The Secret of Joy

by Melissa Senate

  She didn’t get that sense with Ellie and Tim.

  Or with Joy and Harry. Mostly because Joy was so unreadable.

  Joy had announced that everyone was due in the kitchen to help with dinner, her famous four-cheese ravioli, salad, and fresh garlic bread. Rebecca headed downstairs and into the large country kitchen. The Jayhawk-Joneses were on pasta. The Rasmussens, salad. The Cutlasses were all about the garlic bread. Rebecca was in charge of choosing a wine and setting the dining-room table.

  So far, so good. Until Tim asked Harry and Charles if they wanted to find a dart bar after dinner.

  “Tim …” Ellie said with an embarrassed smile. “I’m sure Joy has something planned for all of us after dinner.”

  He popped a cheese cube into his mouth and glanced at Joy. “Do you?”

  Joy dropped the ravioli into the large pot of boiling water on the stove. “Well, I know it’s not Thanksgiving yet, and it might sound a little hokey, but I thought we’d all sit around the fireplace with a glass of wine and talk about what we’re grateful for. Something to start us off on a positive note—what we’re thankful for, what we’re happy about.”

  Tim stared at her as though she’d grown another head. “Uh, that’s not really my thing. When Ellie asked me to come, she said it would be like a few couples going away together for a weekend. You know, a good time. Not a bunch of sad sacks sitting around.”

  Ellie’s cheeks flushed. “We’re here to try to save our marriage, Tim.”

  “I’m here to get away.” At her expression, which Rebecca would describe between close to tears and embarrassment, he added, “God, nothing’s ever enough with you. I’m here, aren’t I?”

  Actually, you’re not. Tim. Rebecca glanced at Ellie, who clearly knew it, too. Had known it long before now, but had held on. Ellie threw up her hands and walked over to the sink with a head of lettuce. She turned on the water full blast, which Rebecca figured meant she was crying.

  Shoot.

  Before they’d boarded the Love Bus, Rebecca had asked Ellie if she wanted Rebecca to really probe Tim, to ask him some hard questions. Ellie had said yes, that it was time to take her head out of the sand. Rebecca wasn’t sure if now was the time or not, if she’d send Tim running for the hills within thirty minutes of arriving or if she’d say something that would get in there, in where Tim loved Ellie, where he’d proposed, where he’d said, “I do.”

  Rebecca poured seven glasses of a white wine she really had no idea about (she chose by prettiest label) and handed one to Tim. Tim was so tall—and so much taller than Rebecca’s five feet two—that she had to crane her neck to look up at him. “Tim, do you want to be married to Ellie?”

  He downed the wine in two gulps. “What do you mean? I am married to her.”

  “Do you want to be married to her?”

  He glanced at Ellie, who’d frozen at the sink, then handed the glass back to Rebecca for a refill. “Yeah.” Pause. Then: “I just—”

  Ellie turned around, her green eyes intense. “Just what?”

  He shrugged. “I just find it hard not to … try to score.”

  Ellie let out a breath, set the wet head of lettuce on a cutting board on the table, and dropped down in one of the kitchen chairs. She’d clearly had this discussion before. And it was a discussion that seemed to make the other two men nervous. Harry and Charles were deeply focused on their jobs, Harry stirring the steaming large pot of ravioli at the stove, Charles laying garlic remarkably evenly across the long loaves of Italian bread. Every now and then, they’d glance up from what they were doing, looking curious or embarrassed or like they wished they could bolt.

  “Why do you want to score with other women?” Rebecca asked.

  Tim laughed and butchered the cucumber he was slicing. “Why? I mean, come on.”

  Harry stopped stirring. “Well, you do have a beautiful wife. So it’s a reasonable question.”

  Everyone turned to Harry with “good point” expressions, relieved for the reprieve.

  Tim glanced at Ellie, who was ripping apart the lettuce in slow motion. “Yeah, I know.”

  Keep going, Rebecca told herself. But carefully. Tim’s expression had softened somewhat. Tied for first place with a hundred other rules in divorce mediation was to never make either party feel attacked.

  “So … scoring isn’t about just sex, then?” Rebecca asked.

  Foot in mouth, Rebecca. Why had she asked that? That wasn’t the right question. She didn’t want to lead him to yes, that he was looking for more than a casual romp.

  She rushed to add, “I mean, because you do have this beautiful wife at home, this woman who loves you, this woman you did marry, what makes you want to hook up with other women?”

  She wasn’t sure that was better. But at least it wasn’t such a yes-or-no question.

  “Jesus, this is all a little personal,” Tim muttered. “Why does any guy want to screw other women? Why do you?” he said to Harry. “Why do you?” he added to Charles.

  Rebecca glanced at Joy, who was now working on the sauce at the center island. Joy’s shoulders stiffened for just a moment. It was clear she was waiting—holding her breath, perhaps—for the answer.

  “I don’t,” Harry said.

  Tim rolled his eyes. “Right.”

  Harry gave the ravioli a stir. “It’s the truth. Whatever problems Joy and I are having, it’s not about me straying. Would never and have never.”

  Tim raised his eyebrow. “Please. You’ve been married, what? Like, four years. Talk to me when you’re married ten.”

  “Tim, we’ve been married for two years,” Ellie said. “So what’s your point?”

  Tim gulped his wine. “I’m just sayin’.”

  “And they have a three-year-old child,” Charles put in. “If a child doesn’t add stress to a marriage, I don’t know what will.”

  Aimee’s shoulders slumped.

  “Well, that’s an entirely different area of discussion,” Rebecca quickly added. “Tim and Ellie don’t have children. So then, what’s your deal, Tim? Why are you acting like you’re still single?”

  Tim hacked another cucumber. “I’m not acting like I’m single. I just like to party. What, I can’t go out and have fun because I’m married?”

  Ellie shook her head. “It’s the kind of fun you’re having that’s the problem.”

  “The scoring part, I presume?” Rebecca asked. “You never really did answer the question. Why do you mess around with other women when you have Ellie at home?”

  Tim slid the mess of cucumber slices into the salad bowl and then slammed the bowl down so that the cucumbers flopped right back out. “Jesus Christ, what do you people want from me? I don’t know, okay? No, I do know—for the fun of it. Satisfied?”

  “Tim, no one’s ganging up on you,” Harry said. “It’s just a conversation. We’re all just trying to figure out what’s going on with us, and right now, you’re up.”

  “Lucky me. Can I at least have a beer?” Tim asked. “I’m not really into wine.”

  Harry got a Sam Adams from the refrigerator and uncapped it. “Not cold yet, but here.”

  Tim gulped half of it.

  “Let me just ask you this,” Ellie said, her eyes red-rimmed. “Is it fun because there’s no emotional component? Nothing tied to it? Or is it fun because there’s the possibility of that, too—that you might actually fall for someone you hook up with?”

  He barely looked at Ellie, preferring the floor or the rainbow-colored tile backsplash along the stove wall. “It’s not like I’m looking for another relationship. I know I’m married. Sometimes it’s about the thrill of the chase, sometimes it’s just about the fun of how it is when you first meet someone and you’re flirting.”

  Ellie’s face crumpled. “So you’re saying you don’t really know? You could see meeting someone and falling in love?”

  Tim glanced around at everyone. “Oh, come on, who can’t?”

  “I can’t,” Harry said.

 
; “I can’t,” Charles seconded.

  “Me either,” Ellie said, and burst into sobs.

  Rebecca ran into the bathroom off the kitchen for the box of tissues. She handed it to Ellie, who clutched it like a lifeline.

  “Can I ask you something, Tim?” Rebecca said as she helped Charles slide four loaves of garlic bread into the oven while Aimee cleaned up the garlic and put away the butter. “Why did you propose to Ellie? I mean, she’s a lovely young woman, but why did you want to get married in the first place?”

  Tim let out a deep breath. He glanced at Ellie, who was trying to stop crying. “I didn’t, really. You kept pressuring me, though, right? Hinting about a ring … And then, I don’t know, my father died and I was really low about that, and Ellie was really great—you were really there for me—and I guess I just got her a ring one day and proposed, but then a while later, I started feeling like I always did, like I wanted to go out and party and meet women and have fun.”

  “But now is now,” Ellie said, dry-eyed. “Now is now and I need to know. Will you stop running around? I need to know now.”

  “You’ve been saying that since we hooked up two and a half years ago, Ellie.”

  “And if she’s now saying your affairs are a deal breaker?” Rebecca prompted.

  Tim glanced from Rebecca to Ellie, who stared at him. “She can say it, but I don’t think she means it because she never means it. She always lets me come home eventually.”

  Ellie stood, her hands braced on the chair. “What if I told you right now that this is it. That there’s no coming back. That if you can’t tell me right now you choose me, you choose our marriage, that I’m filing for divorce on Monday?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t believe you, I guess. I don’t think you’ll do it.”

  Rebecca noticed that he didn’t even seem to flinch at the word divorce.

  “So you won’t tell me right now, pledge in front of all these people to be faithful, to be my husband?” Ellie asked Tim.

  “Jesus, Ellie, come on. I do love you. Doesn’t that count for something? It’s not like I want to break up.”

  Everyone stared from Tim to Rebecca.

  Rebecca turned on the light switch to peer at the garlic bread. “Break up? Tim, when you’re married, it’s called divorce. That’s very serious. And very painful.”

  “Yeah, man,” Charles said. “You’re not in high school, for Pete’s sake.”

  “I’m who I am,” Tim said, then gulped the rest of his beer. “Take me or leave me. Whatever.”

  Whatever. What an ass. Ellie deserved so much more than this.

  “Timothy Rasmussen,” Ellie said, staring at him. “Do you want to be married to me? In all that that means.”

  “If that means being fucking miserable for the rest of my life, then no, I don’t.” He slammed down the beer bottle on the counter.

  Ellie ran out of the kitchen. Rebecca heard her heels on the stairs. “I’m filing for divorce on Monday,” she called from the landing. “So just go, Tim. Get out of here. There’s nothing left to say.”

  All eyes turned to Tim, who was pulling open the refrigerator in search of another Sam Adams.

  “Is there anything left to say?” Rebecca asked Tim. “Are you going to walk out of here? Walk out on your marriage? Let her divorce you?”

  He stiffened, but resumed his search of the beer. He took out a bottle and uncapped it, then sighed and set it down on the counter and walked into the living room.

  Rebecca glanced at four people holding their breath. They all crowded into the doorway so as not to look like they were spying, which of course they were.

  Tim stopped just before the landing. He stared up at Ellie. “For what it’s worth, Ellie, I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s worth shit,” she called back, and ran inside their room, then reappeared a moment later with his brown leather jacket and his duffel bag, which she flung down at him. The jacket hit him in the face, and the duffel bag landed with a thud at his feet. He picked it up.

  “I’m gonna walk down to the tavern we passed,” he said to no one in particular. “I’ll call a buddy to come get me.”

  And with that he was gone.

  When dinner was ready and gentle knocks on Ellie’s door hadn’t brought her back down, Joy brought up a plate, but reported that Ellie waved the plate away and sobbed on her bed. Rebecca planned to try a little later with an Irish coffee and one of Marianne’s pumpkin whoopie pies.

  And so the heavy-hearted group sat at the beautiful old farmer’s table in the dining room and poked and picked at the food. Only Charles seemed to have an appetite.

  “This is Tim,” Harry said, taking his fork and using the back of it to smush a cherry tomato. But it was too firm and he gave up. “Fitting, since I guess he did win.”

  Joy speared a piece of ravioli, but then put her fork down. “He lost, really. Ellie’s the best thing that’s ever going to happen to an ass like Tim. It’s hard to imagine another great person actually falling for him.”

  “He doesn’t seem to want that, anyway,” Charles said, taking a piece of garlic bread from the basket in the center of the table. “He doesn’t seem to know what he wants.”

  There was no disagreeing or discussion to be had about that bit of truth, so they ate in silence until Ellie could be heard coming down the stairs in the high-heeled ankle boots she’d bought especially for the trip.

  “I called Maggie,” she said as she came into the dining room. “She’s coming to pick me up.” She carried a pack of tissues in her hand, but seemed to be out of sniffles or tears at the moment. She glanced around the table. Joy had taken away Tim’s chair and everyone had moved over to make his absence less glaring. But perhaps the gesture had the opposite effect.

  Joy stood. “I’m sorry, Ellie. I know you had very different hopes for this trip.”

  Ellie sat and took a piece of plain Italian bread from another basket, alternating between eating little pieces and ripping the chunk into shreds. “At least I know for sure. At least there’s no more, ‘What do you think that meant?’ He made himself clear in front of witnesses.”

  “Are you going to file for divorce on Monday?” Aimee asked.

  Ellie nodded. “Maggie said she had a really good lawyer.” She burst into tears and Rebecca pulled her chair closer, sliding her arm over Ellie’s slight shoulder.

  “I’m so sorry, Ellie,” Rebecca said.

  Ellie sniffled and dabbed under her eyes with the wad of tissue. “I know you’re probably feeling bad about the conversation not exactly turning out the way I wanted. But you did what no one’s been able to do since we’ve been breaking up and getting back together for two years. You got him to the truth. And you got him to say it. I’ve just wanted him to say it, you know? Or maybe I haven’t. I guess I haven’t. I guess I was never ready for it. But I am now, as much as it hurts.”

  “We’re all here for you, Ellie,” Joy said. “No matter what you need, okay?”

  Ellie sniffled and nodded and managed to eat a few bites of her pumpkin whoopie pie. Harry fixed her an Irish coffee in a thermos, and thirty minutes later, when the crunch of a car could be heard on the gravel drive, Ellie and her bags were gone.

  Harry made Irish coffees for everyone (a virgin for Charles, who didn’t drink) and the group gathered in front of the big stone fireplace in the living room. The two couples each shared a love seat, and Rebecca sat on the rocking chair facing them.

  “Aren’t you supposed to ask how the Ellie-and-Tim business made us feel?” Charles asked.

  Rebecca smiled. “Told you I wasn’t a therapist. But how did it make you all feel?”

  “I’ll tell you how it made me feel,” Harry said. “Sick to my stomach.” He looked at Joy and took her hand with both of his. “It made me realize that we’ve got our share of problems, but immaturity isn’t among them. That we can work on what’s been causing these stupid fights and cold wars.”

  Joy’s face crumpled with emotion, relief, and h
appiness, and then she burst into tears. She could only nod. He took her by the hand and led her upstairs.

  Watching a marriage implode in front of their eyes had done something to the two other married couples, and by breakfast on Saturday, there was a magic in the air. The fragility, what they stood to lose, had turned both the Jayhawk-Joneses and the Cutlasses into “whatever you want, honey” peacekeeping romantics.

  “No, whatever you want,” Charles said to his look-alike wife when Joy asked if anyone wanted the heat turned on. The temperature gauge attached to the bark of a tree outside the kitchen window read 51 degrees. Cold enough to Rebecca to turn on the heat, but perhaps not for true Mainers. Everyone except Rebecca wore a fleece pullover.

  “My work here is done,” Rebecca said with a smile as she set down the carafe of coffee on the dining-room table. Once again, the group had cooked together, Harry on western omelets, Charles on bacon, Aimee on bagels (Mainers did not eat untoasted bagels the way New Yorkers did), Joy on the fresh-squeezed orange juice, and Rebecca on coffee (she was on her third cup).

  Charles Cutlass added a helping of bacon to his plate, ate a piece in two bites, and said, “They scared the shit out of me.”

  His wife’s eyes widened and she laughed. “Did you just swear? He never curses.”

  Charles placed his hand over his wife’s. “I don’t want something to happen to us. I’m really not so sure if I’m ready to be a father right now. But if it’ll make you happy, truly happy, I’ll go ahead with looking into adoption. China, Guatemala, whatever you want.”

  Aimee squeezed his hand. “And I want you to be happy. But I really believe that you won’t feel differently a year from now or two years. You’ll always think you’re not ready. And I’ll just be sitting in wait. I think once you become a father, once you hold that baby in your arms, you will feel what I feel. I say that based on having known you for seven years, Charles. I love you enough not to force you into something I don’t think would make you happy.”