Relationships are like countries. Friendships, families, marriages. Any deep, meaningful relationship tends to form its own customs. Its own language.
I was married for longer than I should have been. The country I founded with my husband was full of inside jokes, of little unseen intimacies, of shared habits. We had our morning routine down pat.
He was always up first. He liked to write in the morning and I liked to sleep in. He’d get up before the sun, head to his office by way of creaky floorboards, and work for hours on his typewriter. That sound—the squeaking of steps, the metallic clink of keys—made its way into my early-morning dreams more often than not. Sometimes it was images of tiny mice hammering away at a tiny ore mine. Sometimes it was my grandfather on a rocking chair he never owned on a porch he never sat on.
We’d eat breakfast together. He’d tell me what he’d written, and I’d tell him the dream it inspired. Once in a while my dreams would make it into his work. A character in a short story, a lithe, innocent young thing (there are always lithe, innocent young things in his fiction), took mushrooms with the charming professor she admired so much, and hallucinated a row of hedgehogs tap-dancing unevenly.
I liked seeing my dreams in his work. I found it strangely thrilling to see them in literary magazines, just as it’s almost more exciting to find my name listed in the acknowledgments than to hold my own book in my hands.
My husband thanked me in his first novel. Called me “his muse.”
I doubt I’ll get a mention in his second one. The one that will be dedicated to his soon-to-be second wife.
I don’t say this to shame him or her. She’s not the reason our country fell apart.
All marriages, just like all countries, have conflict. Sometimes patriotism is strong enough to overcome it—weighing what is shared against what could be lost—but sometimes, the conflict highlights that the country itself was founded on unsteady ground.
xoChani
Chapter
26
We’re eventually rejoined by Lauren and Elizabeth, the latter offering dessert, but it’s clear that this part of the evening has come to an end.
I’m nervous as we drive away—Gabe’s expansive truck seeming to shrink with each passing mile. I’d been offered wine at dinner but I’d declined.
Neither Gabe nor I say anything on the ride back to his apartment.
I rest my hand on my chest, my fingers against my throat where I can feel my pulse chattering. Both Gabe and I know what’s going to happen next. It feels inevitable and impossible.
And I want it. I want it so bad.
But just as he’s about to turn off the truck, I reach out and stop him.
“Gabe,” I say.
“Uh-oh,” he says. “That sounds serious.”
“I just said your name.”
“I know,” he says. “But in a serious way.”
He’s joking, but not really. He has a worried look to him. I can’t really blame him. We’re so close and yet…
“We just need to talk about the call,” I say.
He wrinkles his brow.
“The call.”
He seems so confused that for a moment I think there’s the possibility I just imagined the whole thing.
“You called me,” I say. “The night before you went to rehab.”
“Which time?” Gabe asks. His tone is dry, but I can hear the shame beneath it.
“The first time,” I say.
I hadn’t known any of that at the time, of course. Things between Jeremy and me had been fine, but not good. We were in couple’s therapy. I could only sense his resentment at that point, bubbling under the surface, but hadn’t known the root of it.
It had been fall.
I’d gone to a movie by myself, had just gotten out of the subway and was heading home when he called. Seeing Gabe Parker (Team L.A.) show up on my phone had been a shock. After the interview, I’d hoped for a call, a text. There were even times I’d go back and read the few messages we’d exchanged, but after the Broadway incident, I was convinced I’d never hear from him again.
Still, I’d never been able to bring myself to delete his contact information.
“Gabe?”
“Chani,” he’d said.
It hadn’t been right, though. The pronunciation was fine, but it was drawn out and sloppy and I could tell just from those two syllables that he was extremely drunk.
“Gabe, are you okay?”
“Chani, Chani, Chani,” he said. “Hel-lo.”
“Hello,” I’d said.
“You’re still in New York, right? New Yooooooooork. New Yoooooooork. Hell of a town!”
It had been surreal, listening to Gabe Parker drunkenly sing to me from wherever he was.
“You sound like you could use a glass of water,” I’d said.
“Well, I am thirsty,” he’d said.
I’d heard the clink of ice and liquid, but I’d been pretty sure it wasn’t water he kept drinking. He’d coughed a little, and my heart had felt like a wet rag being rung out. Heavy and tight.
“Chani,” he’d said.
“Yes,” I’d whispered. “Gabe, I’m here.”
“God. Your name. Your eyes. Like that cat, you know? Tick tock, tick tock.” He’d laughed. “Bet you don’t even remember. But I do. Remember Woody Allen? I met him, you know? Well, sort of. I saw him at a thing. Didn’t meet him. Didn’t want to meet him. Asshole. Asssss-sssss-hole.”
I’d heard him take a long drink.
“Whoops,” he’d said. “Time for a refill.”
“No,” I’d said. “That’s not a good idea.”
“You know what’s not a good idea?” he’d asked.
There was a long silence.
“Gabe?”
“Huh?”
It had been easy to picture him—handsome eyes, heavy and hooded.
“Did you see it?” he’d asked.
“See what?”
“You know.” He’d sounded annoyed. “You know.”
“The play?” That had been the last time we’d seen each other.
“Noooooo.” The word had been long and drawn out. “Bond. I bet you didn’t. You don’t like Bond. I know. I read about it.”
“Gabe—”
“You were nice. Wrong, but nice. I shouldn’t have been Bond. You know it. The world knows it. They should have picked Ollie. I’m wrong. I’m all wrong. I deserve this. I deserve it all.”