The Pretend Wife Page 9

  “You don’t remember what it’s like,” Helen explained. “How many times do I have to tell the story about my mother dating my gym teacher? And do I have to cry every time? Oh, and their stories are worse! Overbearing fathers and overprotective mothers. Bullying siblings. The whole awful rot of childhood, over and over. I’ve decided to settle for romances, not relationships. You two are lucky.”

  “We found our shit-heads!” I said brightly.

  “Your shit-head might still be out there,” Faith said sweetly.

  “Really,” Helen said, “I mean it. You’re lucky. Your shit-head even managed to knock you up,” she said, nodding at Faith. “Just sit there for a moment, both of you, and feel lucky. Enjoy it. That’s all I’m asking. Just gloat inwardly for one minute and say, ‘I’m lucky.’ Be thankful. That’s all I ask. Please. For me.” We didn’t say anything. “I mean it! Do it!”

  “You mean now?” Faith asked.

  “Right now,” Helen said.

  And I thought of Peter, scrubbing his golf clubs although they didn’t even seem to need it, and then I thought of Elliot on the breezy balcony. I looked at Faith, and she looked at me.

  “I did it,” she said. “I thought of my shit-head and gloated inwardly.”

  “Me too,” I said, but I hadn’t gloated inwardly.

  “Thank you,” Helen said. “I appreciate that.”

  PETER BUSIED HIMSELF FOR the next few days. He soaked and scrubbed the heads of his golf clubs. He vacuumed the inside of his car. He took an extra shift at the hospital one night for someone who had a kid starring in a play. Everything he did was normal. Perfectly normal. There was nothing I could single out as sulking. We even had sex—good sex—twice that week, as if to say to each other, See, all’s fine. And all was fine, more or less. Peter was busy and I let him be busy.

  The only glitch was our movie group. One Friday night a month we got together with Faith and Jason and another couple—Bettina, a lispy German woman, and a guy we all called by his last name, Shweers—to watch a movie and discuss it. Shweers, who was raised in Connecticut, first name Gavin, had met Bettina in a foreign-exchange program as sophomores in college and they had been married forever. They always brought great cheese and sausages. Movie night fell on the Friday before I was to leave for the Hulls’ lake house.

  Peter and I chatted idly on the drive over—trying to find our normal chirpy rhythm. I told him that Helen wasn’t coming. Sometimes she’d join us when she had a steady beau, but she didn’t like coming alone. She always made some excuse, and often enough, they were really valid excuses—lush cocktail parties with advertisers for the magazine, art openings, dates with this new beau or that. Who could blame her for not wanting to sit around and discuss our various film picks?

  “What’s she got going on these days?” Peter asked, while turning onto the beltway.

  “She’s no longer having relationships. Only romances,” I told him.

  “What’s the difference?” he asked.

  “You know the difference,” I said.

  “Right,” he said. “I guess I do.”

  “It isn’t Bettina’s night to pick, is it?” he asked. We’d done more than our share of subtitled foreign films. Because Bettina was German, we all felt like we owed it to her not to be so American—at least not in front of her—although we never really talked about this formally. Peter and I both dreaded the subtitles.

  “I can’t remember,” I said.

  “If I wanted to read a movie,” he said, “I’d crack open a novel, for God’s sake.”

  “Reading subtitles always make me wonder what it would be like to be deaf,” I told him, and this was true. Regardless of the language, I found myself trying to read their lips.

  “That’s distracting.”

  “And sometimes, I can’t help it, I spend my time looking for errors in the text. It’s like being an unpaid copy editor. Plus, shit, I forgot my glasses.”

  The fact was that we didn’t like being around Bettina and Shweers. They were one of those rare couples who were not only truly in love, but meant for each other. Soul mates, if you believe in that kind of concept. Faith and Jason had a strong relationship, but it had its massive chinks, and this made Peter and me feel better. In fact, I really enjoyed when Faith confided in me. I loved that she thought Jason was a shit-head. I reveled in it, because it made my relationship with Peter seem pretty solid by comparison. I can confess that there were times after a quiet evening at home with Peter, one when I thought that I’d have rather just been alone, reading a book, taking a shower with the shower radio tuned to the pop station, that I called Faith in hopes of hearing that her night had been worse. I hoped that her night wasn’t simply lacking, but that she and Jason had bickered about how to cook a chicken or, better yet, fought and slept in different beds.

  Bettina and Shweers offered no such relief. They really thought the other was funny—Bettina lisping her wry commentary, peeking out at everyone from under her squared-off bangs, and Shweers inserting a little lewd humor from time to time. They delighted in each other, always seemed to gravitate to each other, ate off each other’s plates, and made little whispered asides. They were never rude or overbearing about it. They weren’t sweet and gushy. There was never too much PDA. They were just simply themselves around each other.

  The distinction between their relationship and Peter’s and mine was so slight that it was almost undetectable—except to Peter and me. We called them “the great fakes.” We had a theory that at home they turned it all off and fought over strudel portions.

  I looked at the roadside whipping by and said, “Maybe they won’t come. Wasn’t Bettina’s mother visiting from Germany or something?”

  “I think that already happened and they came anyway.”

  “Maybe her mother caused some friction,” I said. “Maybe now they have an issue.”

  “Actually, I think they do have issues.”

  “Yes, but they find them interesting. Remember when we went to their house and he put the guest coats upstairs and she put them in the office, and he said, ‘I wonder what that means’?”

  “It didn’t mean anything,” Peter said.

  “That’s what you told him. But, see, to them it did mean something. And it was fascinating and later that night, going to bed, they talked about it and came to some deeper understanding of themselves.”

  “No one can like someone else that much.” This was a refrain. It wasn’t that they loved each other so much that chafed us, I don’t think. Love, what can you do about that? What added insult to the injury was that they liked each other so much, that they fascinated each other. I thought of Elliot’s comment about a conversation that lasts a lifetime. That was what Bettina and Shweers were in the middle of, and it was painful to watch.

  Faith and Jason always hosted. They had the biggest den with the largest TV and the best sound system. Jason had a lustfully high-tech side. (He’d stood in line for an iPhone when they first came out.) Plus they were the only ones with a child so it was easier for them to plop Edward in his own bed and not have to finesse any late-night transfers.

  We pulled up to their suburban house. It was tall and sprawling with a wraparound porch—a two-story house with one of those entryways that goes all the way up. It made me feel especially small—all of the voices echoing when you first walk in. Though I’d never say this to Faith or Jason, theirs was the kind of house that so many of our clients had—the kind of house that already felt staged.

  “Let’s try to get things to clip along. I’m tired,” I said.

  “Yeah, you’ve got a big day tomorrow.” This was the first reference he’d made to the upcoming weekend in days. He’d said it in an upbeat way, but it kind of took the air out of the car. I wasn’t sure how to respond. Did he really want to talk about it? If so, why’d he bring it up now while we were already parked in front of their house, ten minutes late?

  “I guess I do,” I said. “You want to circle the block a couple ti
mes?” We were usually right on time for parties and had a habit of trolling the neighborhood until other people showed up. But he knew that I was asking if he wanted to circle the block to talk.

  “No, no,” he said. “Let’s get this to clip along. I’m tired too.”

  So it seemed we were going to get through this strange thing—this Elliot Hull interruption in our lives—by trying to speed up.

  We walked up to the door and gave a knock. When there was no answer, we walked in. Peter was carrying a bottle of wine and I had a box of cannolis that I’d bought at the upscale grocery store’s in-house bakery.

  Peter called out, “Hello!”

  The house seemed empty for a moment and then Jason jogged down the stairs wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt. He was always casual but not this much. “Don’t take another step!” he said, holding out his hands to ward us off. “We’re under quarantine!”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Edward’s sick. His first barf session! We’re so proud,” he said. “Sorry we didn’t call. No time. It struck and we’ve been running around crazy since. Do you boil water for this kind of thing?”

  “He must be confused by it,” I said, imagining what it would be like to throw up without any language to explain it.

  “He’s pissed, actually,” Jason said.

  “We brought wine and cannolis,” Peter said. “Can we leave ’em? Once you’re off duty, you can …”

  “I think we’re pretty much on duty for the rest of our lives,” Jason said.

  “Ah,” Peter said.

  “Take ’em with you. Get drunk and eat too much! Make out in a parking lot! Live it up!” Jason said. “Faith had chosen The Breakfast Club for tonight. You know, we were going anti-intellectual intellectualism. She was going to ask questions like, So, what’s the feminist agenda? It was going to be brilliant!”

  And then we heard Faith’s voice calling from an upstairs bedroom. “Jason! Get ice chips!”

  “Duty calls!” he said, and ran to the kitchen.

  On the way back to the car, Bettina and Shweers pulled up in their gas-electric.

  “They love that damn car,” Peter said.

  “I can never tell if they’re idling or off, though.”

  “That’s the problem with them. They’re stealth.”

  “We should tell them,” I said. “Maybe unload some cannolis.”

  We walked up and Bettina buzzed down the window.

  “Ist something wrong?” she asked. Shweers leaned over her lap and peered up at us.

  “Edward has a bug,” I said. “He’s throwing up.”

  “So we’ve been cast out,” Peter said. “How about the four of us go grab a drink or something?” This caught me off guard. I glanced at him and he smiled.

  “Uh, well,” Bettina said.

  “We should probably head home,” Shweers said. “We’re both so overrun with work that we barely got here.”

  “We should work,” Bettina said. “Ist probably for the best that we work.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. “That makes sense. You should catch up while you can.”

  “You want some cannolis for the road?” Peter asked.

  “No, thanks,” Shweers said. “We’re watching our sugar.”

  Bettina smiled through her gap teeth.

  “Have a nice night!” I said.

  “Work, work, work!” Bettina said.

  She buzzed the window shut and they drove off—almost silently in their stealth car.

  I looked at Peter. “Work? Work? Work?” Bettina worked in botany. I was pretty sure that she worked in a lab, cross-pollinating plants. I’d never heard her mention taking work home, being overrun.

  “I’m suspicious of them,” Peter said. “They probably just want to be alone together, and there’s something that’s just not right about that.”

  “Why did you ask them out for drinks?” I asked as we got into our own car.

  “I was being polite,” he said, but I didn’t believe him. It seemed to me that as much as we didn’t want to be with Bettina and Shweers, it was better than being alone. How were we going to pass the evening now that we didn’t have the distraction of movie night? Were we going to have to talk? “The great fakes,” he said, twisting the key in the ignition. “Maybe they’re going home to finish an enormous fight.”

  But, suddenly, I was jealous of that prospect too.

  So with our wine and cannolis, we were sent home. I ate two on the way. Peter ate three. We drank some of the wine while watching an HBO special that we’d already seen. I looked around our small living room. The room itself was put together nicely—I do actually have an eye for design; even Eila had called me a natural more than once and had started to consult me on swatches and room arrangements and wall colors. But I wondered, if she was there, would she have said that there was a sadness here too that was palpable? There was a time, before we were married, when I’d sit on the floor between Peter’s feet and he’d rub my head anytime he was watching sports. Like one of those bicycle-powered televisions that only play if you keep pedaling, it was a compromise, but also it usually led to a shoulder rub and then a row of kisses on my neck and, soon enough, neither of us cared what was on television. Were we sad or just tired or was this what contentment felt like—something more akin to resignation?

  We went to bed early, and, with Ripken curled up at our feet, his tail joyfully padding against the mattress, Peter leaned over and kissed my forehead. “So, you’re all ready to have fun with the box turtles?” he said.

  “Do you want to talk about it now?”

  “What do you mean? What’s there to talk about?”

  “You’ve brought it up twice, so I think there’s more to say. Isn’t there?”

  “I don’t think so. It seems settled.” He shrugged.

  “So you’re fine with this now?”

  “I was always fine with it, really. It’s not a big deal,” he said. “I’ll have a nice weekend, kicking around, playing house alone. Maybe I’ll invite Jason and some other work guys over.”

  “Take Ripken out to the park,” I said. “He’s been missing you.” I rolled away from him but then quickly rolled back again. I’d be waking up early in the morning and we’d already decided that I’d take a cab to the train station so he could sleep in. This was our last chance to talk before I left. I wanted to ask him what he started to say about me on the balcony when he said that I wasn’t the kind of person to do something like this. He’d started to say that I was too something. Too what? I didn’t really want to know. I thought about Faith’s comment—that it was interesting that I hadn’t told him that Elliot and I had dated, somewhat insanely, as she put it. I said, “I thought you were jealous.”

  “I tried it on and it didn’t fit. Too tight in the collar.” He plumped his pillow expertly, like a hotel maid, and lay his head down on it so that it fluffed up. And then he added, “It’s no way to live.”

  THE TRAIN WAS NEARLY empty. I pressed my head against the window. The seats still smelled like too many people, though—the eggy stench of commuters. I wondered whether or not I was lucky, like Helen said. I didn’t believe in luck, really. I lost my mother as a five-year-old. That wasn’t lucky—even if I survived the accident. If you believe that some people are lucky, you have to believe that others are doomed. That didn’t seem like a fair trade.

  I watched the trees until they became nothing but blurred greenery that only represented trees. What is a marriage, anyway? I wondered. It’s a representation of love, but it isn’t love itself. I thought of the mini bride and groom that I’d insisted on having on top of my wedding cake. I couldn’t begin to remember where they might be now. Had they been a prop used by the caterer? Had Peter and I bought them? Were they packed away in storage somewhere, fitted into the box that held my gown and veil? What became of those two little representations of marriage? Surely it was a bad thing to have lost them so completely. One day, would I find them rattling around in the bottom
of a dusty silverfish-infested box, having been broken into shards—a little porcelain face, a shoe, a pair of clasped hands?

  The train made brake-hissing stops. People came and went. They met each other on the platforms—hugged each other perfunctorily, little gestures, representations of love—and rolled their suitcases to escalators. This made me anxious. I decided to distract myself. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed. I started with my father. I’d neglected to tell him that I wouldn’t be making our Sunday brunch.

  I told him, “I’m going away for the weekend with an old friend.”

  “The old college friend? The thinker?” he asked. It was unusual for him to have recalled a detail like that and return to it.

  “He’s actually worse than a thinker,” I said. “He broods.”

  “That’s what you get from the humanities,” he said. “Oh, the humanities!” It was an academic’s joke. My father had an arsenal of these—none of them funny.

  I was wondering if he’d ask if Peter was coming along. He didn’t.

  “Call me next week,” he said. This too was unusual. I wondered if this had to do with him having opened up to me or if it had to do with the brooder. I wasn’t sure. I promised that I’d call.

  I tried Faith next to see how Edward was faring.

  “He’s fine. Sleeping, and so is Jason. We’re exhausted and on high alert. Who will fall next?” she said, ominously. “And then there were two …”

  “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” I said. “Don’t you get some superpowers as parents?”

  “I wish. Well, you know, Jason was great last night, though. He was really together and nurturing. I feel bad about calling him a shit-head.”

  “He has a certain artsiness,” I said.

  “And what is his art, exactly?”

  I wasn’t sure. “The art of life?” I said weakly.

  “Well, then,” she said, “he’s an abstract impressionist in the art of life, I guess. I wish I knew how to market that. Who would be the paying customer?”

  And as quickly as that the compliment turned into an insult. I almost said, “I think you are the paying customer, Faith,” but I held back.