That was true—she did. Something about all those clear surfaces and empty drawers. Elspeth loved them the way other women love hot fudge sundaes.
“I was thinking,” she said slowly, “that you could meet me there, maybe stay the night.”
She looked at Graham and her eyes were like two cups of Easter egg dye—that blue, that clear.
“You don’t have to tell me now,” Elspeth said. “Just think about it.”
So there it was. Graham had known it was coming, and yet its arrival startled him and made his heart race—like the first shotgun-rattle of rain against your window from a storm you’ve been following on the Weather Channel.
—
Graham was waiting for a sign. If he told Audra he was going to be out late and she objected, that would be a sign that he shouldn’t go.
But Audra didn’t object. He stood in the bathroom doorway while she put on her makeup and told her that he had a very late business dinner on Thursday in Hoboken.
Audra rooted around in the drawer that held her jumble of cosmetics and said, “That’s Papa Stan’s last night,” which momentarily startled Graham into silence. For so long he had viewed Papa Stan’s departure as a wondrous event that was promised but never materialized, something like the seventh astral plane. But he should have remembered because he had made arrangements for Papa Stan and Noah and Brodie to go out and stay at the airport Marriott on Thursday, since their flight left so early on Friday morning. Graham had paid for the hotel and he was happy to do it. He felt like he would pay $150 a night for the rest of his life, just for the pleasure of not having Papa Stan and Brodie in the apartment.
“Anyway,” Audra went on, “it’s fine if you want to go out, because he asked if we can have tuna casserole for dinner.”
Graham could tell by the slight smoothing out of her forehead when she spoke that she was relieved not to have to sell him on the idea of the tuna casserole (which would have been an impossible sale, by the way).
“I might be really late,” Graham said. Here was another chance for Audra to object.
“Okay,” she said. She was putting on mascara and looking down her own nose at her reflection.
“If it runs past midnight, I might get a hotel room,” Graham said. “You know how impossible it is to get back from New Jersey.”
Stroke, stroke went the wand of Audra’s mascara. “All right,” she said. “Whatever’s easiest on you.”
“I’ll be sure to say goodbye to Papa Stan and Noah on Thursday morning before I leave for work.”
“Okay,” Audra said.
Good God, woman, give a sign! Make an objection! Show some possessiveness! But she just dropped the tube of mascara in the drawer and shut the drawer with a bump of her hip.
So Graham was free to meet Elspeth, it seemed. And it was odd because at this point in his life, Graham could not imagine going to meet a stranger in a hotel room—that had once seemed exciting but now the idea just seemed stressful. He did not have the energy to worry about what some new woman would think of him or what expectations she might have or what judgment she might pass on his body—the body that had served Graham so well and faithfully for all these years. It seemed less like his body and more like a devoted servant. He could not bear the idea of someone insulting it.
But meeting Elspeth—that was different. He knew exactly how she would behave. He had been in countless hotel rooms with her. He knew her body well—it, too, was like an old friend. (Perhaps it would be like doubles tennis or a bridge foursome, Graham and Elspeth and their bodies getting together for an evening.) And Graham knew Elspeth—he knew the scent of her perfume, and the sound of her footsteps, and the curve of her face. He could predict exactly her pleased smile when she opened the hotel room door and saw him standing there. And wasn’t that the weird thing—sorry, one of the million weird things—about marriage? That the familiarity that drove you so crazy at times—Audra had a particular three-tiered yawn that Graham thought might cause him to throw himself out the window if he heard it again—was the very thing you longed for in the end.
—
When Graham got to the hotel lobby, he realized that he didn’t know Elspeth’s room number. He sat down in an armchair so deep it nearly swallowed him and took out his phone to call her.
Just then Elspeth arrived. She walked through the revolving door wearing a tightly belted trench coat and carrying a single leather satchel. Graham had always admired the way she traveled—such economy and simplicity. Not like Audra, who invariably wound up putting a whole bunch of last-minute items in a paper shopping bag, which then broke in the middle of the airport and stuff scattered everywhere. (Seriously, that happened every single trip they took.)
Graham watched as Elspeth went to check in. His chair was to the side of the reception desk, and she could have seen him if she’d glanced even slightly to her right, but she didn’t. The chair was too shadowed and the lobby too softly lit for her to notice him, which, Graham supposed, was probably the point.
The reception clerk was a young man with full cheeks and a high, scratchy voice. Graham could hear him clearly when he asked for Elspeth’s name.
“Elspeth Osbourne,” she said, “I’m here for the conference.”
The clerk rattled the keyboard of his computer. “The ABA conference or the NASA conference?”
“The ABA.”
The clerk smiled. “Do you know how NASA organizes their conference?”
“What?” A tiny line appeared between Elspeth’s eyebrows.
“Do you know how NASA organizes their conference?” the clerk repeated. “They planet!” He laughed.
Elspeth was so close to Graham and her face so perfectly illuminated by the reception desk spotlight that Graham could see her expression clearly. The skin around her mouth tightened and her eyes hooded slightly. Her lips made a perfect little circle, just enough to let out an annoyed breath that was one shade too deliberate to be called a sigh. But even if he hadn’t seen her so well, Graham would have known exactly how she looked. He had seen that expression a million times—a hundred million times—when a person made a joke that Elspeth thought was unfunny or inappropriate. Most of the time, that person had been Graham.
Silently, she held out her hand for the key.
The clerk shrugged good-naturedly and handed Elspeth a little envelope. “You’re in room 917,” he said. “The restaurant is open until eleven.”
She picked up her leather satchel and started toward the elevator bank. Now was the time for Graham to stand up and intercept her, to take her hand and tuck it in his arm.
But Graham sat in his chair.
Elspeth had never found him funny—she had only found him tiresome. How could he have forgotten that?