I almost ask her if Tony would be willing to go down that road. It would surprise me if he would. He would do most anything for Daphne, but he strikes me as the sort of macho guy who wouldn’t be able to handle that. But I decide not to stir the pot. Daphne has enough on her mind.
That afternoon, after I return about a dozen phone calls from various agents and authors, I find myself thinking about Ben and our marriage and how it wasn’t what I thought it was the day we said I do . After all, people who belong together stay together despite major setbacks and disagreements. They may deal in fault and blame temporarily, but ultimately they work things out. Love conquers all. In sickness and in health . That’s what good marriages are all about. I think of an extreme example, how Dana Reeve stayed with Christopher even though she couldn’t have possibly wanted to be married to a quadriplegic. Their love was strong and real and more important than all the collective things they could no longer do together. It was more important than fantastic sex, or horseback riding, or having more babies. Dana had to let a lot of dreams die, but she did so willingly. He was worth any sacrifice.
I sit at my desk for a long time, my back to the computer, ignoring the ding of new e-mails, likely from Richard, and wondering whether Ben would have left if I had been diagnosed with a serious illness. If I had only a few years left to live. Or, if I couldn’t conceiveas opposed to being unwilling to do so. I can’t imagine Ben leaving me under any of those circumstances. So how could he leave simply because I didn’t want kids? I wasn’t throwing hardship at him; I just wanted things to stay the same. Couldn’t my husband just love me enough to stay? Was that really so much to ask?
* * *
sixteen
It takes me a good three days to really shake the Ben funk settling back into my psyche. During this time, I avoid Richard. Not completelywe still talk and e-mail with staggering frequency. But when he inquires whether I’m free for dinner, I make up an excuse and ask for a rain check. I do not want to have sex with him while dwelling on Ben even though Jess insists that sex with Richard could be the very thing to help me get over the unexpected hump. I know from experience that having sex with a man while you’re thinking of another can have the catastrophic reverse effect, and I remind her of my breakup with my college boyfriend Paul. My only other truly significant split.
During those early days in New York, right after graduation, Jess went out virtually every night, but I spent most of my evenings in, doing pathetic things like listening to The Cure’s “Pictures of You” on repeat and calling into radio shows to dedicate songs to “Paul in Denver.” I couldn’t snap out of my misery—nor did I really want tountil I met Anders at a roof party on the Upper East Side. Anders was a twenty-year-old Swedish tennis pro with long blond hair and a lopsided grin. We hit it off right away, although I recognized that he was the sort of guy with whom everyone hits it off and girls easily fall in love.
So I was psyched when he found me at the end of the night and asked for my phone number. We went to dinner and a movie the following week and began to hang out pretty regularly, although we never really analyzed what we were or where we were headed.
About a month later, we had sex on his futon, under a scratchy rainbow-colored afghan his grandmother had knitted for him. It didn’t top the best of my sex with Paul, but it was way better than my first time with him, which I thought was significant and promising. Afterward Anders made us a midnight snack of Fritos and boiled hot dogs. Then he fired up his lava lamp and we danced to Marky Mark’s “Feel the Vibrations” until his neighbor pounded on the wall for us to shut up. I remember thinking that although I wasn’t in love with Anders, I couldn’t rule out the possibility of it happening. In fact, I was hopeful that it would.