Then, as happens sometimes, I suddenly remember that I am a dog owner. And that you have to let dogs out. Often. I’ve learned this the hard way. Also, he needs company. He gets lonely.
I look at Patrick apologetically. “I need to go take Bedford for a little walk, and then I’ll come right back. You can start eating if you want. I know it’s late.”
“No, no. I’ll wait for you.”
“Well, thanks. I’ll hurry!”
Bedford is frantically happy to see me, way happier than anything I can imagine Roy doing, even at his best. I take him out of the crate and he races to the front door, his ears flying. So I clip the leash onto his collar, and we go sailing down the front steps—the stoop—and he tears over to the little patch of dirt near the gingko tree and lets loose a long stream of pee. Then he has about fifty things that require sniffing and some items he has to stop and chew, like a candy wrapper and a piece of somebody’s shoe. I take these things away from him and he briefly considers whether we know each other well enough for me to take those kinds of liberties. But I win because I know the secret phrase, and I’m not afraid to use it: “Do you want to EAT? Do you want to go inside and EAT? Eat??”
And boy, does he ever! We go racing up the stairs and back into the house, and I feed him in the kitchen. Some dry kibble mixed with a little meaty wet food that smells awful. I clock his eating time at thirty-six seconds, and then I tell him the bad news.
“You have to go back in the crate, my dear friend.”
He lies down with his head on his paws and makes his eyes look round and innocent.
“I know. But it’s only for a little while. It’s because Patrick is worried you would eat his cat.”
He wags his tail. Which is probably a yes.
When I get back downstairs, Patrick has put food on our plates, and we sit down at his table, which I notice he has cleared of papers and books. He’s using a nice yellow tablecloth, and there is even music coming from one of the computer monitors. Bach fugues. Very tinkly pianos. He’s poured us glasses of wine, and made an incredible salad with walnuts and seeds and butter lettuce.
I unfold my napkin in my lap and look across at him.
“You’ve gone to some trouble,” I say. “Thank you.”
“Well, it’s the least I can do for a fellow trooper.” He smiles and lifts his glass in a toast. “To Blix, away from us for two long months now.”
I look closely at him, but he’s holding his emotions in check. Probably for my sake.
“To Blix! Who is still watching over us,” I say.
“And also I have some news for you. I’m moving. I wanted to tell you in person.”
“You’re moving!” I put my fork down.
“You sound shocked.”
“Well, I guess I am shocked. I never meant to disrupt your life! And also—I haven’t even talked to a real estate agent yet, so who knows if this place is even going to sell? And when I go back, I was thinking I could rent out Blix’s place, and you and Jessica could stay on. Also, even if it did sell, you could probably negotiate staying—”
“No,” he says. “Thank you but no.”
“May I ask—without you getting mad at me—what you’re going to do?”
“Yes. I’m going to my sister’s in Wyoming.”
“Wyoming?!”
“Wyoming. The wilderness. My sister lives in a town with a population of twenty-eight. That’s what it says on the sign year after year. So obviously when somebody dies, somebody else in town has to step up and reproduce. It’s the law of the land.”
“Can you really be happy there? I mean, with no people around?”
He laughs. “Have you noticed that I don’t have a lot of people around already? Frankly, I’m worried that twenty-eight people are going to be too much for me. I’m counting on my sister to fend off the hordes.”
“Patrick.”
“Marnie.”
“Can you tell me . . . what happened to you? How . . . ?”
He looks surprised. He refills our glasses, which is really just to give him an excuse not to look at me, I think, because we both have plenty left. And then he says, slowly, “Ah, actually, no. I can’t.”
“Patrick, I—”
“No. I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s talk about you. We covered my life at your last visit.” He looks up and smiles. His eyes are hard to read, maybe because of the scars that pull that right eye so taut, but I can see that he’s making an effort to look happy. God knows he probably wishes he could shift this back to a nice, light, polite conversation. “So here’s what I know about you. Let’s see. You were married to Noah for about two weeks, you met Blix at his family’s party, she went bonkers over you and decided to leave you her house. You, however, don’t really want her house. And so you’re moving back to Florida, but you feel guilty. Unnecessarily guilty, I should add.”
“Yes. Those are my facts.”
“And, if I may ask, what are you doing in Florida that is so much more compelling than Brooklyn, New York? Which you seem to have taken to, I might add.”
“Well.” I feel my mouth getting dry. “It’s kind of hard to explain. But at the time I inherited this house, I had actually only just settled in Florida, and I had—well, if you want to know the real truth, I have this sort of fiancé there.”
“What?” He raises his eyebrows, as best he can. He’s trying not to laugh. “What, may I ask, is a sort of fiancé? Excuse me, but given the evidence around here, I’ve been under the, um, impression that you and Noah were back together and rekindling your . . .”
“No. We’re not. I mean, not really.”
“You are certainly an interesting one, aren’t you?” he says. He raises his glass and clinks it against mine. “To an interesting life!” I know then, by the look on his face, that he knows we sleep together. My bedroom is just above his main room. The sound travels downward, I’m sure. I feel my face grow warm.
“It’s not—” I say, and at the same time, he says, “No, really. You don’t have to explain anything to me. I know that life is complicated, believe me. These things—really, don’t be embarrassed.”
We go back to eating. I pick up my fork and spear a piece of chicken. My silverware clinks together. The Bach fugue has stopped for a moment, and in the huge silence that yawns before us, there is only the sound of me trying to rip some meat apart. I feel him looking at me.
At last I put down both the knife and the fork and square my shoulders.
“Okay, yes. God, this is awful to have to say out loud, but you’re right. Everything you’re thinking is right! I am cheating on someone, and he’s probably the nicest guy in the whole world, and I never thought I would do anything like that! I’m actually horrible and insensitive and incompetent at life, and oh my God, I’m having sex with my ex, who I don’t even love. And I don’t even mean to be doing it! It’s all a big mistake. And I don’t even know if that makes it worse or better, having sex with somebody by default.”
I am slightly aware that he says under his breath, “Really, I wasn’t . . . you don’t have to . . .”
But I am in this now, so I plow on, MacGraw-style.
“And my fiancé—he’s so trusting and nice, and yet—and yet, Patrick, can I tell you something I’ve never told anyone? He is so god-awful boring that sometimes it takes all of my willpower not to throw my phone into the nearest gutter just so I don’t have to hear him talking to me anymore. There.”