Still Life with Husband

by Lauren Fox

  “I think it’s really great that you can talk about interior decorating without feeling that your manliness is compromised,” I say, and wait three long, horrible seconds before he laughs.

  “Yes, I’m very secure that way. I could go on for hours about flower arranging, too.”

  “Not many guys can say that.”

  “What’s your sign? What’re your interior decorating inclinations?”

  “I’m a Leo, and actually this really fits. We’re supposed to be all about bright colors and creative decorating.” I have a vision of Kevin’s and my bedroom, of the abstract print I bought at the museum last year, all splashy purples and greens. Hanging above our bed, our bed that is covered with a sunny yellow quilt. “It’s true,” I mumble. “I really go for bright colors.”

  “I had an aunt who was an astrologer,” David says. “I used to spend summers with her. Until she started baking birthday cakes for her plants. But, before that, she was really into all of it, astrology and tarot, and she made it seem very legitimate. Almost scientific, in a weird way. Or, prescientific, but somehow valid.”

  “That’s funny. I have an aunt who always says, ‘I don’t believe in astrology, but I’m a Sagittarius, and we’re very skeptical.’”

  David looks at me and laughs again and all of a sudden I know, if I had any doubts before: the deal is sealed. He’s gazing at me like I’m the cleverest person he’s ever met, like I’m a jewel he’s discovered buried in the sand. I see it in his eyes, and it turns me into liquid. Whatever this is, I’m going to have to face it.

  “How did you get into this racket?” I ask him, a traffic cop of conversation. Yield! Avoid intimacy!

  “My degree was in journalism. After college, while my friends were becoming Internet zillionaires, I decided to go the really lucrative route and write a novel,” he says, still not dropping his eyes from mine. “It was a comedy about three unlucky mercenary soldiers in Central America. I wrote a hundred-fifty pages of it before I realized I knew nothing about mercenary soldiers or Central America. Although I had been to El Salvador for a week in high school. But…oh, and I called it, Soldiers of Misfortune. I could actually see it on the New York Times best-seller list. That was how I’d lull myself to sleep at night, visualizing it. Number one, three weeks running. Sometimes it was number two, if I didn’t want to seem greedy. Anyway, I was having these vivid fantasies about my success, but I was living on ramen noodles. I woke up one morning and realized it was time to call it quits.”

  “And then what?” I ask, enthralled. David’s career search mirrors mine, and makes me feel legitimate. In spite of himself, the example set by Kevin—disciplined, rigorous, career-oriented Kevin—has always made it seem like you either have what it takes or you don’t. No in-betweens.

  “I got a job at a suburban paper in Chicago. I was living in the city, and it was a ninety-minute commute. And I sat through more school board meetings in three years than most school board members did. But then this came along five years ago, so I moved here.”

  “Do you ever wish you’d stuck it out with the novel?”

  “Sure. Sort of.” He sips his coffee, which must be cold by now; mine is. It doesn’t seem like he cares. “I wish I’d been able to persist and write a good novel. Soldiers of Misfortune wasn’t. But, I figure, I’m young. There’s still time.”

  If you walked into White’s Bookstore/Café on this particular chilly Friday morning and you saw us, David Keller and me, sitting at the table in the corner near the window, both of us occasionally sipping from big green mugs, talking, laughing, our bodies leaning forward, dark heads close together, you would see a small solar system, closed, impenetrable; you would see two people on a date—possibly, you would muse, a first date; undoubtedly, you would think, an excellent date. Unless you knew me, of course. Then you’d think, What’s Emily doing with that guy who’s not her husband?

  We talk for two hours that feel like ten minutes. We divulge silly, intimate things to each other. David blushingly admits that his favorite thing to do is to watch Woody Allen marathons and pick out all the references to Bergman. He tells me that he’s been researching Irish history, planning to take a walking tour of the country someday. I confess that I’m a closet fan of cheesy science-fiction novels, explaining in detail the plot of my favorite one, about two modern-day sleuths who time-travel to ancient Peru. We tell each other our life stories, magnified and heightened for maximum punch—I fell off the jungle gym when I was seven and broke both wrists! My sister convinced me that she and our parents found me in a junkyard one day when they were getting rid of their old refrigerator! I can practically feel sparks shooting off me and landing in his lap. And then, without warning, David glances at his watch and actually jumps.

  “Oh, no! Emily, I was supposed to be back in the office an hour ago. I have to go!”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, wondering if he blames me, if he’s going to go all Type A and anxious and fly out of here.

  Instead he rolls his eyes and smiles and says, calmly, “Do you think my boss will believe me if I tell him I was interviewing a confidential source?”

  “I don’t know. What kind of story are you working on?”

  “A history of the Nirvana Chocolate Company.”

  “Any chocolate-related scandals that would require top-secret interviews?”

  “There was the hot fudge debacle of 1957.”

  “Really?”

  “No….” He shifts in his chair. I’ve managed to pass two hours without mentioning Kevin. I edited him right out of my life story. I never lied, never said I was single, but I sure as hell sinned by omission. “But, look,” David continues. “Before we go, I should tell you something.”

  Shit. He has a girlfriend. A serious girlfriend. He’s married! He’s not even wearing his wedding ring! I can’t believe this! I’m crushed. I concentrate on keeping my face impassive. He looks embarrassed. Well, he ought to, the jerk!

  “I hope you don’t think this is weird, but I Googled you.” He blushes and looks down for a second. “I checked out some of your work. I read an article you did last year on Internet dating, and something a couple of years ago on holiday guilt. I talked about it with the editor-in-chief, and I think you should be The Weekly’s relationship expert. You know, an article every week on the ways people meet and date in Milwaukee….” He scratches his stubbly chin and pauses. “I think you’d be terrific for the paper.”

  I’m overwhelmed with something like relief (which almost manages to squelch the absurdity of David’s idea). It’s accompanied by a rush of excitement: he Googled me! And he likes my work! Followed on its heels by something very much like guilt. Here’s my chance. It has to be done. A sudden, surprising tidal wave of love for Kevin washes over me. I feel him in my head, which is where he lives when we’re not together. Everything I have thought, for the past nine years, I have sifted and sorted and filed away in the Tell Kevin Later folder. “I’m no relationship expert,” I say.

  “No?”

  “I mean, I’m…” Tell him. “I’m just no expert.”

  “Will you think about it? I think we’d be lucky to have you.”

  Oh, God. “Okay. I will think about it.”

  “Can I see you again?” he asks softly, as we both stand up to go.

  “Yes,” I say, hot with shame and self-loathing. Yes.

  I’VE DONE NOTHING WRONG. WHAT HAVE I DONE WRONG? Nothing.

  What’s more, I’m looking forward to seeing my husband. I am guilt-free (for the most part) and I’ve done nothing wrong! And I’m looking forward to having dinner with my husband, Kevin, and telling my husband, Kevin, about my day, including my appointment with this editor, and my new assignment. Relationship expert! I am looking forward to discussing it all with Kevin. Because I have free will, and I will keep not doing anything wrong. It’s not that I regret seeing David Keller, or even liking David Keller, which, let’s face it, I do; I can’t help it. It’s more like, I’m a juggler. These balls I am j
uggling are in the air, flying in fast circles above me, but I catch them and toss them; I am in complete control.

  Only, when Kevin finally comes home, just as dusk is casting a dim, gray blue light through the rooms of our apartment, he forgets to ask me about my day. He’s distracted, throws off his jacket and plops down on the chair in my study where I’ve been trying to proofread a manuscript on male-pattern baldness in chimpanzees.

  “Interest rates are going up,” he announces with a look of scolding disappointment, as if he’s just found out that Alan Green-span secretly calls me for advice. I raise my eyebrows at him. “Housing prices are on the rise, and interest rates are going up, and I was just doing some calculations, and if we want to Buy…” (these days Kevin says the word “buy” with a portent, a heft that clearly means he’s not talking about shoes) “…if we want to Buy in Deer Park or Lakewood, our salaries would have to increase by twelve percent this year, and I don’t know about yours, but mine’s not about to. Emily,” he says in a panic, barely stopping for breath, “that means, a house we can afford today will be beyond our means six months from now! If we don’t get on the ball here, we’re going to be priced right out of our first-choice suburbs!”

  “The polar ice caps are melting faster than scientists had predicted,” I say, stacking my chimpanzee pages on the edge of my desk.

  “Emily.”

  A few months ago, when Kevin first announced that make-wife-move-to-the-suburbs was the newest addition to his to-do list—the suburbs are the best place to raise a family, of course—I listened quietly, without much reaction, and then later picked a random fight with him. “You always make our weekend plans without consulting me. It’s disrespectful!” I shouted, blindsiding Kevin as he was pouring himself a glass of milk. “It’s piggish! Also,” I added, in full shriek, “you ate the last orange! You could have at least told me you were going to eat the last orange! YOU KNOW HOW I LOVE ORANGES!” It took me two days (and one sheepish apology) to finally conclude, with a satisfying jolt of insight, that not only was I not ready to have a baby, but that I didn’t want to move out of our little apartment in the city, either—our bustling corner of the city where the sidewalks are crowded with people, and the movie theater, the bookstore, and our favorite restaurants are all within a few blocks. Phew, I thought. Good thing I’ve figured this out before it’s too late. I’ll just go explain it to Kevin.

  But my revelation was a mosquito in his ear; he flicked it away. Since then, Kevin has pressed on in his quest for suburban migration, alternating between ignoring me and thinking he can change my mind by sheer persistence. He receives weekly listings from a real estate agent and leaves them in the bathroom and on the kitchen table where I’m sure to see them, and he schedules regular viewings for us. “This one,” he says every time we pull into another freshly paved circular driveway in Valley Glen or Glen Valley, “this one, you’re going to fall in love with.” And I go with him on these odysseys, most of the time—reluctantly, but still, I go. Because how do you tell your husband that the prospect of moving to the suburbs with him sounds like slow death? How do you tell your husband, who wants to take the next steps with you in your life together, to stop stepping?

  So now I just look at him as he waxes poetic about thirty-year mortgages, I watch as his lips move, notice that his lovely green eyes seem to darken as his excitement grows. I watch as he gestures and it strikes me, suddenly, how chunky his hands are. How thick his fingers. Like sausages, really. Like beef jerky. How is it that I’ve never noticed this before, the pink Slim Jimness of my husband’s hands?

  “I just really think we should get moving on this,” he says, waving his meaty fingers. “Get on the ball. Stop dawdling.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I guess we better get on the ball.”

  He nods, satisfied by my apparent acquiescence. He leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees, and then he just sits there, gazing slightly past me at the wall behind my head; I look down at my feet, at the off-white carpeting that needs to be vacuumed. For a minute we’re just sitting, silent, frozen, a portrait. Then suddenly Kevin says, “Hey! I’m starving. Have you given any thought to dinner tonight?”

  So I will keep my secret about David Keller, for now, and I will keep my thoughts to myself, and, without the need for discussion, we will order a mushroom and green-olive pizza from Alfredo’s, the way we always do.

  MEG LOOKS EDGY, HER FEATURES SHARP. IT’S ONLY BEEN A week, but she is a few pounds thinner, and I think, when I take my first look at her, that five pounds of happiness have been drained from her. She’s wearing nice charcoal gray pants, work pants—except that her work pants used to be paint-splattered jeans—and a lavender cashmere sweater set, which is very strange, since she told me on the phone that she’s barely left her house in a week and doesn’t have any plans to go anywhere. It’s like I’ve walked into Meg’s bizarro-world, where she’s an office manager at a medium-sized accounting firm instead of a grade-school art teacher on sabbatical. She’s wearing makeup, too, which is another flashing neon sign that things are not right. She seems somehow fragile but hard, breakable, like glass. It’s the first time I’ve seen her since her miscarriage, and, although she is my best friend and we’ve supported each other through romances and breakups and various disappointments from minor to major, we’ve never seen each other through grief. Therefore, I’ve baked chocolate chip cookies and brought them over to her house. I invited myself over this morning, after I finally realized that she wasn’t about to initiate a visit, that we weren’t just going to pick up our semiweekly breakfast dates quite yet. Which is actually okay by me. I’m not ready for my suddenly disparate, suddenly self-conscious worlds to collide.

  “How are you?” I ask, handing her the paper plate of cookies and bending to untie my shoes in the doorway. I picked out my approach on the drive over, like I was shopping for accessories: solicitous and tender, but also cheerful, at least until it became apparent that another mood was required. I thought I ought to be prepared, since I am out of my league here.

  “I’m okay,” Meg answers, rushing the words together so they sound like one, “Muhkay.” Their house smells, as usual, like cinnamon gum, although neither Meg nor Steve chews it. She bustles about, sets the cookies on the coffee table, takes my coat, tosses it over a chair, picks the cookies up, carries them into the kitchen. I follow in the wake of all of her swift, unnecessary movement. “Want something to drink?” she says, turning. “Tea? Or I could make sandwiches….”

  “Let’s just sit down and eat cookies,” I suggest, and pull out one of the solid kitchen-table chairs. “Pass them here.”

  “Thanks for bringing them,” she says, her voice flat, unrecognizable.

  I figure I should just wait for some kind of cue from her. “How’s Steve doing?”

  “Okay.” She begins to nibble on a cookie, so clearly uninterested in it, so obviously eating it for my benefit, my heart breaks a little.

  But I can’t wait. “And you? How are you, honestly?”

  Meg narrows her eyes and gazes into the space beyond me, past the kitchen doorway, at something that isn’t there. Against her newly pale face, her lips are red as blood. “Honestly?” she asks. “Half the time I’m all right and the other half I’m so mad I want to scream and break things and—really, Emmy, I see something solid and I want to destroy it. I had no idea I could be this angry. I’m exhausted, just from holding it in. Pretending to Steve that I’m sad but recuperating, like a normal person would be. Pretending I’m going to be okay…” She turns back to me with a little start, as if she’s surprised to see me. “But I don’t think I am going to be okay,” she says. “I know that women have miscarriages all the time, and then they go on to have healthy babies. And I was only eight weeks pregnant. Barely even pregnant. I was hardly even used to the idea. But you know what?”

  She stops talking, but I’m not sure why. Is she waiting for me to guess what “what” is? I shake my head.

  “I don’t beli
eve it’s ever going to happen for us again,” she says. “I don’t know why, but I think that this baby was our one chance, and now it’s gone. It sounds stupid. But I know it.” Before I can argue with her, she’s off and running. “You know what else? What the hell am I supposed to be doing with myself now? I’m on this break from my job, and it was like, being pregnant was my job. Retro, huh?” She exhales, a gravelly whoosh of air. “But now what the hell am I supposed to do?” This would be the time I would expect my best friend to be crying. But she just looks at me, her lips pressed together, her eyes steely. She smooths down the front of her sweater with trembly hands.

  “Meg, oh, I don’t know what to say to you,” I admit, pretense gone. “I don’t know how to make you feel better. That’s all I want to do.”

  “How can you?” she asks. “This kind of thing definitely qualifies as a girl’s own private hell.”

  “Well, do you know anything else concrete about the miscarriage?” The word unexpectedly embarrasses me, like “vagina.” “Did they say why this might have happened, or what might come next?”

  She sets the practically untouched cookie down on her napkin. “The doctor said that these things sometimes just happen. It probably doesn’t mean anything, especially so early. It’s not uncommon and it’s likely that I’ll carry my next pregnancy to term. That’s what they say, blah, blah, blah.” She sighs.

  We sit in silence for a while, awkward silence, I think, but maybe Meg is so deep in her sadness that she doesn’t feel the discomfort. To compensate, I eat three cookies. “Want to go for a walk?” I ask, brushing crumbs off the table and into my hand.

  Meg and Steve live across the street from an elementary school, and, naturally, just as we step outside, thirty five-year-olds emerge en masse from the building for recess, a carnival of brightly colored, puffy parkas and monkey-house screeches. I look over at my friend, who is watching the chaos intently.