I felt my pulse quicken. “So you’ll be taking on debt.” More debt, I thought, my mind flashing, almost like a reflex, to the copy of the prenup I’d tucked in a shoe box in our closet.
Michael didn’t seem to hear me. “I need investors, but Raj is going to help with that. He’s fronting me some money, too. There’s this other guy from my marketing class whose dad is really rich; his name is on a plaque above one of the classroom doors. I’m going to ask him to kick in five thousand. I think if he knows Raj is doing it, and I’ve got Whole Foods behind me … Now I need to rent a place to make the water; this kitchen is too small. I need a U-Haul to get the stuff up to Buffalo—I found a good bottler there …” And he was off, again, sprinting for his laptop, while I frowned and stared after him.
By the time Whole Foods let Michael set up a little tasting table in their store, everything had somehow come together. The customers never saw the mistakes and setbacks—the cases of bottles that were labeled upside down, the batches of DrinkUp that turned out too sour before Michael tweaked his recipes for mass production, and the endless hours he spent on the phone, cajoling investors who’d dropped out because the risk seemed too great, finding replacements, and begging his bottler to delay the bill in exchange for a percentage of the first two years’ profit. The only thing they noticed was a polite young man in a freshly printed DrinkUp apron, standing there and charming them into accepting a cup as they walked by.
“You look like a soccer star,” Michael called to a ten-year-old boy. “This stuff’ll give you energy you won’t believe when you’re on the field. Here, take a cup for your mom, too. It’s much better for him than Gatorade, and one bottle has a day’s worth of ten vitamins. Now, how about you, sir? Take a sip of my Not-Too-Sweet Lemonade and see if it doesn’t remind you of the lemonade stand you had when you were a kid. How’d I know you had one? Because you look like an entrepreneur.”
He never stopped talking, never grew tired, never wavered in his belief that his drinks were exactly what customers needed. And they began to believe it, too; I stood near the checkout aisle and saw the carts—not all of them, but some—had bottles of DrinkUp tucked in among the free-range chicken breasts and organic salad greens and pita chips. He’d picked the perfect store to launch his product, I realized, feeling my respect for Michael bump up another notch. I wandered over to where he held court like a carnival barker and snapped a photo as he held a little paper cup aloft. Later I framed it and put it on my desk in my office; it has always been my favorite picture of him.
The pallets sold out quickly—every last bottle—and Whole Foods followed up with an order for ten more. But this time, Michael got paid. And years later, he had the last laugh when Georgetown gave him an honorary degree.
I hate to admit that so many other people believed in Michael before I did. But when he and I got married, I was the richer one. I knew he was planning to hire salespeople to cold-call on grocery stores and gourmet markets. He was desperate to stay ahead of the pack. “When everyone sees me taking off, they’re going to jump all over this,” he often said, tightening his jaw in his best imitation of a threatening, 150-pound man.
All those salaries, all those flights around the country … I couldn’t help adding up the costs in my mind, but Michael never hesitated in taking on even more debt, or wooing more backers. His student loans were exorbitant, too.
But it wasn’t my debt, I reassured myself as my husband methodically built his company by selling bottle after bottle. I’d never be like my mother, wiping down tables at age sixty because I’d tied my fortunes to the wrong man. Michael’s company couldn’t hurt me.
* * *
Thirteen
* * *
ONE MORNING AFTER WE’D been married for a couple of years, I opened my eyes to find Michael leaning over me, waving a copy of USA Today inches away from my face.
“I’m asleep,” I groaned, batting away the paper. The previous night I’d held a beach-themed fiftieth birthday party for a woman who’d insisted on filling the dance floor with real sand. The cleanup had lasted longer than the actual party.
“Look,” he whispered.
I yawned and rubbed my eyes. “Oprah’s producing another movie?” I asked, scanning the headlines.
“The photo,” he said, his voice strangled.
I glanced at him, then sat up straighter. There it was: on the table next to Oprah Winfrey, within reach of her famous bejeweled hand, was the beverage she’d consumed during the interview. DrinkUp’s Berrywater.
“Michael!” I leapt out of bed, instantly awake, and flung my arms around his neck.
“Do you know what this means?” he shouted, grabbing me around the waist and hoisting me into the air and dancing me around our apartment. “I’ve gotten a hundred messages this morning from store owners and customers and suppliers wanting to know where to buy Oprah’s water. When the interviewer asked her about it, she said Madonna recommended she try it, and now she drinks it every day. She said it gives her energy. Every fucking day! I could’ve bought ten Super Bowl ads and it wouldn’t have done this for my company! Jules, this is it!”
“You did it!” I squealed.
Michael put me down, and I ran over to an open window, leaning out of it and screaming, “Oprah and Madonna love my husband’s water! They freaking love it!”
A sleepy-sounding voice shouted back: “Tell them to shut up!”
“We did it,” Michael said, his voice awed and quiet now. We stood there, staring at each other and breathing hard, I in one of Michael’s old T-shirts and he in one of his even older T-shirts, feeling the molecules shift and rearrange all around us, and knowing nothing would be the same, ever again.
“Come here, you,” I said, my mouth curving into a smile. I wanted to feel his thin arms wrapped around me and hear the sound of his rapid heartbeat echoing in my ears. I wanted to kiss him forever, then take him out for pancakes and champagne. This was the moment we’d dreamed of, back when we’d saved our dollars in an old cigar box. No—we’d never dreamed this high. At least, I hadn’t.
Michael wagged his eyebrows. “Exactly what did you have in mind, Mrs. Dunhill? Are you thinking impure thoughts?”
“Come find out.” I grinned, but Michael’s cell rang again and he snatched it up.
“I saw it,” he said, his hand slipping away from my mine as he walked out of the room. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Five. I need to capitalize on this, fast. Here’s what I’m thinking …”
“I’m sorry, Julie,” he whispered, ducking his head back through the doorway and covering the mouthpiece with one hand. “Tonight. We’ll celebrate tonight.”
But when I fell asleep that night, naked and cold, the space in bed beside me was empty. By the time I woke up, Michael was already gone, leaving nothing but the faint imprint of his head on a pillow to prove he’d been there at all.
* * *
Fourteen
* * *
I STARED STRAIGHT AHEAD at the double yellow line stretching out on the road in front of us. Our driver was gone; Michael had given him, Naddy, the gardeners, and our chef glowing recommendations and a year’s salary, and our house seemed eerily quiet without their constant bustle. Now it was just Michael and me heading to the grocery store. We were out of milk. Everything was collapsing into a jagged, dusty heap all around us, and here I was doing errands with my husband like it was any other mundane weekend afternoon. Somehow it seemed like ordinary life should’ve frozen around us, but the car still needed gas and the newspaper kept arriving and the refrigerator grew emptier with each passing day.
When Michael had seen me shake the last few drops of milk into my afternoon cup of tea, he’d stood up from the kitchen table.
“I’ll get some more,” he’d said. “We’re out of orange juice, too. Is there anything else you need?”
I’d shaken my head and turned away from him. But when Michael had picked up the car keys, I’d abruptly set down my mug and headed for the Maserati. I
didn’t feel like staying in the house.
Now Michael briefly took his eyes off the road to look at me. “I know you’re thinking about leaving me,” he said. “Anyone would be, in your shoes. Just give me a little time before you decide.”
My jaw felt as rigid as concrete; I could barely force out the words: “I don’t know.” I turned my head to stare out the window. Coming with Michael had been a mistake; I was too upset to talk to him.
“I don’t know why I was sent back and given a second chance,” he continued, his voice as casual as if he was discussing the passing scenery. “But the minute I opened my eyes and realized I was lying on a floor with everyone staring down at me, everything changed. My cars and clothes and houses looked so useless. Silly, even. What I felt when I died was … the connectedness of us all, of everyone on Earth, and I suddenly knew I had the chance to help people. To make up for—”
I cut him off; I’d heard enough. “Why can’t you give me some time before you sell everything?” I asked. “Wait a year. If you still feel the same way, you can sell the company then.”
Something flickered in Michael’s eyes. I knew that evasive look well; it meant he wasn’t telling me something. “I just … have to do it now. Right away.”
“Why are you being so illogical?” I shouted. “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
“I know it doesn’t make sense to you, Julia,” he said, his voice soft. “It wouldn’t have to me either, a few weeks ago. But when I was dead—I can’t even believe I’m saying ‘dead,’ because in those minutes I felt more alive than I’ve ever been—but when I died—”
“Michael! Stop talking about that, okay? You’re not floating on a puffy cloud and listening to harp music, damn it. You’re here with me, and you’re trying to give away everything we own. You’ve got to deal with reality!”
“It wasn’t really like that, but okay,” he said a moment later. “I won’t talk about that part, not until you’re ready to hear it. But can I tell you what the worst thing is for me? I keep thinking about how I wasted all those years with you. I should’ve taken weekends off. I should’ve gone to Paris with you. I can’t believe I never took you on a honeymoon. Julia, we’ve grown so far apart …”
I turned my head to stare out the window and didn’t say anything; too many turbulent emotions were swirling inside me. Anger and sorrow and fear, but something else, too. A glimmer of something that almost felt like hope. For just a moment, those afternoons by the river flashed through my mind. I thought about how Michael and I used to lay together for hours, talking like we’d never stop. Could we possibly have that again?
When I’d first seen Kate’s message on my BlackBerry, telling me Michael was in the hospital, panic had seized me so sharply it forced the breath from my lungs. The words blurred on the screen as my mind screamed No! and my legs gave out like someone had kicked them out from under me. I calmed down considerably during the drive to the hospital, but during those first few raw moments …
Maybe some part of me did still love him. I tested out the thought, then shook my head briskly, trying to whisk it away. It didn’t matter. Michael wasn’t trustworthy. I couldn’t believe anything he said, when he’d twisted around everything he’d promised once before. For all I knew, in two weeks he’d change his mind again and abandon me to build another company, or change his name to Om and go chant mantras in a yogi’s hut.
“I’ve done so much wrong in my life,” Michael was saying. He slowed to a stop at a red light. “I’ve focused on all the wrong things. We should have had”—I felt his eyes on me again—“a baby.”
I felt an awful wrenching in my chest, and I gripped the leather edges of my seat, wanting my fingernails to scratch the expensive material. My anger rose again, so swiftly it nearly choked me. How dare Michael cavalierly toss around the idea of having a child? Whenever we’d talked about it before, he’d always said he didn’t want kids. His company was his real baby, the one he nurtured and cherished and watched grow.
“It wouldn’t be fair to the child,” Michael had said when I’d brought it up. Funny, but even though we’d talked about everything else back in high school, we’d never once discussed whether we wanted to have kids. “We work too much, Julia,” he’d said. “Who would take care of the baby?”
“I could scale back,” I’d argued. “And lots of people hire nannies.”
Michael had shaken his head. “I wouldn’t feel right about it,” he’d said. “I’m never home. I don’t want to ignore the kid like my dad did to me.”
At first I held on to hope that he’d change his mind, but as time passed, I didn’t bring it up for another reason. Part of me secretly wondered if it would be a good idea to bring a child into our marriage, since Michael and I were so distant. Still … the guest room closest to our bedroom was filled with windows that let in swatches of bright sunlight, and sometimes I used to linger in the doorway, seeing painted puffy clouds on blue walls and yellow stars on the ceiling. The crib would be tucked snugly in a corner, away from the windows, so the baby would never feel a cold draft, and an old-fashioned rocking chair with a pink or blue blanket folded over one arm would fit perfectly next to the crib.
But of course, Michael didn’t know about any of that, I thought, feeling bitterness rise in my throat. He was never home. He never talked to me anymore. And, the truth was, I’d given up trying to talk to him long ago, too.
“Now you’re just going to the other extreme,” I said through clenched teeth. My body was so tightly wound I felt like I might explode out of my seat and shatter through the car’s windshield. “Why does everything have to be so damn dramatic with you? First you’re a workaholic, now you’re Mr. Sensitive.”
“I’ve changed, Julia. I’m not the same man.”
“I was happy before,” I said.
“Were you?” he said gently. “Or did we just substitute stuff for happiness? Did we keep busy so we didn’t notice how little was in our lives other than work?”
“Are you gunning for Dr. Phil’s job?” I snapped. “You’ve got the lingo down, but you need to work on your good old boy accent.”
Michael hid a grin, which only infuriated me more. “You know the cliché about no one on their deathbed wishing they’d spent more time at the office? It’s true, it really is. When I realized I wasn’t ever going to see you again, I couldn’t bear to …” He paused and swallowed hard. “To leave you. Not like this. Not with so much wrong between us.”
He paused and kept his eyes on the road while he gathered himself. “It’s going to take about three weeks to finalize all the paperwork to give away my company,” he said. “Don’t decide if you’re going to leave until then. Give me one last shot, then you can walk away from me.”
“Michael, what if you’re making a mistake?” The words shot out of me. “What if a year from now you realize you want your company back?”
I saw his fingers fidget on the steering wheel.
“That’s not going to happen,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to lie to you, not ever again. I’m worried about you, too, Julia. I’m worried you care so much about money that it has twisted things for you. I just want us both to see that we can be happy without it. We don’t need it. We never did.” He reached over to put his hand on top of mine, but I yanked mine away. I saw him flinch, but I didn’t care. I wanted to hurt him.
“I don’t think I love you,” I said, carefully enunciating every word. He thought he knew what I needed? He didn’t know me at all. The glimmer of hope disappeared, like a bit of bright confetti sinking into murky water and swirling down a drain. “I haven’t loved you in a long time.”
“I don’t blame you,” he said. “But can’t we just talk about—”
“I don’t want to talk to you!” I yelled. “You’re ruining everything, Michael. You promised me so much.” My voice broke, but I kept on, the words tumbling out practically on top of each other.
“You swore you’d give me a good life. Remember
all those days by the river? We promised each other we’d have everything we ever wanted. And then we got it all and you left me. You were never home. You never wanted to be with me. You lied to me, you broke our vows! And I got used to that. I made peace with it, damn it! Now you’re changing the rules again. You’re not the only one in this marriage.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again, as though those two words could erase all the empty years between us.
“You didn’t go anywhere. You hit your head!” I shouted. “The electrical activity in your brain didn’t stop right away when you died. You just had some kind of crazy dream.”
“It was real,” Michael insisted. “The most real thing I’ve ever felt. As real as that tree,” he said, pointing out the window. “As real as the air we’re breathing.”
“You checked your BlackBerry when everyone else was kneeling to pray at that baptism,” I reminded him. “And when it buzzed, you clasped your hands together to hide it and frowned at the guy in front of you.”
“Julia, I believe in something now. I don’t know what to call it, but I felt love … it was there; it existed, wherever I was—”
“Let me out,” I suddenly demanded, fumbling for the door handle.
Michael glanced at me in surprise, but he kept driving.
“Stop!” I yelled, and his tires screeched against the pavement. I yanked open the door and scrambled out, onto the sidewalk.
“I don’t think I can be with you for three more seconds, let alone three weeks,” I said as I slammed the door shut as hard as I could. I spun around, shaking with anger. Why did Michael get to play God, just because they’d allegedly met? How dare he try to decide what was best for me. This was the worst thing he’d ever done, even worse than the time I’d picked up his BlackBerry and read that e-mail from Roxanne, asking if he could sneak out of work early and meet her again …
Skipping a Beat Page 10
