All Fall Down: A Novel (11 page)

Janet touched my arm. I looked up, startled. We were good friends, but neither of us was the touchy-feely type. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly.

I bent my head. “I’m scared,” I said quietly.

“Of what?” Janet asked, looking worried. “What’s wrong?”

“Hey, honey, can we get that Pinot down here?” Dan asked. I reached out and managed only to knock the bottle onto the floor. There were gasps, a flurry of fast motion, Skinny Marie thrusting herself away from the spill like it was toxic. A waiter and a waitress hurried over with rags. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. Nobody appeared to hear me. “Oh, this’ll never come out of silk,” Marie was fretting, and Janet was asking, “Could you bring us some club soda, please?” and Barry was patting Marie’s back, saying “No big deal,” and, from the other side of the table, Dave was looking at me with his eyes narrowed and his lips compressed.

“It was an accident,” I said. My voice came out too loud, almost a shout.

“It’s okay.” Dave sounded cool. “It happens.” Which, of course, was what we said to Ellie when she wet the bed.

Eventually, the tablecloth got changed and the worst of the damage was mopped up. Marie had returned from the ladies’ room, where she’d fled with a carafe of club soda and an offended look on her face, and I’d apologized half a dozen times, my face hot as a griddle, wilting underneath my husband’s disapproval. I’d just tried to restart the conversation, asking Janet and Barry about the twins’ hockey season, a topic guaranteed to take up at least ten minutes of their time, when I heard Marie’s high-pitched voice from the opposite side of the table.

“Did you all hear about that Everleigh Connor?” she asked. I looked up to see Dave pouring the last bit of the last bottle of red into his glass. Everleigh Connor was a reality-TV star who’d launched her career on one of those shows about the private lives of rich people—she’d been the teenage daughter of one of the face-lifted fortysomething moms who were the ostensible stars of the show. Then she’d appeared in a sex tape—she put out some statement about how the tape was a private memento she and her boyfriend had made that had been stolen from a safe in her house, but it was obvious that the tape had been made with a hired porn star, not a boyfriend, and that she, her mother, and their PR firm had managed every step of its release. From there, Everleigh had gotten and dumped a boyfriend in the NFL, landed a small role on a network drama, and had most recently become the Las Vegas bride of an eighteen-year-old pop star.

“What happened?” I asked . . . Did my voice sound the tiniest bit slurry?

Marie smiled. “You didn’t hear? OMG. It’s all over Twitter!”

“What?” There. It was impossible to slur on words of one syllable. To reward myself for sounding coherent, I had another sip of wine.

“She’s pregnant,” said Dave, directly to me.

“They’re saying that she basically forced Alex to put a ring on it,” said Barry.

Janet rolled her eyes. “My husband the twelve-year-old girl. ‘Put a ring on it,’ Bar? Really?”

I looked down the table at my husband. He looked back at me, his eyes meeting mine, one eyebrow lifted, like he was daring me to say something.

I felt as if I’d been slapped, having him give me that look, when I wasn’t the one sending dozens of chatty, flirty e-mails to someone who was not my spouse. I raised my chin, suddenly furious . . . and sober. Or at least it felt that way. “Honey, you should tell everyone about your big story. The one about the casino.” For months, Dave had been tracking down rumors about which consortium would be the next to put a casino in Philadelphia, about where they’d buy, what they’d build, which neighborhood could brace for the boom and the nuisance of dozens of buses loaded with slot-machine-playing, quarter-toting retirees and well-lubricated frat boys rolling through its streets each day.

“Seriously, Dave-O, give me a tip,” said Dan. “We build a parking lot in the right place, we’re golden.”

“Dave’s got all the best sources,” I said, my tongue loose and reckless. “Who’s that woman in the mayor’s office you’re always talking with? Lindy someone?”

From across the table I thought I saw my husband flinch, and saw hurt in his hooded eyes.

“She’s a wonderful source, isn’t she?” I asked. “What’s the word . . . ‘forthcoming’? Is that it? You’re the word guy, right?”
Janet was looking worried. Barry was, too. I got myself away from the table in a series of small steps: pushing my palms against the edge, unlocking my knees, levering myself upright, making my way carefully around my chair, squinting through the dimly lit restaurant past groups of laughing, red-faced men with empty bottles lining their tables, until I found the bathroom, a spacious stall for just one, thank God. I locked the door and, without turning on the lights, sat on the toilet and rested my cheek against the cool stainless steel of the toilet-paper dispenser, feeling stunned and empty and furious.

There was a gentle tap at the door. “Allie?” Janet said, her voice a whisper. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I told her. “Just a little too much wine. I’ll be right out.” My heart was thudding; my temples were pounding. My purse was in my hands. My hands were in my purse. My new little blue friends were in their bottle. I shook one of them out into my palm, craving the comfort they would give me, the easing-toward-sleep feeling that would take away the scalding hurt, the shame of the way Dave had looked at me.

Nobody knew this—not Janet, not my parents, not anyone—but after Dave and I had been dating for a little over a year, my period, typically regular, had failed to arrive. I was on the pill, and I’d always remembered to take it, but I knew, from my tender breasts to the way I woke up nauseated by the smell of coffee, what had happened. I’d freaked out and gone to Dave in a panic, watching his face turn pale and his lips tighten until they were almost invisible as I’d laid out the options: I could have the baby and place it for adoption. I could have the baby and raise it myself. Or we could get married.

By then, we’d been seeing each other exclusively for months. The Pablo Neruda girl was gone—or, at least, I’d never seen evidence of another female in his apartment, or on his phone
(which I had guiltily checked once). We’d been saying “I love you” and talking, casually, about which neighborhoods we liked, whether we preferred condos in the new high-rises in Washington Square West or a row house in Society Hill or Bella Vista. There had been no explicit promises, we were spending three or four nights a week at my place but not yet living together, we had not plighted our troth nor promised our future, and I would never have tried to trick Dave, or trap him by getting knocked up accidentally on purpose. Still, I’d been confident that, in light of the reality of our situation, he would do the thing he’d been planning on doing, albeit on a somewhat expedited schedule.

Instead of looking happy, though, Dave had pinched the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb and looked everywhere but at me after I’d laid out the news.

“You wouldn’t get an abortion?” he had asked. We were in my walk-up apartment on Arch Street, Dave on my denim-covered couch, me in the armchair I’d inherited from my mother and had slipcovered in a pricy French toile I’d found on Fabric Row. My cute little living room, perfect for two, was in no way big enough for three. Even the thought of dragging a stroller up three flights of stairs left me exhausted. My eat-in kitchen would be just a kitchen if I had to add a high chair; my bathroom had a luxurious shower, with extra showerheads poking out of the walls, but no bathtub. It was all entirely unsuitable for a baby.

“I don’t know,” I said slowly. I was certainly pro-choice in my beliefs—I’d gotten my well-woman checkups and my contraception at Planned Parenthood since I was an undergraduate, and I’d been supporting them with regular, if modest, donations since I’d gotten my job—but in my mind, it was a baby, Dave’s and mine, and I could no more consider aborting it than I could hurting myself, or hurting him.

The silence stretched out until I heard Dave give a slow sigh. “Well, then,” he said, “let’s get hitched.” It was not, needless to say, the proposal of my dreams . . . but Dave was the man of my dreams, and, surely, the life we would build together would be the stuff I had dreamed about, the life I had always wanted, a partnership with a man I adored and admired. I flung my arms around his neck and kissed him and said, “Yes.”

Four weeks later, with a hastily purchased one-karat princess-cut diamond ring on my finger and the memory of the Indomitable Doreen’s stiff smile and my mother’s insulting exuberance at our meet-the-parents-slash-engagement party still crisp and bright in my mind, I’d gone to my obstetrician and learned, during the ultrasound, that there was an egg sac, but no heartbeat. No baby. My body, it seemed, had ended the pregnancy before it really started. He gave me four pills; I went home and took them, then endured the worst cramps and bleeding of my life while Dave fetched me hot-water bottles and shots of brandy. Half-drunk, with my fifth industrial-strength sanitary napkin stuck into my high-waisted cotton briefs, I’d said, “We don’t have to go through with it now, if you don’t want to. I won’t hold you to anything. You’re free.”

“Don’t be crazy,” Dave had said. He’d been so tender as he helped me into the shower. He washed my hair, soaped my body with my favorite vanilla-scented body wash, and then smoothed lotion on my arms and legs before bundling me into a warm towel, putting me into my pajamas, and tucking me into bed. I’d hung my future on that night. Whenever I’d had doubts, whenever he seemed quiet, or moody, or distant, I remembered the smell of vanilla and brandy, and how gentle he’d been, how kind, how he hadn’t considered, even for a minute, the possibility that he could be rid of me.

“Allison?” Janet’s voice was worried. “Tell me you’re okay or I’m going to get a manager and have them unlock the door.”

“I’m fine. I’m okay,” I rasped.
I’m fine,
I told myself, even as a voice inside whispered, softly but firmly, that I was a world away from fine, that I was not okay at all.

I
splashed water on my face, freshened my lipstick, and crammed my feet back into my shoes. With Janet’s help, I found the waiters, gave them instructions, and led the crowd in “Happy Birthday” after the cake I’d ordered from Isgro’s, with buttercream icing and a flaming crown of candles, was brought to the table. I clapped when Dave blew out all the candles, without letting myself wonder what he might have wished for, and used my fork to push bits of cake and frosting around my plate. I laughed at the jokes, raised my glass in a toast, and discreetly managed the payment of the check. I kissed Dan and Marie goodbye, let Barry hug me, and whispered, “I’m okay. I promise,” after Janet pulled me into a hug and said, “You know I’m here if you want to talk about anything.”

The ride home was silent, as if we’d both tacitly agreed not to fight until we were back at the house. I paid Katrina, Dave drove to her dorm, and I crept past Ellie’s bedroom and into my own, shucking off my dress and my painful undergarments, then pulling on a T-shirt that dated back to the 1990s and was where sexy went to die. I had planned on feigning sleep by the time Dave returned from the drop-off, but he turned on the lights and waited at the door until I sat up.

“Happy birthday,” I said, blinking at him. In my dreams I’d been in the bathtub, with Dave kneeling beside me, rubbing a warm washcloth against my shoulders, telling me that he loved me.

“What was that about?” he demanded.

I could have been coy, asking what he was talking about. Instead, I said, “Why don’t you tell me?”

He stared in my direction, hands jammed in the pockets of his suit pants, jaw jutting.

“Come on,” I sighed. “L. McIntyre? Lindsay? Linds? The one you e-mail with all day long?”

I watched as one of his hands went to his cheek and started rubbing. When he finally managed to speak, his voice was strangled. “It’s not like that.”

“Oh? Then what’s it like?”

“We talk,” he said, sounding indignant. Somehow, I didn’t think he was lying. I knew how he looked when he lied, how he’d rock from his heels to his toes, how his voice would rise. There was no shifting and no squeaking. Just Dave, looking wretched. “She’s a friend.”

I didn’t reply, or let my face show my relief.

“This hasn’t been easy for me.” Dave’s eyes were wide, his face arranged in his little-boy-wants-a-cookie expression, the one that usually made me feel sympathetic.

“Which part?” I asked, hearing the edge in my voice.

“Living here,” Dave said.

“What do you mean?” I was honestly bewildered. “You were the one who wanted to move. You were the one who complained all the time about us being in a starter house, and how you didn’t want to raise Ellie in the city.” I would have been happy to stay. I loved our little house, with its spiral staircase, the fireplace in the kitchen that contractors had uncovered when they’d installed
our new dishwasher, the French doors that opened onto a narrow brick walkway, and a niche that was the perfect size for a grill and a hanging basket of impatiens that I’d set on the ground when we cooked.

Without a word, Dave turned, walked into the bathroom, and shut the door. I could hear water running, could picture him squeezing more toothpaste than he needed from the center of the tube, then leaving the tube uncapped and spit and toothpaste drips inside the sink, because buying the toothpaste and cleaning the sink were my jobs. That was the deal we’d made, the terms we’d both agreed on, before everything had changed.

Not fair,
I thought, and was suddenly so angry that I jumped out of bed and knocked—pounded—on the door. “Do you think I’m happy like this? Doing everything?” I asked. “I’m the one who’s paying the mortgage. I’m the one who takes care of Ellie. I’m the one who’s in charge of her schedule, and our social life, and keeping the house clean and making sure the car gets inspected. Don’t you think I get tired? That maybe I’d like someone to talk to? Someone to take me to lunch?”

His voice came through the door, maddeningly calm. “You seem to be doing just fine by yourself.”