“Sarcasm. Is that supposed to be an intelligent comment?”
“I wouldn’t waste an intelligent comment.”
Philip pulled back his head. “Wow, you’ve been real nasty lately, and I don’t like it one bit, and I’m not sure how much more of it I’m going to take. What is it? Hangover? Hormones?”
“Piss off.”
“Snap out of it, for Christ’s sake.”
“You just miss the little girl who fucked you whenever you wanted it.”
He laughed, mirthlessly, and then his face fell, just for a second. He said, “No, that’s not it, Angela. I miss my wife.”
A good person would have responded to the pain in that.
“Is this your way of not talking about Connor? Because it’s a cheap trick, if it is.”
Philip’s eyes glazed over with a fine veil that struck Angela as something like hate, and she wondered if it mirrored her own expression.
“Fine.” He folded his arms. “What do you want to say about Connor? Let’s get that out of the way.”
She put the cup down on the counter and folded her own arms over her chest. “You gave him that beast of a car without giving a thought to anything except your own ego. You want all the neighbours to be impressed. But did you talk to him about not texting and driving? Did you talk to him about not drinking and driving? Did you talk to him about speeding and how many kids he could have in the car? Any of that? Anything?”
“I thought I’d leave the nagging to you, since you’re mother of the year.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“How much time have you spent with your precious son over the past few years? You missed how many of his games? And he’s the goddamn quarterback!”
“You make it sound like I’m neglecting him, like I’m an absentee mother, and you know that’s not true. I’m just not into sports. We do other things together. We talk. He talks to me. We go for walks, go to the movies. Besides, I made the playoffs. I made the championship.”
“Bully for you. Did you know he has a girlfriend?”
That made Angela open and close her mouth a couple of times.
“Who is she? Is it serious?”
“Mother of the goddamn year.”
“You can be a real bastard, you know that?”
“And you can be a real bitch, a real ice bitch.”
“So, we’re back to sex, are we?”
“I want to know what’s going on with you. I’m thinking maybe we should see someone.” His tone had dropped. His eyes darted, and he hefted up his khaki pants.
Someone? A therapist? Who had put that in his head? God, he looked like he’d just proposed a threesome, something Angela might have found more interesting once upon a time. “Let me get this straight, you want to see a marriage counsellor?”
“Might be a good idea.”
“No.”
The colour rose on his cheeks. “Just like that?”
“I don’t see the point.”
“Of what? Getting help, or our marriage in general?”
“Oh my God, you’re making a mountain out of a dust pile. There’s nothing going on with me, except, oh, I don’t know, hormones or boredom or something.”
Philip came around the island that had stood so decisively, so solidly, between them. Angela willed herself not to stiffen. He opened his arms and she let him hug her, even returned it. His back was soft under his golf shirt; her nose was mashed into his shoulder. Why did they never seem to fit? Had it always been like that? She remembered him picking her up and making love to her as she perched on the edge of a sink in some hotel, in Berlin, she thought it was, on one of his business trips, before Connor was born. It was a black sink, black shower, huge silver bath. Orchids in silver vases, a mass of them, making the bathroom vanity like a kind of altar. She wore a black bustier and black thigh-high stockings. The memory of the actual sex was fuzzy, because she’d been drunk. They’d both been drunk. It hadn’t felt particularly great, but she remembered liking the idea of it, of being taken that way, of being the girl a man took like that. A man. Not necessarily Philip.
Now, he began to nuzzle her neck. “It was good once, wasn’t it? We can get back there again, I know we can,” he murmured. “If you need more excitement, I can give that to you.”
She pushed him away. The harsh March light shone full on his face. He was overexposed, full of vulnerability. His eyes were begging. His slightly open mouth (that coffee breath), pleading without speaking. Exactly what she did not want.
Angela had never done well with wet puppies. Don’t need me. WANT me. There was no point trying to present herself as the sweet and nurturing type. She did not want anyone expecting her soft hands to soothe their troubled brow. She once had a therapist tell her that because her mother was such a mess it was natural for her to feel repelled by need, that it was the way she was hardwired.
Behind Philip the kitchen gleamed. The counters shone. She had picked out the hanging light fixtures, imported from France, the palest celadon ceramic, with a weighted system allowing one to lower them or raise them at will. The dishes in the antique cabinet were Astier de Villatte. She had her own orchids now, better than the ones in the Berlin bathroom. She could see them through the French doors leading to the attached greenhouse. And not just the common moth orchids, but the Brassavola, which emitted a citrusy smell at night (she kept two in the bedroom); the Oncidium, with its sprays of little yellow dancing ladies; Vanda, with its extravagant burgundy flowers; and the Miltoniopsis, the sweetest of all, the little pansy orchid. The flowers made her think of someone … Carsten … only for a moment, but in such sharp relief. She cultivated the flowers as she did her life, her house. She had decorated it, filled it with objects she thought would make her happy.
And so, Let me be happy, she prayed to the God she wasn’t sure even liked her. Let her love Philip the way a wife should love her husband, who was a good provider and a good father, and who loved his wife. Philip did love her, she never doubted that. Maybe, she reasoned, that would be enough. Maybe it was the first bread crumb leading them back to where he thought they’d once been. She didn’t have to tell him she didn’t think she’d ever been there, did she?
Oh, but his complacency, that lack of passion, of engagement with the larger world. A passionate life was, she knew, waiting … all ripe and ready to be picked. She wanted to bite into the flesh of life, to feel the juice run down her chin. She wanted Philip to be as hungry as she, but had learned it was best not to begin with what she wanted from him.
She said, “I want you to know I appreciate what you do. This house, this life, I only have it because of you and how hard you work.”
“I want you to have nice things,” he said, running his fingers through her hair. “You deserve them. I like giving you things, but I want us to be close.”
“I feel dead inside all the time, Philip.” She had her hands on his shoulders, hoping not to sense him stiffening as she had. “I want us to be closer, I do. But women aren’t like men. We’re not all just physical without any emotional component.”
There it was — the twitch under the muscle. She dropped her hands.
“I can see why you don’t want to go to a therapist. You already talk like one.”
“I don’t mean to. What I’m saying is that there are all sorts of ways to turn me on, not just, well, pawing me.” His eyes flashed. “I don’t mean … look, excitement is contagious, okay? You never seem to care much about things, you know, things out in the world. The environment, hunger, poverty, literature, music, the theatre, animal abuse, human trafficking … something! All you talk about are finances, and I’m sorry, but I just can’t get turned on by stock market reports and Dow Jones averages.”
He disengaged, walked back around the island, and picked up his coffee cup. He saluted Angela with it. “You don’t have any trouble spending the money I make from it though, do you?”
“I’m not the one who bought a Land Rover for a seventeen-year-
old.”
“Is that it? You’re pissed because I spent money on someone other than you?”
“Jesus Christ, Philip! It’s not about the money!”
“Well, there’s a first. Have you seen the credit card bills? Oh, please, you’re a real saint, but let me tell you, Our Lady of Trenton, I wonder what your friends down there would think if they knew how much you spend on clothes and crap for the house and days at the spa. You want to know what would turn me on, not that you’ve ever asked, but what would turn me on is to have you maybe contribute a bit to our finances instead of just being a big sink hole, a fucking black hole for cash.”
“You’re kidding, right?” She was genuinely taken aback. She couldn’t remember Philip ever complaining about how much money she spent. In fact, he’d always seemed rather proud of it, a perverse way of showing off their bulging bank account. “Do we have money problems?”
“It’s not about that. It’s about respect. Nobody wants to be nothing more than a money machine.” He leaned his elbows on the granite and clasped his hands in front of his face. “Look, you don’t seem to want me to touch you. You’re out of the house more than you’re in it. When you’re home in the evening you’re halfway down a bottle of wine.” He put his fist up to his mouth, made a strangled sound. “We used to laugh. We had parties. We made love. I miss it. I miss the fun.”
“And what if it wasn’t fun for me?” She said it as softly as she could. She couldn’t look at him.
“Ah. You don’t mean the parties. You mean the sex.” His nostrils flared and his mouth set. “You never complained. Never said you didn’t like it. Quite the contrary, as I recall.”
“Why do you think I’m always halfway down a bottle of wine, as you put it?”
He paled. She was afraid he was going to cry. “Why the fuck did you marry me, then?” He blinked and then put his hands up. “No, wait, don’t tell me … money, money, money.”
“Philip, no, it’s not like that.”
“Fuck you,” he said, as he walked out.
She couldn’t blame him. Angela was crying now.
THEY DIDN’T GO OUT for dinner that night. Connor came home in the afternoon, electric with automotive excitement, and showered. Angela made him a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich, toasted the way he liked it, with plenty of mayonnaise. She sipped a glass of Chablis and watched him as he stood at the sink eating it.
“Can you please take the plate and sit like a human being?”
He plunked the plate on the island and threw a leg over a stool. “At least I eat over the sink, right? Emily’s mother says she’d be happy if people ate over the sink instead of leaving a trail of crumbs around the house.”
“Emily? Your girlfriend?”
He shrugged; his mouth full. “I guess. Nobody really has girlfriends or boyfriends anymore. We’re not like you were. We don’t,” he made a face, “date or anything.” His phone dinged. He picked it up and began furiously texting.
Emily Patton? They lived around the corner. Emily’s mother, Deirdre, and Angela had occasional boozy lunches together.
Texting. Eyes down.
“What do you mean you don’t date?”
Connor stopped texting. “What?”
“You said nobody dates, so what do you do?”
The phone dinged. He picked it up. Grinned. Texted.
“Connor, I asked you a question.”
“I don’t know. We hang out. Like in a group.” Thumbs flying.
He’d have arthritic joints by the time he was thirty, Angela thought. They all would. A generation of finger-crippled techno-zombies.
Angela’s phone dinged just then. Fine. Two could play at that game.
Can we have coffee and talk about plans for the garden?
Carsten.
Angela’s universe whirled and twirled and was shot through with a black hole of desire. Did she flush? Did something happen between her legs? Yes. And, just as quickly, in the same instant, she told herself she wasn’t that kind of woman, whatever that meant. The text was a message from a man with a justifiable reason to contact her. They were people who cared about the “under-served,” as Sister Eileen called them. They were devoted to a greater purpose. It wasn’t personal.
But of course, it was. Like electricity through a faulty socket, it singed her.
Sure. When? Where? Send.
Instant regret. Shouldn’t she have let the message sit for a day? Shouldn’t she show more professional distance?
Connor and she were in their own spheres of reality. Technologically separated while standing just feet from each other. If she truly wanted a relationship with her son, shouldn’t she have ignored the phone? She didn’t even glace up at him, all the while aware she wasn’t looking at him.
“So,” Connor said, “is it okay if we skip dinner? Tomorrow, we can do it, if you want, okay? But I just thought, you know …”
Oh, to be seventeen again, and to think everything hinged on what happened in one night.
“It’s okay, Connor. If you want to hang out with your friends, you go on.” He stood and she held up her hand. “But wait, listen, I need to know if you’re … if you and Emily are …” She had sworn, before she had a child, that she would never be this uncomfortable, never this awkward idiot. “If you’re sexually active, and that if you are, you’re taking precautions, being careful. You need to use —”
“Oh my God, Mom. Stop talking!” He was laughing. “I’m not thirteen!”
Thirteen? “You’ve already had a girlfriend?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth it was clear, even to Angela, that she was not only an idiot, but an anachronism. A virgin at seventeen? Even she hadn’t been a virgin at seventeen. Are we all doomed to turn into our parents? To repeat the mistakes of the past? Apparently. Maybe that is our greatest sin. We forget.
Her son was looking at her as though she were an embarrassing stranger; or perhaps more accurately, a homeless, toothless wreck on the street, suddenly revealed to be his long-lost mother, the sort of person who initially horrifies you, and whom you then ignore.
He held his hand up and stepped back. “It’s all good, Mom. Okay? Everything’s good.” He spoke slowly, in the way one does to old people. “We’ll have dinner tomorrow, is that okay? I’m gonna go, right?”
Angela thought it best not to laugh. But still … “So, if I offered you condoms, you wouldn’t take them?”
“Man, you are the weirdest mother I know,” he said.
He did make a noise that might be interpreted as a laugh, if one was generous.
“Yes. Fine. I’m weird. I love you. Go!”
He leapt up and kissed her. His lips on her cheek were so soft, and so quick, like the kiss of an angel, she thought, impossible to hold, a kiss that left only questions: What if you believed? What if you really knew angels existed and you’d just met one? Wouldn’t that change the way you lived your whole life?
“We can do it tomorrow, okay? I love you, Mom.” His back was already to her.
“I love you, too,” she called after him. “Be careful, okay? Drive careful. No texting!”
He hadn’t even asked after his father, the purchaser of magical chariots, which was fine with Angela.
Ding. Monday? Maybe lunch? Do you know Acacia?
Acacia was a restaurant in Lawrenceville. Across from Connor’s school.
What about Witherspoon Grill? I have to be in Princeton on Monday.
Witherspoon Grill. Faux French bistro in the centre of Princeton. Steak and frites. Oysters. Huh. There she was again. The first lunch she’d had with Philip in a fancy place, the certainly-not-just-lunch place, the jeans and black turtleneck with high-heeled boots she’d wear on Monday. It occurred to her she might run into someone she knew at the Witherspoon Grill. It was next to the library. Philip and she donated a significant amount of money to the library. Princeton was an absurdly small town when it came right down to it. Still, it was the sort of pseudo-professional place one could go and not be
accused of having anything other than a business lunch. Which is what they would be having, right? A business lunch. Bottom line? It wasn’t the sort of place you’d go if you were afraid of being seen.
That’s perfect. 12:30?
Angela stared at her phone. Waited. Nothing. Why did she think he’d text her right back? What was she, a teenager? She picked up the plate Connor had left on the counter. She swept the crumbs off the granite onto it. She dumped the crumbs into the garbage. She rinsed the plate.
Maybe she shouldn’t have said perfect. Was perfect too eager?
Ding. Philip. I understand dinner’s off.
Where are you?
Ding. Carsten. See you then. I will bring plans.
Ding. Philip. Springdale.
The golf club. Golf. Angela’s idea of existential despair.
Ding. Steve and Lynne want to have dinner. You up for it?
See you then. From Angela. A tilt in the world and a flush. She’d sent that to…? Crap. No, it was all right. She’d sent it to Carsten. Breathe. It wouldn’t have mattered, though. Innocuous wording. She could not deny, however, that it didn’t feel innocuous, and this slight shiver up her spine wasn’t simply not innocent, it was delightful. A twig-thin, brittle old biddy in the back of her mind rapped her knuckle on the inside of Angela’s forehead and advised caution, signalled a warning. She noted it, snapped the finger off the old biddy’s hand and tossed it in the tiny, smouldering fire starting to burn in her belly. She knew what she was doing. Knew it fully and ran to it, telling herself she could make it all work, somehow, that maybe, even, Carsten’s appearance in her life was a sign that this hollow she’d been experiencing, this alienation from hearth and home, didn’t need to be. Of course, she told herself, nothing would come of it. Nothing at all. But allowing the possibility of passion, just the possibility of it, could only be a good thing. She had been dead inside for so long.
Did she want to go to dinner with Philip, Steve, and Lynne? She did not. She texted, Sure. Sounds like fun. What time and where?
Even So Page 7
