My One and Only(50)

I think things took an irreversible turn about three months into our marriage. When I forced myself to tell Nick how lonely I was, he suggested we have a baby.

I looked at him for a long, burning minute, then said, “Are you out of your mind, Nick?”

His head jerked back. “What?”

“Nick…I barely see you! You want me to have a baby? So we can both be trapped here while you swan off and work your eighteen-hour days? So you can ignore me and your child? I don’t think so!”

“You’re the one who’s complaining about being lonely, Harper,” he said.

“I wouldn’t be lonely if you’d actually spend some time with me, Nick.” My throat felt as if a knife was stuck in it, my eyes were hot and dry.

“Harper, baby, I have to do this. I have to work.”

“Do you have to work so much? Can’t you ever make it home for dinner? Can’t you ever take one whole weekend off, Nick? Ever?”

It was one of our more impressive fights. I hated it. Hated myself for needing him as much as I did, hated him for not knowing that. He may have been actually a little scared at my reaction; clearly, we weren’t on the same page. We weren’t even in the same book. He promised to do better. Said he’d take this coming weekend off, both days. We’d go up to the park, have a picnic, maybe go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Cooper Hewitt.

But Friday night, when he came home well after nine, he broke the news. “I have to go in tomorrow. Just for an hour or two. I’m really sorry. I’ll be home by eleven at the latest.”

I’ll admit now that I knew he’d never make it, and thus, wanting to increase my ammunition, went all out preparing a Martha-style picnic for us. Curried chicken with raisins, cucumber salad, a loaf of French bread from a bakery in the Village. Oatmeal raisin cookies baked from scratch. A bottle of wine. At twelve-fifteen, he still wasn’t home. At one, not home. At 2:24, he called. “I’m running a little late,” he said. “Just have to do one quick thing, then I’m out the door.”

He got home at 5:37, a bouquet of browning daisies in his hand. “Babe, don’t have a fit,” he began inauspiciously. “Big Mac needed me, because apparently Jed totally flaked out with getting the permits from—”

I took a fistful of chicken salad and threw it at him, getting him right in the face. “Here. I made this for you. I hope you get salmonella and spend the next four days puking yourself raw.”

Nick took a piece of chicken off his cheek and ate it. “Pretty good,” he said, lifting an eyebrow.

That was it. I stomped into the bedroom, slammed the door and clenched my arms over my head.

Of course he came in (we had no locks). With exaggerated patience, he wiped off the chicken salad and put the towel in the hamper, came over, wrapped his arms around me. He didn’t apologize. Kissed my neck. Told me he loved me. Asked me to be patient, since this was all, in his words, just temporary. It wouldn’t happen again. We’d work things out. Then he turned me so that my face was pressed against his beautiful neck, so that I could smell his good Nick smell and feel his pulse. It worked. I cracked.

“I hate it here, Nick,” I whispered into his collar. “I never see you. I feel like…like an appendix.”

“An appendix?” he said, pulling back.

I swallowed. “Like I’m here, but you don’t really need me. You could cut me out and everything would still work just fine.” I had to whisper, it was so hard to admit.

He looked at me long and hard, his eyes inscrutable. I waited for him to understand. Waited for him to remember that I had abandonment issues, that the only other person who was supposed to have loved me forever had left me. I waited for him to realize I needed him to do more than check me off, waited for him to tell me I was no appendix…I was his beating heart, and he couldn’t live without me.

“Maybe you should get a job, honey,” he said.

That was the beginning of the end.

“A job,” I echoed dully.

“You’re alone too much, and I hate to say it, but I really can’t slack off at work right now. If you get a job, you’ll make some friends, have more to do. We can always use the extra money, too, I won’t lie. You can quit when you start law school.”

He’d wanted me to marry him, I had, and that was the end…to him, anyway.

“I’ll ask around the office,” he added. “Maybe someone has a lead.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll find something on my own,” I said. My heart felt like a rock sitting hard and cold in my chest.

“Great, honey. Good girl.”

Then he took me to bed and we had sex, and it was his way of saying, See? Everything’s just fine. And that, according to Nick, was that. It certainly let him off the hook. Me getting a job was much more convenient than admitting that marriage needed an investment of time, especially a new marriage, especially when the bride was me. This way, Nick didn’t have to change his hours or tell his boss sorry, not tonight, he had plans with his wife. No, clearly this was just what the doctor ordered. Harper needed a job. Not a husband who actually showed up.

Almost defiantly, I answered an ad. Bartender, which was old territory for me since I’d worked my way through college bartending. The restaurant was called Claudia’s, a trendy new place in SoHo.