The Vanishing Year(50)

“How many times did you meet with this man, Zoe?”

I sit carefully, in the chair to Henry’s right, concentrating on unfolding the napkin in my lap. Half of me flares up: how dare he ask, how dare he care? I’m free to talk to whomever I’d like, this is hardly the fifties.

“Three.” I spear a piece of lamb, the tender meat falls apart, a perfect doneness. Sometimes I’d like her to, just once, burn a meal. Overestimate the cooking time. It hasn’t happened yet.

“Yet, you’ve said nothing. I ask you about your daily activities. You’ve remained vague. Why?”

I tip my wineglass and swallow it all down at once, like a nervous freshman at a fraternity party. “Not purposefully. They’ve all been brief. I’m sure whatever else I did that day was more interesting.”

“Your entire day is interesting to me, Zoe. You know that. Why would you lie? Why would you cover it up?”

“I’m not covering it up, Henry. This whole conversation is ridiculous. We met three times in public places, discussed the charity, my involvement, that’s it. Enough of this.”

I stand, planning to get another glass of wine.

“Sit,” he commands in his boardroom voice, the one no one dares defy. I ease myself back down in my chair.

As you are woman, so be lovely. And obedient?

“I can’t tolerate the lying. Even by omission. If it was no big deal, then why not tell me?” He scans the paper, pointing one buffed, manicured nail to a sentence. Zoe Whittaker is personally attached to the cause of helping orphans and those left to fend for themselves, because she relates to the isolation. “You’ve been personal with this man. This is an intimate conversation.” Stab at the paper again, this time at the picture. “This is an intimate photograph.”

I see the picture through Henry’s eyes, the long curve of my spine, a sly, sexy smile, one delicately arched eyebrow, my hand floats near my ear, where I have just tucked a lock of hair. I sigh heavily. Stupid is what it is. “Henry, I will not have this conversation—”

“This man has feelings for you. If you were not aware of it, you wouldn’t have lied to me.”

“I never lied to you!” I protest sharply. “I just wasn’t willing to be monitored.”

“Bullshit.” His voice is loud now and he stands up, his palms bracing against the table. “You have feelings for him, too? That lowlife barely reporter, who makes $30,000 a year and lives in a one-room apartment in the East Village? Where all the hippies and the druggies hang out?”

I gape up at him. I never told Henry where Cash lived.

“I know everything about him, Zoe. He’s involved in my life now. I need to know these things, do you think I’m haphazard? Do you think I can afford to just let people in? I will not let my life, my wife, be compromised in that way.” He’s practically yelling, even his hair has taken on an unusually disheveled appearance.

“Henry, are you insane?” I spit.

He leans close to me, his eyes flashing, small dots of white spittle have foamed the corners of his mouth. “Zoe, do not question me about this. I will know what you are doing. I will know who you are spending time with. I will know—”

My heart races. I’ve never seen Henry angry, not like this. Cold, calculating, yes. Not this wild rage. My hands shake and I mentally swing between wanting to fire back at him and calming him down. “Henry, I can’t live like this! Under your rules, your roof, your thumb, your—”

He’s so quick, I hear the glass shatter before I realize what he’s done. The smell of whiskey stings my nostrils and pierces the back of my throat. The wall behind me drips brown amber liquid.

His voice is low, hard and barely controlled. “Then get out.” He spins around, and is gone.

? ? ?

I don’t get out. Where would I go? Lydia’s? I could hear the I told you so out the side of her mouth, lips twisted in a smirk. Or worse, if she reacted with pity, like I was seeking refuge at some kind of abused women’s shelter. No. In the end, I stay in the apartment. Henry’s office door is closed and I wonder if that’s where he’ll sleep. The room has a long, black leather sofa and once or twice when he’s been working late, he has slept in there. Never out of anger, that would be a first. Isn’t sleeping on the couch a sitcom staple? Pillows flying down the stairs and a hapless, balding, middle-aged man scrambling to catch them: Linda, please, I’ll take out the garbage. These are normal, married people things. Truthfully, I have no idea what normal, married couples are like, outside of movies and television. I’ve never witnessed it.

I think of Evelyn, precancer, with her thick, dark hair, red string bikini, and cutoff jean shorts in the driver’s seat of a borrowed black convertible, blasting Bruce Springsteen all the way down the Pacific Coast Highway to Capitola Beach. She’d spread blankets, twist and heave a heavy umbrella into the ground, and sit, smoking cigarettes and humming softly under her breath while I dug holes in the sand.

“We need a radio, bud, don’t you think?” I loved bud. She never called me darling or sweetie. She and I were pals, united against the world. I was twelve, edging into teenage angst while reaching back to my mom, my bud, with one hand. “I’ll find us one.”

I shrugged because I was collecting baby crabs, their soft, gray bodies scuttling up the sides of the yellow bucket and sliding back into the mush at the bottom. The wind picked up, my hair whipping around like sandy cattails, slapping at my eyes. I eyed the girl on the blanket next to us, her hair pulled back taut against her head and held in place with a hair band. Evelyn never had a hair band with her in her life, I was pretty sure. She wasn’t a “Band-Aid in every pocketbook” kind of mother.