Fred took me by the hand and led me down Westminster Street, down Snow Street, to the almost empty parking lot where his Mustang sat, waiting for us. The attendant’s booth was empty, though a bare bulb burned in it. What time is it? I wondered as Fred pulled me past it, so eager, so ready, his excitement fueling my own.
And then I was in the car, squeezing into the backseat with Fred following. He was kissing me, kissing me hard. I’d decided to keep my legs bare, and despite the cool April chill that had descended on the city, I was glad now for that.
Fred was saying all the right things. He’d thought of me so many times over the years. He remembered my smell.
“Oh, Barbara, this feels so good.”
“Shut up,” I said, pulling him closer. If I could have swallowed him whole, I would have.
“Shut up or I’ll kill you,” I said.
*
“Tell me about her,” I said when we paused in the kissing.
“Not now,” Fred said.
“Now.”
Fred sighed. “She’s crazy. She . . . drinks too much. She falls down and embarrasses herself. She rages at me, at the kids, at her miserable life. Then she passes out, and when she wakes up she acts like nothing happened. She makes us waffles and sausages like nothing happened.”
“Oh, Fred,” I said, “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “And Jim?” he asked.
“Did I tell you his name was Jim?”
Fred laughed and poked me on the nose. “You did have a lot of mai tais, baby.”
“Jim is sad,” I said. “Terminally sad. Sometimes I’m afraid . . .” I shook my head.
“What?”
I hadn’t said out loud what I was afraid of—that one day I would come home and find Jim had shot himself. That Jim would decide he’d had enough of grief.
Instead of answering, I turned and kissed him.
“This is ridiculous,” Fred murmured. “We’re adults, making out in the backseat of a car.”
I thought of the signs the college kids held. Make Love, Not War. My head hurt from those mai tais, my mouth tasted foreign.
Fred looked at me, took my face in both his hands. “Would you ever leave him? Would you?”
“Ouch,” I said, trying to move free of his grasp. But he held on tight, his thumbs digging into my flesh. “You’re hurting me.”
“Would you?” he asked again. His eyes searched mine.
Could I leave Jim? He was there when Michelle was born, cradling her in his arms like the precious thing she was. And he was there beside me when she died. Funny how life and death were so similar, his face holding almost the same exact expression at both.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
Fred’s jaw set.
“Could you leave . . .” Had he told me his wife’s name?
“Angie,” he said. “For you, I would.”
Twice before, I’d let myself believe that Fred and I had a future. I’d imagined a house by the ocean, and kids with his blue eyes. I’d imagined growing old beside him.
“I don’t know,” I said again, not wanting to trust this feeling growing inside of me.
After all that had happened, how could I let myself hope again?
Fred turned so that he faced me squarely. There was a smudge of my new lipstick below his bottom lip. I didn’t wipe it off.
“Then I’ll have to convince you,” he said. “Tomorrow night, Ming Garden. Chicken wings.”
I had made that recipe at home once. The Providence Journal had run it at a reader’s request. But the wings hadn’t tasted the same.
“Barbara?” Fred was saying. “Tomorrow?”
I nodded. “Yes,” I said.
*
To my surprise, Jim was awake when I got home, sitting in the kitchen with the table set: two plates, two napkins, two sets of silverware.
“I made lamb chops,” he said. “They’re probably dried out by now . . .”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I ate.”
Jim nodded, studying my face. “I made potatoes too, little roasted ones.”
I shrugged apologetically.
“Wine?” he asked me, holding up a bottle. He didn’t wait for me to answer, just cut the foil from its neck and yanked out the cork.
I took the glass he offered and sat at the empty place setting.
“I made peas too,” Jim said. “With the pearl onions. You like those.”
“Yes.”
Jim sipped his wine. “Funny day today,” he said.
“How so?”
He hadn’t talked this much of his own accord in almost a year. It should have made me glad, but instead I felt suspicious. Maybe that was guilt.
“Someone was poking around our life insurance policies,” Jim said. “Charlie called me and said some guy called the office yesterday, pretending to be me, asking if our premiums were paid up and what the policies paid out.”
“That’s weird.”
“You think so?”
“Well, of course I do.”
Jim nodded. “Asked if the policy paid out in case of suicide—”
“What?”
“And in case we both died—”
“Jim, you’re scaring me.” I wondered if there really had been such a call, or if Jim was trying to tell me something.
“Charlie said, You have a copy of the policy yourself, and the guy said he’d misplaced it.”
“But he didn’t give out any information, did he?”
Jim refilled my wineglass. “Where have you been until almost midnight, Barbara?” he asked.
“Down city,” I said. “I met Betty and Dorothy for Chinese.”