The Night Before

by Wendy Walker

  Gabe came back into the room and stopped in front of her. His arms pulled her in.

  “It’s going to be okay. I promise you,” he said.

  But when she felt his shirt dampen against her cheek, the tears breaking free, she was no longer that helpless girl. And she was the only one among them who knew that he was wrong.

  SEVEN

  Laura. Session Number Two. Four Months Ago. New York City.

  Dr. Brody: Why did you punch your fists through that wall? You were only six.…

  Laura: It was probably nothing. My parents used to say I made mountains out of molehills. If someone gave me a rainbow of colors, I would mix them up to make black.

  Dr. Brody: Look … your hand … your knuckles are turning white.…

  Laura: Sorry … sometimes I still smell the plaster. Feel the bones bruising.

  Dr. Brody: Children develop sharpened skills of perception if they’re always in danger. Sometimes they’re right about what they see, and sometimes they’re wrong. But they see everything.

  Laura: I didn’t exactly grow up in the jungle.

  Dr. Brody: Emotional danger—emotional neglect—those will do the trick.

  Laura: You’ve lost me. How was I neglected?

  Dr. Brody: I don’t know. You were the one who was there.

  EIGHT

  Laura. The Night Before. Thursday, 8 p.m. Branston, CT.

  There is something all wrong about Jonathan Fields’s car. Yes, it’s a Toyota and not a BMW, but there’s something else.

  “Do you like music?” he asks as we stop at a light. Then he laughs, at himself I think. “That was stupid. Of course you like music. I meant to ask what kind of music. I can find something on the radio.”

  That’s it. This car has a radio. An actual radio with knobs and buttons. The knob for the volume twists right and left. The one for the channels pushes up or down. Large white arrows lead the way. It has AM and FM. No satellite service. No iPhone connector, Bluetooth, or hardwire. And yet it’s not old. It smells new. Brand-new.

  Jonathan hits a button to search for a channel. It stops on something with Top 40 stuff, and I feel like I’m in fourth grade again, riding with my grandmother.

  “This okay?” he asks. He glances at me and smiles. The light changes. He makes a right from Schaffer Boulevard onto Grand Street.

  I hesitate, but then I can’t help myself. Grand Street is way out of the way if we’re going to the waterfront, and let’s just say it’s not exactly a scenic route. It’s the part of town that’s suffered most at every economic downturn.

  “Do you know a secret shortcut?” I ask. It’s not the best way to ask the question, but it’s better than saying, What the hell are you doing? Which is what I’m thinking and what I want to say.

  Now he seems unnerved.

  “No,” he says. He answers with the intonation of a question.

  So I give him my answer.

  “It’s just—Schaffer goes all the way down. Under the train and highway.” I’m pointing back toward the right direction, from which we have just departed.

  “I go this way to avoid the lights,” he says. He’s very clever. Only, there are lights this way as well, and you have to drive slower because the forgotten teenagers who line the streets at night will walk right out in front of you and not give a shit. This is their neighborhood and they do what they want. We used to come here to buy pot, and from the looks of it, nothing has changed. There’s no reason to be here unless you live here or want to score weed.

  Maybe that’s it, I think. Maybe he just smokes a lot of weed and so he made this turn out of habit. I can live with that.

  Adele comes on the radio, and I find myself looking again at the dashboard. It’s not just the radio. The entire console is old-school. Analog. Red and white. Buttons and knobs to twist and push—not just for the radio, but the heat and the wipers and the odometer reset. It makes my sister’s minivan look like a spaceship. The seats are blue-speckled fabric. The armrests cheap plastic. No way this guy drives this car by choice. Not Jonathan Fields.

  We make awkward small talk. It’s actually painful, reminding me of the distance we will have to travel to be more than strangers. And then I’m reminded of how desperately I need to make that journey, with someone, anyone. And it all feels hopeless.

  Maybe it’s just Adele. Damn it, Adele, what will it take to make you happy? I hit the search button to silence her.

  “You said you just moved back here,” he says.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “From the city?”

  I already told him this on the phone.

  “Uh-huh.” I know this is immature. This is old me talking, and new me tells her to shut the hell up along with Adele and her desperation coming through the radio and make nice conversation. I tell myself I can make that long journey if I just follow the instructions, the rules, one at a time, starting with a normal answer to his question.

  “I was a research analyst. Tired of going to the office. I can do what I did at home, and there’s a market for independent research now.”

  He pretends to be interested.

  “I follow one industry—chemicals—and the companies in it. But also other industries that impact that one, and the economy and trade policy and currencies.… God, I’m boring you, aren’t I?”

  “No, not at all. I mean, I do similar work looking at investments,” he says. “I used to commute into the city. But my firm opened an office here, so it made more sense, you know, when I was married and we thought we’d have a family.”

  “And now you’re stuck here? They won’t let you transfer back to the city?” That’s an obvious question, right? This is not easy for me.

  “I hadn’t thought about it. Just trying to get back on my feet, you know?”

  I nod, look sympathetic. But, really, he’s been divorced for over a year. No kids. I wonder if he’s still in love with his wife. His ex-wife.

  “Your sister still lives here—it’s not so bad,” he says.

  “Rosie could be happy anywhere,” I quip. Rosie was happy with Joe because we grew up together and, well, he’s Joe. She was happy to follow him to UConn. Happy to come back and be an administrative assistant (aka secretary) and help pay for his law degree. Now happy to be home with Mason. She’s been this way all of our lives.

  Sometimes I wish I were Rosie. I wish I had her magic potion for being happy.

  I wish there was a recipe for it. But then again, I would be the one person to measure wrong.

  Jonathan Fields makes a left and eventually we go under the bridges for the train and the highway. Now we have to turn left again to get back to Schaffer, where we started. We’ve just driven in a large rectangle. But I say nothing. He’s not driving like he knows his way around—like he’s lived downtown for a year. He’s driving like he just moved here.

  We park on the street four blocks from the string of bars and restaurants that abut the apartments along the water. It’s an inlet from the Long Island Sound, so not exactly the ocean. More like a river. But there are boats and sunsets and all of that. The smell of the ocean. The sound of the waves. And it’s as far away from the part of town where people like my sister live, so it attracts the young, single crowd.

  And every divorced dad in the county looking to get laid. Maybe it’s a good thing he doesn’t know the fastest way here. Maybe if he did, I would worry more.

  Jonathan Fields wears dark tailored jeans and a loose button-down shirt tucked in with a belt. Loafers. Dress socks. Two buttons are undone at the top of the shirt, just enough to reveal a small tuft of chest hair. No jewelry. Thank God.

  I am a fan of chest hair. It’s masculine. Manly. I don’t understand all the waxing and laser removal. I like manly men. It makes me feel that it’s safe to lay down my sword and shield—that I won’t get ambushed in the night because someone else is watching the perimeter. It’s nice to be part of an army, even if it’s a small one.

  Asshole had chest hair. I used to weave m
y fingers through it. And suddenly I miss him more than I can bear. I think his name, his real name, and feel his embrace. I feel his skin against my skin, arms and legs weaving, torsos locked together. Warm breath on my neck as his mouth finds its way to mine. A deep kiss. A sigh.

  He said the words as we lay still. I love you.

  And I believed him. For once, I let myself believe.

  I got it wrong. It won’t happen again.

  And now … I have to start over, make another long journey from strangers to lovers. I’m so tired and we haven’t even begun, Jonathan Fields.

  He pulls the key out of the ignition and looks at me with a smile. He says something corny like Shall we? and my brain feels like a circuit’s been tripped by the conflicting information. The car. The Shall we? But then the jeans and the chest hair. I feel confused, so I smile and open the car door. I need air.

  “Where should we go?” I ask. I haven’t actually eaten here before. I come here with Rosie and Mason to watch the boats. There’s a huge playground and it’s a long drive from her house—all the makings of an outing. And Rosie loves her outings. I feel a surge of warmth wash over me as I think about Rosie and Mason and Joe, and my work and the future. There is so much that is good.

  I hear Mason call my name. Lala!

  I hear Rosie in my head. You don’t need a man.

  And I think, as I watch Jonathan Fields walk, But I want one.

  “I know a place,” Jonathan says. He waits for me to walk ahead of him and I feel his hand on the small of my back as he gently guides me into a bar, sending that shiver. But this one is prickly and uncomfortable, replacing the warmth. It’s not the way someone touches someone before they’ve had a decent conversation. Or a drink, at least. Or maybe they do and this is just me not knowing what the fuck I’m doing.…

  There’s a table in the back corner, and I sit facing the wall because he takes the other seat, facing the crowd. I’ve been told that’s what a gentleman does. Something about keeping watch—watching our backs. But, really, let’s be honest. We’re at a bar with a whole mess of attractive young people. I can think of other reasons he might want to sit facing the crowd.

  Maybe he wants to keep a lookout for women who might recognize him and call his name and chase after us as we scurry to the door.

  He leaves to get us drinks and I need one the way a fish needs water.

  I used to think that I think too much. That I search for answers when there are no questions, find solutions that have no problems. That I make mountains out of molehills, as my dear mother used to say. My mother and Dick. They both used to say it.

  And then I stopped thinking too much and guess what happened. I slammed right into the side of a mountain.

  Seriously. Just give me a magic pill to make it all go away.

  Or a cocktail, which is exactly what appears before me.

  “Thanks,” I say to Jonathan Fields as he sits down. I glance up inconspicuously as I swallow a large portion of my drink, just waiting for his eyes to find someone younger or hotter or sexier. But he doesn’t. He looks at me and only at me.

  And suddenly I want to be the woman I think he wants. New me.

  “Okay,” he says, leaning back in his chair. He’s comfortable now, not like he was in the car or even at the first bar. It’s like he’s just come home from a long day at the office and kicked off his shoes.

  “Let’s start over. I’m so bad with first dates. I never know what to talk about. What to ask about. It’s like walking in a field of land mines.”

  And just like that—bull’s-eye. I kick off my shoes as well.

  “I know,” I say to him with as much relief as I can possibly display in one facial expression. “It’s so horrible, right?”

  He shakes his head with enthusiasm and leans forward. “You know, it’s like the worst of everything, meeting online. If you go out with someone you know from work or someplace, there’s a starting point. A familiarity. And if you meet someone in a bar, then it’s just like flirting and all of that—there’s a rule book for it. Or a handbook—you know what I mean, right?”

  “Yes!” I say. “This is my first time doing this. And it’s awful! I mean, not you … That didn’t come out right. You’re not awful. It’s just hard to find a place to start.” It’s just like you said, Jonathan Fields. Only not exactly, because I have never known any of this to be easy. Not. Ever. Not even with Asshole.

  I kept the last text message he sent me. The one saying it was over and to never contact him again. I read it sometimes to remind myself about the mountains.

  “Okay,” he says again. He likes that word a lot. “So just ask me anything. What do you want to know?”

  “Honestly?” I ask.

  “Yes. Anything!” He leans back again. He reaches for his beer, and this time his eyes do a quick scan of the room. It’s perfectly normal, I remind myself. He’s facing out. He’s protecting me from wild animals that could pounce at any moment. His eyes do not stop and linger on anyone, but return to me and my question.

  “Okay,” I begin, because if Jonathan likes that word, new me likes it too. People are always more comfortable when you acclimate to them, to their style and their language. It’s why people often look like their dogs. I learned this in a psychology class.

  “What I really want to know about is your divorce. How you met your wife. Why you got married. What went wrong. Is that too personal? It’s fine if it is. But that is, honestly, what I most want to know.”

  This is a lie, of course. What I most want to know is what happened to his BMW, or why he told me he had one when he doesn’t. And even if he did lie to impress me and lure me out, there’s just no way he chose that car without a gun to his head.

  And that woman from the first bar calling out his name … and the way we got here, to the harbor …

  “Okay.” He begins his answer with his favorite word. “We met in college. Swarthmore. Senior year. But it’s not what you think. We didn’t just stay together and then get married. We actually broke up after graduation. I moved to Boston—that’s where I’m from. Sad to say, I lived with my parents for about a year while I was looking for a job. She came here, or to New York, rather. Then a few years later, when we were about twenty-eight, we reconnected on Facebook!”

  He says this like it’s a miracle, so I light up my whole face.

  “No way!” I say. It’s a miracle!!!!!

  “Yup. And we started talking and then I came to see her and she came up to see me, and then we lived in Boston for a while and then back here. We really thought we would start a family.”

  Now he seems sad, so I become a gray sky. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Can I ask what happened?”

  He goes on for a solid ten minutes, talking about all of their fertility treatments and how his wife has endometriosis, etc., etc., and TMI. I remind myself that we are trying to travel a long distance at the speed of light. I am sympathetic. I am. I truly am.

  But I want to know about that car. And why he didn’t move back to New York.

  It’s not fair to Jonathan Fields that I feel annoyed. He’s just answering the question I asked.

  He finally stops. He gets us another round. I watch him walk away and think that I like the way he walks and that he is a nice man. He loved his wife. He wanted to have children. He has parents who loved him enough to let him live in their basement after college. He is a good man, and I will try to find a way to let him in.

  Then I think this. I think about my sister and how if I met her today, I would not make her a friend. I wouldn’t dislike her, but we are too different and we would annoy each other. She would judge me and I would judge her and we would get in a girl fight and that would be that. But she is family, blood, and so I will never leave her. Not in a million years. The things about her that might annoy me I find endearing. I don’t know if she feels this way about me, but I think she does. Even if I move away again, part of me will always be hers and part of her will always be mine.

&
nbsp; She is the first person I call when the shit really hits the fan. Like it just did not two months ago. And she came running as fast as lightning.

  So what is it about love between strangers? What makes two people who are not family, not blood, stay and not leave? Do they just decide to do it? Do they swallow down their misery at being together when they want to be apart? Staying with Rosie is not a choice. Loving Rosie is not a choice.

  Then I think about Jonathan Fields and his wife and all those years they spent together. And then she just decided to leave? Just like that. Or maybe not. Maybe I don’t know the whole story. Still, I wonder.

  “Okay,” he says. “Now my turn.” He sets down the new drinks.

  I smile sheepishly. “Okay. Shoot.”

  “Was that guy in New York, the one you mentioned on the phone—was that a serious thing? Was it a hard breakup?”

  I try to decide what he’s asking me, really. Is it whether I am capable of a long-term relationship? Is it whether I’m still in love with someone else? Or is he still trying to find out why I came back home?

  And from there, why I left.

  “Yes and no,” I begin. “It wasn’t that long that we dated. But I did have feelings for him. And, yes, it was hard when he ended things. I guess we’re in a similar type of boat—obviously mine is much smaller.”

  He studies me carefully. “You said on the phone that he sent you one text ending things and then just disappeared. Stopped calling and texting you. Did you try to find out why?”

  I shake my head. “No. I mean, if someone dumps you in a text and then disappears like that, I think that’s a sign. What would prevent him from doing that again? Walking away is a bad habit, but it is a habit and it’s hard to break.”

  I expect him to pontificate on this rather introspective observation. But instead he dwells on my behavior.

  “But you didn’t at least reach out? Even on social media? Ask one of his friends?”

  Now I feel cornered. I can’t answer this without revealing the fact that I don’t use social media, and that I didn’t really know his friends. We spent our time together alone. It was new. New and perfect.