Brendan looked poised to protest, but finally just nodded. “Anyway, I better …” He looked toward the bedroom door. “Want to walk me out?”
For a moment, Tracy was reminded of the days when they were dating. Though they had never really done “dating” in the traditional sense, there had been times, when they were still living apart, that Brendan left her alone in the brownstone after she ‘walked him out.’
At the door, before he bounded down the steps to the sidewalk, he always paused to kiss her goodbye. And almost every time, Tracy felt the tiniest flicker of panic that he might not come back; that there was something she may have done or said and messed up. Something that unbeknownst to her, had been his “last straw.”
After their fights, which were fairly regular in the beginning, the fear was especially profound. And yet, she was almost always the one to start those fights. Tracy would walk him out, stand at the door, and try to discern from the enthusiasm in his kiss, the tone of his voice, his posture as he walked away, whether he would be back.
“You comin’?” Brendan asked now.
Tracy sat up, then stood, wrapping the bed sheet around her like a toga and gathering its length in her fist, followed him out to the foyer. At the door, hand poised on the doorknob, Brendan turned, and dipped his head to kiss her. Getting up on her toes, Tracy kissed him back, but just as he opened the door, stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Wait,” she said. “I wanted to tell you something first.”
Brendan waited.
“I lied before. The bedroom. The reason it’s so messy? It’s not that I had other priorities, or whatever. It’s kind of like an … exercise.”
“An exercise.”
“Yes. From Dr. Greer.”
Brendan’s head tilted to one side, his eyes narrowed.
“I told her about how anxious it makes me when things are out of place. How I feel a sense of calm when I have everything in our house in perfect order …”
Brendan nodded, no doubt thinking about how obsessive she sometimes was about things as small as a glass being placed without a coaster. Or a wet umbrella left leaning at the front door, making a puddle.
“She told me to try not controlling my environment as an experiment. To see how it made me feel. She told me to ‘embrace the chaos’. Just for a little while.”
“I like how you keep our homes. I don’t see that as a …”
She was touched by his knee-jerk instinct to defend her against something that to him had to sound like self-criticism. Brendan had always been her protector in that way.
“I know, Brendan. But I don’t think that’s the point. She isn’t saying I shouldn’t keep a clean house. She’s saying that being so fanatic about it is a symptom of me needing to exercise control over everything. And that I should see, in this small way, what not being in control might feel like. To conquer that need.”
He nodded, and his eyes flickered, like he was remembering something.
“So, how’s that going?” he asked.
“Day four of not cleaning the bedroom,” she said. “And I haven’t lost my nerve yet. I almost kind of like it.”
“Sure,” he drawled.
She hunched her shoulders and grimaced. “Okay, fine. It’s more like … I don’t hate it.”
“You are going to wash those sheets though, right?” He nodded toward the mass she had wrapped about her.
“Maybe not,” she said in a singsong voice. “Maybe I want to sleep in our funk and spunk for the next few days.”
“Don’t say ‘spunk’.” Brendan grinned and leaned in to kiss her one last time. “It freaks me out a little bit to hear my wife use porn dialogue.”
“We use plenty of porn dialogue,” Tracy reminded him.
Brendan shook his head and grinned at her again. “Yeah, but only … you know… when we’re in the act of doin’ porno type shit.” He bit his lower lip. “Anyway, I gotta …”
Then he turned to leave, and Tracy felt that old familiar panic. Though this interlude had been wonderful, and unexpected, the negative voices still reared their heads.
“Brendan,” she said, stopping him once again.
He stopped, looking at her curiously, probably hearing the urgency in her tone.
“You want to … maybe come over tonight, for dinner? I’d cook for us. If … I mean, if there’s someone to look after Layla?”
The smile that lit up her husband’s face was like the reappearance of an old friend.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’d like that.”
18
If you’re here to see me, you have ten seconds, man.”
Brendan collided with Justin Hoyt, who was entering his office just as he was leaving it.
“It’ll take a little more time than that.”
Brendan paused. “Can we walk while we talk?”
Justin hesitated. “Sure.”
Brendan noted that Justin said nothing until they were both in the elevator, then he turned, his expression that of someone who had come to deliver bad news.
“I’ma have to let her go,” he said.
“Her who?” Brendan asked, though he was pretty sure he already knew.
“Simone.”
Brendan shrugged. “Your call.”
“You don’t have a problem with that?”
“In general, no. Is there a reason I should have a problem with it?”
Justin said nothing but shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“Speak, man. Because once I hit the pavement outside, I’m off the clock.”
Just then the elevator dinged, signaling their arrival at the ground floor. By the time the doors opened, Justin had still not spoken. Brendan stepped out, and Justin followed.
“So, here’s the thing,” he began. He grimaced and chewed on the corner of his lip.
“Justin,” Brendan said, looking at the other man out of the corner of his eyes. “You better not say what I think you’re about to say.”
“I didn’t fuck her,” Justin said quickly. He lowered his voice, glancing over his shoulder.
He pulled Brendan over to one side of the lobby, away from the traffic of people entering and exiting the building.
“But …” Brendan prompted.
“There was a little bit of … you know, we kinda flirted a little bit. Drank too much a couple times at happy hour. That kind of thing. And I was worried that she might …I don’t know, make trouble or something.”
“Did you touch her?” Brendan asked, speaking slowly. “In any way whatsoever. Hand on her back, squeezing her shoulder … patting her ass …”
“You crazy? Mila would shank me if I ever …”
“You’re not lyin’ to me, are you?”
“No, man. I’m tellin’ you the God’s honest truth.”
“So, what exactly are you worried about?” Brendan pressed.
“Some of the conversations were a little, I don’t know, maybe they could be interpreted as inappropriate.”
“Tell me the worst one.”
“One time, we … one time we were kind of fucked up, and we were talking about body types. And preferences for … body types … you know, it was …”
“Whose preferences? Yours?”
“Yeah. And hers too. We were just messin’ around but …”
“Okay, I ain’t got time for this right now. But do not fire her. Not until you and me talk about this in more detail. Tomorrow, come to my office at eight o’ clock sharp, and then we gon’ talk about why you suddenly need to let her go.”
“It’s not sudden, man. You know that. This little social experiment we been doin’ with the artists she was tryin’ to develop … it ain’t workin’. And she’s a big part of the reason why. In my career I ain’t never had my team perform as bad as we’re doin’ right now.”
“Funny, she said the same about you.”
Justin’s eyes opened wide. “What?”
“She went over your head, man. Came to me weeks ago. Befor
e you presented your second quarter numbers.”
Shaking his head, Justin bit hard into his lower lip and looked down at his feet. “Man …”
“Here’s what I need you to do. Go back to your office, scour every corner of your sorry-ass brain and write down for me any encounter, any conversation, any email of even a vaguely inappropriate nature you might have had with Simone. Bring that list with you tomorrow when we meet. And then, we’ll figure out whether you’re out of a job as well as her.”
“Brendan, man …”
“I warned your ass,” Brendan said, stabbing a finger at Justin’s chest. “I told you that …”
Brendan’s phone chimed, and he glanced at the face, then sighed, turning it so that Justin could see it. There was a text message. From Simone.
Are you gone for the day? It read. Need to meet with you if possible.
“Something you need to tell me, Justin? Something I need to know about?”
“No. I’m telling you everything.”
“Well spend the night thinking about the rest of the ‘everything’ you might be forgetting and be ready to tell me all about it tomorrow.”
Justin nodded. He looked miserable. And it was only right that he should. Brendan had had many a fling in his day with co-workers but never crossed a line with a subordinate. He only hoped for Justin’s sake that he hadn’t done so with Simone.
“We need to stop doin’ this,” Brendan said, pulling on his pants without bothering to look for his socks.
“Why? Aren’t you enjoying it? It’s kind of fun. Like having an affair with your spouse.”
Tracy was still in bed, and would probably stay there, except maybe to get some of the Chinese food they hadn’t gotten around to when he arrived an hour earlier.
They’d fallen into the habit of him ‘stopping by’ lately. He damn near broke his neck a couple nights a week to get here to see her. Like she was going anywhere, like she had some other plans. Her absence from their house in Brooklyn had changed a lot more than his home life. It had basically fucked everything else up as well. So, he came here as often as he could, just to chill.
Except it always wound up the way it had this evening. With them in bed and then him getting up and rushing home to Brooklyn where he had to relieve the sitter, and Layla was waiting for him to take her through her nighttime routine.
Now, in week three of this separation nonsense, his mother had come for a visit, and she, Tracy and Layla had their own routine going. Every other day, Tracy spent in Brooklyn, going to Layla’s activities with her, having coffee with his mother and then coming back to Manhattan.
Brendan wasn’t sure his mother knew he was stopping by the condo for conjugal visits with his wife, but she had to suspect as much. He came home later these days, looking disheveled and tired, but also sometimes strangely upbeat. Either she knew, or she had to be wondering whether he was having playing around on Tracy.
“Don’t you miss being Layla’s mom?”
At that, Tracy sat up. The sheets fell away, exposing her perfect breasts. Brendan forced himself not to look at them, but to instead focus on her face.
“I am her mom,” Tracy said, sounding stung.
“On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, yeah.”
“Brendan, that’s not fair.”
“It is. It’s perfectly fair. I think we need to talk about you coming home. Or at least talk about why you don’t want to.”
“I do want to.”
“So …” He threw his hands up. “Help me understand. Why are you still here?”
“I’m still … with Dr. Greer … I’m still.”
“Tracy, you have a daughter who needs you. A family. This vacation from your life …”
“What makes you think it’s a vacation, Brendan? You don’t think I spend some nights just aching to see her? To be with her? That I don’t feel like crap whenever I have to wave at her from the backseat of a damn Uber and head back here by myself?”
“Then come home!” he yelled. “Or at least give me one single reason you don’t want to. Or let me amend that: one single reason that makes even the slightest bit of sense.”
“See what I mean? We’re back to that. ‘Tracy is so unreasonable’. ‘Tracy doesn’t make sense’ …”
“Because you don’t! We’re gettin’ along and gettin’ it on more than most couples, married or not, and …”
“This is what you call getting along?”
“We are. Except when I ask you to do what you and I both know you’re overdue on doing, and that’s coming the fuck home!”
“It’s getting late,” Tracy said calmly. She got off the bed and snatched a robe from the armchair and shrugged it on. “You should go before you miss Layla’s bedtime.”
Brendan stared at her in disbelief.
“I’m not coming by tomorrow,” he said. “I’m not doin’ this anymore. Not until …”
“An ultimatum,” Tracy said. “Nice.”
And then she walked away, shutting herself in the bathroom.
His mother was waiting for him when he got in, sitting in the front room with her dinner tray and a glass of wine. She looked up as he entered, and Brendan glanced around for Layla.
“She was worn out today, so I already put her to bed,” his mother explained. “Swimming. Takes a lot out of her. And me too.” She raised her glass of wine in his direction.
“Got another one of those?” he asked.
“Go grab one. And your dinner. I left it under the warmer.”
Brendan went to get his plate. He hadn’t tasted one morsel of the Chinese he brought over to the condo for Tracy and him to share, so he was glad his mother had followed her habit of heaping his plate high. She used to joke when he was a teenager that he must have a hollow leg.
Tonight, she’d made smothered pork chops and greens with mashed potatoes. His father’s favorite meal. Brendan grabbed utensils, the plate, a wineglass and the already opened bottle of white, bringing them all out to sit with his mother. Side by side, they ate in silence for a little while, and he felt himself begin to relax.
“How was Tracy?”
He turned and grinned at his mother. “Should have known nothing got past you.”
She shrugged. “Where else would you be every other night, coming back smelling like lemon and vanilla?”
This time he laughed, taking a swig of his wine. “Oh, so you see this crazy situation I’m in then, huh? Sneaking around to spend time with my own wife.”
“The only one who thinks you’ve been sneaking around is you. Tracy told me exactly what’s been going on.”
“Wait. What now?” Brendan turned and looked at her.
“Of course. We talk all the time. When she comes to spend the day with Layla, we talk. During the ballet classes, soccer … that’s what we do while the baby is having her lessons. We talk.”
“About me?”
“Not just about you, but yes.”
Brendan shook his head. “And you never told me.”
“Why would I tell you?” His mother smiled, the laugh lines creasing the corners of her eyes. “That’s between me and Tracy.”
“But you’re telling me now,” he pointed out.
“Because now it’s getting ridiculous.”
“Thank you!” Brendan said. “Next time you two have a little powwow, I hope you’ll tell her that.”
“I don’t know, love,” she said shaking her head. “With Tracy I mostly listen. I try not to offer unsolicited advice. With you on the other hand … well, you’re my child, so I feel perfectly entitled to tell you what to do.”
“And y’know what? I’m perfectly willing to listen. Because I don’t know what the fu … I mean, what the hell is goin’ on anymore.”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No, Ma. It’s really not.” He shook his head. “That’s why I’m askin’.”
“Brendan, that woman loves the tar out of you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Of course I know
.”
“Of course you do. And you act like it, too.”
“What does that mean?”
“You were a beautiful baby,” his mother said.
Brendan squinted. “What does …?”
“Will you let me say what I want to say in the way I want to say it?”
“Go ahead.”
“You were a beautiful baby,” she continued. “Smiled at three months old.”
“I doubt that.”
“No, you really did. Smiled early, and never stopped smiling. People loved you right away. Strangers looked in the baby carriage and loved you, later in nursery school you were a favorite … elementary school … all the way up to college and beyond.
“Being loved by people came easy for you. It never surprised me that the woman you fell in love with came with a little bit of … hard work. Not easy at all.”
Brendan laughed at that and nodded. “True dat.”
“But I always felt that was good for you. To have to work at love a little bit. To make you appreciate it more. And even though she came with a little bit of effort, I could see Tracy’s love for you. And so, I love her back.”
Touching his mother’s hand, Brendan smiled. “I know you do, Ma.”
“But I think you take her for granted, son. And she doesn’t help matters, waiting on you hand-and-foot the way she does. Only having a parent like she has could make a woman believe that she’s only worth something as long as her man loves her back. And boy does she work at that, making sure you love her back. And you let her. You let her work hard at keeping your love, while you do almost nothing at all to keep hers.”
Brendan felt like he’d been slapped.
“What’s she’s doing now? It’s silly, yes. I acknowledge that,” his mother continued. “But for once, she has all the power. She holds all the cards. You go to her. You wait for her. You’re probably begging her to come home.”
Setting down his cutlery, Brendan gave his mother his full attention.
“Tracy doesn’t work for my love. She has it. She knows that.”
“But does she feel it? That she has your love?”
“Of cour…”
He stopped. She didn’t feel it. She knew it. But she didn’t feel it. If she did, she wouldn’t be at the condo. If she felt it, she would be here at home with him.
Four: Stories of Marriage Page 33
