The Vanishing Year(58)
“What in the world is a thigh gap?” I blink, twice. I’m not sure I want to know. The concerns of half my gender baffle me. In Henry’s world, there is no shortage of beautiful, wealthy women who behave like teenagers with limitless bank accounts.
“See? Don’t you have any friends who are like you? Conscious of the world? Grateful? That’s our problem. No one is fucking grateful anymore. Look at you, with CARE. You’re grateful. I bet you were poor growing up, right?”
I shift in my chair. At that moment, the sashimi is placed in front of me, beautiful with its brightly colored fish and green vegetables, and a swirl of scarlet miso on the square, white plate.
“You don’t have to answer that. Don’t you have friends? I need to find someone like you.” He slurs the like and the you together. At that moment, I realize that Henry has turned around and is paying close attention to our conversation. I meet his gaze and his eyes narrow. He snaps open his napkin in one quick wrist motion and gives a short shake of his head, staring stonily ahead to some point on the far wall. I imagine it’s one of Henry’s most marketable skills: the stonewall. His face smooths out, perfectly unlined, like chiseled marble. A David statue of my husband and just as cool to the touch. While anger heats most people up, buzzes them and makes them hyper, it has the opposite effect on Henry. He becomes cold and still, his flesh hardens. A corpse taken straight from the morgue refrigerator.
Reid blathers next to me, his words skipping and sliding into each other, oblivious to the undercurrent between Henry and me. I lean to my left, nudge Henry with my elbow, press my fingertips into his quadriceps, he doesn’t flinch.
The sashimi plates are replaced by dinner plates, large and gleaming with impossibly small portions. Four courses come and go, with Henry smiling at Muriel across the table and Reid chattering to anyone who will listen. At dinner’s conclusion, while everyone is drinking dessert wine and sherry, Henry stands, his hand on my elbow, and with a wide apologetic smile ushers me to the waiting car.
In the car, the radio plays classical music at low volume, like Henry always instructs the driver to do. The city street passes silently by, life on mute.
“Say something, please.” I run my fingernail along the window edge, inexplicably damp with condensation.
“I don’t want to worry about my wife and other men. I’ll say that.” His hands are clasped across his knees, his back rigid. The ball joint of his jaw trembles underneath his skin.
“Is this about Cash or Reid?” I feel my shoulders droop. I’m so tired of this conversation, for no reason. I want to bring up the blonde but I can’t. It’s a big new door and the room behind it is filled with unknowable variables. I’m so tired. “I’ve never given you any reason to worry. That’s your own doing.”
“Zoe.”
In the apartment, he says nothing and goes right to his office. The door closes with a heavy click, a hushed echo in the marble hallway. I go to bed, knowing, acknowledging for the first time, that we are in trouble. Our life, not what I expect or want, but just the way it is. I realize that tomorrow Henry is leaving for Japan and I don’t know for sure when he’s coming home. It occurs to me that maybe he won’t be. That our marriage will be over.
I spin the charm bracelet around my wrist. Such a unique, creative gift, so out of character for Henry. Just last weekend, he’d been windblown and free. Loving. Writing poetry, or at least copying poetry. And now, back in the city we call home, he’s this other man again. Cold. Calculating.
I feel the bed move underneath me. The blankets pull back and Henry’s hand, soft as silk across my skin. He pulls me against him and my stomach swoops with relief. We’ve always done this, we’ve always made up, made love, nothing has ever been permanent. I was silly to think otherwise. His breath flutters, hot in my ear.
Before I know it, his hands push up my nightgown and he’s on top of me, in me, hard and pressing, his wet gasps against my collarbone come quick and his hand grips my hip as he grunts, once, twice. It’s over in a minute. He pants quietly next to me, his palm smooths my hair off my forehead. In the dark, he stands up, the moonlight reflecting off a sheen of sweat on his skin and I realize that he is naked. That he came to me for one purpose and I’ve served it. He’s leaving. He pauses in the doorway, his hand resting on the doorknob, a thin, white line of light reflected down his back and leg. His face is turned and in the half-light, his mouth opens and closes, like he wants to say something, and still, stupidly, my heart catches on the unspoken maybe.
“I’ll see you in a week, Zoe.”
CHAPTER 19
The Japan trip has eased some of the pressure. I could not have reasonably told Henry about Caroline if we were a) barely speaking and b) he was out of the country. Maybe. Who knows? I’ve decided not to care. The weather has suddenly gotten hot, in the eighties, and today, it’s all anyone can talk about. Cash’s neighbor, the gas station attendant, even Cash himself. I’m meeting my mother for the first time and all I can think about is whether she will look as much like me as her picture? Will she have the oddball habit of tugging on her ear when she’s nervous? Will she bite her thumbnail cuticle? And yet, all I seem to be conversing about is temperature and humidity. They say tomorrow is supposed to be even worse! Even as I hear myself say the words, I can’t fathom anything about tomorrow.