Do I Know You?(13)

“Why don’t you want to?” Eliza presses gently. There’s no misreading her tone. She isn’t pushing or judging. She’s inviting. In my silence, she reaches out, her hand finding my arm.

The featherlight contact of her fingers is instantly reassuring. I stare into the slate swirl of her eyes. I want to reach for easy dismissals, to say we don’t live in a make-believe world.

Still, part of me is drawn to the idea, even though it’s unexpected. But then, recently I’ve begun to believe expecting how your marriage will look is like trying to trace the unknowable. It’s their beauty and their terror. Every marriage is its own dance, every step revealed only in the moment of its creation. Invisible to everyone except its two participants, unpredictable even to them.

Is this our next step?

Maybe.

“I’m . . . not saying I don’t want to,” I manage. In some distant corner of my head, I’m quietly stunned at how hard this conversation is. Part of my career is literally negotiating, parsing complexities into one-way-or-the-other conversations. I’ve never once found it this difficult. “I’m just . . . not saying it would work,” I go on.

When Eliza shrugs, the easy grace of it seems superhuman. “Sure,” she says, “but why not try? Unless there’s some other reason you don’t want to.”

I hesitate. I could employ those familiar muscles, could supply rebuttals and counters until the cows come home.

But—this is Eliza. If I’m going to resist, I owe her the real reason why.

“I don’t know that I can,” I confess, thinking of how I choked just minutes ago. “I don’t know if I’m good enough at this sort of thing.”

My wife watches me. “What sort of thing?”

I pull my eyes from hers, gazing off into the open, dark bar. “Being . . . charming. Interesting,” I say. “Fun.”

When Eliza laughs, it’s my worst fears confirmed. Of course my chorus of insecurities is ridiculous to her. Why couldn’t I escape into stilted small talk over ordinary hotel food? It’s not long now before this moment of truth—this moment of weakness—turns into one more deficiency in me. No longer hungry, I start to get up.

Eliza moves to interlace her fingers with mine, stopping me. I dare to meet her gaze. “I think you are,” she says. “Look at the conversation we just had while we were pretending to meet. It was—let’s see.” She pauses like she’s concentrating hard. “Hm. Charming. Interesting. Fun. Three for three, I think.”

It’s not quite enough to reassure me. But it is enough to return me to my seat. Eliza waits like she understands I have more reservations to unpack, more to say.

Which I do. “What if it doesn’t work?” Behind my question hide doubts I think she hears. I’m not one of her thespian friends. I’m not spontaneous or inspired. I can’t just riff with her like they would.

“Then we’ll stop,” Eliza says. “We’ll figure something else out. But I want us back, Graham.” The ease in her voice splits down the middle into something raw. “Don’t you?”

It is the only easy question of the night.

I grip her hand tighter. “More than anything.”

“Then try this for me,” Eliza implores me gently. “Please.”

On our first night in the one-bedroom in Westwood we moved into when I was finishing law school, we were determined to complete our unpacking in one go. In hindsight, this was ridiculous. Taking the bar was easier. But there we were, methodically moving through suitcases, wordlessly organizing sheets, soap, silverware, while our eyes started to sting from exhaustion. Finally, Eliza set to putting her shoes on the flimsy shoe rack I’d built earlier in the day. I guess I missed one or two screws, because the moment she placed her favorite sneakers on the top rack, the whole thing collapsed.

Eliza just stopped. She moved to our new couch, where she sat down, staring into space, strands of her hair gorgeously out of place. She was done.

I don’t know why—moved by her tenacity or by the idea that if we could unpack from 1 p.m. to 1 a.m., there was nothing we couldn’t do—but right then, in front of the couch, I proposed to her. She said yes.

It’s sort of how I feel now. There’s nothing in common with the time or place, obviously. We’re six years older, surrounded by this swanky hotel bar, no shoe racks in sight. The connection is in how, despite the rest of the world continuing on in its easy nighttime rhythm, I feel like we’re on the edge of something.

I take a deep breath. “What are the rules?”

Ingenuity leaps into my wife’s expression like a scratched match hissing into flame. Releasing my hand, she pushes her plate to the side. She reaches brazenly over the bar and grabs a pen, then unfolds her cocktail napkin.

“We pretend we’re strangers,” she offers. I nod. No surprises there. This was the premise, this unlikely idea starting to seize me more with its wild wonder with each passing moment. “For, let’s say, two days?” Eliza goes on.

I swallow. “The whole trip,” I say, before I lose my nerve.

Eliza’s eyes widen. I keep my expression neutral. I guess, if we’re going to do this, I want to give it everything. Like unpacking until one in the morning. Like getting engaged because you just know you can’t imagine life without the woman sitting on the couch in your new living room. Besides, getting this game right in two days is too much pressure.