“Hey,” I say.
“What was that all about?” she asks. I envision her at home, in bed, pajamas on, red flannel or maybe the polka-dot nightgown Zoe picked out for her birthday. The bedroom TV is tuned in to the news, her laptop spread across her legs. Heidi’s hair is pulled into one of those messy updos—anything to keep it out of her eyes—while she searches online for information on the slums of Dharavi or maybe poverty statistics from around the world. I don’t know. Maybe, when I’m not home, she searches for porn. No. I change my mind. Not Heidi. Heidi is much too tasteful for porn. Maybe she’s looking up some practical use for vegetarian meat crumbles. Cat food? Cat litter?
“What?” I say dumbly. As if I hadn’t noticed. The hotel hallway is covered with the most awful wallpaper, some kind of geometric red design that makes my head hurt.
“Cassidy answering your phone.”
“Oh,” I say. “That.” I tell her about my phone call with Aaron Swindler and then change the subject as fast as I can, blurting out the first thing that comes to mind. “Still raining back home?” I ask. There can be nothing more mundane than talking about the weather.
It is. All day long.
“What are you doing up so late?” I ask. It’s after eleven o’clock back home.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she says.
“Because you miss me,” I suggest, though of course we know it’s not the case. Chances are I’m not there more than I am there, as has been the case since we started dating. Heidi is used to me being gone. As they say: absence makes the heart grow fonder. That’s what she says anyway when I ask if she misses me. I think she secretly likes having the bed all to herself. She’s a stomach sleeper—and a blanket stealer—with a fondness for sleeping diagonally. For our marriage, me in a hotel room simply works.
“Sure,” she says. And then the expected: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
“Who said that anyway?” I ask.
“Not sure.” I can hear her fingers moving across the laptop. Click, click, click. “How’s everything going?”
“Fine,” I say and will her to leave it at that.
But she doesn’t. Not my Heidi. “Just fine?” she pries, and I’m forced to relay news of the delayed flight due to rain, followed by turbulence and a glass of spilled orange juice, lunch with a client at Fisherman’s Wharf, the reasons I don’t like Aaron Swindler.
But when I ask about her day, it’s Zoe she wants to talk about. “She’s being weird,” she says.
I chuckle. I slide down the red geometric wallpaper and have a seat on the floor. “She’s twelve, Heidi,” I say. “She’s supposed to be weird.”
“She was taking a nap.”
“So she was tired,” I say.
“She’s twelve, Chris. Twelve-year-olds don’t nap.”
“Maybe she’s getting sick. The flu, you know,” I say, “it’s going around.”
“Maybe,” she says, but then, “she didn’t look sick.”
“I don’t know, Heidi. I haven’t been twelve in a long time. And besides, I’m a guy. I don’t know. It’s probably a growth spurt, maybe some puberty thing. Maybe she just didn’t sleep well.”
I all but hear Heidi’s chin hit the floor. “You think Zoe’s going through puberty?” she asks. If Heidi had her way, Zoe would have remained in diapers and fleece footie pajamas for the rest of her life. She doesn’t wait for an answer. “No,” she says, deciding for herself. “Not yet. Zoe hasn’t even started menstruating.”
I cringe. I hate that word. Menstruating. Menstruation. Menstrual flow. The idea of my daughter wearing tampons—or me having to hear about it for that matter—fills me with dread.
“Ask Jennifer,” I suggest. “Ask Jennifer if Taylor is—” I grimace and force out the word “—menstruating.” I know how women are. A little camaraderie can fix anything. If Taylor’s going through puberty, too, and Heidi and Jennifer can call and text each other about emergent pubic hair and training bras, then all will be fine.
“I will,” she says decisively. “That’s a good idea. I’ll ask Jennifer.” Heidi’s voice quiets, the worried thoughts that consume her mind buttoned up for the time. I imagine her shutting down the laptop, setting it on my side of the bed: a snuggle buddy for the night. “Chris,” she says.
“What?”
But she reconsiders. “Never mind.”
“What is it?” I ask again. A couple walks down the hall, hand in hand. I pull my legs into me to let them pass. The woman, with a very grandiose tone says, “Pardon me, sir,” and I nod in reply. They must be sixty-five years old, still holding hands. I watch them, in their matching khaki pants and spring coats, and remember that Heidi and I rarely hold hands. We’re like the wheels of a car: in sync but also independent.
“It’s nothing.”