The Startup Wife(77)
“Cyrus is telling them what he wants to hear. You and I both know that.”
I’m stammering now, but I keep going. “?‘He’s otherworldly but handsome in an almost comical way. His sentences are long, and when you’re in the middle of one, you wonder, where is this going? But he always manages to bring whatever he’s saying to a satisfying conclusion. Everything he says is mysterious and somehow obvious at the same time.’?”
At least this one is funny. I allow Destiny to laugh briefly.
I get to the last line. “?‘I have to say, I’m developing something of a crush.’?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, another woman in love with Cyrus. Take a number, sister.” Destiny leans over, reads the byline. “George Milos. Guess Cyrus appeals to all genders.”
As we get up to leave, she says, “I don’t think Cyrus is a bad person. He’s just basking in a sea of adoration, and it makes him think more of himself than he should.”
“Where does that leave me?”
“You have a tough gig. No one wants to be married to the guy everyone thinks is going to save the world.”
* * *
As I make my way home, it starts to snow. I’ve been trying not to cry this whole time, but now I let it happen, and the sting in my eyes mixes with the snow falling on my cheeks and makes my face burn hot. By the time I get to the apartment, I am sobbing. I don’t even try to hide it from the doorman, who turns his back discreetly as I get in the elevator.
Cyrus is home. I can tell from the way his shoes are lined up neatly on the shoe rack, his backpack on the hook where I have begged him to hang it so many times, that he’s been waiting for me and that he knows exactly how I have responded to his interview.
“It was edited all wrong,” he says. “I’ve already spoken with them.”
I throw my coat on the floor. “What are they going to do? Issue a correction? ‘In a recent issue of our magazine, we implied that Cyrus Jones is the sole visionary behind WAI when, in fact, he couldn’t have done it without his wife’?”
My voice has risen. Cyrus approaches me, but I hold my arm away from my body so he can’t come any closer. I wipe my face roughly with the back of my sleeve and try to steady myself. “I could’ve forgiven you for taking me off the board. I told myself it was fine, that you were cornered and didn’t have a choice.”
“I didn’t take you off the board, you quit.”
“Because you chose Marco and Craig over me.”
“You made me choose—you didn’t have to. You didn’t have to make it personal.”
Cyrus sits down on the sofa, but I stay standing, holding my back as straight as I can, as if this will give me some purchase on the situation. “I hate who you are in this,” I say, gesturing to my phone. “My mentorship program, Cy—did you have to take that from me too? It was such a tiny thing—you couldn’t let me keep it?”
He shakes his head. “It’s not me, it’s just a persona.”
“So you did it on purpose.”
“I spent the whole time telling him how much I love you.”
“Yeah, so everyone can be like, ‘Ooh, she has the best husband in the world.’?”
“What else did you want me to say?”
The thought comes out before I can really register it. “The truth. Which is that you’re pimping something your wife invented and peddling it as your own.”
I’ve drawn blood. Cyrus’s face closes. “So that’s what you think. That I stole something from you.”
I circle around and sit across from him. “I don’t think you stole it,” I say, my voice softening. “I think I let it be yours and you let me be sidelined. You diminished me and I allowed it to happen.”
He pauses for a moment and I think maybe we can bring it back. The next time he apologizes, I think, I’ll relent. “It’s Hegelian,” he says.
I try to load my silence with as much of a fuck-you as I can manage.
“You and I are in a dialectic; we created this situation together. I’m as much a product of you as you are of me.”
“Hegel? Really? You’re going to hit me with Hegel?”
“I never wanted any of this in the first place. I was perfectly happy living my medium-size life when you came along and forced me to become Cyrus the Great. And now you resent me.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. You enjoyed every minute of it.”
“I didn’t have a choice. The two people I love most in the world are telling me to do something, and I have to go along with it because if you left me, I’d have nothing.”
“Don’t act like we forced you to do it, Cyrus. That we somehow threatened you.” I can feel myself going to a place from which it will be impossible to return. But it’s too late; I am already there. “And anyway, Jules would never leave you.”
“But you would?”
In that split second, I make up my mind. “You’ve allowed yourself to become someone I no longer respect. You can blame me or tell me it’s Hegelian all you want, but it’s who you are now. And I’m not playing anymore, Cy. You’re going to have to go the rest of the way on your own.”
Cyrus moves very slowly. He puts on his shoes. He winds his scarf around his neck. He shrugs into his coat. And then he’s gone into the snow and the night, a trail of unsaid words following silently behind him like a clutch of shadows.