by Lee Woodruff
Margaret met his eyes without expression at the mention of the word Florida and she continued to chew wordlessly, her mouth tight as a change purse.
“Ooooooohhhhhhh …” Roger had to hold the receiver away from his ear at Julia’s high-pitched squeal. “I can’t believe you are coming! I’m so excited, Roger.”
“We’ll probably only have one real night together,” he said evenly. A horn honked behind him, and he swerved to avoid the car ahead, braking suddenly. He was almost on the highway, his attention fractured as he struggled to catch her exact words on the car speakerphone.
“Then I’ll make it the best night ever. The whole works. We’ll eat at my house and we can be more casual. I have the perfect meal, my frittata with artichoke hearts and lobster. I know just the cheese, the creamy one from that little bodega. And I’ll make that sangria you love so much!”
“That sounds perfect.” He could hear the measured cadence of his own voice and wondered if she had picked up on it with the weak cell connection.
“You are perfect, Roger. Perfect for me, and I can’t wait to jump in your arms.”
“I’ll see you Wednesday then, Julia.” Roger hung up the phone and creased his brow. He felt the weight of this trip, his reluctance to deliver the news to Julia that this would be his last visit. Keeping both Margaret and Julia happy had begun to feel like an impossible mathematical equation, an elusive balance.
Two days later, Roger placed starched shirts on top of his loafers and zipped the carry-on bag shut. It looked like the developers were finally ready to come to the table for the refinancing on the original deal. He had not needed a reason to drum up a trip to see Julia, and although he was not the lead partner, he would be part of the team. He had rented a car to head to Julia’s bungalow for the extra night. This was all overdue.
Roger could hear Margaret downstairs in the kitchen, already assembling breakfast. He felt a slight dizziness for a moment, a need for caffeine, he imagined, and he sat back on the neatly made bed, bringing the top of his dresser into focus with its framed photographs cataloging a rewarding life of family spoils and leisure.
Roger’s eyes settled on the professional shot of his foursome at the club’s annual golf tournament a few years back, the silver trophy cup raised high among them. He’d gotten a hole in one that day and could still remember his incredulity and then the accolades, the rounds of drinks, the sense of being the envy of the room. He’d taken Margaret and his two daughters out to celebrate the next night; Stu, of course, lived too far away. Their husbands had stayed home with the grandkids and he’d looked around the table in the club dining room as if he were Lord of the Manor. He had built up a rich life, a solid life, Roger thought to himself as he rose off the bed and grabbed his suitcase. Jeopardizing that, at this stage, would come with too great a cost.
There was no question that Julia still excited him. She thrilled the part of his ego that required attention. And yet he understood that for the long haul, it was Margaret who was best kitted out to care for him. With their collective history she was better equipped to fill in a missing word in the conversation stream as smoothly as putty or cover a social weakness with riveted steel. As lovely and insouciant as Julia was, as inventive and eager in bed, she would not be the one to go the distance. Oh, she’d bridle at that conjecture if he ever said it out loud. She’d disagree and claim loyalty as tenacious as a hunting dog. But it was Margaret who shared his battle scars. And while passion and patience had evaporated between them over the decades like perfume, it was she who made him stronger, she who would hold him up like bones. Roger ultimately understood that their love was inextricably constructed of more solid, dependable qualities.
Yes, it was time for Roger to break it off with Julia on this trip. He had already made that decision, and he wanted to give them both the dignity of doing it in person. His business trips to Florida would be lessening now, and she deserved more than the crumbs of his occasional visits and the off-prime-time phone calls he parsed out. He would miss her—the quick infectious laugh, the comfort in her own body, the girlish spontaneity, and the sense of wonder that was lacking in his spouse. But maintaining all the rings in the circus of his life seemed infinitely more exhausting than it had eight months ago.
Roger did love Julia, but he had always known that he would never leave Margaret and the children for her. Where was that incentive? And live like an exile from his hearth and blood? Sex and mystery became familiar, he knew all too well. He was too old of a leopard to change his spots, and in the end, Margaret’s loyalty, her sheer marital tenacity trumped everything. Admittedly, he had been enjoying the upsurge of togetherness he and Margaret were experiencing in the wake of all that they had endured as a family. They had settled into an easier pattern, tacitly familiar and comfortable. It was far from perfect, Roger admitted. But what was perfect in any of the marriages he knew that had gone around the track as long as theirs? They had their family and the grandkids, their friends and their social life centered around the club. Losing James had been the touchstone that had forced him to examine his own mortality in an unexpected and sobering way. It had been the knock on the side of the head that rearranged priorities, reminding him of how his own family was fixed firmly at the center.
So he’d go to Tampa and to Julia, for this last time. Roger would take his pleasure, and then he’d initiate the discussion with Julia, distasteful as that would be. It had been months since they’d spent any significant time together. She couldn’t be happy with the situation as it was; Julia deserved more than this. Roger hoped she would see it his way if she didn’t already.
26
Maura pulled into a parking spot on the mall’s second-level structure and flipped down the visor mirror to study her face. The week had seemed both eternal and fleeting, but Friday had arrived. Was she really taking this much care to prepare for their lunch meeting? She felt like a schoolgirl. Two days ago she had bought a cashmere turtleneck at full price, spending far more than she ever had on a sweater. It seemed the perfect compromise between looking too put-together and her usual V-necked pullover standbys.
The periwinkle wool set off the bluish pigments in her eyes, but now she focused critically on her lashes. Too much mascara? Was the eye shadow too heavy? She snorted at the vanity of this exercise. When was the last time she had subjected herself to this kind of scrutiny? As much as she wanted to exude a nonchalant elegance, she cared very much how she looked today.
Maura had hoped maybe after the lunch she could convince Art to bundle up for a winter walk on the beach, figuring that the act of moving, of not having to look at each other directly in the face, meant that they could talk more freely than at the confines of a table. In the end, though, Art had called that morning to say he had limited time. It would be closer and easier to meet at the mall near his office, and he suggested one of those chain restaurants named after a day of the week. Maura’s heart had sunk a little. It wasn’t what she’d pictured, but then who was she to make demands of him?
It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the low lighting on the walls full of fake antique road signs and vintage Hollywood poster replicas. When she spied Art, he was already in a booth, gazing at the laminated menu. Her step faltered briefly. She was struck by the enormity of seeing him in person. The luxury of spotting him first meant that she could examine him, take him in critically the way one studies a work of art.
Art seemed more “city” to her somehow, more sophisticated. His chin was down and his brow furrowed as he concentrated on the lunch options through his reading glasses. The goatee was new, she noted, and he was wearing some kind of stylish textured sweater, snappier than his previous post-college, lumberman look.
Maura made her way across the restaurant, clutching the straps of her purse and pressing it to her side. Navigating toward him around chair backs and tables, she saw Art glance at his watch before he looked up, searching the room briefly and then meeting her eyes.
Her pulse
raced as she gave a small tethered wave. Snaking around the last of the obstacles, she was beside him. Art rose to hug her just as she bent to kiss, and they collided awkwardly, feigning comfortable laughter. She registered a guarded look in his eyes as she tossed her purse on the faux red leather banquette opposite him and slid in.
“I’ve only got an hour,” he announced early in the conversation, already staking the parameters of this meeting, setting the boundaries before it had begun. Wounded, she accepted it with a nod and gradually relaxed her too-wide smile.
The Art she remembered was still there, the boyish earnest look, the slight gap between his front teeth that she found inexplicably attractive. His black hair was cut shorter, and she could tell from the rigid way he held himself that he was uncomfortable. This was awkward for him. Maura studied Art’s hands before fully meeting his eyes. They had been one of the first things she had noticed during that initial meeting with him at the veterinarian’s office. She remembered seeing the sure way they held Rascal, moving around the dog’s body to diagnose the injury. They were large hands, “farm hands” he had called them, from growing up in rural Wisconsin.
“I like the goatee.” Maura averted her eyes momentarily as Art reached up to stroke his chin, and she observed the filament of a scar under his right eyebrow, the legacy of a high school football injury.
“I think you are either a facial hair person or you’re not,” Art said. “I decided to give it a try. I have to add a little extra time now to stay in the lines when I’m shaving.” He chuckled nervously. His smile fell short of his eyes. Today they looked cool, uncharacteristically impenetrable.
Snapshots of the times they’d been together flipped through her head—the beach walks, the diner, visiting Art’s Evanston apartment, the picnic meals she had packed. The careful planning and subterfuge, her mother watching Sarah under the pretense of some meeting or appointment or another. All of that unrecoverable time, thought Maura.
The conversation was stilted at first; they were both uncertain of where to plunge in and so they initially skimmed over safe topics like Art’s weekend biking and his further adjustment to Chicago. It was painfully polite, so different from their interaction eight months ago. Art hung back, listening more, letting her do the work, as if assessing her. Maura asked about his practice, and he enquired about Rascal. She got the distinct impression he was purposely avoiding the topic of James.
The waitress came up and Art ordered a cheeseburger while she chose a salad, although her appetite was nonexistent. Adrenaline had flooded her bloodstream and her brain and her heart revved like a hummingbird. Sitting across from him, Maura tried to gauge how she felt after so much time had passed. She was still attracted to him, but the entire landscape of her life had been reconfigured. She didn’t want or crave him in the way she had before. A giant chasm had opened between them, and they were now two different people with very few common points of intersection. How odd, she thought, that you could once be so close to someone and then feel completely removed, like a stranger.
“So, you changed your vet? I saw the records transfer request.” She could tell Art was reaching for a breezy tone.
Maura nodded and carefully examined her nails. “It’s been hard.”
“I’m sure,” said Art with an elastic snap. And then he softened, his posture relaxed. “It’s been hard for me too, Maura. That long silence from you. One day you were dangling the possibility of a future, sending signals to hang in there and the next … nothing at all? Not even a call to let me know you were OK? You owed me more than that. I wanted to be there for you in whatever way I could.” His eyes were steely now, his face set in harder lines.
Maura watched his anger erupt, and she let it wash over her. She deserved this. He was injured and jilted, and she supposed that kind of emotion was easier to swallow than apathy. At least hurt meant he still cared.
“My son died,” Maura began in a hushed tone, studying her nails. And she realized she had not had to utter those three final words directly to anyone she knew since it had happened. Everyone she had surrounded herself with, everything she had done, every person of consequence she had come in contact with since that day, had already known this fact or had no reason to. Maura’s eyes glistened with tears and she silently cursed herself. She did not want to do this right now.
“And you associate me with that,” he said softly. His hand moved over to tap hers, a gentle accusation as she played with the silverware. He darted it back to his lap.
She nodded glumly. “How could I not? After what we did, the timing of it and then … the next day.”
“I think I finally pieced that together.” Art was quiet, listening again, waiting for her to talk.
“I … I blamed you for part of it. I shouldn’t have. But I felt so incredibly guilty”—Maura paused and her voice caught—“so guilty for everything I was feeling.” She would not cry now. Not again at this lunch. She could climb back in her car afterward and let all of the mascara streak down her face in black ribbons, but she would not do this here in a mall restaurant.
“One moment I was walking down the sidewalk, and the the next thing I knew James was lying on the street.” She paused for a moment. “I don’t really remember anything else until I was at the hospital. I was out of my mind with fear and with … with guilt.”
“I’m sorry,” said Art, and his sense of wariness, of diffidence, was gone now, replaced by the old Art she knew, the compassionate, vulnerable person. “I really am. I think what happened, what you went through … well, that’s hard for anyone to imagine.”
They chewed in silence for a moment and the forkful of salad made Maura feel nauseated. She took a drink of iced tea and forced herself to swallow.
“I went into a tunnel after that.” Maura paused for a moment. “He lived for almost a week in a coma and then his body just gave out. Massive internal injuries.” Maura pinched her fingers over her lids for just a minute and seconds later she had the presence of mind to wonder if she had just smeared her makeup into raccoon eyes. “I suppose you see that all the time in your practice … things dying.” He nodded solemnly, his eyes locked on her face.
“I understand your guilt, and your anger,” said Art. “I understand you even blaming me to a degree. You are entitled to all of that. Completely. And that day … the day before, was perhaps more me than you, I’ll take responsibility for that. But then you pulled the rug out. I was pretty tortured for a while there. You started something, and then you threw cold water on it. Your cell was disconnected, I drove by your house a hundred times … had to physically talk to myself not to get out and ring the bell. You know I actually called the house and left a message with your sister. Once I even spoke to your husband.” Maura’s head shot up. “I left a message as your vet. That’s all,” he said defensively. “Hey, I was worried sick about you. I finally came up with the coffee cup idea. I figured you’d know instantly what those cardboard cups meant, but no one else in your household would.”
She nodded. She would not mention the e-mail he had sent, the risk he had taken with that and how frightened it had made her, how uncertain she was of what he might do at such a fragile time in her marriage.
“I was … I was doing the best that I could.” Maura could see it all clearly from his perspective, a perch she had tried not to inhabit up until this point.
Art nodded and seemed to collect himself for a moment. “I guess that I thought we had something far more promising than we did. When I tried to break things off that one time … you basically begged me to come back. I … I suppose after that I allowed myself to think that we had some kind of a future.” Art lowered his eyes to his plate, where he picked up a French fry and plunged it in a pool of ketchup before swallowing it in two bites.
Maura felt a sudden lurching of internal organs at the realization of how casually she had behaved. Her capriciousness had led him to make assumptions and plans. She leaned onto one hand to shift her position in the banquette. She s
aw now, with complete clarity, how careless she had been. Maura had led Art to believe she might leave her marriage. It was a sin of omission, in a sense, but it had resulted in so much collateral damage.
“Art. I don’t know what to say.”
“I didn’t deserve to be treated as if … as if I were driving that car.” His voice was softer now, as if he’d exhausted the energy to be angry.
They ate for a few moments in silence, Maura moving the food around on her plate as her mind grappled with where this was going. She had lost her enthusiasm for the charade of pleasantries involved in wrapping up this conversation and leaving. The leaving part, she knew, would feel like a vacuum seal, final and hard. She’d be left reviewing the one hundred things she should have said instead or done differently.
“So why are we here, Maura?” Art said more softly. “Why now?”
Maura looked down at her hands in her lap, the nails neatly manicured. How foolish that she had agonized over the right shade of ballet pink, as if that would carry a message, as if any of that mattered. How appalling that she had spent money on the new sweater to accent the color in her eyes. “I guess I wanted to tell you how sorry I was, although I’m not sure I could have done it any other way at the time. And … and I wanted to see you, to see if you were all right and that you had moved on or at least that you weren’t stuck, like me. I’ve thought about you so much …”
“I liked you too much, Maura, and you weren’t mine to like. As much as I wished you were.” He stopped and took a sip of his iced tea. “I know what it feels like to be the person who gets left for someone else. I don’t want to be that other person in anyone’s marriage. I didn’t even want to get near that line. And I did. I think that what happened to us in the end, the way it happened so abruptly, was the best thing for us.” Art looked right at her, his expression softer but without its former intimacy.
