“Damn it, Angela, just do it, all right?”
“Okay. And I’ll book flights, shall I?”
“Flights. Yes. Jesus.”
“Honey, are you okay?”
For a moment, there was just dead air and then choking.
“Philip? Do you want me to come and get you?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’ll be home soon. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said, and meant it.
When Philip came home, he was ashen. It was January and snowing. He stumbled into the house like a victim of shell shock. She had to tell him to let go of his briefcase and help him out of his coat. She put him by the fire, brought him a cup of hot tea laced with brandy, and wrapped him in a blanket. She sat next to him and he said nothing for a long time, and then began to weep. The tears fell, silent and accusatory. She held his hand. She put her arm around him, and he turned to her, burying his face in her shoulder, sobbing.
“I can’t come to terms with the fact he’s just gone. Disappeared. Like a hand out of a bucket of water. Like he was never even there. How can that be?” His voice was full of shock, his eyes wide with disbelief.
“What is it that frightens you so much? Everyone dies. It’s the way of things.”
But it was obvious what frightened him: all the things he didn’t know; all the things he couldn’t control; all the things that might be lost.
When Angela told her friend Deedee about it, Deedee said Philip was afraid of losing himself.
APRIL NOW. Seven weeks since she’d first met Carsten. It was late afternoon and Angela had been home from the garden site for about an hour, just enough time for a shower. She went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. She was looking forward to a cup of tea in the garden before dinner. A truck pulled up and Deedee got out. She was such a tiny thing, the sight of her next to the great big truck always made Angela smile. The first time she’d seen her, across the lawn at the golf club during an end-of-season barbeque, Angela had thought she was someone’s child.
“Hey, hey!” She stepped into the kitchen through the back door. “How you doing, darling? Hope you don’t mind me dropping in, but I was on my way back from dealing with the farrier and I thought to myself, ‘I haven’t seen Angela in just too darn long.’”
Deedee brought with her the scent of horses. She wore running shoes, her riding breeches with the knee pads, and a lightweight quilted jacket.
“I just put the kettle on. You want some?”
“Honey, hot tea? Have we met? You got any sweet tea? Lemonade? If not, I’ll just take a sparkling water and a slice of lemon if you’ve got it.”
“Sparkling water it is.”
She sat at one of the stools at the island and ran her fingers through her fine blond hair. “I hate wearing that damn riding hat. Makes my hair look like seaweed on a rock.”
Angela poured the water, without ice cubes, as Deedee preferred, added the lemon, and handed it to her friend. “How’s Bruno?” The horse had come up lame a month back.
“He’s doing much better, although that little bugger sure did have me worried. It was an abscess in the hoof, was all, and that’s one of the reasons I wanted the farrier to see him. Make sure it was draining all right. I’m going to leave him up there for a few more weeks. Delicate creatures for all their size. Thanks, hon.” She sipped her water. “What’s up with Connor? All set for the fall?”
Angela sat next to her. She rather liked the earthy, rich, equine scent. “As much as we can be, I suppose. I can’t believe I’ve got a kid who’s going to study international law at Harvard. How did that happen?”
“I know! And what is he now, nearly seven feet?”
“Not quite. He has the feet of a seven-footer, though.”
“Still growing then, I bet. “She patted Angela’s knee. “Just be thankful he’s so dang smart. I mean, Ed and I would love it if either Harper or Spenser were smart enough to get into Harvard. Spenser will do all right, I’m sure, all this tech whatchamacallit stuff he’s into. Probably be a billionaire before he’s thirty. But Harper? Harper is convinced she’s going to be the next, I don’t know, Coco Chanel or something. And here I was hoping for literature. Bit too obvious, the name thing? Anyway, I think we’ve finally got her talked into going to Parsons, but that has its own risks. I mean New York? Harper? She’s going to come back with more piercings than a pin cushion. I tell you she got a tattoo? Something she says is in Arabic in solidarity with Muslims. On her shoulder for the love of Jesus. Can you imagine the conniption fit if I send her down to Mama for a vacation with that?”
One of the nice things about Deedee was that you could wind her up and just let her go. It’s not that she wasn’t interested in other people, or your life or troubles, it was just that to her talking was like singing, something best done loud and long.
Angela’s phone dinged. She knew she ought to ignore it. She kept her eyes on Deedee while she chattered on about Harper and her new boyfriend, an Iranian kid named Foad, who Deedee’s mother was sure was part of a terrorist cell, never mind that he was Jewish. Angela heard about half of what she was saying, because she was sure she knew who the text was from. It dinged again. She picked it up and peeked. Carsten.
It is not fair you look so attractive with dirt smear on your face. And also, you smell good. I am sure it is not the fertilizer.
Carsten had trouble with the past tense. Angela found it adorable. She also thought it was quite possibly a spiritual message that one should live in the moment. It was easy to see signs like that, ones that justified her decisions.
“What are you smiling about?” Deedee stared at her.
Angela realized she was tapping her teeth with her thumb like a teenaged girl.
“Oh my lord, and now you’re blushing. Has Philip taken to sending you pictures of his privates?”
There was a horrible thought. “No, of course not. Not in Philip’s repertoire.”
Deedee frowned, her pale brows like feathers. She put her glass down and folded her hands. “You cannot fool me, Miss Angela. I know that kind of grin. I’ve seen it on Harper’s face often enough.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.”
“It’s just a man I’m collaborating with on the gardening project in Trenton.”
Deedee tucked her chin in, raised an eyebrow, and gave Angela a look that might best be described as disbelieving-librarian. “What man? And since when does collaborating produce red flag danger blushes?”
This was one of those crossroads moments, and Angela understood it to be such. Turn right — let’s assume the moral right — and she would tell Deedee the facts. Carsten was a gardener with a sense of humour Angela quite liked, with whom she had a working relationship and nothing more. This was technically true. The past few weeks, as much fun, as enlivening as they had been, contained no behaviour she couldn’t admit with a clear conscience. There had been a few lunches. And yes, perhaps Angela had gone to a bar with him so he could have a beer (she joined him) after a long afternoon at the site. But they hadn’t even kissed, apart from a peck on the cheek upon greeting each other and another upon parting. That was the right turn. But the road less travelled, the one on which she so longed to set off, meant confiding in Deedee. She would tell her. God knew, she wanted to tell someone. Not that anything would come of it.
“It’s not what you’re thinking.”
“So, what is it?”
“He’s just interesting and fun, in a way I’ve missed.” Angela told Deedee his name. She told her about the project. “I’m just enjoying a bit of a flirtation. We were introduced by a nun, for crying out loud.”
“Darling, I am not going to judge you. And you and I both know you haven’t been happy for a while. But I must ask you to consider the fact you might just be playing with a smouldering flame that could easily turn into a dangerous conflagration with the teeniest, tiniest, puff of encouragement.”
“Oh, come on. You’re the big
gest flirt I know, and you don’t burn anything down.”
“That’s because the bland, boring, bourgeois truth is that I adore Ed and I am as committed to him as he is to me and we both know it. We made that decision a long time ago.”
“I’m committed to my marriage, to my family.” Her phone dinged. She picked it up. “Sorry, it’s about the project.”
I have some ideas for the plot on East Hanover. Tomorrow? We should look together.
Okay. I’ll be at the Pantry early. About 8, she texted.
“That’s what I’ll call it then, shall I? Your project?” Deedee chuckled.
Angela put the phone on silent, just to show Deedee she could. “Okay. I have a crush on him. I admit that.”
“So have a crush. It happens. A girl has no control over that, but may I recommend resisting it? That’s the good thing about temptation resisted: you get to go through all the phases, feel all the emotions, learn all the lessons, the way you would if you gave in, but nobody gets hurt, you know what I mean?”
“I don’t want anybody to get hurt. Hell, I don’t want to get hurt. Besides, I don’t think he’s even interested in anything more than a little flirting. It makes the day go by, is all.”
This was another moment of importance. The first lie. She understood she should put a marker there.
“Does, what’s his name … Carsten … know you’re married?”
“He does.”
“Is he married?”
“No. He was. Divorced.”
“Uh-huh. So, he knows you’re married.”
“I said so.”
Ten days ago, one afternoon while they worked in the hot sun at the garden plot, he had handed her a bottle of water and as he did, he ran his finger along the inside of her arm. She had shivered. He leaned in and whispered, I guess your husband would not like that. She said she didn’t think he would. Her skin had flamed. At the end of the day they had gone to a bar with an outside patio. They ordered beer. They talked about earth and fertilizer for a while and then, without smiling, he said, “Enough of this. You know. Do you not know?” Neither did Angela smile. By the end of the hour they were holding hands under the table. Like teenagers. With just that much fire.
Now, Deedee asked, “How are things between you and Philip?”
Angela shrugged. “Philip and me. I don’t even know what that means. We’re Connor’s parents. We live in the same house. That’s about it.” She massaged her forehead, feeling the beginnings of a headache. “When I think of us twenty, thirty years from now, two wrinkled old people retired to some place like Florida, God help me, or Arizona, playing golf and visiting doctors and going to dinner for the early bird special, without a thing to say to each other, sleeping in separate rooms because his snoring has finally given me an excuse to get out of his bed … when I think of that, Deedee, I’m afraid. It actually terrifies me. What a waste of a life.” She had begun to cry and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
“That bad?”
“He’s not a bad guy. He’s a good father. He’s a good provider — I mean, look at this house. The problem is something deeper, more fundamental. Isn’t even that he doesn’t listen to me; what man listens?” Angela wouldn’t tell her what it meant when Carsten cocked his head, narrowed his eyes and listened, listened as though anything she might say was profound, insightful, potentially life-changing.
Deedee rolled her eyes. “Amen to that. Not in the masculine genetic makeup, I suspect. Would be considered multi-tasking, you know, thinking their own great thoughts and listening to yours. Too much for the poor dears.”
Angela knew Deedee was trying to lighten the mood, to give her some perspective, but all it did was make Carsten seem even more special.
“Fair enough, but Philip doesn’t care. He has no interest whatsoever in anything more than the most surface version of me. Good day, bad day. Chat with teachers. Buy a new dress. Who’s coming for dinner? Do I want to go out? Stay in? and I hate to say the lack of depth in our relationship reflects a lack of depth in Philip, but after all these years together, if there’s anything deeper I haven’t discovered it. He’s a nice guy, but nice isn’t enough. It just isn’t!”
Deedee came around to the side of the island and put her arms around Angela. She smelled of leather and horses and straw and fresh air. Angela thought she probably smelled of the phony, if expensive, scent of her sandalwood shampoo. Nothing true or honest about it. She began to weep in earnest.
“It’s okay, darling. All marriages go through bogs. Some more mucky than others, but that doesn’t mean it’s hopeless. What made you fall in love with Philip in the first place? Come on, girl, you can bring the romance back. A little lingerie and a vacation to St. Bart’s, just the two of you?”
Angela drew back, stood up and walked to the fridge. It was only when she opened it that she realized she was looking for a bottle of wine. She wanted something to stop her from feeling the way she was feeling. Which was what? Hopeless, yes, just like Deedee had said. She’d spotted that when Angela hadn’t even been able to name it. She wanted to feel … nothing. Just not feel trapped; not feel like she was buried alive. There was a bottle of wine in the door rack, half-full, or half-empty, depending. Now, it looked half-empty. She grabbed it, yanked out the cork, pulled two glasses from the shelf, and poured them to the rim.
She turned and handed one to Deedee while she gulped at hers. Deedee took it, her freckled face, those brown eyes, looking almost comically worried.
Something bitter rose up in Angela, a kind of heat she couldn’t help but fan. Why did Deedee, with her Southern romanticism, want to fix her marriage? Angela wanted someone on her side. She wanted someone to tell her she could have the life she wanted, that she should do whatever she had to not to end up a bitter old woman in a loveless marriage.
“Lingerie isn’t going to fix this, Deedee. You want to know the truth? Should I tell you?”
“You can tell me anything.”
Deedee’s voice wasn’t eager, precisely; Deedee would never be so transparent, but there was the faintest trace of willingness, Angela could tell, and she realized she was expected to admit to having cheated on Philip. Well, perhaps she had, but not in the way Deedee assumed.
“Okay, the truth is I was never in love with Philip. Never. Not even a little bit.”
Deedee pulled back, with a disbelieving expression on her face. “Come on, now …”
“No, I’m serious. I hated the way I was living, and I figured I’d go on working in a crappy office, living in a dingy shared apartment, getting older and fatter. Philip was a way out. I wanted the way out. I thought I did, anyway. And it worked, right? Here I am,” she raised her glass and drank, “living the life!” Her nose was running. She had worked herself up to a good snot-flying cry. She pulled a tissue out of a silver box on the counter and blew her nose. “It’s not just my marriage. It’s me. You think I don’t know how awful this is? You think I don’t know what an awful person I am for doing this to Philip? He doesn’t deserve it.”
“Have you thought of going to counselling?”
“Philip wants to go. I don’t.”
“Why not?”
She threw a tissue in the garbage under the sink and pulled a clean one from the box. She blew her nose. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m afraid it will work. Maybe I’m afraid I’ll have to stay with him. Or not. That I’ll have to leave. Oh, Christ. I don’t know.”
“Baby, you have one hard road ahead of you. You’re really thinking about leaving him?”
“I want it to work.” And she did. She wanted to love him. She wanted to love her life. It would make everything so easy.
Deedee looked at her watch. “I hate to leave you like this, but I have to go. Miles to go before I sleep.” She stood and put her arms around Angela, who could have rested her chin on the top of her friend’s head. “Promise me you won’t do anything rash. Think it through, darling.”
“I promise. I have no intention of doing anything
stupid.”
And really, she didn’t.
AS SOON AS DEEDEE LEFT, she switched on her phone, to find a message from Carsten.
Cannot go early. Can go late in the day. Cannot be at the Pantry. Have to be on paying job site until maybe 4.
She wrote. OK. I can go late in the day. Where should we meet? She waited.
I would meet you anywhere.
How easy it was for her heart rate to rise. She imagined his expression as he waited for her to text him back. Slightly sardonic, teasing, amused. She didn’t know what to say. She had planned to work at the Pantry garden in the morning. Three volunteers were to work with her. The boxes were built, the earth was in, and they’d planted peas, radishes, spinach, and the first crop of lettuce; carrots and beets were up next. They were working on the pathways, spreading gravel, and raking. Some local artists were painting murals on the surrounding walls. She supposed she could stay the whole day, and have him meet her there, but she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to arrive at their meeting all sweaty and stinky. She wanted to look pretty. For Carsten. Also, she wasn’t sure she wanted Sister Eileen to see them going off somewhere, business or not. She might have imagined it, but she’d detected a question in her eyes of late.
I have to go home first, and I don’t want to leave my car in that neighbourhood after dark. What if we meet in the Artworks parking lot? Artworks was housed in the old Sears warehouse and provided studio space to artists, had a gallery, and gave classes. The parking lot was large and well-lit. Apart from a shooting at the Art All Night event last year, it was considered a safe neighbourhood.
He texted back a few minutes later. He would meet her there. She could leave her car there. He’d drive and then they could have dinner in Mill Hill, the historic section of the city. He knew a place. Besides, he wanted to show her something.
Sister Eileen
Eileen had suggested she and Angela grab lunch together. They sat on black metal chairs at a small table at the Simply Delicious Grill. The plain white walls, acoustic ceiling tiles, and fluorescent lighting looked more suited to one of the many cheap fast food joints littering the city, but the decor was deceptive. The Grill was known mostly as a catering company but served lunch during the week for an incredibly reasonable $8.99. Eileen was enjoying the spicy citrus chicken, and Angela had ordered the chipotle tilapia. They’d both been so hungry they’d been eating for a few minutes without saying much.
Even So Page 10
