The Intermission

by Elyssa Friedland

  She was building a life for herself outside of Jonathan in California, through a combination of chance and effort. It was a reminder that she could survive without his scaffolding. Still, she updated him regularly via text, like a child mailing home letters from overnight camp: “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah.” She found herself humming the song as she texted her husband. She asked him for a picture of Central Park, which looked positively alive in summer; there was something inherently off-putting about living in a place with only one season. It made her feel as though time was standing still when in fact the six months was creeping forward. When he sent a picture of their favorite tree—a thick-trunked elm as wide as it was tall next to which Puddles loved to do his business—the dense canopy of leaves startled her. When she’d left it had been a huge barren stalk with a thousand tangled, wiry branches hanging off of it.

  Her favorite time of year in New York was autumn, when the foliage was devastatingly beautiful, leaves like liquid gold and cherries jubilee. She wouldn’t have left Jonathan in fall, certainly not for L.A. anyway, where the seasons bled into each other like grape juice on a purple napkin. Winter was the time for a getaway—had she known that all along? That level of pragmatism was too much even for her.

  * * *

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  ONCE UPON A time, a little girl named Cassidy Jessica Rogers lived in a small ranch house with aluminum siding in Hazel Park, Michigan, with her parents, Donna and Richard Rogers. Donna sold makeup at the local department store and Richard—Dick to those who knew him well (barkeeps, his poker buddies, other lowlifes)—was a contractor. Cassidy was a fine elementary school student, had a best friend named Tiffany, kissed a boy for the first time when she was eight and liked how it felt. She desperately wanted a puppy (her mother claimed a dubious allergy) and to go to Disney World; other than that, her life was complete. Her parents shouted routinely at each other, occasionally a glass or plate was thrown, but naive little Cassidy didn’t know such things weren’t commonplace.

  Shortly after her ninth birthday, Cassidy was called downstairs by her parents. She dropped her homework, plucked off her furry pink headphones and walked gingerly down the creaky steps.

  “Daddy fixes houses, right?” a younger Cassidy had once asked her mother.

  “Supposed to,” Donna answered.

  “Why are our stairs so noisy then?”

  “Good question, baby girl.”

  Now she sat down and found her mother tapping an empty wineglass with hot pink nails, her father flicking the top of his beer bottle over and over. Tap tap. Clink clink. Wheel of Fortune played on mute in the background.

  “What’s up?” Cassidy asked.

  “Pumpkin,” Donna said, looking squarely at Cassidy, who heretofore had never been referred to as “Pumpkin.” She reached for her daughter’s small hand, accidentally scratching it with the tip of her acrylics. “Your father and I are getting divorced.”

  “Why?” Cassidy asked.

  “Because we have problems that we can’t fix,” Dick said. Like the stairs, Cassidy had said to herself. Snarkiness—a defense mechanism she’d discovered in early childhood.

  Her parents seemed so lazy in that moment. She was only nine and she already knew that every problem had a solution. She told them so later when she got them each alone. She cornered her father while he was driving Cassidy to sell Girl Scout cookies (she missed so many meetings she had to deactivate eventually); she got her mom while she was showering after work, scrubbing off the scent that the perfume spritzers left in their wake on the cosmetics floor.

  Her father’s response: “Your mother and I just got married too young, honey.”

  Her mother’s response: “Your father is a lying, cheating bastard.” Donna went off script, not the first time, not the last.

  “Where am I going?” she asked, back at the table with both parents.

  “Your father is keeping the house. It belonged to Granddad and Grandma. We’re going to move to an apartment together.” It’ll be a grand, glorious adventure for mother and daughter, is what Donna should have added. But she didn’t. And all Cassidy could think about was how her Cabbage Patch would feel about the relocation and whether her new room would have enough wall space for her poster collection. She knew without having to be told that the new place would be smaller, in an even less desirable part of town.

  The story ends, in the short term, with nine-year-old Cassidy making up her mind to be different from her parents. By the time she was a teenager, she’d resolved to marry a man from a reputable family and with money—lots of it—and to get the hell out of Hazel Park.

  Years later, a college girl named Cass J. Rogers would find a boy named Jon Coyne who perfectly fit the bill.

  * * *

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  SATURDAY MORNING, TWO weeks into her new job at Spiegel, and it was Jonathan’s birthday. Thirty-four. Mercifully not one of the “biggies,” but Cass was still feeling terrible being away from him. If it were during the week, the occasion would make Cass’s heart less achy. She’d be occupied with her newest project and would take comfort in knowing Jonathan was busy too. He’d wake up, shower and shave, walk the thirty blocks to his office and remember maybe around eleven o’clock when the first phone call rolled in from one of his siblings that it was his birthday. At lunch, he’d casually mention it to Russell or Jeff and they’d insist on going out to Luger’s that evening. But on a weekend, staring down the barrel of an empty schedule, he’d remember it was his birthday the minute he woke up. Instead of calling early, his siblings would forget the date until late in the day—it being a Saturday and all—and then they’d all call or text within minutes of each other around five o’clock, after the first one remembered and tipped off the others.

  Cass and Jonathan never did much on birthdays anyway. Both of them had bad childhood experiences, though he readily admitted his traumas couldn’t hold a candle to hers (pun acknowledged by both of them). Jonathan’s brother Michael’s birthday was two weeks after his so he’d suffered the fate of combined birthday parties with a kid three years younger. And his parents inevitably argued through every single “celebration.” Their parties would be these stiff gatherings at the country club and Jonathan remembered one of his friends not being allowed in one year because he wasn’t in “proper attire.” The boy was eleven. Cass and Jonathan talked, as people without children do, about how they would get it right when they were parents.

  As adults, she and Jonathan went out for dinner on their respective birthdays and came home and did it in a slightly more protracted and enthusiastic fashion than normal. Jonathan obviously wanted sex on his birthday, while she would rather have rolled over and had him scratch her back until she fell asleep. But she could never ask that they abstain from sex on her birthday. It felt too cruel, not to mention defeatist, so Jonathan won on both days. This characterization made marriage seem like a game, which of course it wasn’t. It just lent itself particularly well to keeping score.

  “It’s not like we don’t have sex when it’s not your birthday,” she once pointed out to him after he’d joked in the morning that he knew she’d be a sure thing that evening. “You seem so happy about it.”

  “True, but I just like the certainty of knowing it’s going to happen,” he had responded. The difference between men and women, simplified: she wanted to wake up in the morning and be five pounds lighter; he wanted to know he’d have sex that day. It was a wonder they had any common ground at all.

  Now, three thousand miles from the birthday boy who wasn’t going to get laid that night (or would he?), she twisted her stiff neck to face her alarm clock. How she missed that ceiling clock. It was nearly ten in New York, not too early to text him.

  Happy 34th J! Hope you have a great day. C. Light and breezy, light and breezy. She chanted her mantra silently, wondering if her text would land while he was receiving a “gift” from someone else
.

  Thanks! he shot back. The exclamation point threw her. He wasn’t normally emotive, in written form or otherwise. At least he appeared to be alone.

  Then, her Jonathan returned.

  Kind of a shitty day. Want to FaceTime?

  Yes, give me five minutes. I’ll call you.

  A hit of bronzer, a swap of glasses for contacts and an application of lip gloss later, she dialed him.

  “Hi,” she said when his face filled the screen of her iPad.

  “Hi.”

  A moment of silence followed, enough time to see him properly. His hair stood up on end, scruff dotted his jawline, a faded Wharton tee clung to his chest greedily.

  “You look great,” she said. “Happy birthday.”

  “You too,” he said. “Your California tan is getting darker.”

  She flushed, feeling more color rising to her bronzed cheeks.

  “Any plans for today?” she asked.

  “I’m going to eat these,” he said, and panned his computer over to their coffee table, on which an open box of cupcakes sat. “Katie’s new business.”

  “Cute.” Cass made a mental note to place an order. Maybe she’d send a dozen to Dahlia’s boys. “Besides that?”

  “Not really. Thought I’d take Puddles to the new dog run near Carl Schurz Park. It’s pouring, so he’ll be thrilled. Hang on a sec, I’ll go get him.”

  He lifted the computer and she followed the camera’s eye to the kitchen counter, littered with a few cereal boxes, then to the open bathroom, where she saw the toilet seat down, and then to their bedroom, where Puddles lay splayed across their comforter.

  “Say hi to Mommy,” Jonathan said, and Puddles appeared. He started barking, seeing his reflection in the upper corner of the screen.

  “Hi, Puddles,” she cooed. “Somebody got groomed recently.”

  “Thanks,” Jonathan said, patting the top of his head. “Kidding. The dog walker took him to the new spa on Seventy-seventh Street.”

  “Well, you both look handsome. Jonathan, I wish I was with you today.”

  “Me too,” he said, sounding wistful. “How’s your new job? Do they have any idea you live in New York?” She heard the strain in his voice.

  “I was up-front, yes. Spiegel has offices in New York too.”

  A long pause. Jonathan ran his fingers through his hair, tugged at it aggressively if she was seeing things correctly.

  “Or maybe you’ll just move out here,” she said, joking and not joking. Maybe a change of venue was all they needed. They could always move around the country together every five years, maybe even the world, to keep things interesting. Acclimation would be so exhausting there would be no time left for contemplating secrets, for questioning how life would be with another partner, for developing routines that felt like a prison sentence.

  “Uh-huh. Winstar West,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Listen, I gotta go. Puddles is scratching at the front door. I’m glad we FaceTimed.”

  “Me too,” she said, holding back “I love you.” Knowing that it was the truth, but worried it would be the wrong thing to say. When was telling someone you loved them ever a mistake? she challenged herself, but played out the counterargument quickly enough. It was unfair to say “I love you” when the love came with major strings attached: uncertainty, regrets, secrets. She loved Jonathan, but as trite as it sounded, she wasn’t sure love was enough. One thing she was sure of: mature love wasn’t anything like new love. If Jonathan questioned these same issues, she couldn’t tell. He was so damn good at compartmentalizing; she often pictured his mind like the trays in a cash register.

  “Well, happy birthday again,” she said instead. “I hope you do something fun.”

  He shrugged, which killed her inside. How she wished he’d said he was going to play golf, or see a baseball game, or even go out for dinner with the guys. Anything but that defeated shrug.

  The FaceTime disconnected abruptly. Had the Wi-Fi gone haywire? Or did Jonathan just hang up? She didn’t know and she didn’t call back.

  * * *

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  MONDAY MORNING, AFTER a weekend of assuaging her guilt with wine and carbs, her office phone rang. The entire design team worked in cubes right around her, a bullpen of creatives. This was literally the first time her extension had lit up since she’d started.

  “Cass Coyne?” she asked, inviting the person on the other end to announce it was a wrong number.

  “Cass. Marty Spiegel. I’ll be in in about ten minutes. I’d like you to come see me about a new project. You can wait for me in my office.” He hung up abruptly.

  She looked over at Josephine.

  “Marty wants to see me,” Cass said, hoping for reassurance.

  “Then you better go,” Josephine responded, giving her arm a gentle push.

  Fingertips tingling, Cass gathered a legal pad and pen and strode down to Marty’s corner office, watching the others take notice.

  Alone in his office, after swooping past Abby, the most frantic of Marty’s assistants, Cass took inventory of her boss’s photographs. Luna as a small child in smocking, pig-tailed and chomping on a gigantic cookie, gave her a shock. Hard to see the nose-ringed, inked cleaning lady in that picture. Sisters of all ages were in other frames scattered throughout the massive office, nestled between countless crystal awards on granite bases and shiny onyx plaques. One locked glass cabinet held three Oscars. Movie posters everywhere made her feel small and inconsequential. From time to time, the talent from Marty’s world came to Broadway, her world, to prove their acting chops, but looking around, it was hard not to feel intimidated. His office was a dizzying display of power. One shelf was devoted to photos of Marty at Cannes over the years. There was Marty with Tom Cruise, here was Marty with Jack Nicholson, there was Marty again with Emma Stone. Red carpets everywhere. Marty looked so much less slovenly in a tuxedo, approximating something like handsome with his cocky grin and well-tailored evening wear. His boyish smile took off ten years at least.

  “Cass,” he said, entering the room while her back was turned. “Have a seat.”

  Alert Abby, with her ears pointed like antennae and a cell phone tucked into each pocket of her pants, followed behind him with, of all things, a large pizza steaming in its cardboard box.

  “Hungry?” he asked, flipping up the lid.

  “Um, no thanks.” She glanced at her watch. “I just finished breakfast.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said, lifting two pieces and folding them together to form a pizza sandwich. It was the way her father used to eat pizza. Maybe he still did. She wouldn’t know.

  “You can go, Abby,” he said, and she retreated, walking backward like she was leaving a holy place. If she had crossed herself, Cass wouldn’t have been surprised.

  After a long pause for chewing, Marty spoke. “Here’s the situation. We’re failing in Europe. Especially in the U.K. and France. The movie titles are getting lost in translation, but it’s more than that. It’s the marketing. Here it’s all about flash. It’s different there, and we need to know why. Do you understand?”

  She carefully considered her words. It was the first direct interaction they’d had since the night at Craig’s, where she’d mercifully had the lubrication of two glasses of wine.

  “I think I get France,” she started slowly. “But the U.K.? No language barrier, and I would assume their sensibility isn’t that different than ours?”

  “Well, Cass, to be honest,” Marty said, and here his face broke into a devious grin, “you may know that my ex-wife is English. Philippa Eastland, the fashion designer. Our divorce was not, shall we say, a smooth one.” He reached for something in his desk drawer and tossed it at Cass. A stack of tabloids tabbed with yellow Post-its.

  She reached for one, caught the headline and knew where this was going. “A-List Fashion Designer, Ex-Wife of Marty
Spiegel, Steps Out with New Man.” Below it, a picture. Tall, thin, with a stylish chestnut bob and cheekbones like smooth rocks, Philippa was a striking vision in her all-white T-shirt-and-jeans ensemble. Her boyfriend, identified in the caption as a male model, looked like his body had been chiseled by Michelangelo. They were hand in hand, heading out of a supermarket, toting recyclable bags.

  “You see, Cass, I made her career. Forced all the pretty young things to wear her dresses to the awards shows. And I gave our kids everything. Two girls—Olive and Stella. I was making sure to get it right with them after fucking up with my older three. Case in point, Luna has passive-aggressively chosen to mop other people’s shit because I was a crap father. But it wasn’t enough for Philippa. She needed the looks and youth too.”

  Now he reached for another double slice of pizza, tipping his head back to angle it into his mouth. You’re not so bad when you aren’t shoving food down your throat, Cass wanted to say. Look at yourself in these pictures! As if he could read her mind, he put the pizza down on a plate and reached for a napkin to clean his mouth.

  “You would get what I’m saying if you were married. There’s an understanding between people. Compromises. I have the money, she has the looks. It’s simple arithmetic. You just don’t pull shit like Philippa.”

  “I’m separated,” Cass said, and Marty raised his eyebrows. He obviously hadn’t known and she witnessed the cogs in his brain processing. Her brain was churning too. Marty put everything so simply. Marriage was a math equation. A sum total between two people, each person coming with a raw score. It was best just to acknowledge it head-on.

  “Huh,” he finally said, like she’d just told him a neat fact about her, like she was a vegetarian or dyslexic. “Anyway, now Philippa’s back in London most of the time, except when she flies over to see this loser.” He hit the page with the back of his hand.