Chapter Eighteen
“I don’t even have to ask where you went last night.” Owen folds his arms across his chest and stares at me.
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean?” he scoffs. “It’s so obvious it’s beyond obvious. You might as well have had a sign put on your foreheads—we’re hot for each other.”
I smile because I can’t help myself. I’m glad our feelings were totally transparent to an outsider. “I figured you’d figure it out.”
“Yeah, not hard with the anvil-sized clues you left.” Then he adds, affecting an English accent, “I suppose he’s a decent bloke.”
This is the closest Owen will come to some sort of “blessing.” He might be my little brother, but he’s still my brother and therefore is genetically programmed to disapprove of anyone dating a sister.
But Matthew is so much more than a fine bloke. He left shortly after our final session this morning to walk his dog, shower, and go to the office. I felt a momentary pang as he was leaving, the fleeting paranoia that despite his tenderness, despite his profession of long-standing feelings, I might have been a one-night stand. He abated those fears quickly, pulling on his Chillin’ with my Gnomies T-shirt and kneeling next to me as I sat on the couch reading a book Owen had given me. I was putting on a good front, pretending I could handle whatever last night was.
“I want to see you tonight. I want to take you out for dinner. I know a great vegetarian restaurant near me. It’s called Happy Cow. Shall I make reservations?”
Ethan would be with Aidan again, so I said yes. Then he kissed me good-bye and I floated all the way to the bathroom, into the shower, unable to contain a ridiculously huge grin as I let the hot, hot water beat down on me, enjoying every sensation of life. I sang in the shower about a sex god who worshipped my body. It was a ridiculous song, but it made me happy. Then, after I dressed and dried my hair, I opened up Garage Band on my computer and made a quick recording.
“I had a date last night too,” Owen says.
I park myself on the studio couch, ready for his report. “Who was she?”
“Name is Taryn. She’s actually from my writing group.” He doesn’t sound excited. “And she’s really pretty. And she’s really funny. And she asked me out.”
“What’s the problem?”
“I think she’s using me.” He fiddles with some of the dials on the soundboard.
“Why would you say that?”
“We all share our work with each other. That’s the point of the writing group. We critique each other’s novels. And her stuff is pretty good, but she’s been stuck for a few weeks.”
“So how is she using you?”
He takes a drink of his espresso. “Because the place she’s stuck at in the book is this romantic part, it’s the love scene. And when we were out she kept asking me random questions, like who was my first girlfriend, and what kind of music I liked, what was my favorite food.”
I fix him a stare, like he’s crazy. “I don’t get it.”
“Jane!” he shouts. “She’s mining me for information! I’m her lab rat.”
I shake my head. “She’s basing a character on you?”
“I don’t know. But she’s either basing a character on me or she’s going to use my backstory for her love interest or she’s going to use the way I kiss as the model for her leading man.”
“Whoa!” I hold up a hand. “What is the problem with that? That’s kind of flattering. Any of those options. And did you say you kissed her?”
“Yeah, I kissed her right there in the bar.”
“And was she taking notes on the kiss, my little paranoid brother? Was there an associate on the grassy knoll with a notebook and pen in hand?”
“No, doofus,” he says, rolling his eyes. Then he points a finger in the air for emphasis. “But I know how writers operate. When they get stuck, they steal other people’s life stories.”
“Maybe I should write about your life story, then. Should I steal your ideas?”
“You can have them.” He pretends to toss pages upon pages of stories at me. “If it gets the album made, you can steal, take, and grind my life stories up in a blender if you want.”
I ruffle his light brown hair, soft to the touch. “What am I supposed to do with you? You are completely insane. Certifiable.”
“I’m seeing Taryn again tonight.”
“You’re making it hard for me to support your conspiracy theories with your willingness to participate.” I take off my jacket and fling it onto the arm of the couch.
“Yeah, she probably just wants more fodder for her book.”
“Maybe you’ll get laid, then,” I say with a smirk.
But the truth is Owen isn’t really afraid of someone stealing his stories. What Owen is afraid of is another Kacea. She’s an Irish woman he fell in love with a few years ago. They had a mad, passionate affair for a few years and he was so crazy about her, I swear he would have licked her boots clean if she asked him to. She kept promising she’d leave her husband. “Next week, I’ll leave him,” she’d say. Owen’s hopes would be piqued, only to be dashed seven days later when Kacea told Owen she’d need another week, another month. He held on like that month after month, waiting for his Mrs. Robinson, until the day she told Owen her husband had been relocated to Texas and she’d be going with him. Now, Owen hunts for reasons to sabotage relationships before they even start.
“Speaking of,” Owen says, then trails off, raising his eyebrows suggestively.
“What?” I ask, all indignant and then some.
He holds his hands out wide. “Did you get some action? A little lovin’ to get you singing?”
I flash back to the song I recorded this morning, grinning to myself. It’s not a usable song. It’s just for fun. Still, it gives me a thrill.
“Hello? Earth to the Girl on Deadline! Song. We. Need. A. Song.”
I root myself back to the present. “What about those three so-so songs? Can we try to fashion something out of them?”
He shoos me into the live room. “Let’s see if there’s anything there.”
…
Eight hours and several visits to the monkey juice dealer later we close up for the day, no closer to turning my trio of a sow’s ear into a silk purse. But that’s okay, I tell myself. I have a date, and I’m going to put it to good use in more ways than one. I flip the word over and over in my head as I walk across town, letting date share space in my brain with The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony,” which plays on my iPod.
Then I remember that I’ve had my cell phone on silent since Ethan’s school day ended. I fish it from inside the crevices of my light blue shoulder bag to find I’ve missed several renditions of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” I call Kelly right back.
“What’s going on?”
Her sniffly voice blurts out, “It’s Grant. He accused me of having an affair. Can you come over?”
“I’ll be right there.” I stick my hand straight up in the air to hail the nearest cab, even though I should be heading back to my home in Murray Hill to shower and change for Matthew.
When I arrive at Kelly’s building on the Upper East Side, the doorman waves me in. I call the elevator, press her floor, and shoot up to her home. She’s standing half in the hall, half in her home, holding the door open for me. She’s been crying, but her eyes are now dry. The skin around them is puffy and red. Her crisp blond hair is pulled back into a ponytail, but messy wisps line her face.
“Thank you for coming. I didn’t ask if Ethan was with you. I’m so thoughtless.” Her tone is bland, her voice stripped of its usual lightheartedness. Even though she’s my close friend, I’ve never seen her like this, never seen her less than perfect, less than poised. I wonder if this is how I looked the night Aidan left me.
“Ethan is with Aidan. But I’d have come anyway. We could have just left him with the babysitter.” I point to the TV in a crude attempt at humor.
But my feeble effort makes her tear up again. “What is it, sweetie?” I ask, putting a hand on her back and guiding her to the chocolate-brown couch, laden with gold, orange, and purple pillows and a cream chenille throw.
“Grant took Sophie. From the babysitter,” she says, starting to explain. I reach for the box of tissues, hidden tastefully inside a copper case on the end table. She pulls out several, one by one, and clutches them in a wad on her lap.
“Grant was supposed to come home tomorrow from his research conference. But then he came home early and didn’t tell me he was coming home early. He wanted to surprise me.”
When I hear Kelly say the word surprise it starts to become clear why she is crying. Accuse, affair, and surprise are words no spouse wants to hear strewn together in one afternoon, let alone one sentence or phone call.
“When I was on the phone with him, I told him Sophie was with the babysitter and I was heading to an appointment with the accountant,” she adds.
I raise an eyebrow. She shakes her head immediately. “Nothing happened, Jane. I swear.”
I lay a hand on hers. “You don’t have to prove anything to me. And you know I believe you.”
Kelly blows her nose, then resumes her story. “I know I said he’s cute and he is. But my last accountant was a total wreck and my books are a mess. So the meeting went on for two and a half hours. By the time I left, I had”—she runs her hands through her hair, holding it tight in frustration—“no less than eight missed calls from Grant.”
I have a hunch Little Miss Sophie did not hold up her end of the cookie deal.
“They start out with ‘I hope you are enjoying your afternoon with the cute accountant’ and graduate to, ‘I’m taking Sophie out and I don’t even know if we’ll come home tonight. I hope it was worth it with your accountant.’”
I cover my mouth with my hand. I’m shocked at Grant’s train of thought, his ability to jump to conclusions.
“They’ll be back, right?” she asks me, worried.
“Of course. Of course they’ll be back. He’s not fleeing the country with her or anything.”
“It makes me feel like we’re hanging on with a thread if he can come home and take Sophie and not even tell me. That’s what people do to each other when they have really vindictive divorces, right?”
I’m about to say, “I imagine so” when I hear the distinctive sound of a key opening a lock. We both turn to the front door automatically, bracing for the return of Grant. The big white wood door swings open. Sophie prances in, her face speckled with the remainders of what was likely a chocolate sundae. Grant, still wearing a crisp white shirt and tie, stomps in next. He glowers at Kelly, then notices me.
“Hi, honey,” Kelly says tentatively, stepping toward him like a dog with her tail between her legs.
“Sophie’s tired. She wanted to come home.”
Sophie hugs her mom around the waist and says, “I’m ready for bed, Mommy.”
Grant glares at Kelly. “We need to talk.”
I jump in. “Why don’t I put Sophie to bed so you two can chat?”
I reach for Sophie’s hand and take her back to her room, while Kelly and Grant head to the kitchen. After I help Sophie wash up, brush her teeth, and comb her hair, we pick out pajamas. “Pink with the yellow stars, please,” Sophie instructs, a yawn escaping her mouth. I tell Sophie I need to make a quick call.
“Jane Black is late,” Matthew answers cheerfully.
“How are you?”
“Excellent. I’m already here, but don’t worry. I have a book. Plus, the hostess said she’d bring me some bark and roots to gnaw on if I became ravenous while waiting.”
“Actually, I’m going to be really late,” I say, then give the briefest of explanations as Sophie wiggles into her pajama bottoms. Matthew pauses. Doesn’t speak right away.
“I completely understand. Take your time. We can reschedule,” Matthew says, and I love how he’s a gentleman, but I can still hear the note of irritation in his voice.
“Can I call you when I leave?”
“Sure.”
I end the call and exhale. I can’t help but remember something my mom used to say about being late—there are always excuses, but never reasons. Punctuality was like breathing to her, and it obviously skipped a generation with me, since I can never get anywhere on time. But this is more than tardiness. This is leaving someone hanging, messing up his plans, standing him up. Sophie pulls her pajama top down over her belly button and smiles at me. But sweet little Sophie seems like both a good excuse and a good reason.
“Jane, I went to Serendipity. I had an ice cream sundae,” Sophie recounts as she slips under her green and pink quilt.
“Was it good?”
Sophie nods enthusiastically. “It was delicious,” she says, leaning over the edge of the bed to pluck books from her nightstand. Then she turns back to me, her face suddenly filled with sadness. “But…”
“But what, sweetie?”
“I did something bad.”
I kneel down next to her. “What do you mean?”
“I didn’t mean to, Jane! It slipped out. I was just so excited to see Daddy, and then he said Mommy would be home soon from the accountant and I blurted it out. I said, ‘Mommy says he’s a hottie.’”
A tear rolls down Sophie’s cheek. I pull her next to me, her soft little body in my arms. “It’s okay, Soph. You didn’t mean to.”
“But now Daddy is mad at Mommy,” Sophie chokes out.
“Shh…don’t worry, sweetie. They’ll sort it out.”
“I’m not very good at keeping secrets, am I, Jane?”
“You’re not supposed to be,” I say, smiling at her. “You’re six. Now move over so I can have some room to read to you.”
Two books later, Sophie rubs her eyes and slinks farther under the covers. I kiss her cheek, dim the lights, and say good night. As I leave the room, I glance back one more time. She’s already asleep. It’s like someone slipped her an Ambien.
I walk gingerly across Kelly’s living room, listening for sounds. I pick up a few phrases from their kitchen conversation.
“You have to believe me. There’s nothing going on…”
“I don’t know if I can believe that…”
I don’t want to overhear this conversation. I’d rather hear Kelly’s version at Harajuku. I’d rather be there for her after the fact than be a fly on the wall during it. I decide the best course is to walk loudly, the sound of my boots echoing across their spacious living room, knock on the kitchen door, and poke my head in.
“Sophie’s asleep,” I announce.
They both turn to me. “Thank you so much, sweetie,” Kelly says.
“Thank you, Jane,” Grant manages.
“I’ll just let myself out.” I push back on the kitchen door, glad to be of help but equally glad to be leaving. As I hail a cab, my mind drifts back to the arguments I never had with Aidan. We weren’t fighters. We didn’t argue. The most we did was bicker from time to time over whether he would ever clean while he cooked and whether I had any right to criticize when I never cooked. We always got along, our little charade of a marriage a silent ticking time bomb.
Still, I have to wonder if there was an undercurrent my blinders didn’t let me see. If I had needed Kelly to put Ethan to bed one night during one of our “Do you think you can ever clean while you cook?” mini-tiffs would she have been able to detect what was wrong with our marriage? Because I feel in those few seconds when I witnessed Grant and Kelly together, raw, exposed, and vulnerable, I saw the underbelly to their marriage. The parts that maybe they don’t understand. That Grant is matchstick and wildly worried. That Kelly is terrified of losing him. That Sophie would become some sort of pawn if they split.
As I leave, I’m left to wonder whether Kelly sees any of this.
We all wear rose-colored glasses at times, maybe most of the time, never really letting others see what we don’t see, or want to see, ourselves.