Graham was speechless for a second. “I can’t imagine who would hate that more, me or Elspeth.”
“Well, in my fantasy, she was very grateful to me, and you were very dutiful, and you sort of even fell back in love a little,” Audra said wistfully. “You had these beautiful months together, and I used the time to paint.”
“Good God,” Graham said. (When she came out with things like that, it was like being married to a less talented, prettier Van Gogh.)
“Could you concentrate?” Matthew asked, in such a perfect imitation of Audra’s own exasperated voice that both Graham and Audra laughed.
“Okay,” she said. “Show me what I’m doing wrong.”
She and Matthew bent their heads together over the counter, and Graham, momentarily excluded, stared at the phone again. Audra had a theory (talk about ludicrous!) that when you called someone and they were home but not answering, the ringing sound had an ever so slightly different timbre to it. Although Graham had made fun of this for years, he could not help wondering now if maybe the reverse was true and the silence of this phone had a different quality because Elspeth wasn’t calling it. A dry, chalky, guilt-inducing silence, which filled his throat like dust.
—
They had taken to going to an Asian supermarket Elspeth had told them about on lower Broadway on Saturday mornings while Matthew was with his dyslexia tutor.
The supermarket was owned by a Chinese man and his mother-in-law, and the man had once called them at home to tell them that Audra had left her purse in the frozen foods aisle, actually in the freezer full of dumplings. (“I guess I put it in there when I took the dumplings out,” she’d mused, undisturbed. “Some unconscious check-and-balance thing.”) So now while Graham shopped, Audra went into the back room and drank tea and talked to the man and his mother-in-law. She called them Hwang and Li, which amused Graham since he suspected that those were their last names and Audra was unaware that Chinese people say their surnames first. This didn’t seem to keep her from getting to know them, however, and advising them about colleges for the oldest son.
And on this Saturday, while Graham was pushing his cart along the dusty, spicy, fragrant aisles, he saw Elspeth. She was wearing a pale blue linen coat buttoned all the way up, even though the weather was warm, and her hair and makeup were as flawless as ever. Graham had given up leaving messages two weeks before.
“Hey,” he said, pushing his cart to the side so it was nose to nose with hers. “I’ve been meaning to call you.”
She looked annoyed. “I hate it when people say that,” she said. “Like you remind them of some forgotten chore.”
Actually, Graham sort of hated that, too. So why had he said it and why did he hate hearing she hated it so much?
“Well,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “Maybe it would be more accurate to say that I have been thinking about you. Wondering how everything is.”
“If that’s your way of asking about Bentrup,” she said, “he’s gone.”
“It was my way of asking about you,” Graham said softly.
“I’m alone,” she said.
There didn’t seem to be much of an answer to that, but he tried. “Would you like to come over sometime, maybe for lunch? Audra and I—”
Elspeth slumped against her cart suddenly, forsaking her usual perfect posture. “Could we not do this anymore?” she said. “Not pretend to be friends? I really don’t need you and Audra to show me how great your marriage is and prove to me that you were meant to be together.”
“That was never my intent,” Graham protested. But at the same time, a very soft dissonant chord chimed once in his chest. They hadn’t meant to do that. Had they?
Elspeth turned and walked away. It took Graham a moment to realize she had abandoned her cart and was leaving the store, and by the time he did, the bell over the front door was already jingling as she walked out.
He was still standing there when Audra came down the aisle behind him and said, “Guess what? Hwang’s son got into NYU! They gave me some spring rolls to celebrate.” She was carrying a small Tupperware box. “Are you almost done? Because we should go get Matthew. Oh, look, someone went off and left a shopping cart.”
Graham thought he could ask any of the women he knew how motherhood had changed them, and they would all sigh and talk about how their hips had widened or their skin had coarsened or their feet had flattened (Audra claimed her arms were hairier), but Graham thought the real changes were mental. The real changes were a tendency to give ten-minute warnings before leaving the house; a restlessness at school pickup time even on weekends and holidays; a previously unsuspected knowledge of the lyrics to folk songs; and the strange compulsion to comment aloud on everyday sights. Oh, look, a drawbridge. Oh, look, a fire truck. Oh, look, a mother duck and her ducklings. Oh, look, someone lost a glove, someone dropped an earring, someone forgot a math book, someone went off and left a shopping cart.
Audra glanced into Elspeth’s abandoned cart briefly, and then continued on down the aisle. She didn’t comment further, perhaps because Matthew wasn’t there, or perhaps because she was still thinking about Hwang’s son, or perhaps because she just didn’t care.
—
One week later, Graham got a check in the mail at his office. The check was from Elspeth. There was no letter with it, only a careful notation in the memo line of the check: Proceeds from the sale of Sotheby’s item. Ah, his half of the value of the marble kitty cat, which must have finally sold. It came to slightly less than two thousand dollars.
Graham sat at his desk and looked at the check for a long time. Not much doubt now. He was “out” with Elspeth, if he had ever been in. For once, he didn’t feel particularly guilty. He didn’t think this was his fault, or Elspeth’s, or even Bentrup’s. Maybe in some relationships there was so much history that fondness and guilt and curiosity and familiarity remained separate elements and could never be melted down into friendship. He had a sudden urge to tell Elspeth this.
Instead, he gathered up his things and left the office.
Olivia was on the phone to her roommate. “I’m pretty sure our stove is gas,” she said. “You know that little circle of fire? I don’t think you get that on an electric stove.”
She trilled her fingers at Graham.
It was early evening. He went across the street to the bank and put Elspeth’s check in the night deposit box. Then on impulse, he walked the fifteen blocks to Barneys. He went straight to the housewares department and discovered that they had a whole counter dedicated to “Home Fragrance.”
“What’s the most expensive scented candle you have?” he asked the girl behind the counter.