Ghosts of Manhattan: A Novel(32)



“Good. People go through unhappy periods and they recover. There are always ups and downs, with everything. You and Julia have a good thing.”





11 | WORKING AT THE CAR WASH


December 8, 2005

JULIA ROLLS ON HER SIDE WITH HER BACK TO ME, though I know her eyes are open and staring. Before ten minutes ago, we hadn’t had sex in more than a week. This is our canary in a coal mine. It is the first thing to die when there is something poisonous in the air.

I was home when Julia returned from tennis, and I maintain that no one has yet created the outfit for strippers that is as sexy as the tiny white pleated tennis skirt. It was enough to bring us together, like a beacon through lethal clouds. But the sex was flat. It wasn’t savored or varied the way that in a good meal the food is interrupted by wine to make the taste, the pace, and the experience even better. This was medicinal and businesslike. We now lie in the uncomfortable effect of a failed physical connection and the unspoken acknowledgment that comes with it.

“I’m sorry I’ve been working so much lately.” I feel I need to say something. I like happy silences but not uncomfortable ones. I’m a child that way.

“What are you talking about? This is the same way you’ve worked for six years.” Her eyes are still straight ahead away from me.

“Well, there’ve just been some late nights.” Before she can respond that this is also the same way it has been for six years, I add, “And I’ve missed you.”

She still doesn’t flinch but I know that this time it is because her mind is working to process my comment.

“You look beautiful, Julia. You’re even more beautiful today than the day we met.”

This prompts her to roll over and face me, and I’m startled to see that her look is angry. Not a hurt form of angry but an indignant look that says, How dare you? “You wouldn’t have it any other way. Nick, you have a phobia of fat people. It’s very hard to live with.”

I can see this feels good for her to say. But like a slow leak of a great volume of pressure, a tiny leak cannot give real relief. Relief would have to come in another form. “And if you miss me so much, try coming home. Sober. You can send some other drinking buddy to your boondoggles.”

The anger rises and the indifference wanes. Her eyebrows knit down farther under the weight of the creases in her brow, and her upper lip rises on one side in the beginnings of a snarl. More anger has lurked in her than I realized.

“It’s like you’re caught up in the bad crowd of an eighth-grade class. Some of the people you run around with at least actually are almost adolescent. You’re thirty-five, Nick. Thirty-five!” She’s screaming now. This feels out of nowhere and I wonder what cue I’ve missed. She takes a breath and hesitates. “You were a better man when we met than you are today. How do you like that? You think I’ve gotten more beautiful? I think you’ve gotten more ridiculous.”

The anger reaches its peak and is focused right on me like I’m looking up the barrel of a gun. Just as quickly it vanishes and she seems to recognize the transformation of her own features and is ashamed of them and sweeps them away. Julia gets up and walks to the bathroom. I hear the sink run and water splashing. In a moment she walks back into our bedroom, her bathrobe pulled tightly around her. She sits sidesaddle on the edge of the bed to face me. Her expression is wiped clean of emotion.

“I’m so unhappy, Nick.” Her tone is flat, as though she is just stating the obvious facts or reading the instructions of a baking recipe. Two eggs, one cup of flour, and I’m very unhappy. “I have been unhappy. For a long time now.”

“I know.” Those two words are my first real acknowledgment of our condition. An acceptance of responsibility on my part that I need to address. For a moment it feels like it could be the beginning of a way back, of a plan for us. But my words are left hanging in the air like a coin flicked over a well. Julia looks at me, waiting for more. Hoping for more. When nothing comes, my words fall empty. They sound hopeless and resigned. I know I’m closed off, but I can’t cure it yet.

“Nick, the way things have become, I feel more like a stranger to you every day. Like we’re locking ourselves deeper in separate prisons and I resent you for it. It makes me want to be cruel to you. And I resent that even more.”

Her eyes fill with tears but don’t actually form one. All I can think to say is I’m sorry, and I don’t want to say it because it feels like an insult to her.

“Nick, I love you. I have always loved you. From the very first moment I saw you.” She smiles remembering, and I remember too. We were at a birthday party in New York of someone neither of us knew directly. Along with every other man and woman at the party, I noticed her the moment she walked in. She had on a black tank top and perfectly fitting jeans and her hair was long and straight and simple. The first time our eyes met, they locked. First curious and unafraid, then laughing and interested, the head making slight movements and the mouth stretching to a smile, but always the eyes holding the gaze while we came together. By the time we touched and spoke, we already knew.

I wonder how it even happened then. Love at first sight seems like a romantic, silly notion and I know it to be true only because I lived it. Now if a friend had just told me it happened, I would believe he was being dishonest with me, or maybe just not honest with himself. Because I no longer feel any capacity for it.

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