I’m proud when I tell her, “No, actually.” Yes, her spicy evening got me thinking about Adam, but my longing for intimacy with my husband is not going to be some magical push to solve this separation business.
We begin our descent of the stairs as I tell Marian about the text I need to send Adam about next Saturday’s shindig.
“You’re torn between wanting him to come or not?” Marian astutely says.
“Yup.” I put on my sunglasses. “So I’m leaving the decision entirely up to him. It’s easier that way.”
“Sounds like a plan. And speaking of plans, are you going to bring up that little timeline thing? Set a date?”
“Ugh.” Like a child, I tilt my head back and say in a whining tone, “One painful brush with reality at a time.”
“All right. A free pass there, darling.” She withdraws her car keys from her purse and asks again if I want a ride.
“My walks do me good,” I say. “They help with the tension, frustration.”
“Sex is also good for that,” she says with a laugh.
“Yeah, yeah. Who was the lucky guy last night, by the way?”
Marian flicks a lazy wave in my direction. “Just some guy from Research,” she says. “We’d been playing cat and mouse for long enough. It was time.”
“And?”
She gives me another lazy wave. “Ehh. Lousy tipper, turns out. Lousier kisser.”
Without giving my words much thought, I say, “Then why’d you sleep with him?”
Marian raises both brows.
“Sorry,” I say, waving away my insensitive comment. “That came out bluntly.”
She shrugs it off and says, “A girl’s got to get some action now and then, Hals. And you and I both know that men with the it factor are few and far between.”
At the mention of the it factor I can’t help but think of Adam. He has it. Loads of it. It’s not often a woman meets a man who has it, and when she does, she’d best not let go. I’m suddenly overcome with sadness—sadness at the thought of potentially losing Adam, a man with all the it I’ve ever needed.
I straighten my posture and look to Marian, trying to brush away the depressing possibility.
“True. They can’t all be Mr. Right,” I say.
With a glossy look of longing in her eyes, Marian gives a breathy exhalation and says, “Nope, they can’t.”
“Well, there’s a wide ocean of men out there, right?” I say, optimistic, and Marian just smiles and waves goodbye as she walks toward the underground garage.
I’ve made it to the first crosswalk on Cordova Street when I decide to send Adam that text. It’s not that I don’t want to talk to him. I just think a question as simple as Are you still planning on coming to Alice’s science fair next Saturday? can be easily answered via text. Given our situation and general awkwardness, why further complicate things? If it comes down to a call, then I have no qualms with keeping talk light. Adam is my husband, after all.
Within two minutes I receive a reply.
I assume you’re going? it reads.
I type back, Yes. Are you?
He responds with, Depends. Do you want me to come?
And this is what I didn’t want to have happen but what I think was inevitable. Adam, of course, would take the noncommittal approach. Alice is my sister’s daughter and therefore, since we’ve apparently begun this silly taking-sides game, it is up to me to decide whether Adam should attend my family events.
Growing upset at the childishness of what should be a simple ordeal, I decide to call Adam. As much as I know it’ll pain me to hear his crisp, deep voice, it’ll be more painful to text back and forth for the duration of my walk to work.
“Halley,” Adam answers, surprise in his tone.
“Hey.”
“How are you?”
I bite my bottom lip for a second before responding. “Fine. You?”
“Fine.”
“So, about Alice’s science fair?” To the point.
“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “Do you want me to go?”
“I want you to go if you want to go,” I say, the most immature of responses.
“Of course I want to go. I know this is important to Alice. We have it on the calendar to go.”
“So you’re going?” My tone is not quite acerbic, but I’m short.
Adam reads me loud and clear. “If it doesn’t bother you, Halley, then yes, I’ll go.” Every single word is soft yet direct.
“Perfect. I got her a gift.” I press the next block’s crosswalk button. “And a card. From both of us.”
“Have you . . . told anyone in your family?”
I press the button again, partly because of agitation with the red light but more because of how awkward this call to my husband is making me feel. “Only Charlotte.”
“Are we keeping it a . . . secret?”
“I don’t know, Adam. I haven’t thought much about it. I . . . guess.”
“Okay.” He pauses for a beat. “Just wanted to know, in case I brought it up at the fair and no one knew.”
I don’t know what bothers me so much about this line—the idea that he’d be the one to bring up the separation, thereby somehow eliciting pity or making himself a victim, or the idea that this is something so important it just has to be brought up at a family function. For whatever reason, what he says bothers me, and I fight the urge to roll my eyes.
I once read that eye rolls between spouses can be a very damaging, albeit silent, weapon. What begins as a relatively harmless You’ve got to be joking or This is so stupid eye roll can later morph into I don’t respect you. So, as much as I want to give Adam the old eye roll right now, I don’t. Even though he wouldn’t be able to see it if I did, I feel that once I commit that first eye roll, the second will only be easier, and the third, and the fourth, and before I know it, I’ll be eye-rolling left and right. Anything vexing that Adam does will habitually result in an eye roll. Not exactly medicine for an ailing marriage.
So instead I close my eyes and say, “How about we don’t bring it up?” To minimize its importance, I add, “I mean, it’s just a separation, right?”
“Right.”
Part of me wishes he would finish the sentence that is in my head: Right. It’s not like we’re divorcing.
But he doesn’t. There’s nothing but silence on the other end.
“Well then, I guess that’s settled,” I say. I tilt my head up some, not letting myself be overcome or distracted by emotions. That’s not what this call’s supposed to be about. “The fair starts at ten, next Saturday. And then Charlotte’s having a lunch at her place.”
“Sounds nice.”
“Yeah.”
The light finally turns. I briskly cross the street, and I’m about to tell Adam goodbye when he says, “I miss you, Halley.”
My speedy walk slows, causing a man in a suit to bump into me from behind. He shoots me a rude look over his shoulder as he goes on his way. I can’t give an apologetic wave or mouth, “Sorry,” as I usually would. All I can do is stand with a slightly open mouth, taken aback by my husband’s missing me.
Before I get mowed over or struck in the back again, I finally pull to the side of the walk and press a finger to the ear not pressed to my cell phone.
“It’ll be nice to see each other next weekend,” Adam says before I can respond.
A small smile tugs at the corner of my mouth, and I find myself nodding. “Yeah. It will be.”
Before I can tell Adam that I miss him, too, he clears his throat again and says, “Hey, uh, I’ve got to run.”
I spit out a, “Yeah, me, too,” and our call is over.
I’m not sure how to take his I miss you. Does he miss me as I miss him? Is he wishing we could forget this stupid separation and go back to the way things were before he got this ludicrous baby notion? Does he feel different about that notion? Are we closer to ending this separation than I think?
I decide it’s best not to read too much int
o an I miss you. As much as I love Marian and am enjoying much of our just-like-the-college-days reunion, I married Adam because I love him, because I want to spend my life with him. Not being with him hurts. Of course I miss him. I miss us.
Seven
As soon as I pull into a parking space at Springs Elementary School, I notice Adam’s car a few spaces over. The USC decal on the bottom of the rear window of the midnight-blue 5 Series is unmistakable. Adam’s head of thick dark hair and that confident slouch as he leans against the side of his car are even more unmistakable. My heart flutters at the mere sight of him. Before I can even shift my car into park, my palms feel sweaty.
I smooth out the back of my dress—the simple white cotton short-sleeved dress that hits right at my knees, one of the dresses I wore when Adam and I went to Seattle last summer. One of his favorites. My intentions behind choosing to wear this dress today are embarrassingly obvious. The white is a subtle reminder of our marriage, the very dress itself a not-so-subtle reminder of vacation memories, to make Adam’s heart beat the way mine does when I look at him. It’s a small way to say the I miss you that I didn’t have the chance to say during our phone call.
Once Adam detects the sound of my heels clicking against the asphalt, he draws his gaze from his cell phone to me, and he smiles that crooked smile I so miss. I can’t help but feel, however, that behind that smile he is, just as I am, a mixture of happy and sad that we’re seeing each other again. Just the same, I smile and wave.
“Hey, Adam.”
“Hey, Halley.” His eyes travel up and down my body in a fluid way. “You look beautiful. I’ve always loved that dress on you.”
“Thanks. You clean up well yourself,” I say, taking note of one of his more casual pairs of tan dress slacks, paired with a navy blue long-sleeved dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. If I slipped into this white cotton dress to tell him I miss him, then I can surely believe those rolled sleeves, a look that Adam knows always makes me weak in the knees, are his way of saying that he meant every word about missing me.
“You taking a work call or something?” I point at his cell phone, wondering why he’s waiting out here and not yet inside the school. The fair is probably under way; I’m right on time.
“I figured I’d wait for you.” Adam pushes off from his car and is about to take my hand in his—his arm outstretched toward me, palm open and waiting. Old habits. Instantly he slips his hand into his front pocket. A sheepish expression covers his face. I’m not sure what to make of the gaffe.
“Right,” I say with a rapid shake of my head, realizing why he’s chosen to wait for me.
“It might turn some heads if we walked in at different times,” Adam clarifies.
“Yeah. No. Totally.” I can’t help but look down at his hand stuffed in his pocket, his thumb resting at the opening, against one of his most worn brown leather belts. For a second I consider brushing my fingers against his hand, inviting him to finish the hand-holding gesture he started, but then he opens the door to the school and ushers me through. He doesn’t do so as he usually does when he holds doors open for me, with that light press of his fingers to the small of my back.
I glance at Adam, waiting for him to follow closely behind, and as soon as our eyes lock I get all twitchy in the stomach. I give a loose smile, trying to rememorize the dark-mocha color of his eyes, the soft square cut of his jaw, the way his thin lips pull into a straight, sideways line as he smiles. I could never forget Adam’s face, but having spent two weeks away from him, and not knowing how much longer our separation will be, I take the embarrassing moment to just stare at him, take him in.
Adam raises his eyebrows, and when I think he’s about to say something, he nods, gesturing to something behind me. I turn around. It’s Charlotte’s husband, Marco, hurriedly walking toward us, as if he’s forgotten something.
“Marco!” I cheerfully call out as he nears.
Marco’s thick, broad chest is clad in a bright-yellow polo shirt. You could see him a mile away. He charges over in cargo shorts paired with Toms, the relaxed ensemble he often displays.
“Hey, guys,” Marco says, swallowing me into a fast hug, then giving Adam the brotherly handshake and half-hug, back-clap greeting.
“Forgot something?” I ask.
“Always something with three kids,” Marco calls over his shoulder as he passes by.
Before I turn back around, I notice a small smile tug at Adam’s lips. I decide to ignore it, even though I know it has more to do with Marco’s having three kids than with Marco’s comical huffing and puffing in the battle of forgetfulness. How long has this baby fever really been going on? Or how long have I neglected to recognize it?
By the time Adam and I find the gym where several rows of tables are adorned with projects, experiments, and colorful trifold poster boards, all of Alice’s esteemed guests have arrived. The entire Miller clan—Marco’s parents; his brother, Bryan; Bryan’s wife, Cat; and their baby—is here, as well as my parents and Ray, my mother’s husband of two years.
No one particularly likes Ray. He’s as tolerable as our mother, I suppose. He and Mom started dating a few years ago—one of my mother’s very few serious relationships post-Dad—and of all the less-than-stellar men she’d introduced to us over the years, Ray was the least scummy. His hair was still as greasy as we feared his flirtatious moves on our mother had been. He has “oodles of money” (the exact words Mom used the very first time she mentioned Ray) thanks to a successful franchise of juice bars across Southern California. We all worried Mom would never see past the glitz and realize he might not be the best choice of life partner, but here you have it. Nearly three years later, they’re still going strong, and I guess that’s a good thing. If it works for them. He’s a nice-enough guy, Ray, and he seems to temper the rougher edges of my mother, at least now and again. He makes her happy and she makes him happy, so what more can one ask for, right?
“Auntie Halley!” Alice squeals as soon as she sees me. She runs over and wraps her arms around my waist. “You came!”
“Of course I did, goofy girl. And look!” I hold out her gift. “Something for the science genius. Congratulations.”
“I didn’t win, Auntie Halley.”
“Not yet,” Adam says, appearing beside me.
“Uncle Adam!” Alice is about to give her uncle a hug when Adam scoops her up into his arms.
“Boy, you’re getting big, Alice!”
“I’m a whole inch taller on the door now,” Alice says with pride.
“A whole inch?” Adam is extraflabbergasted by Alice’s height.
Marco and Charlotte have kept a constant tally of their children’s heights on the inside of their entry coat closet door. At Alice’s mention of her growth spurt, I’m reminded of a moment, which at the time I thought nothing of, when Adam saw the pencil tick marks with names and dates and said he really liked the nostalgic idea. As if he would ever need to bookmark it for his own future. Little did I know . . .
“Halley,” Mom says in her idiosyncratic tone—a mix of chipper and judgmental. She appraises me, as she always does, deciding if she likes my outfit, my hair, my expression, me, before giving me a gentle hug. A very gentle hug, so as not to wrinkle her clothes or smudge her makeup. “I was wondering if you were going to make it.”
“Hey, Mom.” I kiss the air as we hug, letting her comment roll off my back.
“Have you tried the punch they’re serving?” She hops straight to the most pivotal of topics.
“Hey, Ray,” I say, giving Ray a hug as he steps forward. He’s about to plant one of his signature kisses on my cheek, but I pull away in time. Among Ray’s faults—the grease; the literal wad of hundreds he keeps in his pocket, bound with a rubber band; his mystifying affection for my mother—is his greeting routine. He can keep his wet kisses for my mother, thank you.
“The punch, Halley. Have you tried it?” Mom says in a nettled voice.
“Not yet, Mom.”
&
nbsp; “It’s far too sweet,” she complains. She looks at her Styrofoam cup in distaste. “Do they not realize these are children here? The juvenile diabetes cases must be through the roof!” Nevertheless, she knocks back a slug of the stuff.
“Not everyone can serve a Ray’s Days smoothie,” I say in a half-mocking way.
“Now there’s a market to tap into,” Ray says, ever the salesman. “The school system.” His furry eyebrows knit together as he strokes his chin.
“Oh, Ray, you’re a genius,” Mom gushes.
Suppressing the urge to comment that I’m sure the LA County school system could certainly find in its strapped budget room for six-buck smoothies, I open my arms wide at my approaching father.
“Hey, Dad!” I say, grateful, in more ways than one, for his arrival. He embraces me in one of his signature bear hugs. These are the hugs I could live forever in.
“Auntie Halley,” a jubilant Alice says, rushing to my side to hand me a space-themed name tag. “Can you wear this? You don’t need a name tag, but they were fun to make.”
“Oooh,” Dad says as Alice hands me a safety pin. “That’s a nice tag you’ve got there, Halley.”
“Grandpa said I should have made you a comet,” Alice says with a roll of her eyes. Dad chuckles. “But I wanted only planets and moons.”
“I like planets and moons,” I say, pinning on the computer printout that’s been cut into shape, an Auntie Halley written on it in thick marker. “So I get to be Neptune?” I’m taking a wild guess.
“Neptune’s blue,” Alice says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“Sorry,” I say, looking to my father. He’s just smiling at me with those crystal blues of his, slightly shaking his head.
“Your name tag is Titan,” Alice informs me.
“One of Saturn’s moons,” Adam says, sauntering over. He gives me a wink, and I playfully smack my forehead at my faux pas.
“Not just one of Saturn’s moons.” Alice looks fondly at my affixed tag. “Saturn’s biggest moon.”
My father is beaming from ear to ear, and when I look over at Adam, he, too, is grinning.
Everything the Heart Wants: A Novel Page 11
