Graham and Elspeth’s evenings were full of intimacy. Graham arrived at Elspeth’s building and the doormen no longer bothered to make him wait while they called up, they just waved hello, and there was intimacy in that, and when Graham got to Elspeth’s apartment, the door was propped open on the dead bolt and Graham could let himself in, and there was intimacy in that. The wine would be on the counter, chilling, and there was intimacy in that, and often Graham would have done some shopping on the way over and he would put the food in the refrigerator, and there was intimacy in that, and usually Elspeth would be in the bedroom changing clothes with the door slightly ajar and there was intimacy in that; oh my, yes.
But Elspeth did not come out of the bedroom in a silky robe or floaty negligee. She had merely changed from her suit into wool pants and a silk blouse, or maybe black leggings and a black sweater. This was, Graham knew, her equivalent to putting on her bathrobe. And she always wore high heels. She was the only woman Graham had ever known who didn’t kick off her high heels with a moan of pleasure as soon as she got home. (That had been another unrelaxing component of their married life, that she never lounged around in her bathrobe. Try lounging around in your bathrobe while your spouse clicks around the house in stiletto heels and vacuums the back of the television set. It gets to you.)
Elspeth would join him in the kitchen and they would make dinner together, stepping around each other as neatly as square dancers. They never touched, not even accidentally. It seemed to Graham that they went out of their way not to touch, that they didn’t touch even when they should. Elspeth would put her glass on the counter and step back while Graham filled it, and then he would step back and she would reach for it. Do-si-do, Graham would think. Promenade. Swing your partner. Big foot up and little foot down.
Honestly, sometimes he wondered if he was losing his mind.
They spoke mainly of whatever they were cooking, for they were both ambitious cooks, and often whatever they were making led them to plan future meals: chicken gumbo leading to chilaquiles verdes to chicken vindaloo Vesuvius. There was never any doubt that they would do this again.
And then after dinner, they would sit on the couch and drink more wine. Elspeth did not sit directly beside him, but she always turned toward him, extending her arm along the back of the couch, her face as open and calm as a pansy.
Eventually, it would be nine o’clock and Graham would rise (though Elspeth wouldn’t; he saw himself out) and thank Elspeth for dinner and she would smile as though he’d said something ridiculous and he would say, “We should do this again soon,” and she would say, “Well, how about the day after tomorrow?” and he would say, “That would be great, if you’re not tired of feeding me,” and she would say, “Don’t be silly. But are you sure they won’t need you at home?” and he would picture Audra and Matthew and Noah’s grandfather and Noah and Brodie (God, there were so many of them!) and say, “Oh, no,” as if his family were a power station or fresh water supply, one of those things you were very grateful for but didn’t think about all that much.
—
There are some good houseguests—people who know why your dishwasher is making that clunking noise, and friends with all-day meetings and big expense accounts—but Noah’s grandfather wasn’t one of them. (They were supposed to call Noah’s grandfather Papa Stan. “I’m almost sixty years old,” Graham said. “I’m not going to call a man ten years older than me Papa anything.” But he did. Of course he did.)
From the very first morning, Papa Stan took to wandering around in a ratty old blue bathrobe. Didn’t houseguests understand that the point of growing up and buying a house and all the responsibility that went with it was so that you didn’t have to see anyone but your spouse in a bathrobe? Papa Stan set the television in the den to Fox News at a high volume and he seemed to dirty a fresh cup for every sip of coffee and he used up all the half-and-half in a single morning. And that was just for starters. He wanted attention all the time—he wanted you to show him how the shower worked and where you kept the butter and give him directions to the nearest supermarket. He wanted you to watch the news with him and fix him sandwiches and listen to his opinions on police brutality. He was as helpless and needy as a newborn baby.
Papa Stan also had the hearing of a lynx. Graham had to set but one toe on the floor outside the bedroom—quietly, quietly—and suddenly Papa Stan would appear and say, “I was just thinking about breakfast myself.” But what he meant was, Ah, someone to make me breakfast! And if Graham lied (yes, Graham had done this) and said he wasn’t going to the kitchen at all, he was actually going to change a lightbulb or put some laundry in, then Papa Stan would trail along behind him, plucking at his sleeve and asking questions and telling boring stories until Graham wished he’d just gone ahead and made Papa Stan breakfast and been done with it.
Except that he wouldn’t have been done with it. There was no being done with Papa Stan. If you made him breakfast, he wanted you to keep him company while he ate it. If you read the newspaper, he read aloud from the page facing him. If you unloaded the dishwasher, he leaned on his cane right in front of the silverware drawer and talked to you. If you checked your email, he breathed over your shoulder. If you said you were going for a walk, he said the exercise would do him good. If you said you were also going to run a bunch of errands, he would say that he didn’t mind that. If you said they were really long, boring errands, he said he would bring a book. If you said that now that you thought about it, you had a really important meeting on the other side of town, then he just looked disappointed and let you go, and if you felt like a horrible person for dodging a lonely old man, it served you right. (It was worth it, though.)
—
Like all affairs, Graham and Elspeth’s involved a lot of alcohol. At least, Graham assumed all affairs involved a lot of alcohol, just as he assumed that people who didn’t drink had fewer affairs. But he didn’t really know. Maybe they had more affairs because they had more time, what with no trips to the liquor store or hangovers to deal with.
At any rate, whenever he got to Elspeth’s apartment, she would have a bottle of dry white wine chilling in an ice bucket on the counter, along with two balloon wine goblets—the kind of glasses that Audra claimed made her drink too quickly. Graham would pour the wine and they would start drinking.
Drinking, for Graham, had always been like traveling down a gently curving country road, clearly marked with speed limits and traffic arrows. He knew this was not the case for everyone. Some people, like Audra, rocketed down the road from a sober starting point with no control or caution and they were as surprised as anyone else when they missed that last curve and ended up vomiting in someone’s potted plant and had to call the hostess and apologize the next morning. But not so for Graham.