My dad always says that we can’t change, and by God, if my thirty-two years are any indication, he’s right. Jesus.
I open my eyes in time to see my mom settle her napkin in her lap and move it just so. “Let’s just enjoy the sea bass,” she says.
I am happy to just enjoy the sea bass if I’m being honest, but Raina coils up her face like a corkscrew, and since she has armed me with this unusually pleasant sense of nirvana, I feel the need to stand strong with her.
So I say: “We can’t enjoy the sea bass if one of you is dying.”
“If one of us were dying, I would hope that you wouldn’t treat it as lightly as you are now,” my dad says. “Even though” — because he can’t help himself — “it would be whatever was meant to be. If either your mother or I were to die unexpectedly, I hope you know that I wouldn’t want a big to-do.”
A muscle in Raina’s jaw flexes, and she stretches her neck to one side, the pop! audible across the table.
“So what it is?” she says. “Because once we know, then I certainly will enjoy the sea bass.”
My mother clears her throat and purses her lips once, then twice. She eyes my father but then glances away, and he is no help (of course).
“Okay fine, I’ll just come out with it.” My mom reaches for her wine before continuing. “Your father has had…a difficult year. With…the Nobel…”
“Dad, you realize there are worse things in the world than being on the short list for a Nobel, right?” Raina says.
“Well, it was very devastating for him,” my mom interjects. “And then there was that unfortunate restraining order.”
“Punjab had no right! No claim!” my father cries, a shard of bread flying from his mouth and landing unceremoniously in the olive oil on my own bread plate. My mouth curls down, and I inch the plate toward the center of the table.
“Well, with all of that happening, your father came to some decisions. And I don’t necessarily agree with them, but…well…you know.” My mom waves her hands, as if this explains it. Well…you know. It does explain it though, as good enough shorthand as any in this family.
My dad dislodges the mucus in his windpipe, then announces:
“What she is trying to say is that I intend on taking a lover.”
At this, Raina spits her wine back into her glass. And though my head is cloudy and buzzy and thick, even I sense a widening of my eyes, a slackening in my face.
“Jesus, Dad!” Raina folds her hands over her face and drops her head. “Honestly! Just…Jesus Christ.”
“I’m glad I didn’t order the sea bass,” I say.
“Well girls, let’s be fair about this,” my mom suggests, like she needs to defend him, like her staying with him for four decades hasn’t been the greatest gift she could give him. “Your dad and I have been married for a very long time, and it’s normal to consider other options. And well, he came to me and presented this in a reasonable way, and now I’m thinking that I might just go get a lover too!”
The waiter has arrived to take our order, but stops short and then turns quickly to a neighboring table.
“Mom!” Raina snaps. “Oh my God!”
“Honey, you’re almost forty. I should be able to tell you the truth.”
Raina fishes in her purse for her phone.
“I should check on the kids. Excuse me. And I’m not even close to forty.”
She stands abruptly, and we all fall silent watching her flee.
“She always was a rule follower, Willa. Not like you,” my dad says, his eyes still on her until she disappears out the lobby. What he means is: she never quite came around to my way of thinking, which also means: she never loved me as much as you did.
“Oh please. Shut up.” I can’t even bear it.
My father’s chin remains stoic but I can see his pulse throb in his neck.
“Willa.” My mom moves her hand over mine.
“Mom,” I say, my eyes suddenly full.
She leans in close enough that I can smell her Chanel perfume, a memory of my childhood, of complicated nostalgia, and then she says: “Don’t be sad. If anything, after forty years, it’s a bit of a relief.”
7
Shawn makes eggs for breakfast. It’s one of our things. A thing that Raina would add to the list of “Shilla things,” like our joint manicures, if she were to make such a list. (Which she might.)
The smell of the grease doesn’t wake me, but the doorbell does. The Xanax rendered my sleep a blackout, dreamless, and I wake disoriented, my lids crusty, my mouth tacky as if I’d eaten glue.
There’s a knock on the bedroom door, and then Vanessa pokes her head in.
“Nice,” she says, like I should’ve known she was coming over, and I should’ve been better prepared, should’ve been gussied up.
“What are you doing here? It’s…like, 8 a.m., and I’m unemployed. So…go away. I want to sleep.”
“It’s Sunday, so unemployment has no bearing. And you said you’d come to the free fall with me. The warm-up for the Dare You! book.”
I’d forgotten. In order to boost tourism in the city, the mayor’s office had implemented a simulated free fall off the Brooklyn Bridge. It was basically an over-hyped bungee jump, and if the mayor ever bothered to go to 42nd Street, he’d see that we should actually be attempting a mass exodus of tourists, not inviting more in. But still. The Dare You! producers set it up to announce the book deal: blasting out a press release to the trades wasn’t exactly their speed. Throwing their writer off a bridge was. Vanessa had asked me to tag along because she grew paralyzed when transported to any level above five floors, though her paralysis wasn’t enough to scare her off the job or off anything really. It never would be.
I probably put the free fall in the Together To-Do! app, but I hadn’t checked since spiraling down my Xanax haze. I reach for my phone on the nightstand.
Together To-Do! has one notification:
Bungee with Vanessa: book deal announcement!!!!
“Ugh,” I croak. “Okay. Hang on. Give me ten minutes.”
She slides the door closed, and I stretch up, my back cracking, my mind gray. I sit on the precipice of the mattress until I can physically will myself to the bathroom, brushing my teeth, splashing water on my cheeks, grabbing sweatpants and a tank that were abandoned on the floor at some point earlier in the week. I gaze in the mirror — I am wrinkled and pale and borderline inhuman — until I have nothing left to do but get moving and stomach the day.
“You lost your job?” Shawn says when he sees me. I was deep into REM when he and Nicky got home from the Yankees game. He must have slept on the couch again. He’s still wearing a Jeter jersey.
I glower at Vanessa. “You told him?”
“I didn’t tell him anything. I’m just eating eggs. Minding my business.” She flourishes her fork in the air and takes an overzealous bite as if to make a point.
“Nicky told me. Were you planning to?”
“I was, of course.”
I pull out a stool, and out of habit, like an assembly line technician, he sets a plate in front of me. He has made eggs every Sunday morning since we moved in together. When we first married, he would place bacon in the shape of a smile at the base of the plate and two little strawberries up top — a face to greet me to start my day. Now — I eye the eggs with distrust — now, they’re just a plop of eggs. I should be grateful that he’s still honoring our Sunday ritual, that he hasn’t insisted on, like, brunch at some hip place in Williamsburg or bought a crepe maker from Sur La Table or something, but the gratefulness is seeping out of me now, slowly, like my appreciation has been dumped into a sieve. I move some of the eggs around with my fork, buying my time.
“I was planning to tell you,” I say finally. “I just really haven’t seen you much alone since it ha
ppened. But now you know. Hannah was all coked up and made me do Adult Diapers by myself, and I told you that the meeting was disastrous, and so they dropped us as a client, and then she got fired, and then I got fired. And you know, it’s all live free or die, Shawn! That’s what it’s about! Live free or fuckin’ die!”
Now it’s my turn to take an overzealous bite of eggs, as if stuffing them in and bulging my eyes is the exclamation point for my story.
“What does that even mean? What are you even talking about?”
“It’s the goddamn universe, Shawn!” I bark. “Like, what the hell was I supposed to do anyway?”
Vanessa sighs audibly and Shawn scowls. “Why are you taking that tone with me? I’m not to blame here.”
I swallow and drop my forehead to the counter.
“I’m sorry,” I look up at him. “I should have told you. And I’m sorry for my tone. I’m resolving as of this moment to stop being mad at you. Anger is pointless.”
Vanessa makes a face like she bit into a sour grapefruit.
“I didn’t realize that you were angry with me,” Shawn says.
He dumps the remaining eggs in the pan onto a spare plate and sets them aside for Nicky who will likely make a gagging noise at the sight of them and just ask for, like, some Pop Rocks and Sprite for breakfast. Which we’d give him. (That kid from the ’80s’ stomach totally didn’t explode, in case you were wondering about our parenting. I googled it.)
“I’m thinking we should get going,” Vanessa says. “I have to be there by nine — they have a camera crew there, so I need make-up, which is sort of ridiculous since they better not be doing a close-up of me hanging upside down with my face all morphed and bulging.” She scrambles off her stool. “And also, I don’t know why I just ate these since I’m probably now going to throw them up before I jump. The whole theory of what goes down, must come up.”
“Wait,” Shawn says to me (not Vanessa, who is shoving the last bites in her mouth too quickly). “Seriously, why are you mad at me?”
“When did you take up golfing?” my tone is a little too forthright to be casual, a little less kind than conversational.
“I…I don’t know. I’m trying new things. Recently.”
“And that jacket over there…” I gesture to a motorcycle jacket that I am only now noticing thrown over the couch. “What is that? Do coders wear that?”
“Ooh, that’s actually really nice.” Vanessa gets up to paw it. “This isn’t ridiculous. This is the real deal. Varvatos. What did this set you back?”
“Oh Jesus, Vanessa, can you please pipe down for once?” I say, then immediately follow with, “Sorry. Shit, sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Hey, no flies on me. I’m gonna do this thing without you. You guys keep going. Just call me. Coffee later.”
She quickly kisses my cheek and breezes out the door before I can beg her not to leave without me. Shawn and I are left alone, flanking each other in the kitchen. He pours himself more coffee, making a big show of the silence, dropping in his first plop of milk, then his second, then one last splash, as he does every morning, and for the first time ever, this makes me insane. I don’t want my husband to make me insane, I want Shilla! But then I remember Grape!, and that I’m not exactly the one who might be cheating on us.
He sprinkles exactly half a packet of Splenda in, then stirs, then sips, and then sighs. Then he unspools the plastic wrap and envelops Nicky’s plate as carefully as parents would swaddle their newborn. Finally, he turns back toward me and says:
“Why are you so mad at me?”
“I’m not mad at you.”
“You’re mad at me. You said, and I quote, ‘I’m resolving as of this moment to stop being mad at you.’”
I’m about to shout out: Grape! when his phone vibrates on the counter, and he grabs it.
“Hey,” he says, then wanders to the couch and perches on its arm. “Oh. Okay. Sure. For how long?”
A long pause.
“Um. Okay. No, no, that’s fine. I mean, I have to talk to Willa.” He falls silent.
I can feel my nerve ebbing out of me. I can’t talk to Shawn about Grape! now. That might undo everything – set something in motion that I’m not ready to face. And besides, now, he has something to talk to me about. My thoughts turn to static. I try to catch my breath — breathe in and out, like Oliver showed me — and not totally come undone with the notion of what Shawn needs to talk to me about — affairs, divorce, one-night stands — and to whom he’s saying all this. Please, universe, do not betray me. Please do not make Shawn be like that Goldman guy who slept with Izzy’s friend, Candice.
Shawn says to his phone: “We’ll figure it out. Sure, sure. No, I get it. I’m sure that Willa will be fine with it.”
I allow myself a little more air because he must know that taking a call from some floozy whom he met at Grape! or at golf or whatever is not something I’d be fine with. I look at him sideways now, but he’s focused on the long view out the window. Who knows what he sees out there in the distance. But it’s not me.
“He’s still sleeping,” Shawn says. “I’ll have him call you when he’s up.”
Another pause.
“Okay. Be safe. No, I understand.”
He presses the off button and stares at the floor for a moment, then seems to remember that I’m sitting there with my runny eggs, that we were in the middle of something, that there were things to be said.
“That was Amanda.” He rises slowly, like he threw out his back while talking.
“Okay.”
“She needs us to watch Nicky for a while longer.” He doesn’t make eye contact and instead reaches for his coffee.
“Well, that’s fine, I guess. How long?”
“Um, most of the summer.”
“Most of the summer?”
“She was up for this position in Tanzania, and she got it. Which is great, by the way. I mean, she’s out there making a difference.”
“No one said she’s not.” I can’t help but wonder if he doesn’t mean that coming up with sexy ad campaigns for Adult Diapers is not exactly out there making a difference. Hello! I’m well aware that it might be the dumbest thing on the planet. Why do you think I was texting Vanessa in the meeting in the first place? You try to make an incontinent Indiana Jones sexy!
“Well, you know,” Shawn says. “Where she’s going to be isn’t safe for Nicky right now, and this job is pretty much all she has other than him, and it’s only until August.”
“That’s our whole summer, Shawn! I thought we were, like, trying for a baby!”
“We can try for a baby with Nicky here, Will. Come on.”
“You know what? Let’s not try for a baby right now,” I glower, raising my voice a little too loudly. “I don’t think I want to.”
A wild overreaction to be sure. But also, a wee relief. As soon as I say it, I feel it in my guts, deep on my insides: a weight lifting, a release from the burden that has been pressing me so very far down. Maybe @nurseellen at BabyCenter was right. Maybe I owe her an apology. Maybe some of us just aren’t cut out for offspring, and if that’s what God’s plan is telling us, then maybe we should lean in and listen.
“What?” Shawn reacts. “Now we’re not having a kid?”
“You heard me! The kid is off the table! I mean, we can’t even have one anyway, even when we’re actively trying! I’m not pregnant again, and maybe it’s just a goddamn sign!”
“Where’s this coming from? Because Nicky will be sleeping in our spare room?”
“No!” I shout even louder. I breathe in, breathe out through my nasal passage, just like Oliver showed me. (“This is called pranayama breathing,” he said. “I know master yogis who can orgasm from it.”) I feel my pulse slow, then say hesitantly, more quietly:
> “It’s coming from…golf…and the Yankees…and…”
I try to say it, I try to actually be forthright and confront what needs to be confronted, but I can’t. My dad would say it’s because my conscious mind is too scared to set something in motion that I don’t want to set off, but he’d also tell me that it wouldn’t matter: if disaster is impending, it’s a-coming anyway. But I’d say that it’s probably something simpler: that I don’t want to say Grape! because of the simple truth that I’m a coward who never wants to rock the status quo.
“What the hell, Willa?” Shawn snaps, still a decibel too high. “You don’t want to have a kid because I’m taking up golfing? What does that even mean? We’re supposed to have a kid now. We agreed that we were having a kid now! It’s part of our plan!”
“Well, now that you put it that way, let’s definitely have a kid! Let’s have twins!” The pranayama breathing is of no use. (Orgasm? Really? From breathing? Not buying what you’re selling, Dalai Lama.)
The guest bedroom door opens and Nicky wanders out, his hair a bird’s nest from behind, his skinny legs gawky in his boxers.
“What the fuck, you guys?”
“Don’t say fuck, Nicky,” I say back.
He shrugs.
“These for me?” He spies the spare plate of eggs on the counter. Shawn nods yes, so he scrambles up on the stool, unwraps the plate, and digs in.
Shawn sees his opportunity to deflect.
“So your mom called…we should talk, dude.”
I consider if this is the first time Shawn has ever called anyone “dude,” and if he realizes what an idiot he sounds like. And then I hate that I’ve even thought this. I want to scrub the notion from my mind: that my husband sounds like an idiot, that I’m the type of wife who would ever see him as such a moron.
The Theory of Opposites Page 6
