F*ck Marriage(52)

Trigger words. I stand so abruptly the green velvet chair topples over.

“You’re an asshole,” I say before marching for the door.

“But at least I’m an asshole who knows what I want,” he calls after me.

I slam his office door so hard I hear Satcher curse on the other side of it. Since when does Satcher know what he wants? He’s been flouncing from one model to the next for years.





Chapter Twenty-Six





On Sunday morning I go see an apartment that’s for lease in Brooklyn. I take a cab since the weather has turned and I don’t want to bother with the subway ... yet. The neighborhood isn’t terrible, and travel to and from work will be a hassle, but the thought of having my own space outweighs every negative thought I have. Before Woods cheated on me and I ran home to Washington I’d only ever had roommates: the girls at college and then my husband. And even though I spent two years living in my parents’ guest house, it still felt like I was living at home with them. This will be my very first solo apartment and I am going to be completely broke paying for it. The owner, an overenthusiastic blonde who is donning a Bride hoodie, is getting married and moving in with her husband-to-be.

‘’We want to start a family right away,” she tells me, kicking a stray tennis ball under the bed.

I watch it roll out the other side and hit the wall. Stacked near the front door are a couple of beat-up rackets. I spot a photo of said fiancé on the nightstand; he’s a standard American guy wearing a letter jacket and holding a beer. I’d bet my life his parents had a country club membership Upstate where they played tennis together.

“So anyway, we need a bigger place,” she finishes.

She looks no older than twenty-three. I want to tell her to run, to avoid the marriage thing until she’s lived with him a few years. But I’m familiar with this type of hopeful devotion. She babbles on about her fiancé’s two bedroom walk-in, the original hardwood floors, and the extra closet space as she shows me around her tiny studio (which doesn’t have a closet). There’s a bathroom I can barely turn around in, a small gas stove, an olive green fridge that groans like it’s in pain when she opens it, and a view of an alley with a dumpster overflowing with trash. I stare down at a cat who is ripping open a bag of garbage with its claws and say, “I’ll take it.”

She seems relieved, and I remember how eager I was to start my life with Woods all of those years ago. She has me fill out an application and I write her a check for first, last, and security. I can move in right after the holidays, which is perfect because Jules will be gone through Christmas to visit her family. I will have the apartment to myself until it is time to move.

When I get back to Jules’, no one is home so I make myself a sandwich and itemize my belongings. I don’t have much more than I arrived with. I’m going to need things: a bed, a small table, a wardrobe. I’m going to have to tell Jules tonight. I wonder if she’ll sublease this place and move in with Satcher? The thought makes me lose my appetite and I throw the rest of my sandwich in the trash. I tell myself that it won’t be so bad. All I have to do is get through the holidays and then I will be wonderfully free. No more bumping into them on the way home from a date night, no more seeing Satcher’s shoes next to the umbrella rack, no more agonizing about whether they are having sex behind her closed bedroom door. My only consolation in this whole situation, versus the one with Woods and Pearl, is that I love Jules and genuinely want her to be happy.

My feelings for and about Satcher are confusing. He was my friend, and then he was my lover, and now we’re at an impasse where I’m not sure what I’m allowed to call him other than boss. The tension between us doesn’t go unnoticed. By Wednesday, we’ve done such a bang-up job of avoiding each other, Woods comes into my office to ask if everything is okay. I stare at him for a long time, the question hanging between us. Woods is the person who knows me most—it is an uncomfortable thing to admit, but we spent a little under a decade showing each other our best and worst. Maybe sharing my situation with someone who knows me as well as he does would ... help.

I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. I can smell his Juicy Fruit from across the room and I have to work my way past the pangs of nostalgia that stir in my heart: youth, a love I thought endlessly powerful, my entire future ahead of me. I suppose the only thing to say is the truth.

“I’m confused,” I admit. “Dazed and confused.”

Woods grins at the movie reference and sits in the chair facing my desk.

“Spill,” he commands.

“You’re my ex-husband,” I say. “Entirely inappropriate.”

“And go!”

I can’t hold back my smile at the way he ignored my excuse, because he does know me. I have to be pushed to share feelings. It’s never been easy for me to talk about matters of the heart.

“I got my own place,” I say. “In Brooklyn.”

He nods slowly. “Ah. Have you let Jules know?”

I shake my head.

“You and Satcher…”

I groan. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“You two were a disaster waiting to happen.”

I sit up straighter, bothered by his words. “What’s that supposed to mean?”