Not Perfect: A Novel

by Elizabeth Laban

  She did want him to. She was curious. She was also a little scared. It was nice having this . . . possibility, before he became a real person. At some point, if you talked to someone long enough, they were bound to become a real person. She wanted to put that off for a little while. Plus, she didn’t want to be the one answering the questions.

  “You know what,” she said. “We don’t have to talk about that now. Can we just eat and talk about something else? These dumplings are delicious. How’s your mother, by the way?”

  “She’s okay,” he said, cutting an egg roll in half and putting a clump of cabbage that fell onto the table into his mouth. “She’s still sore, but I think she’s a little better each day. It’s those damn home-health aides who are driving me crazy. Half the time they don’t show up, the other half of the time, they send strangers. I thought I might have to cancel with you because her morning person didn’t come, but she assured me she was okay. I’ll go check on her later.”

  Something strange happened in Tabitha’s brain. It was like something was nagging at her, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it was. She tried to brush it off and focus on Toby.

  “That’s hard,” Tabitha said, without thinking it through. “Taking care of an older parent.” She stopped, realizing what was bothering her. She pictured her mother on the last day. She was hooked up to oxygen, her eyes hadn’t opened in days. She was right there! But Tabitha couldn’t reach her anymore. She had given up on that days before, weeks before—had it been months before?

  “It is hard,” he said.

  “Tell me about your daughter,” Tabitha blurted out, before he had a chance to ask what she knew about taking care of an older parent.

  “She’s great,” he said. “She’s ten and in fourth grade.”

  “No way! So’s mine! Well my daughter is nine and in fourth grade.”

  “And she loves to read and play ultimate frisbee. And, as you know, make crafts, especially confetti!”

  “That’s all so great.”

  “What about your kids?”

  “My daughter’s name is Fern, my son is Levi.”

  “Good names, I’d say.”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  The server came back and cleared the plates. There was still so much food left, and these were just the appetizers.

  “Do you want to take it?” she asked Toby.

  “No, that’s okay,” he said. And then, “Do you?”

  “Actually, I would love to,” she said. “My kids could have it for a snack.” And dinner, she thought, and then she remembered the money that was still in her pocket. Her plan was to put it in the bank, at least most of it, but she hadn’t figured out how to do that. She couldn’t put it in their joint account, which had almost no money in it since Stuart’s checks stopped being directly deposited, because she had no idea if Stuart was still interested in that account. She thought she’d start a new account, but how hard was that? Would they ask questions since her other account had taken such a downward turn and her credit was pretty much maxed out at this point? There was only a paltry seventy-five dollars in the joint account the last time she checked.

  “So, I’m sitting here thinking I don’t need to know your story, but I think I do,” he said, and he said it so kindly, Tabitha didn’t mind. “I’ll tell you why. I’m starting to like you. I’m sitting here thinking about kissing you.”

  “I didn’t go to Michigan,” Tabitha said—blurted, really. She suddenly felt like their whole relationship was built on a lie. “And I didn’t graduate in 1994, so I’m actually older than you think. I went to Trinity, in Hartford.” She had an urge to cover her face with her hands, she didn’t want to see his reaction. Instead she looked down, so she heard his reaction before she saw it, and it was laughter. Toby laughed.

  “What?” she asked, daring to look at him.

  “I know that,” he said, smiling. “I knew it before you said it, but I let it slide. Actually, that’s what caught my attention: you were so clearly trying to blend in. It made you seem mysterious. Also, no Wolverine would ever accidentally wear red to a Michigan event. It just doesn’t happen.”

  “Do you still want to kiss me?” she heard herself saying. She hadn’t even thought it through, she just said it.

  “As much as I ever did,” he said in such a way that she felt it in her stomach. “I just want to be sure that would be okay with you.”

  “It would be okay with me,” Tabitha said, surprising herself. She hadn’t kissed anyone in months, obviously, but it was the lack of touch that she couldn’t stand. She thought of her mother calling her one day, saying that she couldn’t stand to not be touched, and Tabitha said that was silly, that she was touched. She hated that memory. She drank the rest of the champagne in her glass and got up and walked to Toby, who stood up at her movement. Without hesitating, she leaned in for a kiss. She wanted to do it. He paused for less than a second, but she could feel it, and then he was all-in, and they were kissing, and she didn’t want to stop. She didn’t want to face more questions, sure, but she wanted to keep kissing. She wished they were someplace more private, but they were, thank goodness, in a completely empty room. She didn’t want to break their connection to look around to make sure nobody else had been seated up there, she didn’t want to ruin the mood or give him a chance to talk, but she knew she couldn’t go on kissing him forever. Well, maybe she could. Did it ever feel this way with Stuart? She didn’t think so. He was pleasant enough to kiss, and he always, always had nice smelling breath, but she could always stop, she didn’t mind stopping.

  Toby eased back into his chair and pulled her down onto his lap, continuing to kiss her. At first she tried to not put all her weight on him, then she gave up and let go, sitting on him completely.

  “Beef chow fun?” the server asked, making them both jump and pull apart. She hopped off his lap, knocking her thigh into the table, then scooted around to her side. Toby was shaking his head, laughing quietly.

  “Yes, we’re the beef chow fun,” he said, louder than he had to.

  The server put the dish on the table and went back into the kitchen. Now they were both laughing. Toby could barely catch his breath, he was leaning back in his chair clutching his stomach. Tabitha started slowly, but his laugh was so pleasant, so happy, it made her laugh harder, until she had to wipe the tears from her eyes.

  “Beef chow fun?” Toby said, when he’d finally gotten some control.

  The server came again.

  “Moo shu chicken?” he asked. They were beyond being polite. Toby just pointed to the table without saying a word.

  “Would you like me to roll it?”

  “No, no, we can do it,” Toby said.

  The waiter bowed his head and went back through the curtain.

  “So my husband disappeared,” Tabitha said.

  Toby sucked in his breath.

  “He always traveled a lot for business, but one morning, months ago, I woke up and he was gone. There was a note, but it didn’t say where he was going. I haven’t talked to him since.”

  “Wow,” Toby said. “That’s a lot.” But as always, he said it kindly.

  “Yeah, it is a lot,” Tabitha said. “I’ve tried him. I’ve called, I’ve emailed. I just, I don’t know how to find him. I . . .” She stopped, deciding she wasn’t ready to tell him or anyone about the call to the hospital and the realization that Abigail was dead. Or the possibility that Stuart’s connection to Abigail had been ongoing.

  “Oh,” Toby said.

  “I should add that things were not great when he left,” she said, because she thought Toby deserved that explanation. “Actually, they were never great. Never. I wanted them to be, and he was kind and polite, but there was always something missing. The night before he left we had . . . words . . . well, a fight, but I never thought he was going to just leave. I thought, stupidly, that we were finally being honest. What we talked about, what he told me, sort of put our entire marriage into perspective, a
nd that was a strange relief somehow. That was partly why it was such a shock when he went away without a trace. That and a few other things. But overall our marriage had been, I’m not sure what the right word is . . . strained? Devoid of passion? I don’t know. But I never expected this to happen. I never expected him to leave us and not look back.”

  Unbelievably, the server traipsed out of the kitchen once again.

  “Peking duck?”

  Toby and Tabitha looked at each other, first with serious looks, then questioning ones, and then they were all-out laughing. They didn’t even try to answer the server or respond to him. He just stood there, holding the lacquered-looking duck out toward them. Finally, Toby moved some things around and pointed to an empty place.

  “Would you like me to roll it?”

  They were laughing so hard they couldn’t talk. Tabitha worried she was spitting a little.

  “No, no,” Toby said, though he was hard to understand. “We can do it.”

  “As you wish,” the server said and walked away.

  “Hey,” Tabitha said, when she calmed down a little. “That’s from The Princess Bride. I like that he said that. I hope he doesn’t think we were making fun of him.”

  “We kind of were,” he said.

  “Well,” she said. “We were making fun of his timing, I guess. I’m sorry about that.”

  “I’ll make it up to him,” Toby said. “I’ll leave a big tip.”

  They both looked at the food, but neither reached for any.

  “Do you want to pack it up?” Toby finally asked.

  “That would be perfect.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Tabitha walked directly home and, as soon as she put all the leftover Chinese food in her empty refrigerator, went right to her computer. She googled, “abandonment,” and tons of varying but similar definitions came up, basically describing her life for the last few months. She knew this, and it didn’t help. She googled, “legal abandonment,” and it was pretty much the same, just with fancier words until she got to the phrase “with the intention of not reclaiming it.” Huh. That stopped her. There was no question that Stuart had voluntarily left everything—the apartment, his things, his children, her—but did he plan to come back and reclaim it? That was the big question, right? But there must be a limit to how long someone had to wait to see. She was just googling, “abandonment limit,” when she got a text. It was from Toby.

  You home?

  Yes

  Can I call you?

  Sure

  Two seconds later, the phone rang.

  “Hi!” she said, clicking the images off her screen. She didn’t want to talk to Toby and think about abandonment at the same time. “I was going to call you later. Thanks for lunch. It was really nice.”

  He was quiet for a few seconds, and she wondered if the call had dropped.

  “Yeah,” he said, just as she was taking the phone away from her ear to see if it was still live. “It was really nice. That’s sort of why I’m calling. I have a crazy idea.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, I think the first question is, how much time do you have?” he asked.

  For some reason, it seemed to her that whatever answer she gave would be important. And while she thought he meant how much time did she have now, before the kids came home, she couldn’t help but also think about how much time she had before Stuart came back to reclaim things or until enough time would have gone by before she would be free. She wished she’d had just a few more minutes to do more research and figure that out.

  “How much time do I have?” she repeated the question back to him. “Do you mean now?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I mean now.”

  She looked at the clock on the wall, but its batteries had died, so it had stopped at seven o’clock, and she knew it was not seven o’clock. She glanced at the clock on the oven. It was just before two thirty. Both kids had clubs after school, so she wouldn’t have to get them until five thirty, even later if she pushed it. She could go right at six o’clock, just as the doors were closing for the night, and get them then—reclaim them, as the case may be.

  “I have about three hours,” she said.

  “Okay, this might sound crazy, and if it does, please don’t let it ruin things, just say—‘that is crazy’—okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, drawing out the word.

  “Let’s go to a hotel.”

  “What?” she said, letting out an awkward guffaw, which she wished she could take back. It was the least sexy noise she had ever made. Well, that wasn’t true, but it was not an attractive noise. “That’s crazy!”

  “I told you it was.”

  “Which hotel?”

  “I don’t know, the Rittenhouse?”

  “No, I can’t do that. Someone will see me. Also, do you mean, like, for the night?”

  “Okay, so here’s my idea,” he said, sounding like a little kid. “We take one hour, one hour away from everything, and we pretend it’s separate from everything else. I can’t stop thinking about you. I want to be with you.”

  She closed her eyes, because she wanted to be with him. She wanted it so much.

  “Well, I can’t just walk out of my apartment building, across the Square, and into a hotel room. That just isn’t done.”

  “How about the Kimpton on Seventeenth? There’s a restaurant there. Walk into the restaurant like that’s where you’re going and, if you don’t run into anyone, walk through to the lobby and take the elevator to the room. I’ll go right now. I’ll text you the room number.”

  “Toby, I can’t do this,” she said, thinking of Fern and Levi at school. “I just can’t.”

  “You can,” Toby said gently. “I think you can.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “How about this? I’ll head over there and see if this is even possible. Then I’ll text you. What do you say?”

  She still didn’t say anything.

  “We can just sit and talk if you want,” he said. “Or, can I come there?”

  “Fine, go to the hotel, see what they say.”

  “I’ll text you soon,” he said quickly, and hung up. She laughed out loud; he so clearly didn’t want her to change her mind. She put her computer into sleep mode, though the information about abandonment might be particularly useful right now, and went into the bathroom. She thought about a shower, then she thought about powder and makeup, then she thought about putting on nicer underwear. In the end, she brushed her teeth and went into the foyer to wait. Her heart was beating so fast it made her feel a little sick. Five minutes went by. Seven minutes went by. Her phone binged. It was Levi.

  Drums are canceled, can I just come home?

  Before she had a chance to answer another text came through. Room 336 was all it said.

  To Levi she texted back Just go to the afterschool program and do homework. I’ll be there at the usual time. Normally, she would ask if that was okay or let him negotiate a little, but she waited, and there was no response. All she could do was hope he followed her directions.

  She didn’t text Toby back. She put on a coat and headed out the door, feeling like everyone in the lobby was looking at her, which was ridiculous, of course. She walked up to Locust and over to Seventeenth, and finally north to the Kimpton. She didn’t do as Toby suggested but instead walked right into the small lobby, where she didn’t see anyone she knew, but she didn’t look too hard, walked to the elevator, and pushed “3.” She still thought she might not do this. She might take the elevator back down, or she might get off and walk to the stairs to go down. There were many things she could do that didn’t involve a hotel room with a man and a bed. The doors opened, she got out and turned right and there it was—room 336. She did not walk by it. She did not ignore it. She knocked on the door and waited. Toby answered right away. As soon as she saw him, she didn’t care about any of it—what people would think, what her legal rights were as an abandoned person, what her kids would think. None o
f it. She was reminded of that scene in thirtysomething, toward the end of the series, when Michael almost had an affair. He was with the other woman, were they in a hotel room? They were so drawn to each other, but they knew it wasn’t the right thing, or at least he knew. He wanted this other woman, but he didn’t want to cheat on Hope; he knew he didn’t want to. It looked like actual work to not touch, to remain separate. Tabitha was so mesmerized by that scene because, while she believed it, she had never felt anything like that, never not been able to resist someone. But now, now she understood.

  She followed Toby into the nice room. There was a big king-size bed and he sat on the edge of the crisp white cover, smiling.

  “I considered putting on the robe that’s in the closet. They have very nice robes here. But I thought I might scare you off.”

  “Good thinking,” she said. She took off her coat and let it drop to the floor. Then stepped out of her shoes. She eased off her pants. He was watching her. “But I doubt you could scare me off at this point.” She wanted to say other things, like she meant this exact point. Five minutes ago, she was still in danger of being scared off, but not now. She wanted to make sure that he meant what he said, that this hour was apart from everything else, and when did the hour begin and end? But she didn’t say any of it.

  The next fifty-nine minutes were a sensual blur, and when a tiny alarm went off she wanted to cry.

  “Really, you set an alarm?” she said.

  “I promised you an hour, that was an hour.”

  “Can I have another hour?”

  “If you can spare it. The room is ours until tomorrow.”

  “I can’t,” she said. “I should go. The kids. Are you going to stay?”

  “Not without you,” he said. “It will be too lonely.”

  They got dressed quietly. Crazy things ran through her mind. They could meet back here later—or in the middle of the night! But she couldn’t, she knew she couldn’t.

  “Hey,” he said. “Can you come back in the morning? After the kids go to school? We could order room service.”

  “I’ll see you here at eight fifteen.”