He spreads onto the bed in his boxers, the stench of him spilling over onto my side, despite what feels like a full Manhattan avenue between us. If he were an air freshener, what would we call him? Partially Metabolized Champagne Breeze. Radiant Herpes. “It was fun, babe,” he says. “You should have come.”
I told Brett and Lisa that I left for my book tour today, but I actually leave tomorrow. I’m stopping in three cities, making my way across the country to L.A., the trip culminating in the all-important dinner with the Female Director. I always make my own travel reservations (production won’t fly us business—the show features women so successful they should already fly business), so no one has any idea that I was actually in New York on the night of Brett’s surprise engagement party.
When I received Arch’s Evite with the bossy, bubble-lettered Shhhhhhh!, I RSVP’d Will attend! for two. But as the date approached, a special cocktail of venom seemed to pool in my glands. I could not bear the thought of raising a glass of champagne to the happy couple, one half of which is a nasty cold-blooded animal, the same temperature of whatever her environment happens to be that day.
I mash a fist into my pillow, carving out a view of Vince’s profile in the bright city dark. “Did everyone think it was weird that you were there without me? I just thought one of us should represent. I don’t want them to think I’m, you know, holding a grudge.”
Vince shuts his eyes, and not because he’s tired. “No, babe. No one thinks that. They all believe you made up.”
This is the perfect opening to address something that has been eating away at me for months but that I haven’t had the pluck to ask. Does Vince know? “Do you believe we made up?” I ask, my voice going hoarse. It’s a chickenshit way around it, but it’s better than the willful ignorance I’ve been affecting since Brett moved out.
Vince takes his time, choosing his words wisely. “I don’t think you should have to make up with her if you don’t want to,” he says, which is an answer not nearly as ambiguous as it sounds. It’s the closest we have gotten to the truth in a long while. My breath feels like acid in my nostrils and there are tears in my eyes, but I hide it from my voice.
“I appreciate that. I’m relieved no one said anything. I thought for sure Lisa might.”
“Lisa didn’t say anything. Brett didn’t say anything. Jesse didn’t say anything. You’re good. I promise.”
I hurl myself upright, my weepiness expunged, my heart like a jumping fish in my throat. “Jesse was there?”
Vince flings a forearm over his eyes with a groan, regretting the admission instantly. He knows Jesse only makes an appearance on set if the scene is of paramount importance. Jesse will be meeting up with me in L.A.—a first for me, and something I was immensely proud of. Now an engagement party—to celebrate the most banal of life achievements—is on par with a dinner with an Oscar-Nominated Female Director? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Yvette Greenberg was right. The show has lost its way.
“She stopped by for, like, five minutes,” Vince says, trying to make it sound as if it’s not as big a deal as it is.
“Did she say anything about doing a spinoff with Brett for her wedding?”
“Oh my God, babe.” Vince flops onto his side, punishing me with his back. “She was there, like, two seconds. I don’t know. Maybe. But I doubt it. That wedding’s never going to happen.”
I am still sitting up in bed, chewing on a thumb, but my panic tapers ever so slightly. “You think so?”
Vince answers with a short, confident laugh. “It’s all for a storyline. You know that.”
I remove my thumb from my mouth before I ruin my L.A. manicure, suddenly flush with appreciation for Vince, that he looks at Brett and sees what I see: an overhyped, overfed grandstander who’s cozened women’s empowerment into a brand for money and fame. Appreciation and something more: determination to make this charade less of a charade, to embark on the next venture designed to maintain my relevancy. I curl into my husband’s pale, hairless back, slinging an arm over his narrow hip. “Well. Thanks for representing us tonight. I just worried what it looked like to back out at the last minute. But I couldn’t bring myself to go either.”
“It’s fine,” Vince says, voice as taut as his body when he feels my roving hand. It takes some effort to weasel it between his thighs.
“Jesus,” he gasps, “your hands are cold.”
Seven years ago, even three years ago, Vince’s rejection would have flattened me. But I have developed a tolerance for my husband’s apathy. I rise on all fours, grit overpowering dignity, and stake a hand on either side of Vince’s face, a knee on either side of his hips. He does nothing for a few agonizing moments, before releasing his knees and straightening out to face me on his back.
“You have to get up early,” he tries.
I kiss him. His breath is putrid.
I worm a hand beneath the elastic band of his boxer shorts and capture him in my thumb and index finger. His penis is baby soft and pliable, spineless in its faithful state. Is it just in my mind or has he gotten smaller? Like the opposite of Pinocchio—every time he lies, it shrinks.
Vince wraps his fingers around my wrist, removing my hand from his boxers and setting it on the mattress with a consolatory pat. For a few long moments, that is that. I’m about to retreat to my side of the bed when Vince changes his mind, flipping me onto my back, then waiting, unhelping, while I wiggle out of my pajama bottoms. He does lean down to kiss me—there’s that—but it’s a wet, cold kiss, too many front teeth, and we abandon pretense to focus on getting his dick inside of me, which hasn’t happened since I went off birth control three months ago.
Vince is humping the seam of my inner thigh, wheezing, working dutifully for an ember. This outlives my capacity for dirty talk, and there are only so many times one can say, I want you to fuck me, before its rehearsed timbre incurs the opposite of its intended effect.
Vince slams onto his back with a sharp cry of frustration. He pounds his temple, a caveman’s show of self-flagellation. His angry breathing moderates into soothing neighs. “It’s not you,” he assures me. “I just drank too much tonight.” He drags me onto his pale, wimpy chest, nuzzling the top of my head and rubbing my back, like I’m the one who should be upset, even though there is nothing wrong with me. I should be the one consoling him Yes, dear, it’s perfectly normal that I have cashmere sweaters harder than your dick. “You’re so beautiful,” he continues, moronically. “I want you so much.”
“Thank you, babe,” I say. I prop my chin in my hand, my elbow sharp above my husband’s fickle heart. “You tell all the girls that when it doesn’t work?”
Vince doesn’t even call me crazy as I roll onto my side, my turn to punish him with my back. My intelligence isn’t worth insulting anymore, apparently. I can say anything, I realize. I can really be crazy now.
“No reservation, you said?” The hostess consults her seating plan. She’s the only other black person in the lobby besides me.
“Right,” I tell her for the second time. “But I just want to eat at the bar.”
“We take reservations for the bar.”
“There’s nowhere that’s first come, first serve?”
The hostess looks up at me. She is wearing no makeup except for goth lipstick, no jewelry except for a jade bangle. “You can see if there’s anything open.”
I tip my head at her. “So the bar is first come, first serve?”
“Only if it doesn’t have a place setting. If it has a place setting it’s being held for a reservation.”
“Eleven Madison isn’t even as tough as this.” I smile easily, letting her know I’m no stranger to the vagaries of posh restaurants.
The hostess is unbelievably annoyed. “Huh?”