“He said I ruined his life.”
“You don’t ruin anyone’s life. People do that on their own. People ruin their own lives.”
She wants to start crying again, but she can’t. For whatever reason, the tears won’t come. Instead, she listens to the crickets out in the field.
“He basically called me a whore.”
“Yeah? And what is he, then?”
“I think…” Alice says, “I think just for once I want someone to be on my side. Like, unequivocally and unconditionally on my side, even when I’m obviously so fucking wrong.”
Paul shifts. He makes a pillow with his hands and slips them under his head. She can feel his fingers, hot and clammy, on her knees. He squeezes her leg and sighs once.
“Mark and I had a threesome,” he says.
“Wait, what?”
“In London. With that Alcott guy.” He adds, “Mark wanted to, so I did it.”
“The one who looked like a porcelain doll with a dick?”
He sits up. Faint impressions of knuckles form dull craters on his cheek. “Yeah. That one.”
Alice laughs. She buries her head between her knees to try to contain herself, but she can’t—she just keeps laughing.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry.”
“I let him fuck me, Al, and now I probably have AIDS.”
She reaches out and sweeps her hand through his hair again. “Pauly,” she says, and leans forward to kiss his cheek. “You do not have AIDS. Scabies, maybe, but that’s just an inconvenience.”
He doesn’t laugh.
Pulling herself together, she asks him: “Is this why you guys broke up?”
“I don’t think so,” he says. He kneels on the cement and sits back on his heels. “I think Mark broke up with me months ago, and this was just a reason to finally end it.”
Alice braces herself on the side of the bucket, then lowers herself to the floor. Resting her head against Paul’s shoulder, she gazes at the stall’s wall of uneven concrete, and then beyond it, through the sliver of space between the stall and the ceiling, and finally at the deep indigo of the sky, the dusting of stars stretching over the English Channel.
“I wonder why this shit always happens to us,” she says, and presses her cheek against his neck.
“I don’t know…” Paul says. “I guess because we let it.”
Donna
July 10
At nine o’clock in the morning Henrique knocks lightly on the front door, and even though she’s been ready for the past two hours, Donna invites him in and says that she’ll be ready in a moment; she’s just finishing her coffee.
“Would you like some?” she asks him as he sits at the kitchen table.
It’s warm out—muggy—and condensation clings to the base of the windows.
“No, thank you,” he says, smiling, and she tries to stop herself from blushing.
She finishes her coffee, which is now cold, in near silence. Every so often, either she or Henrique makes an innocuous comment about something they can see—the state of the house (lovely), the weather (humid), the overgrown lawn (needs a good mowing)—but mostly they just listen to each other breathe. Watching him watch her, she presently wonders if this—their day together—is smart thinking. Last night, in the glow of tea lights and too much champagne, the prospect of a reunion struck her as a terrible idea, but terrible in that magical, thrilling way that she knew she was powerless against. Now, in the light of day, she fears that she’s set herself up for disappointment. An afternoon of tripping over each other. Of scratching open wounds that she’s spent too many years nursing.
“Es-tu prête?” Henrique says.
“Oui.”
Should she tell her children she’s leaving? No, she thinks. Probably not. They need their sleep. Last night when she returned home, she found them both passed out on the sectional in the living room, the TV blaring some reality show about young people in Essex. Paul’s head was resting on Alice’s knees, and her hand was set on his neck, like she couldn’t decide whether to pet him or strangle him. Donna had tried to wake them both up so they might move upstairs to their beds, but with little luck; when she poked Alice in the shoulder, all she did was grumble and readjust herself. So she let them stay there, exactly as they were, drawing maternal comfort from the fact that, at least when they’re unconscious, her children seem to legitimately care for each other. And she figures it’s only reasonable that when she came downstairs this morning she felt a dull but predictable disappointment in discovering that they had separated, left the couch, retreated to the isolation of their own rooms.
“D’accord,” Henrique says, standing. “D’abord, je crois qu’on—”
“Ha, uh,” Donna laughs. “My French is a little rusty. How about we stick to English for the day?”
He kisses her cheek. “Of course.”
This is a lie, she thinks, but only a small one, and one that’s hardly malicious. The truth is her French is fine. Still, she feels that speaking English gives her a bit of power in what would otherwise be a powerless situation. Besides, she doesn’t want Henrique to know how much practice, how much time, she’s put into maintaining her French. She doesn’t want him to get any ideas about her preparing for anything. Because what, after all, would she possibly be preparing for? This? Today? The moment Henrique realizes his mistake and comes sweeping back into her life? Oh God, she thinks. She hopes not. She hopes she’s not that na?ve, that foolish.
Quietly she shuts the front door and follows Henrique out to the gravel driveway, where he’s parked his rental car, an electric-blue Audi convertible coupe with the top already down. How gorgeous, Donna thinks, which is followed instantly by Christ, my hair. She spent nearly an hour on it this morning, combing it and recombing it, trying to hide the gray with the blond. Maybe she should run back inside, she thinks. Grab a scarf or a handkerchief. Something she might wrap around her head to keep things in place. But then—for what? She’s not exactly young anymore, and at sixty-three she’s liable to look more like some old Russian babushka than Marilyn Monroe on a leisure drive.
No, she thinks, as Henrique opens her door for her. She’ll let the wind do its work and just hope for the best.
“So, where are we off to?” she says, buckling her seat belt.
He winks at her. “It’s a surprise.”
“I feel terrible that we’re not at Ollie’s parents’ house helping to set up for tonight.”
He starts the car. “You shouldn’t. Eloise told us to explore today. She asked us not to help.”
“She’s just saying that.”
“And we’re just doing what she says.”