Do I Know You?(3)

I’m embarrassed by how quickly the rush of relief comes over me. It’s just—the out Eliza’s given me is preferable to the grating howl of the question never far from my thoughts when I’m with her. What do I say? How do I be interesting enough, funny enough, fun enough for her?

I don’t remember how I ever pulled it off, how I charmed Eliza Cutler, née Kelly, into marrying me. I sometimes feel like a fraud, some con man who managed to scam her into thinking I was worthy of her. Every day, every hour, every conversation, I come closer to her realizing I’m so much less interesting than the man she thought she married. The less I say, the more time I have before she sees through me, and I’m holding on to every precious second I have left.

Even under normal circumstances, it’s difficult these days to conjure up conversation interesting enough. It’s insurmountable now, when I’m preoccupied with how this very same worry will taunt me for one whole week of hikes, hot tubs, and hotel champagne with Eliza, uninterrupted.

The ocean outside my window was supposed to relax me. I picked PCH—the Pacific Coast Highway—for the sweeping scenery, the glittering sea right past the cliffs on which we’re driving. I’d hoped it would remind me of the picturesque surroundings I’m heading toward. Instead, it’s only made me more uneasy. It’s one thing to feel our distance in the stiflingly familiar house neither of us has had time to clean in months. It’s something else entirely to feel it on vacation, nestled in the stunning forested hills of Northern California.

“Of course not,” I say. “The road noise won’t get in the way?”

She unlocks her iPhone. “It’s just a sample for my producer to give me feedback,” she says.

Eliza is a voice actor, primarily for audiobooks and video games. When we met, she was voicing the villain for an indie computer game, copies of which I purchased proudly. It stings to remember helping her rehearse, reading opposite her for long nights on her old green couch. She played a powerful sorceress, and I found myself enchanted by other kinds of magic watching her talent come to life.

She shifts in her seat, unfolding her foot out from under her. I know her long legs get stiff on lengthy drives. She’s gorgeous, the voice in my head says. No matter what, it’s the first thing I think whenever my eyes find her. She’s the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever met. Shoulder-length hair, once chestnut, now streaked with gold courtesy of the San Diego sun. Wide, intense eyes the color of the mist La Jolla is wrapped in every morning. Small, serious mouth. Utterly gorgeous.

Just . . . a gorgeous person who I happen to live with.

It’s the second thing I think whenever I see my wife. The difficulty we’ve had connecting recently. I remember when her dancing eyes, her smile, were invitations into shared laughter and easy conversation.

Now they’re like the elegant details of the paintings I studied in the art history class I took in undergrad. It was the only B that I got in college.

I wish I could make casual conversation with her, the way I would with a stranger or acquaintance. In those cases, I could ask about their homes, their jobs, their childhoods. I’ve been commended on my small talk, in fact. The managing partner at my firm says I make clients comfortable, like they’re old friends.

With Eliza, I’ve already asked those questions. I asked them over dinners and coffees when we started dating in LA. When I still couldn’t figure out why the confident, funny woman sitting across from me in the hipster café on La Cienega or in the incredible Thai place on Sunset had swiped right on me, one UCLA law student out of thousands of young professionals in the city. Even now, her responses from back then have the luster of young love when I remember them. Grew up in Evanston. University of Chicago for college. One sister, older. Moved to LA for acting.

Yet, lately, I’ve started to feel like what I know is the biography of Eliza Cutler, not Eliza herself. I knew the whole Eliza once, the quirks, the impulses, the passions, the idiosyncrasies. Now, I can sense new gaps in our knowledge of each other, ones I don’t know how to fill, not when I’m worried every inquiry will draw her closer to uncovering the inadequacy in me—or when I feel like even having these questions is some incriminating sign. How do I get to know the person I’m spending the rest of my life with?

Shouldn’t I know her already?

I deeply wish I did. My devotion to Eliza, to our marriage, to our relationship, to the extent it’s something different from our marriage—which it is, intimate instead of institutional—is unwavering.

It’s something I don’t know if my friends or even my parents really understand, even now. In litigation, half of the fight is just confronting the supposition of guilt, the presumption of where the problem lies. If I dared explain these issues, I know how everyone else would rule on our marriage, because I’ve heard their doubts before. I remember the unconvinced nods when I mentioned I’d met Eliza online. I remember the order of our friends’ reactions when we told them we’d gotten engaged—first shock, then joy. I remember my mom’s probing, insistent questions put to her twenty-three-year-old son, judgments in the form of delicate queries.

None of those doubts ever mattered to me. None of them matter now. Even when I don’t know whether I deserve her, I know I want to spend the rest of my life with Eliza Cutler, née Kelly.

I just don’t know her.