Don't You Cry(67)
I’m not sure it’s the best time to be worried about Esther’s feelings, but I can’t help myself. I am. Though of course if we’re right, then I might be the one who ends up hurt, though in an entirely different way than Esther. But still, I imagine Esther all alone at the top of a cell phone tower just like Brian Abbing, about to free-fall to the ground below, and I know we can’t call the police. Not yet, anyway. Not before we know more.
“There’s no reliable evidence, nothing tangible, no witnesses or hearsay,” Ben says, reaching for a napkin and wiping my mess away. If only everything were so simple. He agrees with me now and takes back his advice of going to the police, and the decision—whether good or bad—is made not to call.
Instead, we sit at the kitchen table in nervous silence. Ben unearths the crispy sesame chicken from a paper bag and hands me a fork. He refills my wine and pours himself a cup and then scoots his chair closer to mine, and under the small kitchen table, we touch.
The first glass of wine is, in a word, ghastly. We sit taking small, pensive sips from our plastic cups of merlot. We ignore the way my hands convulse as I raise the cup up to my lips and sip. What I want to do is scream. I want to scream loud enough that all the neighbors can hear, that Mrs. Budny can hear, but especially so that Esther can hear. Why? I want to scream. Why are you doing this to me?
By the second cup of wine, we leave the kitchen table and move into the living room where we sit side by side on the small sofa. A joke is made and we both force a stilted laugh, thinking in the backs of our minds we shouldn’t be laughing at a time like this. But the laughing is contagious, one laugh which leads to two and then three. The mood in the room becomes lighter and the world takes on an air that is no longer all Debbie Downer. It feels good.
By the time a third cup is poured I can hardly remember why my shirtsleeves are torn and on the palm of my hand is a giant gauze bandage and strips of medical tape. By the fourth I’m quite certain our legs became tangled on the small sofa like a Jenga game—his on top of mine, on top of his, legs which we keep pulling out and rearranging on top of one another, trying to get comfortable. It isn’t in the least bit libidinous, but rather cuddlesome and affectionate, something that takes my mind off this week’s strange turn of events that’s transported me from a normal existence to one which has gone completely haywire and berserk. We talk about things other than Esther. We talk about Anita, our boss at work, the one paid to deal with the miscreant project assistants like Ben and me. We debate things like the death penalty and assisted suicide, whether or not orange candies really are the worst. They are (Ben disagrees, though of course he’s wrong). At some point Ben asks about my love life, or complete lack thereof (my words, not his), and I grimace and bring up Priya instead, fueled by alcohol to ask the question that’s been living at the back of my mind for months.
“What do you see in her?” I say audaciously, though it isn’t meant to be trivializing or mean, but comes out that way, anyway, and I thank the wine for that as I thank the wine for many things: for the fact that Ben is here, snuggled beside me; for the fact that I have no misgivings about the way my hand reaches out to grab his, not worrying once that he won’t reciprocate the gesture; for the fact that for the first time in days, I tingle with happiness instead of fear.
“Everything,” Ben says, and I feel my heart sink—my hand starts a slow withdrawal from his—only to rise to the surface again as he sighs and says then, “Nothing,” and I’m not sure which to believe: everything, nothing or something in between.
“I’ve been with her half my life,” he confesses to me, staring at me with those eyes of his, his voice drowsy from the wine, his face close enough to mine to feel his breath when he speaks. “I don’t know what it’s like to not be with Priya,” and I think that I get it. I think that I do, this sense of familiarity and comfort that slips into a relationship over time, completely trampling all excitement and passion. I don’t get it personally, because of course my longest relationship lasted a mere seventy-two hours, but I get it. I see the way my own parents no longer kiss; they don’t hold hands. I watch the way my father sleeps on the guest bed lest my mother’s chronic insomnia keep them both up all night. Ben and Priya aren’t even married and already there’s no excitement, no passion. At least that’s what I’d like to believe, but who am I to say what goes on in their private life.
But I don’t want to think about that right now; I don’t want to think about Priya. Instead, I press myself closer to Ben so that we sit side by side, our legs running in parallel lines, plunked on the coffee table, my ankle crossed with his.
As if this is normal. As if this is something we do.
I have no idea how he comes to spend the night, but I’m so glad he does.
THURSDAY
Alex
“Hello?” I call out softly as I come into the quiet house through the back window, doing a sweep of the room with my flashlight. It’s early morning, the sun just beginning to ascend into the November sky. The house is still relatively dark, not yet revived by the luminescence of the morning light. The home is quiet. Pearl might just be asleep, which wouldn’t be such a bad thing. I wouldn’t mind sitting here for a while, watching as she sleeps.