Henry grabbed his briefcase off the seat and caught up to me on the sidewalk. Walking in step on a morning that hints of spring, with happy God music still stuck in our heads and caffeine in our veins, we seem positively saved at this moment.
“Might I remind you,” I say as I notice we are on East 65th Street, “I work on Park and Forty-Seventh Street while you’re on Madison and Twenty-Third. This is a much bigger commitment for you.”
“I’m still not afraid of commitments, or have you forgotten that?” he jokes, and puts his arm around me.
I blush. “I’m trying to forget that.” I look straight ahead and try to navigate the parade of strollers that take over Park Avenue at this hour. Wait. Did I just sound flirtatious? I hadn’t meant anything by it.
“Have you gotten my emails?” Henry asks, removing his arm from my shoulder.
Here we go. It’s time to talk about the emails. The truth is, if they are flowery I sweep them into a special folder; if it’s all business, I deal with it. I think of his last one, from three weeks ago, a message I’ve memorized:
Wanna be in that place along the roof of the sky, upside down along the horizon, someplace unreal where you could have everything you need.
What did that even mean?
Please, Henry, I think, please don’t make me respond to that. Please don’t make me tell you to stop sending emails. But right now Henry is scrunching up his face, truly concentrating on what he is saying and thinking about . . . the currency markets. We are two well-dressed geeks talking about money, not lovers thinking about when we can rip each other’s clothes off. Now that I understand that, I can relax. It’s business.
He smells so good this morning. I walk on his left side and the wind blows his smell toward me. He’s never been one for artificial men’s scents and aftershave, instead opting for the smell of soap and clean. I hate that he’s making my heart pound.
“I think my partner, Stone, has been speaking with you,” I say, “but last I checked I think you wanted to buy some Australian dollars?”
“Yes, Australia is one of the few countries that doesn’t live in debt and has livable pension payments in its future, and by the way that Stone guy is appropriately named.”
I ignore the dig at my partner. “So we’re down with Australia?” I ask.
“We are down”—Henry stops as if he had cleats in mud—“with this dress!”
He points to a store window, a French atelier that sells gorgeous gowns that nobody can really have much use for. The dress he likes seems lit from the rays of the morning sun. It’s a sea-foam color, not blue nor gray nor green, and it’s fitted to just below the waist, puffing slightly as it dips lower. The front plunges. It’s meant to be worn by someone with young or never-nursed-upon breasts that are large and springy enough to hold up ample gossamer frontage without slipping. The silk satin fabric is cut and sewn in overlapping diamonds. It’s the perfect gown for a mannequin, or maybe Naked Girl.
“Looks like something a mermaid would wear,” Henry says dreamily. He had once loved my fascination with water: my love of swimming, of being underwater or some version of soaking, in my past life. He loved that I left for work each morning with wet hair, or unshowered skin after a weekend at the beach. I hated washing the sea from myself. That was so long ago.
“No time for that life anymore,” I say as we walk away. “You were mentioning Australia. I hear they have beaches there.”
“Oh, really? Beaches in Australia? I didn’t know.”
Henry and I took a trip after college. We spent two months in New Zealand, three in Australia, and one in the Fijian Islands. Our money ran out in the fourth week and we worked mindless jobs, planting kiwi, picking apples, holding sheep about to be sheared for a rancher, and finally for a courier service. We started the trip as hotel guests, and eventually lived in a tent. We wanted to be married so badly then that it hurt. Love can be so perfect that it’s painful. There were mornings I’d wake up next to him and not be able to tell where my skin ended and his began. We felt like one person. I remember wondering if anything would ever feel that good again, if maybe some of the hurt from love stems from the rest of your life being spent trying to re-create a time that has passed.
How we went from that couple to the one currently sauntering down Park Avenue talking about money, I can’t explain. As I walk I wonder which was the real me and which was the real Henry?
Henry asks about work so I update him about the Glass Ceiling Club. He asks thoughtful, caring questions, and I tell him about the Gruss lunch, about being left twisting in the wind by the other women, about the GCC not believing I had really tried to speak up and how that made our little group fizzle out. I tell him how frustrated I am not being able to get any further in the firm, how few hours I spend with my kids. I tell him how gutting it was to go home to Bruce, who also reacted with nonreaction to the Gruss lunch, and then I am quiet.