Sarah must have sputtered or begun to speak, apologetic, embarrassed, her cheeks growing hot.
Then this. “I can’t help you. No one can, no one but you. Thanks for dropping by.”
The good game show has ended and is followed, as it always is, by the stupid one, which she loves anyway. It’s got a comforting cadence to it, spin the wheel, mention a letter, take a stab, win some prizes. The winning contestant today, the one who’s advanced to the final round, is a portly guy in a purple button-down shirt with a raspy voice who can barely contain his excitement. The camera pans to the crowd as he introduces the two people in the audience rooting for him. His friends, a woman with very alert eyes, wearing a dress more suited to a cocktail party than being in a studio audience, and another friend, goateed, gray haired, heavyset, probably a coworker. Poor thing, to have no spouse, no family there to cheer him on in his moment in the spotlight. The clue, the answer, is a phrase: Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. He gets it right, wins forty thousand dollars. Good for him, she thinks.
Sarah had always confused a proximity to excellence for excellence. She had confused the expectation that she’d be exceptional with the reality that she was not exceptional. She got the paper in on time, after all, got a C, finished the class without ever speaking to Doctor Diana Baker again. This wasn’t a turning point, the kick in the pants Doctor Baker might have thought she was giving; Sarah looked deep down into herself and saw there was nothing else there. She did fine in college, got the degree, naturally, on time. She met Dan, which affirmed that her suspicion that she was not, herself, smart, was well founded. Dan was smart. Maybe it was enough that she was nearby. That was how she’d felt about Lauren, first meeting her; she was so pretty, maybe it was enough to be within that. That had never faded, that love of Lauren’s prettiness, the love of sitting firmly within the confines of its spotlight, its halo, its shadow. Now, she’s blaming the stupidity—and let’s be honest, it’s more absentmindedness—on the pregnancy. She’ll need an extension on everything. She’ll get it done in eight months. It’ll be fine.
This resignation manifests itself as a sigh, one louder than she’d intended, but isn’t that always how they come out?
“What is it?” Dan turns his gaze from the computer to her, even though he’s fully capable of maintaining a split focus, indeed seems to focus better when he’s doing two things at once. Some of their best conversations have taken place while he’s driving, or typing, or cooking.
“I forgot to do something,” she says.
“Wedding thing or life thing?”
“Work thing,” she says. “I need to e-mail Carol about this grant, and the fall, and I don’t feel prepared to answer any questions.”
“Because you can’t, because you feel like it’s dishonest to discuss this with her without disclosing that you’re pregnant,” Dan says.
“Bingo.” She impatiently picks up a fat bridal magazine, which has slipped from its perch atop a pile of four others on the shelf under the coffee table. “This place is a mess.”
“We should get Aga in,” Dan says. “A deep clean.”
“She was here a week ago,” she says.
“Maybe she should come weekly instead of bi-,” Dan says.
“That seems excessive. How much mess could we make in a week?”
“This much,” Dan says, gesturing around the apartment. “Aga is happy for the work, I think. I mean, we pay her well, we treat her nicely, I hope. I would like to think we’re model employers. Besides, if she comes weekly, the house won’t be as dirty each time she comes, so her job will actually get easier, even as she makes more money.”
“Fine, we’ll have her come weekly, then.” Sarah is displeased by the fact that he’s solved this problem so quickly.
“You don’t need to be angry. You have better things to be doing with your time, I think. Your work. The wedding. The pregnancy. I have less time to spare, to clean, with my work, and honestly, when I’m home like this, I would rather hang out with you than clean the bathroom. It’s not an ethical dilemma. It’s not even a financial imposition.”
“Fine, I don’t know why we’re talking about it.” She shrugs.
“We’re talking about it because when you, or anyone for that matter, says ‘fine’ they usually mean something else entirely, and we’re talking about it because you were just complaining that the apartment is messy and I was trying to offer a solution.”
“Okay.” She’s angry now for no particular reason. She counts to three, as she was advised to by her mother, once, and it works: The anger dissolves like a tablet in water. She sighs again, and it’s noisy again.
“You’re stressed.” Dan gets up from the desk, settles onto the sofa beside her.
“I am that,” she says. She looks around the room. The jade plant needs watering.