She sighed. “I haven’t been sleeping very well either lately. Must be something going around.”
I offered a meek smile and blew on my coffee, wishing it would cool quickly because I was sorely in need of the caffeine. I thought of her, lying on that doctor’s table, and I leaned over and grabbed her hand. “Bethany’s pregnant. She called me last night to tell me,” she blurted out quickly.
“Oh,” I said. “Well, that’s nice.” I pictured her pushing two little angels in a fancy double stroller.
“Yeah, just what the world needs, one more little Bethany.” Her voice cracked, and she sounded as if she was about to cry.
“Lisa, what is it?” I whispered.
And then she did start to cry, softly. I watched tears roll down her face. She pulled her hand away from mine and wiped her cheeks hard, faster than the tears were coming. “Something awful happened,” she said, and I nodded for her to continue, even though I could smell that cold alcohol smell, feel that cold table against my back. That feeling, the smell of sickness, made me feel like I was going to throw up.
“My baby died,” she said. “My baby died.” She said it louder, as if that would make her believe it, make it feel more real. “I didn’t want her at first,” she said, “and I didn’t always remember to take the vitamins. And then she died, and it was all my fault.”
“Oh, Lisa,” I said. “What happened?” But before she said a word, I knew, the blond-haired doctor’s voice, the horrible aching in her stomach. And yet deep down, I shook with a sense of relief, which made me feel guiltier than I ever had before. Lisa wasn’t sick. She was going to be okay.
“Barry and I had a deal,” she whispered. “We had a freaking deal. I was going to go back to work when the twins are in first grade. One more year.” She paused. “I couldn’t start all over again, couldn’t go through it all again. So when I found out, I wished that it wasn’t true. And then it happened—I had a miscarriage. What kind of a person wishes her own baby away?”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I told her. I remembered Kelly telling me Dr. Horowitz told her that once, after she’d had a miscarriage herself, that miscarriages were surprisingly common, that they were nature’s way of preventing deformities.
“It was,” she said, with absolute certainty. “I wanted it to happen. I made it happen.”
“You didn’t make it happen,” I whispered, and leaned across the table and hugged her tightly. Ginger and roses and coffee, and wet tears on my shoulder.
“I haven’t told anyone else,” she said, pulling out of the hug.
“Not even Barry?” She shook her head, and it made sense, the sadness, the isolation I’d felt in my dreams.
“Barry.” She laughed, but the laugh caught in her throat, and when I looked at her there were tears streaming silently down her face. “Oh God, Jen, you should’ve heard Bethany going on and on about her perfect pregnancy. I just couldn’t do it again, couldn’t go back there today.”
“Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry,” I told her, handing her a napkin to wipe away her tears. “I wish I could say something to make you feel better.”
She reached across the table for my hand again and held on to me, as if I was her only lifeline.
Will was already home for lunch, waiting in the kitchen when I got back, spooning yogurt out of a container slowly. When I saw him sitting there, I felt this urge to hold on to him tightly and not let go, so I went to him and hugged him. “Sorry I’m late,” I whispered. “I was with Lisa, and we lost track of time.”
“Lisa?” He pulled back and wrinkled his nose. “I thought you weren’t friends with them anymore.”
“I’m not friends with them.” I shrugged. “Just Lisa.” He stared at me, narrowing his eyes, waiting for an explanation. “She apologized.” I paused. “She could use a friend.”
I grabbed a yogurt and sat down next to him. Even sitting, I felt the room spinning too fast all around me, and I thought about how Lisa asked me if I was sick. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again the moment had passed, the room was still. I turned to Will. “How’s your day going?” I asked.
He sighed. “Amber Tannenbaum. Short appointment.”
“Yeah, what happened?”
“Oh, she pretty much told me I’d ruined your life and then slammed the door in my face.”
“Oh, Will,” I said, reaching out for his hand, but he shook me off. “She’s a bitch. Everybody thinks she’s a bitch.”
“Even Lisa?”
“Especially Lisa.”
He sighed. “I don’t know if I can do this, Jen.”
“What?”
“This job. This life. I don’t know.” You, I silently added for him, because I wondered if I was a part of it, the things he couldn’t take anymore.
“Okay,” I said softly. “Then what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know.” He stood up and ran his hand through his hair. “Dammit, Jen. This is not a career for me. This is not a life. I’m just trying to tell you how I feel.” He paused. “Unlike you. You never tell me anything.”
“What do you want me to tell you?” I asked, knowing that nothing I was going to say was going to calm him down, was going to make him feel better about Amber.
“Tell me what you’re feeling.”
“I’m feeling …” I paused, trying to figure out exactly what I was feeling in that moment, and something about my dream and my coffee with Lisa had driven deep into my core. I felt tired and listless and strange, not at all like my normal self, except, I realized, I wasn’t even sure who that was anymore.“Sad,” I finally said, settling on this one emotion, though it seemed absolutely inadequate to really encompass all of my feelings.
“You’re unhappy,” he said matter-of-factly, repeating what he thought I just said. But when he said it that way it didn’t seem right at all. “I should’ve seen it. Fucking Amber could see it,” he said, his voice calm and even despite the fact that I could tell by the way his face was getting red that he wanted to explode. “Do you want a divorce, because if you do, just say it.”
My head was throbbing, and I closed my eyes to try to make it stop. I thought about the cold stirrups against Lisa’s feet at the doctor’s office, the feeling of drowning in my head and in hers, and then I couldn’t feel anything past that. I wondered if it was possible to feel a loss for something you never had, for something that was never really yours at all.
“I have to go,” Will said, picking up his coat. “I wouldn’t want to be late for an appointment.”
“Will, wait,” I called after him. But he didn’t stop, and I heard the front door slam with a sickening thud.
I thought about the Will in my dreams, the one who’d been unhappy, sick, as a judge, the one who’d been jealous of Janice for being able to just walk away, and I wondered if he felt that way now, too. If, back in the car, he was popping Tums or throwing up his lunch. Oh, Will. I felt an ache for him in my chest. Where did it all go wrong? I wondered, and I wished he was still standing there so I could comfort him, so I could wrap my arms around him and tell him that nothing else mattered. A divorce was the last thing I wanted.
I dialed Will’s cell, ready to let it all come tumbling out, that I wanted him to be here with me, that I wanted him to be happy. But after five rings, I got his voice mail, so I hung up.
My head was throbbing; it actually felt as if it might explode. I felt too tired to stand, to think anymore, so I decided I would take a short nap. I went upstairs and lay down on the bed, on top of the covers, fully clothed, not even bothering to take off my sneakers, and I closed my eyes. I wanted to dream about something nice, something happy, so I thought about Kat, about the glow on her face, brighter than a new suntan, when she’d returned from her night away with Danny.
I was standing in the City Style offices, twirling a strand of blond hair between my fingers, tapping an unlit cigarette on my desk. The computer screen stared at me, blank, the blinking cursor taunting me. Think, think, think. I tapped t
he cigarette.
I heard a rap on the door, and I jumped. Hank peeked his head in. “See ya tomorrow, sunshine.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I waved while mentally giving him the finger.
I heard Grant in his office, heard the timbre of his voice, deep and smooth as he talked to someone on the phone, though I couldn’t exactly make out the words. We were the only two people left. It was seven o’clock. It was dark. The rest of the office lights were off except for ours. Don’t go in there, I thought. Do not go in there.
I heard him hang up the phone, and I stood up. You’re just going to say hi, just going to be friendly.
I stood in the doorway of his office until he noticed. I wondered if he could hear it, the way my heart was thudding in my chest, loud and furious. “Katrin,” he said.
I nodded. “You’re working late,” I said.
“Again,” he said.
“Again,” I echoed.
“Have you had dinner yet? I was thinking about ordering Chinese, if you want some.” He stood up and walked closer. I watched him, as if in slow motion. Come closer, I thought. No don’t. Yes, I want you to kiss me. No I don’t.
Then he was standing next to me, his mouth close enough to my ear to whisper, “Why did you really come in here?” He didn’t wait for an answer to lean in, to kiss my earlobe lightly.
The kiss, the precision of it, electrified me. “Grant,” I whispered.
“Sssh.” He put a finger to my lips, and then he moved his finger and leaned in to kiss me.
“Jen. Jen. Wake up.” I opened my eyes expecting Grant, but the easy familiarity of Will surprised me. He sat at the edge of the bed, his hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right? You look upset.”
“I don’t know,” I said, disoriented. “What time is it?”
“Three-thirty,” he said. “I just stopped home for a few minutes.” He paused. “I’m sorry about earlier. About what I said. I shouldn’t have let Amber get to me like that.” I closed my eyes, and I saw Grant’s face, Grant leaning in for a kiss. Seriously, Kat. Seriously? What happened to Danny, to your weekend, to your marriage, to your girls? You can’t just throw all that away. I didn’t want to just throw it all away.
“No. I’m sorry,” I said. I sat up and hugged him, held on tightly. I inhaled the familiar pine smell of him, the warm feel of his cheek against mine. “I don’t want a divorce,” I whispered in his ear.
“Neither do I.” He reached up and gently ran his thumb across my cheek, and then he held his face close to mine.
I leaned up and kissed him softly on the lips. “You didn’t ruin me,” I whispered. “Just the opposite.” He kissed me, harder, more insistently than I’d kissed him, and I pulled him on top of me on the bed.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered in my ear. “I have to go. I have an appointment at four. And then I have to go to a dinner retreat in the city.” He kissed my neck, and let his fingers linger to trace the outline of my collarbone.
“Okay,” I whispered, bringing his mouth to mine again.
His mouth turned slowly and carefully the way it might the first time you ever kissed someone, the way it might when you wanted to taste another person, when you wanted to drink them in.
When he pulled back again, he looked me in the eyes and smiled. I remembered the way his smile had once made me feel like I was melting, and the way it sort of felt like that right now.
Twenty-two
The next morning when I woke up, Will was already gone. He’d come in late last night, and I’d woken for only a minute when I heard him getting into bed. And then I’d felt him kiss my shoulder and put his arm around my waist, and I’d rolled into him and fallen back into a deep sleep.
I couldn’t remember dreaming last night, but the dream about Kat and Grant from yesterday afternoon still felt so fresh in my head. So over breakfast, I hastily wrote up some wedding announcements. They weren’t due until the end of the week, but I had four announcements that took me less than an hour to compose. While I did it, I sipped my coffee slowly, and then I took a shower and got dressed. I left Will a note in case he stopped home for lunch again. Gone to the city. Be back for dinner. I thought for a minute, and then added, Love, J.
I sat next to a woman holding her baby on her lap on the train. The little girl was quiet and sat calmly sucking her thumb. Until she started trying to grab my leg. “Stop it,” her mother said, but the girl kept grabbing. I shifted in my seat. “I’m sorry,” the mother said to me, moving the little girl farther away, so she was grabbing her mother’s leg instead.
“That’s fine,” I said. The woman smiled at me, this odd smile of relief and sadness that reminded me, in a way, of Lisa. “How old is she?” I asked.
“Seventeen months,” she said.
“That’s a good age,” I said, though really I had no idea if it was or not. “And she’s very well behaved.” It was true, despite her attempts at my leg. Most babies I saw on the train were screaming or jumping on the seat.
“She’s my little angel.” The mother sighed. “What about you?” the woman asked. “You have any children?”
“No.” I shook my head. And because she kept staring, I added, “Not yet,” as if I owed this stranger some sort of explanation.
When I walked into City Style, Kat’s office was empty, so I knocked on Hank’s door. “Where’s Kat?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “Not my turn to watch her,” he said.
“I have these.” I held up the folder that contained the wedding announcements, as if it was something important, top secret documents that were necessary to hand deliver, even though I normally just e-mailed them in on the due date. “I’m going to wait in her office.”
“Be my guest.” He didn’t even look up from his computer screen.
On my way back to her office, I swung by my old office, Grant’s office. It looked the same, tiny window in the corner, messy desk off to the side. Had it not been for the ultra handsome Grant sitting in my old chair, his feet up on the desk, the phone cocked between his ear and his shoulder,I might’ve felt like I could’ve walked back in and taken it over again, this oddly carefree life that used to belong to me, the Jennifer Daniels me: the one who only sometimes remembered to check her breast for lumps, who did the Times crossword puzzle at her desk, e-mailing answers back and forth with Kat so it looked like we were working, who enjoyed spontaneous sex with Will so much that she couldn’t stop thinking about it the next morning, couldn’t stop glowing into her coffee.
Grant cleared his throat. He’d hung up the phone and had noticed me standing there. “Hey there—”
“Jen,” I said.
“Kat’s friend.”
I nodded. “She has an interview this morning,” he said. “She should be back soon.” It bothered me that he knew more than Hank, that he knew too much. Why the hell would he know her schedule, unless they were talking, unless he was waiting for her to return? “You can wait in here if you like.” He paused. “This used to be your office, right?”
I nodded. “If you’re not busy,” I said, stepping past him, not waiting for his answer.
“Sorry about the mess.” He started moving things around on the desk. “I bet you kept it neater than this.”
I hadn’t. My life as a reporter had been nothing like my life as a housewife: messy, hurried, bogged down, filled with too much caffeine and too much alcohol and not enough sleep. With time on my hands I’d become a neat freak, and I felt a little jealous looking at the mess, at the sloppy way life could unfold, could strike you in insane and beautiful ways that you would sometimes not expect, the way it had struck me that night I’d first met Will.
I sat down across the desk from Grant and stared at him closely. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. He was gorgeous. I would give Kat that. He had a nice square jaw, an easy manner, deep blue eyes that were a shade lighter than Will’s, and he smelled like a combination of coffee and citrus. “So, Jen, tell me. What made you leave this job?�
�
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “My husband wanted to move to Deerfield, and I didn’t feel like the commute.”
“You guys have a bunch of kids?” he asked.
“No.” I frowned, annoyed at being asked this question twice in one morning. Why did kids have to be a measure of everything, success, happiness, failure?
“Oh,” he said. “It’s just—it’s a great job.” I nodded. It was a great job. Amazing. Free dinners, movies, and shows, with very little expected in return except for an opinion on all of the above. “I hear you’ve been looking for some freelance work.”
I knew what he was really asking, whether I was here to try to reclaim the job from him. The truth was, I realized, sitting here again, that I actually didn’t want it. I’d left the job not because we’d moved to the suburbs, because Will became a judge, because Will thought we should have a family soon, but because I’d found the lump. The benign lump. But the lump, all the same.
After the lump, as I’d sat at this desk and typed up my reviews, it hit me that there must be something more, something else for me. This, this job, couldn’t be all there was. Though, I thought now, I still hadn’t exactly found it, whatever else there was for me. For a while I’d thought it had been my deceptively simple life in Deerfield, but maybe deep down, I always knew that wasn’t what it was either. “Don’t worry,” I finally said. “The job’s all yours.”
“I’m not worried,” he said.
“Though you can do me a favor.”
“What’s that?” He leaned in across the desk, so his face was close to mine, almost uncomfortably close, because I could still remember the feel of his lips on Kat’s ear, the feel of his breath on her skin. And thinking about it made me feel nervous and a little bit tingly, the way I’d felt in the dream.
“Stay away from Kat,” I whispered.
“Kat’s a big girl,” he said, sitting back, away from me. “She can take care of herself.”
The Transformation of Things Page 14
