A Cup of Comfort for Couples

by Colleen Sell

  When I surfaced, I pulled the mask off my face and blinked. With one hand I rubbed my eyes while my other hand let go of the mask, which drifted slowly to the bottom as I tread water to stay afloat. The shore looked a long way off.

  An instructor splashed up next to me. “What’s going on?”

  “My mask was filling with water and I couldn’t clear it.” My voice sounded hollow and gurgly, as if filled with bubbles and salt.

  “Where is your mask?”

  “I think I dropped it.”

  She nodded, and for a long time we tread water.

  “Okay,” she said, “I’ll go down for it. You stay right here.”

  You can think about a lot of things when you’re treading water in the middle of the ocean, like how far away the dock is, and whether your mask will ever be found, and how long you can tread water, and whether a shark could bite your legs off, and whether a fish could carry your mask home to his fish family, and where is your husband, and what could he be thinking when he doesn’t see you on the bottom of the ocean?

  The instructor burst up, waving the mask above her head. She helped me seal it carefully around my face. “Don’t wiggle it. Just leave it on,” she warned. Then she took my hand and led me firmly back underwater.

  In the eerie slanted sunlight I made out David’s long, thin shape apart from the other divers. He looked lost, darting around, swimming in half-circles. When he saw us coming, he swam up, his eyes bulging behind his mask. The instructor pointed to my hand, then to David’s, and placed my hand carefully in his. She pointed to both our hands, then clasped her own hands together and waved them in front of David’s face. Hold on to her.

  David nodded and signaled thumbs-up with his free hand. He would not let go. He held my hand so firmly, in fact, that I let my legs uncurl just a little, trying a mermaid swish here and there, swimming next to him, holding on. David pointed to his chest, then his air hose, and back to me. He breathed in, shlshlshsh, and I matched his breathing, then out, slowly, pshshshsh; we breathed together. He nodded and we swam off, a two-headed mermaid, breathing in rhythm.

  David pointed out a neon parrotfish, then he led me to a little cave and showed me a glowing eel under a rock. Breathe in together, breathe out together. Swish fins. It was kind of glorious deep under the sea.

  When we emerged, the light was fading but the air was still warm and fragrant. After peeling off our wetsuits, we sat on a bench, leaning into each other, grinning.

  The instructor walked over to check on me. “Diving is scarier for women,” she said. I looked puzzled. “Because we bear children,” she explained.

  Rachel was born nine months and three days later. Five months into the pregnancy, when I felt her kicking inside me, I sat David down and placed his hand on my stomach. We sat in silence for a few moments, just the three of us.

  Finally I said, “I’m having our child and I need you to put my name on the deed to our home.”

  Two days later a new deed was issued, and the prenuptial agreement was torn up.

  Ari, our son, came three years after.

  Now, thirty years and one grandchild later, David and I swim along, drift apart, surface, then dive deeper. We’re still holding hands.

  — Debra Gordon Zaslow

  Biscuits and Olives

  It was Greg’s idea to spend our thirteenth wedding anniversary on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle, just thirty minutes west of our home in the suburbs. I was living on Queen Anne when we met, and years before that Greg had lived there as a college student. He thought it would be romantic to visit the place where we began, the place we’d both left behind.

  We stayed at the Marqueen Hotel, a turn-of-the-twentieth-century brick building at the bottom of the hill that had housed apartments for most of its life. The Marqueen isn’t plush and new like the tiny boutique hotels downtown; it’s large and old-world homey, furnished with vintage décor and antique furniture. If the water ran from hot to cold and back again without any notice, we were willing to trade that inconvenience for a slice of the character we had both loved when we were younger, before the promises of greater safety, bigger back yards, and better schools for our children lured us to the suburbs.

  We did everything we wanted that weekend, things we’d all but given up since becoming parents. We ate each meal at a different restaurant, ordering exotic dishes of pheasant eggs and lemongrass soup, curried mussels and dilled crab cakes. We hopped from bar to bar, drinking too many Lemon Drops and dancing to technoretro music, convincing ourselves that the dark lighting and our penchant for dressing young kept the other dancers from noticing that we were “too old.” We spent an afternoon at Pike Place Market, where we felt, almost, like tourists. We bought used books at Twice Sold Tales, which we read while lounging naked in our room until desire drew us away from the pages and into each other’s arms.

  “Do you miss it?” Greg asked at one point.

  I knew he was talking about more than just the neighborhood and city, that he was really asking whether I missed being young and childless and unfettered, with all of my choices still in front of me.

  “It’s a good question,” I said. “Do you have a lifetime?”

  “As a matter of fact,” he laughed, “I do.”

  After we had our fill of downtown, we went up the hill — to Kerry Park, for its famous view that spans from downtown to Alki Point, and to the Queen Anne Café, a diner we used to lounge in over long Sunday breakfasts. Our last stop was the back stoop of my old apartment building, where, fifteen years before, we had shared our first kiss, after hours of soul-meeting talk about music and books and philosophy, important things that would come to seem like mere luxuries in the busy years ahead.

  At home after our weekend away, we agreed it was the best anniversary trip we’d ever taken.

  But over the next several weeks, as the perfect parts of our getaway started blending into one big happy memory, there was one piece that wouldn’t quite mix in. I couldn’t help but worry it, turning it over and over in my mind and catching my breath at its sharp edges.

  On the last morning, while waiting for the barista at the hotel’s coffee shop to steam up our orange-chocolately espresso drinks, Greg picked out a small cookie from a bowl on the counter and put it in his mouth. Just as he was curling up his nose at the taste, a quietly smug voice behind us said, “You just ate a dog biscuit.”

  We turned then to see a cute, twenty-something girl wearing Northwest-casual city chic, impossibly short hair, and what looked to me like a smooth-skinned face of disdain. We weren’t hip enough to know that this café always put out biscuits for its canine clientele (even if they were shaped — humanly, I thought — like hearts); Greg wasn’t cool enough to keep his hands and mouth to himself.

  Back at our table, I fumed. “They could at least have a sign,” I hissed, embarrassed for Greg — and for myself.

  I felt betrayed — by my old neighborhood and its new residents, by my used-to-belong younger self and the older woman I suddenly seemed to be turning into. But Greg didn’t care and tried to tease me out of it. He reminded me of how he’d jumped out of a rented car on our honeymoon in Spain to pop an uncured olive into his mouth, only to be knocked to his knees by its brininess. He reminded me of how we’d laughed later, over tapas and beer, and made up newspaper headlines and obituaries: “No looking back: Man, just married, turns into pillar of salt.”

  I knew I was being silly about the dog biscuit, and I laughed with him, at us. But at home now, I can’t quite let it go. I think about all of the girls I used to be: the mysterious one who dressed in black; the manic one who rocketed from job to job and boyfriend to boyfriend, and in between times spent solitary weeks in her apartment, trying to write; the ambivalent one who didn’t know if she wanted to marry or live alone, to take the well-paying technical-writing jobs or the poorly paying artsy ones; the girl who was that disdainful young woman in the coffee shop.

  The girl I was would never unthinkingly pop something into he
r mouth, and she certainly wouldn’t race to a tree, in any country, as if expecting to taste from The Tree of Life. That girl didn’t know that she wouldn’t be young forever, that she would be replaced by endless rounds of younger, seemingly cooler girls, all of whom, sooner or later, would also have to choose — between a rooted, microscopic love that could hold her and the telescopic thrill of everything still hovering on the horizon.

  I think about how my husband picked me all those years ago, popping me into his heart before he knew what he was getting. How even now that he knows — my bitter parts, my sharp points — he’s never once asked for relief, never once shown any regret.

  Snuggled into Greg’s heart like the pit of an olive, I’ve accompanied him places I wouldn’t go on my own. Sometimes these journeys drain me, as if I’ve survived too long on dry, tasteless biscuits. But together we’ve found that even the most unpalatable parts of our personalities, when shared over cup after cup of the creamed coffee we both love, sustain and ultimately strengthen us.

  — Lorri McDole

  This story was first published in The Rambler, October 2007.

  Dancing with My Husband

  They didn’t show this part on Dancing with the Stars, I thought, my right foot colliding with my husband’s left shin as we attempted to waltz across the dance floor. We tried again, a mixture of love and hysteria in our eyes as I fought hard not to lead and he fought hard not to let me. He had donned the dance shoes he’d worn at our wedding a decade ago, while my feet were dressed in my best Jazzercise sneakers, no high heels to trip me up on this first night of my fantasy-come-true ballroom dance class.

  “One, two, three. One, two, three . . .” I counted, loud enough for the two of us as we hurried to catch up to the other two stumbling couples.

  There were no cheering crowds to spur us on, no celebrity judges, only fluorescent lights and a sweaty heaviness in the air left over from the hip-hop teens who had occupied the space before us. Kayla, our instructor, clapped her hands and shouted the count from the sideline, looking too young and skinny for us to be friends. No, there’d been no scrolling feed on TV to warn “don’t try this at home” or “don’t bribe the one you love with tacos and sex every night (not necessarily in that order) for a Friday night dance class,” because, hey, now that we’re married, we’re not doing anything after Jeopardy, anyway.

  My husband and I finally managed a safe step, two, three, and my heart swelled as Frank Sinatra sang and we glided a few feet across the hardwood floor. I engaged the fantasy, imagining myself in a skin-tight backless dress, the music loud and strong, stirring that falling-in-love feeling when joy courses through you like a low-grade fever. No matter that the last time my husband and I had danced together was at our wedding long ago. No matter that those TV dancers didn’t have to race home from work to grab the spouse who’d just arrived from his own nine-to-fiver and dash down to the dance “institute,” a converted suite of rooms with mirrors for walls in the token industrial section of suburbia. No matter any of that, because we were here, really here, and for a few more cautious steps I was living the dream. I smiled at my husband, he smiled back, and then, happy and distracted, we promptly ran into each other again.

  “Okay, kids,” Kayla called. “Gather ’round, please, so I can show you the next move.”

  She grabbed my husband’s hand and pulled him into the middle of our small circle. I watched, helpless, as she bent his arms into position like a life-sized Gumby doll and then locked her frame into his.

  “Now, pay attention,” she said. “This is what it should look like.”

  Kayla nodded a silent count to my spouse, then boldly stepped back, pulling my better half with her. I braced, waiting for the crash.

  “You’re so lucky,” said the woman next to me. “My husband wouldn’t be caught dead here.”

  “There was bribery involved.” What, I would not say.

  She shook her head. “Nothing would get Barry down here. He likes to bowl, but that’s about it.”

  By now Kayla and my man had danced several yards without mishap. If there was any hesitation on his part, it was quickly quelled by Ms. Skinny Tush.

  “He’s pretty good, actually,” my new friend said. “I’m Harriett, by the way.”

  “I’m Barbara, and that’s Michael,” I said, turning to offer her a quick smile, but was surprised to see her watching my guy with open admiration.

  Curious, I followed her gaze and that’s when it hap-pened: through Harriett’s eyes, I saw my husband in a way I hadn’t since when we were first dating and every inch of him was fascinating to me and all I desired. Before our dance class, he’d thrown on a white shirt and black slacks, and now I stood transfixed by the contrast of his tan hands against the crisp white cuffs — it was so Antonio Banderasish. Had he been wearing that all evening?

  The music stopped, and Kayla brought him over. “He’s all yours!” she said, giving me his hand. I took it.

  “Teacher’s pet,” I teased.

  Michael laughed and pulled me close. “The sacrifices I make.”

  “And I appreciate it.” I tilted my head up like Meg Ryan from When Harry Met Sally — when she had good hair.

  We started practicing again, our moves to Frank’s tunes a little smoother now after Kayla’s private lesson. I told him about Harriett. “But she doesn’t know you’re only here for the promise of food and canoodling.”

  He looked indignant. “Not true.”

  “What do you mean?” I felt his guiding right hand, warm and familiar, burrow its way to my bare back, T-shirt be damned.

  “I’m here,” he said, bending slightly to touch his nose to mine, “because you wanted me to be.”

  Shocked, I pulled away. “Really?”

  Michael reached out, and in a roguish, Harlequin romance-type move brought me up against him and whispered in my ear, “Really.”

  But he already had me at “you wanted me to be.” In that Disney moment, I saw all the little things he does: the spiders he’s slain, the schmaltzy love notes left where I’ll find them (on my pillow, in my purse, taped on the package of the freeze-dried tortellini I planned to resuscitate for dinner), his gentleman’s arm on stairs that seem steeper after age forty. But most of all, letting me drag him to a ballroom dance class for the next six Friday nights when he could be home watching Dirty Jobs on DIRECTV. I wanted him. I wanted him now.

  “Ready?” he asked, setting us into start-waltz position again.

  I nodded. “You can lead.”

  We danced some more, Sinatra wound down, and Michael spun me around into a death-defying dip that made me cry out with laughter. After class, I threaded my arm through his.

  “So what do you say next week I ditch the sneaks for a pair of sexy black pumps?”

  He grinned. “And nothing else?”

  Men. “Uh — no,” I replied, then added, “But later tonight . . . ”

  — Barbara Neal Varma

  Popcorn Proposal

  The room was dimly lit with candlelight and the glow from the fireplace. The crackling sounds of the wood burning coupled with the soft strains of acoustic Spanish guitar coming from the stereo made the perfect duet, setting the mood. On the floor was a red-and-white-checkered blanket with a picnic basket next to it. The crystal champagne glasses on the fireplace hearth were my clue champagne was lurking somewhere near that basket.

  I turned to look at Ryan, who simply smiled at me while he lifted the lid to the basket. Inside, I saw cheese, fruit, chocolate, and other treats.

  That was the scene that greeted me when I walked in the door from running an errand — an errand I suddenly realized he had contrived to get me out of the house. I had been expecting the noise and confusion that usually greeted me when I walked in the door. Instead of the barking dog, the attacking cat, and the children screaming about who did what to whom and vying for my attention, the house was quiet, devoid of kids and pets, calm and clean. My living room was never clean.

  Ry
an’s beckoning eyes beseeched me to come and sit by him as he patted the spot on the blanket next to him. I obeyed — greedily, happily — and sank into his arms beside him on the floor. He poured two glasses of champagne, one of which I sipped eagerly. Accustomed to fruit punch and milk, I savored this rare treat.

  We toasted, sipped some more champagne, and then he took my glass. Like in the movies, he moved closer to me, put his arms around me, and gently lowered me onto the floor, wrapped up in his embrace.

  Two hours later, I woke up, cozy and comfortable, still lying on the floor, with Ryan hovering over me, a smirk on his face, watching me sleep.

  “You snore,” he said, laughter tinting the words and his eyes crinkling at the sides. I love when his eyes smile.

  I was mortified. I could not believe that after he’d gone to so much trouble — finding a way to get rid of the kids, planning the entire evening to picture perfection — I had fallen asleep on him!

  I suppose that was the moment when I realized, This guy must really love me.

  And so he does.

  That night my children from a previous relationship, whom Ryan had come to love and care for, had gone, on his dime, to a double feature at the drive-in. Inside the picnic basket was a small velvet box, sapphire blue, and inside that box was a gorgeous triad-diamond engagement ring. It was stunning, absolutely perfect.

  Once I woke fully, Ryan bent to his knee, took the box, and properly proposed. At that precise moment, before I gave him an answer, my children came bursting through the door, all eager to tell me about the movie and their exciting evening out. The dog, who had been securely relegated to the bedroom that evening, heard them and began barking her head off. My son accidentally kicked over the champagne flute that was on the floor. We rushed to pick things up and get them out of the line of fire.