The Other Language(48)
But she was in no mood to discuss Chinese puppies with Anita. All she wanted to talk about was her restlessness; how her previous life in the city seemed impossible to resume, how she couldn’t find her center anymore, how hurting her knee had clearly been a sign, and not a good one. Lara barely gave the puppy a glance.
“It looks like a rat with a wig,” she said, pouring Prosecco in the glasses.
Anita stared at her, puzzled, then lifted the glass in a toast with one hand while settling Carmen back in the bag with the other.
The next morning Lara rang her ex-husband. They hadn’t spoken in almost a year. She said she wanted to see him.
“It’s important to me. I don’t want to think of us as enemies anymore, okay?”
“We are not enemies. I never felt that way, despite what you think, Lara,” he said, peacefully. A bit too peacefully, in fact.
“That’s great, then. One more reason to see each other, I’d say,” she insisted.
She struggled to find a sensible place to meet. A café could be hazardous—too many people, tables too close, what if she ended up crying? Her mind raced.
“How about the bar at the Excelsior?”
Her husband hesitated; the venue sounded dangerously romantic. Lara could feel a small panic rising in him.
“It’s comfortable, it’ll be quiet. And they make great martinis,” she reassured him. As if she went there regularly for expensive cocktails.
The day of their rendezvous was a premonition of fall, with a heavy sky and a constant drizzle, perfect weather for meeting an ex-husband. She wanted to surprise him by looking more glamorous and mysterious than she had ever been while with him, so he’d assume that a major event—a man, a new vocation?—had turned her into a different person, or, even better, allowed her true nature to emerge. She longed to be anything but the same woman he’d wanted to leave.
A few minutes after six, she limped into the lobby of the Excelsior a few minutes after six in a light beige raincoat and large dark glasses, her hair pulled back in a chignon with a vintage Hermès silk scarf folded and tied as a headband—in the vague hope of resembling Grace Kelly in one of those movies with Cary Grant.
Her ex-husband was waiting at a table in the far corner of the wood-paneled bar, among soft cushions and elaborate Japanese flower arrangements. He looked more attractive than she remembered and, like her apartment without him, oddly foreign. The memory of their physical intimacy—even its subtle scent—had vanished as though someone else (the woman with a sense of humor?) had erased it for eternity. He asked why she was limping and when she told him about the Janu Sirsasana incident, he couldn’t keep back a condescending smirk.
“Yoga. You didn’t give that up yet, did you?”
“It’s not like I’m doing heroin,” she said breezily, yet she regretted having mentioned the word yoga. He’d always found the subject—with its obsessive concerns about hips, knees and shoulder openings, breathing techniques, mantras and especially the smugness that came with an advanced practice—deeply irritating.
The conversation floated without a purpose for a few minutes, aided by the intervention of a young waiter who took their order. Her ex-husband asked for a pot of green tea but Lara felt she ought to order a martini. She tried to sum up the past year, giving a joyful picture of all that had happened without him. She was happy with her choice of the venue; it had just the right atmosphere: the bar was quiet, almost empty, the muted colors soothing, the decor minimal yet cozy. The drinks came, and there was another awkward silence while he juggled with cup and teapot. He then broke the silence with a studied casual tone.
“It’s great that you’re happy in your place down south. Where exactly is it again?”
“It’s just a tiny village south of Lecce. You wouldn’t have heard of it.”
Because she’d bought it with his money she felt protective of it, as if he could lay claim to what was now only hers.
He smiled encouragingly. He only wanted to be nice and friendly.
“It sounds good, your life. I mean, you used to be such a city girl. I never pictured you in a small village growing vegetables.”
Lara wasn’t sure this was the kind of recognition she’d been looking for, and the eagerness he showed in approving her life without him was beginning to unnerve her.
Suddenly, in the richly upholstered, orchid-filled bar, her ideas about growing her own vegetables and making fig preserves sounded na?ve, even pathetic. She looked at her ex-husband, in his superbly tailored pin-striped suit, who kept smiling at her as one would with a crazy person. Now that she had him in front of her it wasn’t clear why she’d wanted to see him again. She didn’t love him, didn’t hate him or want him anymore, and certainly she didn’t care to be his friend. Maybe she thought that seeing him again would help her make sense of the nine years spent in his company. She needed evidence that those years had been meaningful for both of them but, the more she looked for that evidence, the less she found it.
“You look good. I like this look. The raincoat,” he said.
The martini was beginning to have its effect. She hadn’t had a stiff drink in ages and had a feeling her eyes were beginning to spin all over the place without a focus and her voice had started to slacken.
“Lara,” he said calmly.
“Yes? What?” Had she been staring at the wall too long? She quickly regained her posture in the velvet armchair.