly Payne. She remembered sitting under the Christmas tree with Aidan, exchanging gardening gloves and kitchen aprons. Aidan had peeled off her robe and sucked her nipples. She pushed him away, laughing about how the neighbors could see through the window.

  She felt her nipples harden and wanted Aidan to climb the three flights of stairs and lift her onto the bathroom counter. She wanted him to tear off her panties and push himself inside her. She wanted him to fuck her until she came, shuddering against his chest.

  * * *

  Cassie heard the pinging sound three times before she realized it was the doorbell. She spritzed herself with Sarah Jessica Parker’s Lovely and walked downstairs.

  Aidan wore cream-colored slacks and a shirt so white and crisp it looked like it came from the Chinese laundry. He had replaced his leather jacket with a herringbone blazer and he smelled like Ralph Lauren for Men.

  “Hi.” He leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. His eyes sparkled and his teeth were white. She remembered every line on his face, the dusting of gray on the top of his head.

  “Do you want to come in?” Cassie asked awkwardly.

  “We have a seven o’clock reservation.” Aidan took her hand and led her down the stone path.

  “What’s this?” Cassie asked when he stopped in front of a small yellow car.

  “I borrowed Isabel’s MINI. I didn’t want the valet at Green’s to frown on us for driving an ancient Toyota.”

  They climbed in, Aidan’s legs barely fitting in the driver’s side. She watched him turn down Sacramento Street, concentrating on driving the foreign car. She tried to think of something to say but her mind was blank.

  “I didn’t tell you”—Aidan stopped the car on the Marina Green—“how beautiful you look, or how much I missed you. I brought you something.”

  Cassie unwrapped the brown paper and opened the box. Inside was a yellow heirloom tomato sitting on a bed of tissue paper.

  “It’s from your garden. I’ve been taking care of the vegetables. The broccoli is flowering and you have a new cauliflower.”

  Cassie put the tomato in the box and let the tears come. Mascara slid down her cheeks. Tears fell on her velvet pants. She hunched her shoulders, put her head in her hands, and sobbed.

  “It’s okay,” Aidan said when she finally stopped. He put his arm around her and drew her against his chest. “I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.”

  She heard his heart pounding. She felt him grow hard inside his pants. She wiped her eyes and sat back in her seat.

  “I know I shouldn’t have traded cars.” Aidan grinned. “I can’t fuck you in a MINI.”

  Cassie blinked, trying to clear her head. She flipped open the mirror and checked the black smudges on her cheeks. She reapplied her lip gloss and tried to smile. “I’d love a big salad and a glass of white wine.”

  Aidan started the car again and drove the few blocks to Green’s. They talked about Isabel and her looming SATs. They discussed Aidan’s workload and the lopsided politics of the ethics department. Cassie tried to keep her comments light and funny. She felt like she was trying to grab on to something that would make them a unit again, but it kept slipping away.

  “Remember the first time we ate here?” Cassie said as they walked into the restaurant. “You got into an argument with the waiter about Zen philosophy.”

  “He criticized my choice of wines.” Aidan chuckled. “He didn’t think it paired well with my entrée. Green’s was built by Zen carpenters. It’s meant to embody Zen beliefs.”

  “All the waiters then were Zen students.” Cassie nodded, waiting at the hostess desk.

  “That waiter obviously didn’t get the memo.” Aidan massaged the back of her neck.

  “I was so embarrassed.” Cassie smiled. “I thought they’d never take our reservation again.”

  The hostess sat them at the window overlooking the bay. Cassie watched car lights twinkling on the Golden Gate Bridge. She saw a couple holding hands at the next table, trading kisses over glasses of champagne.

  Aidan ordered a Garden Gulch salad for two and a bottle of Fetzer Chardonnay. He tore open a bread roll and dipped it in olive oil.

  “I want you to come home.” He reached across the table and squeezed her hand.

  “I want to come home,” she said.

  “Then this is a celebration.” He waited while the waiter poured the wine. “I have exciting news.”

  Cassie tasted the wine. She felt numb. She buttered her roll but left it on her plate.

  “My paper was accepted at the conference. We leave April fifteenth. The conference runs from the eighteenth to the twenty-eighth. I booked two days in Venice and an overnight in Verona. And”—his eyes sparkled—“I’ve been asked to read the paper in Athens. Athens, Cassie! Aristotle’s backyard.”

  “I can’t go to Italy in April.” Cassie pulled her hand away. “The grand opening is April thirtieth.”

  “But you’re coming home,” Aidan replied quietly.

  “I’m coming home because I want to stay married. That has nothing to do with Fenton’s.”

  “We talked about this.” Aidan drummed his fingers on the table. “You have too many responsibilities at home.”

  “I enjoy what I’m doing, and I’m good at it.”

  “Just because I fucked up.” Aidan’s black eyes flashed. “You want to spend your day kissing up to dowagers wearing ridiculous hats.”

  “Fenton’s has nothing to do with Molly Payne,” Cassie replied. Her heart was beating very fast; she put down her wineglass and placed her hands in her lap.

  “Nothing has changed, Cassie. I need you, Isabel needs you.”

  Cassie took a deep breath. Her stomach did little flips like eggs in a frying pan. “The emporium is coming to life. I can’t ditch it two weeks before the opening.”

  “Remember the pizza we ate in Rome? We counted nine toppings. And the pasta Alfredo at that trattoria next to th
e Spanish Steps? I can’t eat alone. I want to take you to Juliet’s Wall in Verona. I want to feed the pigeons in the Piazza San Marco.”

  “I’ve been working on the emporium for a month. I can’t abandon it before the opening.”

  The waiter set a large plate heaped with salad between them. He brandished a pepper shaker and sprinkled the plate with ground pepper.

  “Your salad consists of De Voto Arkansas Black Apples, Point Reyes Original Blue, and Garden Gulch Red Endive. All grown at our farm in Marin.” The waiter bowed. “Enjoy.”

  Aidan looked at his plate and burst out laughing.

  “Just once, I want a waiter in this town to put the plate on the table and walk away.”

  “Aidan,” Cassie whispered.

  “They’re all unemployed actors. It’s a salad, for God’s sake, not Shakespeare.”

  “Aidan.” Cassie giggled. “He’ll hear you.”

  “If they want a performance”—he poured another glass of wine—“I could stand on my chair and serenade you.”

  “Aidan.” Cassie glanced around. The couple at the next table smiled at her.

  “Or I could undress you and suck your nipples like cherry tomatoes.”

  “Aidan.” Cassie blushed a deep pink. “You have to stop.”

  “God, I’ve missed you,” he said, heaping salad on his fork. “You keep my feet on the ground.”

  Aidan refilled her wineglass. Cassie’s shoulders relaxed. The tight feeling in her stomach disappeared. Aidan fed Cassie a snow pea, pressing his fingers against her lips. She felt a warmth between her legs, and the stirrings of a luxurious desire.

  They didn’t discuss Fenton’s for the rest of the meal. Cassie went to the bathroom while Aidan paid the check. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks were flushed and there were mascara smudges under her eyes. She felt suddenly giddy. She was going to have sex with her husband. She was going to have a long, delicious orgasm that she could carry around like a secret.

  When she walked out of the bathroom, Aidan was outside waiting for his car. She saw him talking to a woman in a brown suede jacket. The woman had smooth brown hair and wore ankle-high boots. She leaned close to Aidan and laughed, flipping her hair with her hand.

  Cassie felt like she’d been slapped. She nodded good-bye to the hostess and walked outside. The air by the bay was freezing. She rubbed her hands together and joined Aidan.

  “This lady also drives a MINI. We were laughing about how there should be a height limit. It’s okay for you ladies, but my back is going to be permanently bent.” Aidan pulled Cassie close to him.

  The woman jumped into a red MINI Cooper, waved, and drove away. Aidan put his arm around Cassie, but she still felt chilled. They didn’t talk on the way to Alexis’s house. Aidan kept his hand on Cassie’s knee and navigated the streets like a race-car driver. He pulled into the driveway and turned off the ignition.

  “Let’s get your things and go home.”

  “I’m not going to Italy.” Cassie kept her eyes on the dashboard.

  Aidan’s body twisted in the cramped space. He was silent for a long time. “It’s impossible to talk in this hamster mobile. Let’s discuss it at home.”

  “I don’t think I should come home until after the grand opening,” Cassie said slowly. “You’re going to be gone; it’s easier if I stay here.”

  “I applaud your desire to finish something you started,” Aidan said finally, “but you’re my wife.”

  “You can survive a month without me,” Cassie replied, twisting her wedding ring on her finger.

  “I don’t want to be without you for a minute.” Aidan reached across the seat and unzipped Cassie’s pants. He quickly slid down her panties and pushed his fingers deep inside her. Cassie bit her lip, her body suddenly straining. She arched back, feeling the delicious waves grow between her legs. He moved his fingers in slow circles, watching her face, waiting until her body collapsed in a long slow shudder. He pulled his fingers out, leaned over, and kissed her.

  “I don’t know why you’re doing this, Cassie”—his voice was low and gruff—“but the day I get back from Europe, you’re coming home.”

  * * *

  When Cassie opened the front door, Alexis was sitting in the living room listening to her iPod.

  “Why are you giggling?” Alexis asked, removing her headphones.

  “You’re sitting in a room designed for Marie Antoinette, plugged into plastic ear buds.”

  “Maybe it’s time to redecorate: something minimal and modern.” Alexis eyed Cassie carefully. “Your hair is tangled. You look like you’ve been fucked.”

  “We drove in Isabel’s MINI.” Cassie blushed. “Hardly a teenager’s wet dream.”

  “Something happened.” Alexis scooped Poodles from his dog bed and placed him in her lap.

  “Aidan’s paper was accepted into the conference in Florence. He wants me to go with him, but I would miss the grand opening.” Cassie sat by the fireplace. “I said no.”

  “You said no to Aidan?”

  “I can’t abandon the emporium, we’ve all worked so hard.”

  “You and James have worked so hard,” Alexis corrected.

  “James didn’t come up,” Cassie replied angrily. “This is something I started, and I want to finish.”

  “The grand opening isn’t the end, it’s the beginning.” Alexis stroked Poodles’s fur.

  “Aidan wants me to come home. He doesn’t want me to work at Fenton’s.”

  “What did you say?” Alexis asked.

  “I don’t know what to do. At first I felt so distant. And then we started laughing at the restaurant. Aidan looked so handsome. He was wearing a blazer and a white shirt.” Cassie warmed her hands in front of the fire.

  “You’re not telling me something.” Alexis kissed the tip of Poodles’s nose.

  “I went to the bathroom while Aidan was getting the car. When I walked out I saw him talking to a woman at the valet stand. They were laughing. She leaned forward and touched his blazer.” Cassie paused.

  “Cassie, you have to be in the marriage or out of the marriage. You can’t get upset if a woman touches his coat.”

  “I know.” Cassie nodded. “I told Aidan I was going to stay with you until he gets back from Europe.”

  “Is that what you want?” Alexis asked.

  “I want Aidan not to have fucked his student. It’s still there, Alexis. It sits on my shoulder like the raven.”

  “There’s something you’re still not telling me.” Alexis frowned.

  “He leaned over in the car and he”—Cassie hesitated—“finger fucked me.”

  “Aah.” Alexis nodded like a scientist who had just solved a chemical equation. “Your body wants to run home to him, and your brain wants to stay here.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Beats me.” Alexis shrugged. “You get the popcorn, I’ll find a rerun of Dr. Ruth.”

  12.

  Cassie got the message her mother wanted to see her at the end of a long day. There was less than three weeks until the grand opening, and she had been working back-to-back twelve-hour shifts. New crises landed on her desk every morning.

  The cheese maker in West Marin ran out of chives. The mushroom crop in Inverness was washed away by a spring storm. The handmade chocolate sculptures melted under James’s pinpoint lighting.

  Alexis also worked tirelessly. Every time Cassie rode the escalator upstairs she ran into an army of women, weighed down by red Fenton’s boxes. Alexis introduced Cassie to girls from her book club, the members of her makeup class, the women in her Asian cooking seminar. Alexis was usually leaning on the counter, wearing a form-fitting dress and four-inch heels. She sported a different accessory each week: a stack of gold bangles, a hat from Philip Treacy’s new collection, and the items flew out the store.

  Alexis created a Facebook page for Fenton’s, and a Twitter account, which became her obsession. She flitted from department to department, rapidly texting about new a
rrivals. By lunchtime twenty women would appear at the counter, fighting over the latest Chanel powder blush or Pucci scarf.

  Cassie listened to her mother’s message twice, wanting to ignore it until morning. She was looking forward to swimming fifty laps and sitting down to one of Pia’s delicious meals. But Diana had broken her toe playing lawn croquet at the Breakers. She was confined to her apartment and frantic to hear about the emporium’s progress.

  Cassie checked her reflection in the elevator mirror on the way up to Diana’s apartment. Her mother couldn’t complain about her wardrobe. Alexis was teaching her to dress like the heir to Fenton’s. Today she wore a James Perse dress with Chanel ballet slippers. A ruby clip held her hair back, and she carried a Burberry clutch.

  She took a deep breath before she knocked on her mother’s door. She still hadn’t told Diana that Alexis was running Fenton’s. In her mother’s eyes, Alexis was the sixteen-year-old who persuaded Cassie to skip school to attend Neiman’s annual sale. Cassie remembered the fuss when the headmistress found the Neiman’s bags stuffed in their lockers.

  “Good evening, Maria. How is my mother?”

  “Like bull in a china shop,” Maria groaned. “She follow me around with her own duster. When she going back to work?”

  “Darling, thank God!” Diana appeared in the doorway. She wore flowing silk pajamas and satin slippers. Her hair was brushed smoothly to her chin and she had replaced her cigarette holder with an ivory cane.

  “I didn’t know you needed a cane.” Cassie frowned. “Shouldn’t you be lying down?”

  “A lovely gentleman in Palm Beach gave me the cane as a present.” Diana hobbled to the conversation pit. “I want to hear everything. I’ve had James on the phone and he said you’re doing a marvelous job.”

  “Axel is creating a new line of floral arrangements for Fenton’s. Miles Cavendish is baking a red velvet cheesecake for the grand opening, and Vanessa Getty is going to cut the red ribbon.” Cassie sat on a snow-white love seat.

  “Vanessa Getty.” Diana nodded approvingly. “The society columnists will love it. James wouldn’t tell me the name of your interim store manager. From the numbers I’m seeing, she’s doing a fantastic job.”