Skipping a Beat

by Sarah Pekkanen

  This isn’t real life, I reminded myself as he stood on his horse’s saddle, elaborately bowing to me while I laughed. This is just a reprieve from it.

  On our last night, we found a bistro and dipped chunks of bread and crisp vegetables into hot cheese fondues. “This has been nice,” I said to Michael after I’d eaten the final rich, tangy bite. “Thank you.”

  “Just nice?” He pretended to clutch at his heart, then motioned to the waiter for another bottle of cabernet. “If we had come here for our belated honeymoon, I would’ve taken you out to a romantic dinner and told you all the things about you I love.”

  “Unless you were checking your BlackBerry,” I said, keeping my tone light. I drained my wineglass and nodded my thanks at the waiter who refilled it.

  “Touché,” he said. “But sadly true. Here are the things I should’ve told you: I love the way you drink the same cup of coffee all morning long. You take one sip, then put it down and forget about it for an hour. Then you reheat it in the microwave and have another sip. I’ve never seen someone ration a cup of caffeine the way you do.”

  “That’s the best you would’ve come up with?” I said lightly. “And they say romance isn’t dead.”

  “I’m just getting started,” he said. “I love the way you get into fights with your scale; I heard you call her a bitch one morning.”

  “Must’ve been around the holidays,” I said. “She’s always out to get me then.”

  “I love the way you barely seem to lift up your feet when you walk, yet you never shuffle. You walking across a room is the most graceful thing I’ve ever seen,” Michael said. “I love the tiny freckles on your nose that come out when you’ve been in the sun; they form an almost perfect triangle. I love the fact that you have laugh lines—don’t worry, they’re so faint I doubt anyone else could see them—but you don’t have even a hint of one frown line.”

  I swallowed hard as I looked at him. This was the Michael I’d ached for, the guy who found everything about me endearing. Who made me feel special.

  “And I love your generous heart,” he said. “Any other woman would’ve walked away from me long ago.”

  A sudden sound made me twist around in my seat: A piano player had just started his set. He was squeezed into a corner of the small restaurant, separated from us by maybe a half dozen tables decorated with red cloths and little votive candles. I was glad he’d started to play; I didn’t want to think about all the reasons why I might leave Michael right now.

  “More wine?” Michael lifted up the bottle, and I nodded. And because I wanted to taste champagne in Paris, I had a glass of brut, too.

  I could blame what happened next on the alcohol, or on the fact that Paris acted like Michael’s wingman by setting a ridiculously romantic scene: It was an unseasonably warm night, and we’d thrown open the doors to our hotel room balcony. The long white curtains fluttered in the soft breeze, and the royal blue candles in the big candelabra on the dresser made the room glow with a soft light.

  After Michael locked the room door behind us, he looked at me, and even though he didn’t say a word, I felt him asking a question. I’d lost count of how long it had been since we’d last had sex—an occasional fumbling in our darkened bedroom late at night was what passed for our love life these days.

  Michael didn’t say a word, he just traced my cheekbones and nose and chin with his fingertips, then he slowly began to unbutton my blouse. And I repeated to myself, None of this is real.

  I woke up in his arms early the next morning.

  “Hey, you,” he whispered into my ear, his voice huskier than usual.

  I sat bolt upright, clutching the sheet to my chest, scenes from last night fluttering through my mind: Michael’s fingers gently running over my belly and thighs, his warm lips against my neck, him moving rhythmically inside me while I gripped his shoulders and wrapped my legs around his waist and cried out.

  His hands were still on me, resting possessively on my stomach, I realized, and I sucked in my breath sharply. I jumped out of bed, taking the sheet with me and leaving Michael naked and exposed.

  “What the hell?” I shouted. “You bring me to Paris and get me drunk and have sex with me?”

  “Julia, calm down. We didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Obviously not, Michael. We’re married. It’s not like we were cheating.” I flung out the words like weapons. “I had too much to drink. This doesn’t mean I’m in love with you, or—or that I’m going to stay with you!”

  “Julia … please, honey … just hang on a second,” he said. By now he’d scrambled off the bed and found his shirt on the floor and was pulling it over his head. I tore around the room, grabbing my jeans and sweater and boots, like we were in a race to get dressed in some bizarre postcoital TV game show.

  “Can we just talk for a second?” he asked as I shrugged into my clothes.

  But I couldn’t bear to be near him. I snatched up my jacket and purse and slammed the door, leaving him standing in the middle of the room trying to put on his boxers, with one leg ridiculously high up in the air like a flamingo.

  My mouth tasted sour and my head was pounding and I knew my hair was a mess; I was like a college kid doing the walk of shame after dollar shooter night at the local bar. I found an open bistro and hurried inside, ordering coffee and bottled water while avoiding eye contact with the waitress. No one would believe I’d just had sex with my husband; I was acting as stressed and jumpy as if I was wearing a scarlet H for Hussy on my chest. I hurried into the restroom while I was waiting for my beverages and did damage control, wetting a paper towel to rub over my face and slicking on a coat of pink lip gloss and running a brush through the snarls in my hair. My cheeks and eyes were blazing and, I saw as I leaned closer to the mirror, I had a little rash from Michael’s beard stubble rubbing my chin.

  I tilted my forehead against the mirror and shut my eyes. I couldn’t believe I’d slept with him. I’d thought I was being so logical as I held Michael at arm’s length, letting him woo me and put his heart on the line while I coolly considered whether to take him back. Now I’d blurred the rules; I’d twisted a new set of kinks into an impossibly knotted situation.

  I straightened up and walked back to my table and slowly sipped my beverages while I gathered myself. I knew I’d have to go back to the hotel sometime—our plane would leave later that afternoon—but I needed a few hours alone. I finally paid my bill and rose from my table and wandered outside and found a nearby park. I collapsed onto a wrought-iron bench and wrapped my arms around myself as I watched an old man in a tattered coat throw bread crumbs to a flock of hungry pigeons.

  I shouldn’t be so upset, I told myself. Having sex with Michael didn’t change anything; it didn’t mean I had to stay with him. It didn’t give him an edge. I was still in control of my own decision. So why was I blinking back tears?

  It was because it was so good.

  It wasn’t just a physical release; Michael kissed all my sensitive parts, the ones he knew so well, from the backs of my knees to the insides of my thighs to my eyelids. He told me over and over again how beautiful I was, how much he loved me. I felt his love; it was almost a physical presence in the room. And the way he looked at me, with such tenderness in his eyes … it was as if he was seventeen again, and he was discovering me for the first time. Afterward he rubbed my back, and when I curled on my side, too exhausted to stay awake any longer, he fitted his body alongside me and twined his fingers through mine. Just like he used to do, when we first fell in love.

  Making love with Michael forced me to realize what I’d be giving up if I left him. We could be good together, like we were before. And yet I still didn’t know if I could live with him, or ever trust him again.

  I looked up as a pair of young mothers walked past me, pushing babies in prams and chatting animatedly, and suddenly I discovered kids surrounding me. Two toddlers chased the pigeons, and another floated a little yellow plastic boat in the outdoor fountain. Still m
ore were heading into a school across the street that looked more like a museum, swinging their book bags and calling to one another in their high, young voices.

  If I stayed with Michael—if we found a way to work out all of our issues—would we have kids? I wondered. What kind of father would he be? If he took on a consultancy job, and worked less, and we somehow managed to reconcile everything that had happened in the past, reveal all of our secrets and not let them destroy us …

  If I stayed with him, I thought, burying my head in my hands. If I could forgive him for giving all our money away, and for everything that had happened before that.

  I knocked on the door to our room and heard Michael’s footsteps a moment before the door swung open.

  “Hi,” he said. He studied my face but didn’t ask any questions about where I’d been. “I got you something.” He handed me a little paper bag. I peeked inside and saw a green beret and felt my throat tighten. I’d admired one yesterday at a kiosk, but I hadn’t thought he’d noticed.

  “Thanks,” I said, clearing my throat. “I guess it’s time to go?”

  “I already packed both of our bags,” he said, gesturing. “But I left out your toiletries.”

  I nodded. “I just need to use the restroom.”

  I pulled my hair up into a ponytail and quickly rinsed off in the shower, then brushed my teeth and smoothed moisturizer on my face, my fingers carrying out the familiar rituals while my mind tried to sort out what to do next. I wasn’t ready to talk to Michael; I needed space. I put on my clothes again and covered my eyes with oversize sunglasses.

  We stood in the elevator like strangers, with enough room between us to comfortably fit two other people. The bellman had already called a taxi, and it was idling outside the hotel. I climbed in and stared out the window as we began to move, looking at the wide Seine, the gorgeous bridges, the narrow streets and the woman running through them in utterly impractical pink high heels. I instinctively reached for Michael’s arm to point out the woman, then let my hand drop back into my lap.

  I knew Michael had hoped this trip would bring us together, yet right now, I could barely stand to be near him.

  * * *

  Twenty-seven

  * * *

  I TURNED OFF MY cell phone as I settled into my airplane seat, and I didn’t turn it on again for nine long hours—until after we’d landed and caught a taxi back home. Later I’d wonder what might have happened if I’d been able to answer when Isabelle called. Maybe I could’ve figured out a way to convince her to come home. To help her.

  But I’d been floating high over the Atlantic Ocean, still feeling the red burn of Michael’s whiskers on my cheeks and pretending to doze against the back of my seat so I wouldn’t have to meet my husband’s eyes.

  “Remember how I thought Beth wanted to talk to me about a boyfriend?” Isabelle’s message began. I dropped my suitcase onto the floor of my bedroom at the jagged sound of her voice.

  “I couldn’t have gotten that one more wrong. She asked me to go. She wants me to leave, Julia. She was totally polite about it—she said she’s happy I came out and that we got to talk, but now she needs space. God, I thought … Well, you probably know what I thought. I had this whole crazy fantasy of coming out every month, and taking her to lunch, and talking to her on the phone every week…. I was even thinking she might end up going to college on the East Coast, and I could see her all the time. Dumb, huh?”

  I closed my eyes against the pain mingling through her words.

  “I mean, I didn’t get in touch with her for sixteen years, so it’s not like all of a sudden we can have this spontaneous relationship. She was kind enough not to say it, but I could tell that’s what she meant. I was a ‘surprise,’ Julia. That’s what she called me, which is sort of ironic because that’s exactly what she was for me, sixteen years ago. And now she’s got this whole life, this whole perfect, happy life, which is exactly what I wanted for her, but the thing is … what I hadn’t thought about was … Julia, she didn’t miss me at all.”

  A tear rolled down my cheek as I listened to her.

  “I held it together, and when she dropped me off at the hotel after dinner, I just told her to call anytime she wanted. And she looked at me with those clear eyes and then she hugged me and didn’t say anything. God, I just need to go somewhere.” Her voice broke on kind of a half laugh, half sob. “I’m going to take a cab to the airport and see where the next plane is heading. Maybe I’ll go to Spain and learn to flamenco dance. Maybe I’ll go to the South of France and just lie on a beach for a month—”

  The message cut off, but I held the phone to my ear for another beat, as if by doing so, I could keep clinging to Isabelle.

  “Julia?”

  Michael was reaching out for me, and for the second time in as many days, I let myself feel his arms around me. But this time it was different; there wasn’t any passion in his embrace. He just held me, while I cried for my best friend and her broken heart.

  “I can’t believe her daughter wouldn’t want to have a relationship with her,” I said later, blowing my nose into the tissue Michael had handed me. “Maybe if she were difficult or crazy … but it’s Isabelle. Who wouldn’t want Isabelle around?”

  Michael nodded slowly. “I don’t think their story’s over, though. Look at it from Beth’s point of view: Isabelle’s been building up to this for years, but Beth didn’t know about that. She needs time to adjust.”

  “So you think Beth will call her?” I asked.

  Michael leaned back against the headboard of our bed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Either that, or maybe send a note. I have this feeling she’ll get back in touch once she sorts out her feelings. It was probably really intense to get the letter and then have Isabelle there a few days later. I can’t imagine how emotional that would be. Maybe Beth feels like she needs to be loyal to her parents. Maybe she does just want a little space. But I think she’ll write again. They can start over again, and maybe take it more slowly next time.”

  “I hope so,” I said. “If you could’ve heard her voice, Michael …”

  “I was wondering …” He paused and cleared his throat. “If Isabelle feels even more alone because you were with me when it all happened.”

  I looked up at him in surprise; I hadn’t expected him to be so perceptive. I’d had only half of Michael’s attention for so long that I’d forgotten how it felt to have his focus on me—how he saw all the dimensions and nuances that other people usually missed.

  “I thought that, too,” I said. “I feel so guilty. I was off with you in Paris while she was dealing with all of this.”

  “She’s lonely, isn’t she?” Michael asked.

  I nodded. “She doesn’t let a lot of people see it. But yes.”

  He looked at me for a moment. “Loneliness was what drew you two together, wasn’t it?” he finally said. “I had my company, but you didn’t have anyone or anything.”

  I shrugged. “She’s the best friend I’ve ever had,” I said simply.

  “She’ll come back,” Michael said. “I promise you she’ll be back.”

  As Michael was loading the dishwasher later that night and I was losing a staring contest with a pint of Häagen-Dazs, he turned to me. “There’s something I’ve always regretted.”

  Somehow I knew exactly what he was going to say next. The entire evening had been tinged with melancholy, ever since Isabelle’s call, as if setting the stage for this moment.

  “I never went with you to visit your mother.”

  This was what Michael and I had been heading toward ever since he’d fallen to that conference room floor, I realized. For a brief moment I wanted to follow in Isabelle’s footsteps—to run away, as far and as fast as I could. But instead, I lifted my chin. “Let’s go.”

  “Right now?” he asked.

  I looked at the clock, did a quick calculation in my head. “We can get there by ten. It won’t be too late.”

  “I’ll get the car keys,”
he said, quietly shutting the door of the dishwasher and turning off the kitchen light.

  * * *

  Twenty-eight

  * * *

  WELCOME TO WEST VIRGINIA read the sign on the side of the road, but it was the only thing welcoming us. Our old town was so quiet that the lone noises on Main Street were the hum of our engine and the sound of our wheels spinning against the pavement. I rolled down my window, not caring that the night wind instantly made my eyes water, and stared as memories passed by: There was Covey’s Diner, where my family sometimes ate blueberry pancakes with warm maple syrup on Sunday mornings. And just off that side street was our little brick library, where Donna Milson always greeted me with smiling eyes behind her thick oval glasses, showing me the stack of books she’d set aside for me. There was the pharmacy where I’d slunk in at the age of thirteen, my eyes downcast and my face hot, to buy maxi pads. “You might find these more comfortable,” Christy the cashier had said, casually putting back my jumbo pack of pads and picking up a thinner brand. She’d slipped a Hershey’s bar into my bag, too, without charging me.

  West Virginia was often a punch line for jokes, but some of the finest people I’d ever met lived here. It wasn’t my hometown I’d been desperate to escape from; it was the pain of my final year here. People had tried to reach out to me during that time: Donna had dropped off a few books at my house after I avoided the library, but I’d stuck them, unread, in the return slot one night after the library was closed. Two of our neighbors, a retired couple who shoveled the whole sidewalk on their block whenever it snowed, had approached me one afternoon with a tin of banana bread and an invitation to talk, but I’d brushed them off with a mumbled excuse about homework. The only person I allowed in was Michael.