I will. Love you! I hadn’t mentioned that I was intending to sleep in the city. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe I thought Richard might suspect I was planning a long, late night of drinking, as I’d done before I met him.
“Sorry.” I put the phone back onto the table. But I laid it there facedown. “It was Richard. . . . He wanted to make sure I’d be okay getting home.”
“To the apartment?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t tell him I might sleep there. . . . He’s in Hong Kong, so—it just didn’t seem like a big deal.”
I saw Sam register that, but she didn’t comment.
“So!” Even I could hear the false note of cheer in my voice. Luckily the server appeared to clear our appetizers and bring the main courses.
“How is Richard? Tell me what you’ve been up to.”
“Well . . . he’s still traveling a lot, obviously.”
“And you’re drinking, so you’re not pregnant.”
“Yeah.” I felt the sting of tears and I drank more wine to buy time to compose myself.
“Are you okay?”
“Sure.” I tried to smile. “It’s just taking longer than we thought, I guess.” I felt a pang of nostalgia for the child I didn’t yet have.
I looked around at the other diners—couples leaning in toward each other across tables, and larger groups chatting animatedly. I wanted to talk to Sam the way we used to, but I didn’t know how to begin. I could bring up the interior designer who’d helped me select new upholstery for our dining room chairs. I could mention the hot tub Richard wanted to install in our backyard. I could show her all of the enviable bits of my life, the superficial things Sam wouldn’t have any interest in.
Sam and I had fought before—over stupid things, like when I lost one of her favorite hoop earrings, or when she forgot to mail our rent check. But tonight we weren’t fighting. It was worse than that. A distance was between us that wasn’t simply caused by time apart and geographical separation.
“Tell me about your kids this year.” I cut off a piece of steak and watched the juice seep onto the plate. Richard always ordered his steak medium rare, but in truth I preferred mine more pink than red.
“They’re mostly great. James Bond is my favorite—that kid has serious style. I’m stuck with Sleepy and Grumpy, though.”
“Could be worse. You could have the evil stepsisters.”
Sam’s nickname for Richard flashed in my mind again. The Prince. The blandly handsome guy who rides in to save the day, to give the heroine a luxurious new life.
“Is that how you see Richard? As my rescuer?”
“What?”
“Earlier. You called him the Prince.” I put down my fork. Suddenly I truly wasn’t hungry. “I always wondered if you had a nickname for him.” I was acutely aware of my expensive top, of the cost of the wine we were drinking, of my Prada handbag slung over the back of my chair.
Sam shrugged. “Don’t turn it into a big deal.” She cast her eyes down at her plate and focused on shaking pepper onto her salmon.
“Why don’t you ever want to come out to the house?” I wondered why she had chosen this moment to avoid being straightforward. The one time she’d been over, Richard had greeted her with a hug. He’d grilled burgers. He’d remembered Sam hated sesame seeds on her bun. “Just admit it. You’ve never really liked him.”
“It’s not that I don’t like him. I don’t—I feel like I don’t know him at all.”
“Do you even want to get to know him? He’s my husband, Sam. You’re my best friend. It’s important to me.”
“Okay.” But she left it there and I knew she was holding something back. Sam and Richard had never connected in the way that I had hoped. I’d told myself it was just because they were so different. I almost pressed her for more, but the reality was, I didn’t want to hear it.
Sam broke our eye contact to duck her head and take a forkful of salmon. Maybe it wasn’t simply Richard she didn’t want to get to know, I thought. Maybe it was me as Richard’s wife she was avoiding.
“Anyway, let’s figure out where to go next,” Sam said. “Up for dancing? I’ll text Tara and tell her we’re finishing up.”
I didn’t go out with them, after all. By the time I’d paid the check, I felt exhausted, even though I’d done nothing that afternoon but fold laundry and wait for the plumber to fix a leaky faucet, while Sam had worked a full day and managed to squeeze in a spin class. Besides, I wasn’t dressed for dancing—as Sam had said, I looked as if I were on my way to a PTA meeting.
I dropped Sam off at the club where Tara was waiting and took a cab back to Richard’s place. It was only ten o’clock. We made it an early night. I’m just about to get into bed, I texted Richard. I reasoned that I wasn’t really lying.
A new doorman was on duty and I introduced myself. Then I took the elevator upstairs, creeping by the door of nosy neighbor Mrs. Keene, and entered Richard’s apartment using the key he’d given me long ago. I walked through the hallway, passing the family photographs lining the wall.
I’d never told Sam about Richard’s upbringing, about his checked-out mother and his father, the neighborhood accountant. Richard had revealed it during a private moment, and I’d felt it was his story to tell. If Sam would actually ask Richard about himself rather than categorize him as she did her children, maybe she would’ve seen him differently, I’d thought.
Sam didn’t like who I was when I was with Richard—that was clear now. But I also knew Richard didn’t like the way I acted when I was with Sam.
I headed into the living room, noticing how the configuration of lighting—the darkness of the room combined with the bright kitchen globe behind me—turned the wall of glass windows overlooking Central Park into a mirror. I saw my blurry image, as wispy and insubstantial as a cloud. As if I were a figure trapped inside a snow globe.
In my black-and-gray outfit, I looked drained of color. I seemed to be fading away.
I wished I’d gone with Richard on his trip. I wished I’d handled dinner with Sam better. I desperately craved something solid to hold on to. Something more real to touch than the pristine furniture and glossy surfaces of this apartment.
I went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It was empty except for a few bottles of Perrier and one of Veuve Clicquot champagne. I knew the cabinets held pasta, a few cans of tuna, and espresso pods. In the living room, the latest issues of New York magazine and The Economist were on the coffee table. Dozens of books lined the shelves in Richard’s office, mostly biographies and a few classics by Steinbeck, Faulkner, and Hemingway.
I began to walk back down the hallway to the bedroom to turn in for the night. I passed the family photographs again.
Then I stopped.
One was missing.
Where was the picture of Richard’s parents on their wedding day? I could still see the small hole where the nail had been.
I knew it wasn’t in the Westchester house. I checked the other walls of the apartment, even looking in the bathroom. The picture was too big to tuck in a drawer, but I searched anyway. It wasn’t anywhere.
Had Richard put it in the storage unit? I wondered. Other photographs were down there, including some of Richard as a child.
I wasn’t tired, not anymore. I reached into my purse for my keys and retraced my steps to the elevator.
The storage units made available to the building’s tenants were in the basement. I’d been there with Richard once, shortly before our wedding, when I’d brought a few boxes to his place to keep until our move. His was the fifth unit on the left. After he’d spun the dial of the thick padlock and put away my things, he’d opened one of his big blue plastic bins stacked along the wall. He’d pulled out a dozen or so photos—four-by-six glossies, tucked in a faded yellow envelope that said Kodak. They were all taken on the same day, a series of shots of Richard at baseball practice. The photographer seemed to be trying to get a picture of Richard swinging and connecting with the ball, but in every shot, he or she had clicked at the wrong moment.
“How old were you in these?” I’d asked.