The View from Here

by Rachel Howzell

  Monica gawked as she watched the couple dance. “Hell. No.”

  Leilani said, “Nicole Porter Baxter, if you—”

  Elene turned to grind her ass against Truman’s crotch.

  “What the hell?” I said, slapping my hand against my thigh.

  “Maybe you should ignore them,” Monica said, wide-eyed, unable to follow her own advice. “Maybe you’re just hormonal. You know, from being pregnant? You’re just extra-sensitive, or—”

  “Nuh uh, Nicole,” Leilani said. “Go over there right now, and tell her to step the hell off. This ain’t no strip club up in here. You want me to do it? Cuz I—”

  I stomped across the dance floor and pulled Truman to a tiny nook on the patio. I poked his chest with my finger and snarled, “I’m not gonna stand here and watch you two stumble against each other like drunk college kids.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he slurred, rum and Coke fumes hot on my face. “You need to relax, Nic. It’s a party. My party.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Have at it. Go on with your grind-fest, Birthday Boy.” Then, I turned on my heel and stomped into the house.

  Monica followed. “What are you about to do?”

  Leilani, trailing after her, shouted, “Go out there and kick her ass!”

  I raced to the kitchen and grabbed my purse from the pantry and the keys from beneath the fruit bowl on the breakfast bar.

  “Where are you going?” Monica asked as she followed me out to the driveway.

  “If I don’t leave,” I said, opening the Volvo’s door, “I’m gonna freakin’… kaboom and kill every living thing around me. I just need to calm the hell down. Get some distance. I’ll be back.”

  I usually don’t do this: desert a party that I’m hosting. But desperate times, desperate measures, and so on. I screeched out of the driveway and zoomed down the hill to Beachwood Drive. At Sunset, I headed towards Downtown.

  Were Truman and Elene still dirty-dancing?

  Were they now sharing one skewer of meat?

  Had he even noticed that I had stormed out of the house?

  I pulled into an empty Circuit City parking lot. Pearly fog softened the orange glow of the lot’s safety lights. A pack of stray dogs ripped apart a discarded bag of food. A dark homeless man pushing a shopping cart filled with cans shooed the dogs away and claimed the bag for himself.

  Truman’s ring-tone played on my cell-phone inside my purse. “Yes?”

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Driving.”

  “I can’t believe…” He sighed, then shouted, “What’s wrong now?”

  I shook my head, too angry to talk.

  “Are you upset because I wouldn’t dance? I’m sorry, Nic. I—”

  I hung up and turned off the phone before he could promise me a better life. What about this life? And when had he found the time to take scuba lessons? Three-hour meetings and business lunches filled his days. That’s why we didn’t go to the movies or out to dinner. That’s why I never saw him before bedtime. That’s why our marriage was dying. He had been incredibly busy being an Executive.

  But he had somehow found the time to browse pamphlets and brochures for climbs and jumps. He had found the time to study specs and option packages, and had filled out paperwork, reams of paperwork, that needed his signature. Each day, he had talked to Greg the climb guy, and Flex the scuba guy, and all the other guys who supported his habit. He had sat at his desk in his home office, gnawing licorice whips and studying catalogues of new adventures.

  And tonight, he had found the time to dance with someone else.

  How long did I have to grit my teeth and say nothing? How much more was I supposed to take?

  15

  The party had ended. Plastic cups and party hats were strewn across the deck and my tiny backyard. Nikes and Kenneth Coles had trampled the grass; Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Choos had punctured the earth.

  I shivered in the cool, moist air.

  So quiet.

  I gazed at the glowing light in my bedroom. The quiet wouldn’t last long.

  “I didn’t sleep with her,” Truman said as he fell back onto our bed. “We were talking. Joking around.”

  “Ha, ha, hee.” I paced the room, not caring if he had or hadn’t slept with Elene. He could’ve given the woman a Bible study, and I would’ve said ‘so what.’ I was hot with righteous indignation, terrified of the possible, smarting from pure embarrassment. Rational thinking had been banished to the cramped attic of my mind. “And then you foist Penelope on me. Kissing her hands and saying how she fucking saved your life.”

  “Will you calm down and think for a moment?” Truman shouted.

  “Did you see yourself tonight?” I screamed. “Cuz everyone else did.”

  “I don’t care what everyone—” His hands flew to his head. “Can we not scream?” He glared at me, frustrated and exasperated—the look a mother gives her two-year old who purposely pees on the carpet. “It was a party, Nicole. Why are you acting like this? She’s our friend. I’m not stupid enough to have an affair with a friend.”

  “First of all,” I said, “she’s not my friend. Second: does that mean that you’d have an affair with an acquaintance? An associate? A colleague? Penelope?”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “You know the answer to that question.”

  “No, I don’t,” I said. “Because I don’t understand you anymore.” With that, my throat thickened with pre-crying goo, and I stomped over to the window. The peonies’ petals, violated by our guests’ rear ends, lay scattered across the grass. “I don’t know, Truman. You’re...”

  “Happy?” he asked. “Content? Satisfied for a change? I worked my ass off getting where I am, Nicole. It’s my birthday, and I wanted to celebrate and not think about anything stupid or petty tonight. But where’s my wife? She drives off somewhere because she’s being an insecure...” He didn’t finish his sentence because I had turned to face him. Even after eleven years of marriage, Truman would not call me a ‘bitch’ to my face.

  I shook my head. “You haven’t spent more than two hours with me—”

  “I take you to musicals and plays and expensive restaurants that suck,” he shouted. “I hate that crap, but I do it because I want you to have everything you’ve ever wanted. But you’re pissed because I didn’t dance with you tonight? Are you kidding me?”

  So, he was saying this: You, Nicole, have no right to complain because I went to see “Rent” that one time even though I fell asleep, but still, I was there, and that should count for something. Was he high? Did he not remember me shaking him awake at the Ahmanson that night because he was snoring so frickin’ loud that people looked over their shoulders to glare at us? How was that a fabulous time?

  It wasn’t a fabulous time.

  And what about those occasions when he stood me up, or didn’t plan me into his calendar? Was I supposed to thrive on good intentions? I, too, had busted my behind so that we could have everything we wanted.

  Truman unbuttoned his shirt. “Sometimes, this marriage feels like I’m in lockup.”

  I winced—this was something new, something ugly. “Wow. I’m a prison warden now?” A tear slipped down my cheek, and I swiped it away. “Are you having an affair or not? Yes or no? It’s a simple question.”

  Truman, his bare chest heaving in anger, gawked at me.

  I stood there, arms crossed (warden-like?), waiting for his answer. “Hello? You deaf now?”

  He shook his head. “I’m taking a shower.” Then, he brushed past me without another word.

  16

  Why didn’t Truman say, No, Nicole, I’m not having an affair. Can we bitch about something else now? And as I sat across from Jake, that question—Why didn’t he say no?—made my head ache.

  Jake reached across the table and placed his hand atop mine. He smiled, and his brown eyes crinkled at the corners. “I could’ve saved a hundred dollars if you’re just gonna stare at the breadbasket. What’s
going on today?”

  “Still thinking about the fight.” I draped the cloth napkin across my lap for the fifth time. “I asked him if he was having an affair.”

  “And what did he say?”

  I grabbed my fork and stabbed at my salad as though it was Elene’s face. “He didn’t say anything.”

  “Ah.”

  “He called me a warden. Like I’m keeping him somewhere he doesn’t wanna be.”

  The argument about the party and Elene had not brought any immediate apologies or surrenders from Truman nor me. That Saturday night, several minutes had passed as he took a shower and I pouted in bed. After his shower, he had stood over me, and I had rolled over, turning my back to him. He had stomped to his office, and I had cried into my pillow.

  Sunday came without us talking to each other or passing each other in the hallway. I washed dishes, did a few loads of laundry, and read a few pages of No Country for Old Men. At one point, I heard his footsteps tap up and down the hallway, and his cell-phone ring. Heard the BMW roar down the canyon.

  “Eleven years is a long time,” Jake said with a shrug. “I only made it with Dana for three. Isn’t it seven for the itch?”

  “So?”

  “He’s a man,” Jake said, his tone reasonable and matter-of-fact.

  “And last time I checked, I was a woman.”

  “True.”

  “I’m not a priority to him.”

  “You haven’t been for a while.”

  “He practically ignores me when he’s at home.”

  “Some men require a lot to keep their attention.”

  “Aren’t I interesting?”

  “The most interesting woman I know. The only person who can tell me how a NanoDrop Spectrophotometer will rid the world of diabetes.”

  “Not just the world, but the universe,” I said, brightening. “And I’m attractive, right?”

  “You’re beautiful.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “And I can have any man I want, right?”

  Jake smiled. “You certainly can.”

  I reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “You do wonders for a woman’s bruised ego.”

  “You think that’s what this is? That you’re being overly sensitive? That he’s not cheating?”

  I shrugged. “The more we ignore each other, the angrier I become. The angrier I become, the more I believe.”

  Jake shook his head, then sipped from his glass of Scotch. “Well, if he does leave, I doubt you’ll have any trouble finding someone to replace him. You know I’m not going away. I’ll just bide my time, hoping he keeps screwing up, or until you decide to end it.”

  I didn’t say anything, preferring to stare at the lime slice floating in my glass of Pellegrino.

  “Do you think he knows about us?” Jake asked.

  I chuckled. “There is no ‘us’. We’re friends. That’s it.”

  “Why did you call me today instead of Monica?” he asked. “Why am I here right now, way the hell in Woodland Hills even though I work way the hell in Century City? Do you think I’d do that for anybody? Would you ask ‘just a friend’ to drive fifty miles to eat lunch with you? Has Truman ever come over the hill to have lunch?” He chuckled—he knew the answer to that question. “We’re something, Nicole.”

  I clenched my jaw, then relaxed it.

  He held up his hand and considered me with that lazy smile. “Okay. Whatever you say. I’m in no rush” Jake was eight years older than me, and his age showed in his patience. He was so relaxed, so convinced.

  My cheeks flushed, and my gaze dropped back to the breadbasket. “There is no ‘us’, Jake.”

  He placed his hand back over mine. “Forgive me if I refuse to believe that.”

  My breathing remained constant as the dining room faded around me. “I’m married.”

  “Obviously,” he said, lifting my left hand. “That diamond’s damn big.”

  I considered my engagement ring as though I had never seen it before.

  Beneath the table, Jake shifted his foot until it settled against my pump. And we sat like that, shoe against shoe, for several moments. I glanced around the dining room—Jake and I stood out. If a private investigator asked, everyone in the restaurant would remember seeing us together. Oh, you mean the gorgeous white guy and that black chick?

  “If you ever said ‘yes,’” he said, “you’d never be alone again.” Then, he kissed my hand.

  I nodded, then opened my mouth to say something noble, something virtuous. Instead, I said, “So a midget goes into a bar…”

  He laughed, and I reclaimed my hand. Not as a declaration of my marital commitment, but to glance at my watch. “It’s after one.”

  He pushed the tumbler of Scotch towards me. “Somewhere to go?”

  I stared at the glass near my hands, then picked it up and drank.

  We wandered back to the parking garage, and the cool air cleared my head. The food, the Scotch, Jake Huston—all of it made my knees goopy, made my heart beat too fast.

  I unlocked the Volvo, and smiled at him. “Thanks for lunch.”

  “Nic,” he said, “we really need to talk about this. About us.”

  Footsteps clicked down the garage’s metal staircase, and a door slammed against the wall.

  Jake startled and looked over his shoulder.

  An old man in a rumpled suit shuffled into the lot. He was not a suspicious husband, gun in hand, stalking his wife and her not-lover.

  I hugged Jake before he could speak again, before he tried to kiss me. I didn’t know what I would do if he kissed me… Yeah, I did know, and that bothered me.

  Jake said, “You’re avoiding this.”

  I opened the car door. “Yes, I am. Jogging tonight?”

  He shook his head. “Got some reading to do before court tomorrow.” He paused, then said, “You should come over. I can grill steaks, and you can tell me about the cytomegalovirus or finish that joke about the midget.”

  I shook my head.

  “Some other time?”

  “I should get back to work. I need to finish a report.” I climbed behind the steering wheel and closed the door. Safe. My shoulders relaxed as I leaned back into the soft leather seat.

  Jake backed away from the car and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. The harsh fluorescents cast his face in shadows, and made his brown hair silver.

  I started the car, then rolled down the window. “Thanks again.”

  “If you change your mind,” he said, “you know where I am.”

  17

  Really: what did I know about Jacob Huston?

  He practiced law—an easy one.

  He liked his coffee with cream-no-sugar, and preferred butter croissants over muffins; but the red-headed barista at the village coffee shop knew that.

  He opposed the war and the death penalty. He supported a woman’s right to choose. He donated to homeless shelters around the city.

  But why had he divorced?

  What annoying habits did he have?

  What views did he hold that I’d find reprehensible?

  And what kind of man goes after a married woman? And how many wives had he slept with?

  Didn’t want to know the answer to those last questions. I wanted to believe that I was special to him, his one-time lapse in judgment. Because he was special to me. The only man that made me even consider…

  I stood on Jake’s porch for an eternity, casting anxious glances towards my house, not believing that Truman would work late even though he worked late every night. My skin crawled as I stood there, beneath the disapproving gaze of my guardian angel.

  What was that?

  I glanced back at my house again.

  Was that on before?

  I stared at the light shining in my downstairs den.

  You don’t have to ring the doorbell. You can step back and go home and…

  But I remembered the way Jake had looked at me. Remembered the touch of his hand against mine. How my foot ached
against his…

  My finger jabbed the doorbell, possessed by the need to touch him again.

  You can still go home.

  Jake opened the door, his eyes wide with shock. He closed the thick law book in his hand.

  “So the second midget says, ‘You think that’s bad, I couldn’t even get up on the bed.’” I paused, then added, “The end.”

  “Didn’t think I’d see you again today,” he said.

  “Oh, I’m just full of surprises.” I stepped into a foyer three stories high, and gazed at the skylight, then down to a floor made with glazed pieces of jewel-colored glass. “This place is incredible. Like a mini-Hearst Castle.”

  Jake smiled. “Is this your first time inside?”

  I nodded. “You’ve invited me over several times, but I’ve resisted until now. Are you baking something? I smell bread and lemons.”

  “Nope,” he said. “The house just smells like that.”

  I wandered into the living room. Ed Ruscha paintings hung on every wall. A shiny baby grand sat in a corner. Floor to ceiling windows let in sepia-colored light, and outside, sunset colored the canyon gold while Downtown shimmered like a dusty mirage.

  “Let me know if it’s too warm in here,” he said.

  “It’s perfect,” I said, unable to force my eyes from those diamond-like skyscrapers. “How is it that we have the same view, but here…? Does it look like this every night? Because it’s so…” Not beautiful. More than beautiful.

  He stood in front of me. “Guess it depends on your perspective.” He tilted my face towards his and kissed me.

  I caressed his face as we kissed, as his lips trailed down my neck to the cleft between my breasts. His hands cupped my ass, then, clenched my waist. My hands wandered across his back as I pushed harder against him.

  He urged me backwards until we found the couch. He sat, and I straddled his waist and tugged at his track pants. His fingers dipped into my panties, then slipped them off. My hands eased down his tight abdomen and into his boxers. He tensed for a moment, then relaxed. Our eyes locked as I pushed his pants past his hips…