No Way Back (25 page)

‘Oh, it’s a very romantic story,’ I say, relieved to change the topic, even to one that involves my wife. I turn to her. ‘Why don’t you tell them, baby?’

She looks at me, warily. ‘Why don’t
you
?’

‘You first,’ I say.

‘
You
first,’ she replies.

‘All right,’ I say. This is not the first time that Libby has been sullen and uncommunicative in public. But it is strange that she is refusing – utterly refusing – to
tell the story about how we met. As if she wants to erase me from her memory. Or maybe already has. ‘Libby was my waitress,’ I say.

Karen laughs and claps her greasy hands together. ‘That’s wonderful! What did she serve you, Jim?’

‘Scotch,’ I say, too happily. Even the name of the drink does something to me. ‘Actually, I can’t remember. I think it was scotch.’

‘If you can’t remember,’ Pete muses, ‘then it probably was.’

‘I asked her out four times,’ I say.

‘Four times!’ Karen says. ‘You were persistent!’

‘Yes I was. If nothing else, I am persistent. Try and try again.’ I turn to Libby. ‘Remember what you told me the first time I asked you out?’

‘No.’

‘“Go to hell”,’ I say. ‘That’s what she told me, I mean.’

Karen laughs politely. ‘If every woman answered as honestly as your wife, I do believe the human race would have died out, long ago.’

‘Amen to that,’ Pete says. He’s still busy with his claws, though, sucking on them with great intensity, and I’m pretty sure he isn’t paying much attention to
anything anyone is saying.

‘And the second time I asked Libby out,’ I continue, ‘she just laughed at me. “Very funny, Jimmy!” That’s what she said. “Very funny!” Like I was
joking.’

‘But you weren’t joking,’ Karen says.

‘No I wasn’t. But I had to convince her, apparently. Now, let me see. Attempt number three... ’ I look to the sky, theatrically, pretending to recall that incident long ago.
‘Attempt number three – she was at the bar, serving me a drink, and I whispered into her ear.’

‘And?’ Karen asks. ‘What did she say?’

‘Nothing. She pretended not to hear me.’ I think about it. ‘Or maybe she really didn’t. The bar
was
very loud.’

‘That’s three,’ Karen says. ‘You said there were four tries. How did you finally succeed?’

‘The last one – well, that was magic.’ I turn again to Libby. ‘You want to tell them what happened? Where we finally met?’

My wife looks at me with a curious expression. Not anger, exactly. Not even annoyance. Something like – could it be
fear
?

She rises from her seat, too quickly, knocking over her bowl of butter, which spreads in a slow puddle across the table towards Karen and Pete.

‘Oh my,’ Karen says, backing away with good grace. To Libby: ‘Let me help you.’ She drops a stack of napkins on the spilled butter, then hands a clean one to Libby.

‘No,’ Libby says, too loudly. ‘I’m fine.’ She turns and leaves the table.

The three of us watch her stalk away, in a half-run, across the patio, into the interior of the restaurant.

Pete says, ‘She all right?’ He’s still got a claw in his mouth, and doesn’t look very concerned.

‘Maybe it’s just a lady’s emergency,’ Karen offers.

‘Oh,’ Pete says. ‘OK.’

‘I should go and find her,’ I say tepidly. Half wishing they would tell me not to.

Just then another round of crab legs arrives.

‘Sit,’ Pete says. ‘Have a crab. Libby’s fine.’

I love Pete Bland, I decide; and I will retain him as our company’s lawyer for as long as I can.

The three of us continue eating, and Karen talks about how she met Pete – ‘at a corporate event’ – whatever that means – and how it was love at first sight.

‘Then she got to know me,’ Pete says. ‘And it was all downhill from there.’ Pete and Karen both burst into laughter at the same instant. Even their laughs sound weirdly
alike – little rhythmic snorts through buttery noses. Karen playfully pushes her shoulder into Pete’s side.

It’s at this moment that I feel the pang – something like sadness – that my marriage is so different from theirs, my wife so different from Karen. Libby is hiding in the
bathroom, sulking about some perceived slight that I must have perpetrated, but which I do not yet understand and probably never will.

As if on cue, Libby returns to the table. She wears the expression of a boxer, steeling herself to go one more brutal round.

‘You all right?’ I say.

‘Fine,’ she says. ‘Just needed a minute.’

We all eat quietly, and let the moment pass.

Pete finishes his second plate of crabs, dumps the shells into the centre garbage hole.

‘Hey that works pretty good,’ I say. ‘We should cut one of these holes into our kitchen table, Libby.’

My wife smiles wanly.

‘Who needs a hole?’ Pete says. ‘At home, me and Karen just toss them on the floor.’

Soon the conversation breaks into two, the men talking business – about the lay-offs, the prospects for turning the company around – not good, I admit to Pete; and the women talking
between themselves. I half listen to them, chatting beside us, murmuring about Florida, and the heat, and the best beaches, and the shells on Sanibel, and shopping in Naples.

The third serving of crab legs soon arrives. As I eat, I watch Libby methodically dispatch her crabs. Is there anything sexier than watching your wife suck meat out of a claw? Things seem normal
again, and I almost forgive Libby for the way she acted tonight – almost love her more for it. My fragile, volatile, intelligent wife. It’s just Libby being...
Libby
, after
all.

In the end, we finish three portions each; and when our waitress asks if we’re ready for our fourth plate, we all raise our hands in surrender. ‘
No mas
,’ I say.

We sponge off with postage-stamp sized towelettes, scented like lemon, and courteously provided ‘for free’ (as the waitress explains graciously when she hands them to us). We decline
her offer of pecan pie for dessert, and Pete and I settle the bill. The entire feast costs less than the price of four fish tacos in San Francisco. At least there are some perks when you relocate
to the middle of nowhere.

We waddle from the restaurant, sated, and buttery too; and I watch Libby from behind as she and Karen walk in front of me and Pete, past the alligator pond. I compare the two wives’ asses.
I must admit, Libby looks damned good, even in a T-shirt and jeans. Karen may be ten years her junior, but my wife is holding up. I wonder if Karen will look this good, when she reaches
Libby’s age. I find this observation – sexist and detestable as it is – weirdly heartening. Maybe things aren’t so bad after all.

‘DeeDee?’ calls a woman’s voice from behind us.

Karen turns, and so does Pete, but Libby ignores the voice, and keeps walking. The woman calls again, louder, more insistent. ‘DeeDee? Is that you?’

Footsteps approach from behind, and now there’s no ignoring her. A woman, about my wife’s age – late thirties – but worn, terribly worn, with circles under her eyes,
blonde hair turning grey – jogs towards us. Libby keeps walking, leaving me, and Karen, and Pete to face the woman alone.

‘I’m sorry,’ the woman says. She’s peering past me, at my wife, who barrels on, ignoring her. ‘DeeDee? Is that you?’ she calls.

Libby has no choice. She turns to the woman. Libby stands a dozen feet away, shoulders squared and ready for confrontation.

‘It
is
you,’ the woman says. ‘I knew it. I told my husband, “That’s DeeDee.” What in the world are you doing in Florida?’

Uncomfortable silence. Libby regards the woman coldly. I’ve been on the receiving end of that look before: it’s the look you get when you say something stupid to a very smart wife.
Like, for example, when you explain that you broke into someone’s house and found cash in the attic.
That
look.

The stranger must be a masochist, because she doesn’t catch on to what I know is merely Libby’s warning glance. ‘It’s
me
,’ the woman insists,
‘Kimmy.’

‘I’m sorry...
Kimmy,
’ Libby says, spitting the name. ‘I don’t know who the hell you are.’

Something clicks, and the woman blushes. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she says, quickly. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She looks to me and Pete, and then to Karen. She backs away.
Muttering embarrassed apologies, her face crimson, the woman named Kimmy disappears back into the Gator Hut.

‘That was weird,’ I say.

Pete turns to Libby. ‘You know her, Libby?’

‘No,’ Libby says, and turns a venomous gaze to Pete.

Karen says soothingly, ‘Nowadays you can’t be too friendly to strangers. You just don’t know what they’re up to.’

A valiant attempt to make my wife’s behaviour palatable. But an unsuccessful one, we all know.

In the parking lot, we say goodbyes, and we promise to do this again, since it was, Karen insists, ‘so much fun’.

‘Take care,’ Pete says to me. He shakes my hand and looks me in the eye meaningfully, man to man, as if to say, ‘I don’t envy your job...
or
your home
life.’ I turn to Libby, but she’s already gone, twenty yards away, climbing into our car, rushing to escape.

During the ride home, we don’t talk about what happened in the restaurant. Libby sits in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead, with that expression that I’ve
become so familiar with over the last decade. It means: I may be sitting just inches away from you, but do not dare to speak to me.

So I stay silent as I drive, flipping through the radio channels, trying to find a station at once innocuous and soothing. I settle finally on Christian contemporary music – which fills
practically every channel on the dial – and we listen to a song about Jesus and his love for all men. The ride passes quickly enough.

Back in the house, Libby wanders around downstairs, performing her night-time rituals, straightening pillows on the couch, wiping down counters, starting the dishwasher, checking that the
sliding doors to the patio are securely locked. She is delaying what inevitably must come next – being alone with me, with nothing left to distract us.

I follow her from room to room, cautiously trailing behind, not wandering too close, waiting for the right moment to speak.

At last, when she is finished straightening and fiddling, and there is no task left undone, I say, quietly: ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

She looks up at me, as if surprised that I’m in the room with her.

‘Talk about what?’

‘About what happened tonight.’

‘No.’

‘Because you were behaving kind of... ’ I stop. I am about to say, ‘strange’, but decide at the last instant the word will provoke her. I say instead, ‘... like you
were sad.’

She looks at me. Her eyes are weary, heavy-lidded. Her face is more than sad. It’s despondent.

I say, ‘You were thinking about...
him
.’ I can’t use Cole’s name in her presence. This was never formally discussed, never explicitly agreed; but one day I
noticed I hadn’t spoken it in a very long time, and neither had she; and then every day that passed, it became harder to say it.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘When they started talking about their children, I... ’ She shakes her head. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter.’

I walk to her, and hug her, wrapping my arms around her protectively. I love this woman, and all her faults, and all her meanness and unkindness to me. She has stayed true to me, despite
everything – everything that I have done, everything I have destroyed, everything I have taken from her.

She stands motionless, wooden and stiff in my arms.

‘I love you,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry I dragged you to that dinner. You didn’t really want to go.’

Silence.

‘And I’m sorry I dragged you here. To Florida.’

Still no answer.

‘Come upstairs,’ I say, raising her chin gently, so that she must look at me. ‘Let’s make love.’

She stares at me. Her expression is not one of love; I am certain of that. It is not even particularly matrimonial. It is an expression familiar to me, though; I have seen it before. I saw it on
the faces of men that night I spent in jail. It’s the dull and glassy stare of a prisoner – a look of powerlessness – an expression that says: Do with me as you will.

‘I’m so tired, Jimmy,’ she says, quietly, without much hope.

‘Come,’ I say again – still gently, but with more firmness in my voice. ‘Come upstairs with me.’ I tug her hand.

She lets me lead her up the stairs, to the dark bedroom. I don’t bother shutting the bedroom door, or closing the blinds. Outside the window, past the branches of the oak tree, I see our
neighbour’s house across the street. The velociraptor’s attic light is on. What is he doing, on a Wednesday night, in his attic?

‘Come here,’ I say, and gather Libby close. I pull her T-shirt over her head, drop it to the floor. I unfasten her bra, put my hands on her breasts. I kiss her neck, taste her salt,
smell her sweat.

She stands there, stiffly, like a patient under a fluorescent light, in a doctor’s examination room.

‘What’s the matter?’ I ask.

‘Nothing,’ she says sullenly.

I unbutton the top of her jeans, work my half-stub of a pinky into the elastic band of her underpants.

‘No,’ she whispers. ‘Please, Jimmy.’

I ignore her. I unzip her jeans, pull them over the hump of her hips, down to her thighs. Her underwear catches and goes with them. Now she’s standing, bound around the thighs by her
pants, her pubic hair exposed.

‘Please,’ she says, louder now. She pushes me away.

‘What now?’ I ask, finally losing patience. ‘What now?’

She’s looking past me, to the teak ceiling fan, spinning lazily in the middle of the room.

‘I’m just tired, Jimmy,’ she says, softly. ‘Is that OK? To be tired?’

‘You know, Libby,’ I say, petulantly, ‘it would be nice if, every now and then, you acted like my wife.’

With that, I stomp off to the bathroom, letting the door slam just a bit too loudly. It’s my turn to have some drama.

I let the cold water run into the sink, splash my face. I look at myself in the mirror.