Before She Knew Him(61)
“Are they still in touch?”
“Is who still in touch?”
“Rob and Joanna.”
“Why? You hoping they get back together?” Lloyd said, smiling, milk still on his chin.
“Sometimes. You know I don’t really mind Rob, but she was his better half. At least for me she was.”
“You know that I saw her pretty recently?”
“Who, Joanna?”
“Yeah, I ran into her in Boston. The company she works for is downtown. She still lives in Northampton, though.”
“What does she do?”
“I’m not sure I remember. She told me. Something to do with public health research, I think.”
Hen was watching Lloyd carefully. He was lying to her—although it was entirely likely that he might not remember the specifics of Joanna’s job even if he was fucking her—and he was doing a good job. It was why she had decided to question him, wanting to see what he looked like when he was lying. Did he look guilty at all? Nervous? He actually didn’t, and that fact made Hen’s throat ache and swell, as though she were about to cry. She opened the refrigerator, pulled out a grapefruit.
“You want half of this?” she asked Lloyd, her voice sounding normal.
“No, I’m late, actually. I gotta run.”
With a sharp knife, she sliced the grapefruit in half and carefully separated the fruit segments from their membranes. By the time she’d finished, Lloyd had kissed her on the side of her mouth and left for the day. Hen went to the bathroom and knelt down in front of the toilet bowl, convinced that she was going to be sick, but nothing came up.
She went to the living room couch. She’d lied to Lloyd as well that morning by telling him she’d slept the night before. She hadn’t. She lay down now, too tired to even want to think about the ramifications of Lloyd’s affair. She wasn’t cold, but she pulled the blanket off the top of the sofa and onto her, then curled into the fetal position, cocooning herself in a small, dark bundle. She closed her eyes, thinking she wasn’t tired enough to sleep, and the next thing she knew she was waking up, sweaty and confused, not having any idea what day or time it was. She pushed the blanket away from her face. Vinegar was perched on the sofa above her, purring rapidly.
“Hi, you,” she said, and he purred even louder, their eyes locked.
She pushed the blanket entirely off her and looked at her watch. It was just past noon, and all the memories of the last twenty-four hours rushed in. But instead of feeling upset and sorrowful, she felt suddenly detached, as though the five hours of dreamless sleep had knocked all the emotions out of her. She stayed curled up on the couch, even though she had to pee, and thought about Lloyd, wondering if he’d fallen in love with Joanna or if it was just about the sex. Or was it something else altogether? She suddenly wanted to know, not out of a desire for revenge or self-pity, but because she loved Lloyd and wanted to know what was going on with him. She’d had her own close call, one that she’d decided Lloyd would never know about, but maybe she’d tell him now if he confessed to her what was happening with Joanna. One of the things she’d loved about Lloyd when they first met was his brutal honesty. When they’d become involved—when she was the other woman—he’d told her once that his goal was to have a new relationship with a different woman every year, to always be falling in love, then falling out of love, then falling in love again.
“Sounds awful,” Hen had said.
“I know, right?” he’d said back. “I think I’m addicted to the misery of love. I need that drama in my life. Basically, I’m an asshole.”
“I’m not sure it makes you an asshole, exactly. More like an idiot.”
“Right,” he’d agreed, and laughed. “More like an idiot.”
She had actually been attracted to that side of Lloyd, the one who promised to make her life more exciting, more unpredictable. It was a long time ago, though, and Hen now recognized that her desires from back then had been partly influenced by the manic side of her disease. She’d had a romantic notion of one of those marriages you read about in biographies: messy, creative, romantic, and laced with infidelities. It wasn’t what she wanted now, not by a long shot, but she recognized the appeal. As it was, her years with Lloyd had been comfortable and stable and maybe just a little bit dull.
She stood up, weak with hunger, and made her way to the kitchen, Vinegar scurrying along with her. She noticed the half a grapefruit she’d left on the counter. Using her hands, she devoured the segments of the fruit, then squeezed the remaining juice directly into her mouth. Then she grabbed the Cheerios that Lloyd had left on the kitchen table and ate handfuls directly from the box until she wasn’t hungry anymore.
After eating, she took her sketchbook with her out to the front porch and sat on one of the padded deck chairs, curling her feet up under her. It was an insanely windy day—according to weather reports, it was the tail end of a tropical storm that had climbed the coast from Florida—but the wind was warm, filled with traces of mist. Hen sat for a long time, watching the trees across the street bend and shake, leaves departing their branches. She saw an image suddenly—a tree losing all its leaves at once, but they weren’t leaves, they were small birds, flying off as one flock into the turbulent sky. Then she pictured a sky full of birds, so numerous that they blocked out everything, forming dark chattering clouds. She shuddered.