Run: A Novel (6 page)

I saw Carolyn the moment my eyes adjusted to the candle-fueled pseudo-Parisian gloom inside the cavernous restaurant. She was sitting
in a booth diagonally opposite the entrance, about three-quarters of the way back. She never liked to sit with her back to the door, so she spotted me right away, too. She waved, and I set off to join her without waiting for a hostess to escort me.

My smile grew broader as the distance between us shrank, but when I came close enough to see Carolyn’s eyes it was clear that any warmth I felt would be more than canceled out by the frostiness of her stare. I slid into place opposite her. And despite everything I’d wanted to say since our last unpleasant exchange—and all the zingers I’d imagined myself unleashing in the car, driving over—I couldn’t summon a single intelligible word.

“Hi” was the best I eventually managed.

“You’re late.” Carolyn took a sip from a barely touched glass of red wine. “I was about to leave.”

“I’m sorry. I’m glad you waited.”

“Are you?”

“Of course I am. I didn’t keep you waiting on purpose. I jumped in the car the second I got your message.”

“You did? Why? Where had you been?”

She stormed out, then starts grilling me about where I’ve been?

“Nowhere.” I resisted the temptation to throw the question back at her. “I was at home. Working. You know how I get.”

Carolyn stared at me for a few seconds, then her expression softened.

“Sorry. Let’s start this over. First of all, thanks for coming.”

“No problem. Thanks for asking me.”

“And second, I think there are some things we need to talk about. No surprise there, right?”

“Not really. What’s on your mind?”

“You are, Marc. You and me. And whether that still adds up to us.”

“Of course it does. Why would you doubt that?”

Carolyn looked away. A waitress began to approach, but she scurried away when she caught my wife’s expression.

“I want
us
to make it, Marc,” Carolyn answered, facing me again. “I really do. More than anything. But that’s not going to happen on its
own. It’s going to need a little help. There are going to have to be some changes.”

“OK.” I nodded. I was willing to negotiate, if that’s what it would take to bring her home. “What kind of changes?”

“Take working at AmeriTel as an example. When we were there together. Or supposed to be.”

“This again? I’ve already agreed, Carolyn. Your work is fantastic. I appreciate what you do. I see how everyone values you. I—”

“No. I’m not talking about work now. I’m talking about you and me. How we were.”

“How we were what?”

“Right. What were we? We’re supposed to be a couple, but we sure didn’t act like one. We weren’t like Alison in Sales, and Ian in Engineering. Or Imogen and Glynn. Or—Anyway, the point is, what did we ever do together? We didn’t drive to the office together. We didn’t even have lunch together.”

“Yes we did.”

“How many times? Once? On your first day? That’s hardly the sign of a deep and meaningful connection between us.”

“It was more flexible, to drive separately. It’s not like we couldn’t afford the gas. And you like to eat at your desk.”

“Only because I have no one else to eat with! No one who’s not trying to stab me in the back, or get in my pants, anyway. Of course I wanted to eat with my husband. And I didn’t want things to be
flexible
.” She spat the word back at me. “I wanted them to be better. I wanted us to be closer. I wanted us to carve out a few minutes a day to
talk
about what’s important to me, since I don’t get to
do
anything I care about anymore.”

The waitress attempted another approach, saving me from having to respond, but Carolyn waved her away.

“We have the potential, Marc. We complement each other. Where you’re strong, I’m weak. Where you’re weak, I’m strong. But for us to work, we have to be close. We have to mesh with each other. Do you understand?”

I nodded, stunned by the ferocity in her voice.

“We have to be like this.” She held out her hands and laced her fingers
together. “See? That’s strong. But if we pull away, this is what happens.” She pulled her hands apart and held them up, palms vertical, fingers stiff and separate. “We’re left as two isolated, spikey individuals. And I don’t want that.”

“I don’t want it, either.” I wished the waitress would come back with the wine list, because I clearly had some catching up to do.

“Good. I’m glad. But it’ll take more than words, Marc. We’ll have to work at it. Hard. Both of us. And I need to know, are you up for that?”

“I am. Absolutely. I love you, Carolyn. You know I do.”

“I love you, too. And to prove I’m in this for the long haul, I’ve brought you something.”

She rummaged in her purse and pulled out a small parcel.

“Go ahead.” She passed it to me. “See if you like it.”

The package contained a key ring—size Swiss Army knife. Carolyn knew I loved them. The intricacy. The craftsmanship. But this one was extra special. Because instead of being finished in the signature red, both sides were shaded with tiny, beautiful Benday dots.

“I don’t think it’s copied from an actual painting or anything. But it looks Lichtensteiny to me. And I wanted to apologize for being rude about your picture. It’s never going to be my cup of tea, but I understand how important it is to you, and I respect that. No more nasty comments. I promise.”

“This is amazing. Thanks, sweetheart. It’s perfect. I love it. I just wish I had something for you in return.”

“Aren’t you going to put it on your key ring? See how it feels in your pocket?”

“Sure.” I pulled out my keys and pried open the tight spirals of the main ring, ready to slide the knife’s smaller one into place. It was tricky, but the gap was almost wide enough when I became aware of Carolyn’s face. She was staring at me.

“What? Am I doing it wrong?”

“No, you’re doing fine. But what’s that? I haven’t seen it before.”

I looked down at the key ring and took a quick inventory. House keys—front door, back door, windows, filing cabinet. One key from AmeriTel—for a drawer in the desk I’d been using, which I could now
throw away. My Jaguar’s key, with its shank folded neatly back. And the memory stick I’d decided not to use, earlier.

“Is that why you bought me the knife? To set me up?”

“Is that the stick with the AmeriTel data on it?”

“No.”

I wasn’t lying. Not technically. Because it wasn’t
the
stick. There were two.

“The stick’s at the house, then?”

Her use of the words
at the house
, not
at home
was starting to ring warning bells.

“Do we have to talk about this again? I thought we were changing.”

“We are. You’re right, Marc. Let’s not get sidetracked. I’ve agreed to change, to be more understanding about your interests. But what about you? What are you going to change?”

“I could be more supportive of your interests, I guess? Like theater. I used to love watching your shows.”

“You never came to any.”

“I did. And to the parties. Remember after
Much Ado
, at college? That was the first time we—”

“It was
Merchant of Venice. Much Ado
was the one your parents came to.”

“Oh. Yeah. Still, it was fun.”

“They hated me. They couldn’t have made it any clearer. And anyway, the acting ship sailed long ago. I’ve been out of the game way too long.”

“Not necessarily.”

“I have. Trust me. OK, what else?”

“I don’t know. There’s nothing obvious, or I’d have changed it already. But I love you, Carolyn. I’m happy to change anything you want me to.”

“Well, you could develop a little self-awareness, for a start.”

“Self-awareness? About what? Could you be more specific?”

“This should really be coming from you, Marc. It doesn’t work if I have to direct you. But honestly? I think this is all part of a larger problem. Your lack of openness.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“It means you’re holding things back from me. Bottling them up. Not sharing. Keeping secrets, even. I guess it’s hard, given how much time you spend alone. Not having many friends probably doesn’t help. I do try to make allowances, but even so …”

“Wait a minute. I have friends!”

“Whatever. But the point is, the way things are, it makes me wonder if I can really trust you.”

“Of course you can trust me. Ask me anything. I’ll tell you the truth.”

She toyed with her wineglass for a moment, then nodded.

“OK, then, Marc. I’m sorry to come back around to this, but I think you’re lying to me about the memory stick. I think that one right there—that’s the one you stole from AmeriTel. I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Carolyn, I’ve got lots of memory sticks. Dozens. You need to stop jumping to conclusions. And why are you all worked up about this? Just let it go. I don’t work at AmeriTel anymore.”

“But I do. And you didn’t answer my question.”

“Right. Because the subject’s closed.”

“Give it to me, damn you!” Carolyn launched herself at me from across the table, sending silverware, serviettes, and her half-full wineglass flying in all directions.

A wave of embarrassed silence washed over the restaurant and the two of us were left tugging at the key ring like brats in a schoolyard while everyone else sat and stared.

“Let me have it!” Carolyn’s face was pale, like she was deathly sick. “Please, Marc. You don’t know how important this is to me.”

“You don’t know how important it is to me. You wouldn’t listen, before. So this is what it comes down to. You told me our marriage and your job were equally important. You told me there wasn’t a choice to make. Well, I’m telling you there is. And you have to make it. Right here. Right now.”

Our eyes were locked. Our fingers were locked. Every other person in the place was staring in our direction. The seconds ticked by. Neither of us gave ground. Murmured comments began to ripple from nearby tables. Carolyn tugged harder, and without warning a kind of
howl spilled from her lips, more animal than human. Then she let go. Grabbed her purse. And ran out of the restaurant.

THE JOURNEY HOME PASSED
in a blur. It was like I’d been driving on autopilot, my conscious brain kicking in only when I reached my own street and a woman emerged without warning from the raised stretch of woodland that borders the road, waving her arms wildly and nearly finding herself under my wheels. She claimed to want directions to a pharmacy, and was very unhappy when I told her there were no stores of any kind within five miles. She seemed to have trouble grasping my words, making me think the kind of pharmaceuticals she was looking for wouldn’t be available over the counter anyway. And as soon as I had disengaged myself from her and started to move again, I was almost hit by two guys in a Mercedes who had picked my driveway—the only break in the tree line for a couple of hundred yards—to make a three-point turn.

Despite the time I’d spent at the restaurant I hadn’t actually eaten or drunk anything, so my first port of call at home was the kitchen. I was vaguely thinking of ordering Chinese when my eye fell on Carolyn’s mug, still sitting on the countertop. I wasn’t happy with the way she’d behaved that evening, but that didn’t stop me worrying about her. Or wondering if I’d been too harsh, accusing her of only wanting the memory stick to appease LeBrock. Maybe she
had
been looking out for me? So when I pulled out my phone it was Carolyn’s number I summoned from the directory, not a take-out service.

Her phone rang. And rang. But she didn’t answer. Eventually I was dumped into her voicemail, and as I listened to the bland generic greeting—she hadn’t bothered to record one of her own—I couldn’t help wondering if she’d seen the call was from me and ignored it on purpose. That was all it took to send the pendulum swinging back the opposite way, so when I heard the beep I followed the anonymous announcer’s instructions, and I left a message. Not a very pleasant message. But when—if—Carolyn listened to it, even she would have to acknowledge the change. Because I certainly didn’t hold anything back that time.

——

STANDING IN THE KITCHEN
with my absent wife’s discarded mug in one hand and an unanswered phone in the other, I realized I don’t usually spend much time in the house on my own. Not unless I’m doing something specific, like working or watching a game on TV. Then, I’m only really aware of the room I’m in. But for the first time I was conscious of the entire, empty structure massing around me. Six thousand vacant square feet. Each one emphasizing Carolyn’s absence. The fact that I’d done nothing to stop her leaving. And had failed to convince her to come back.

I needed to distract myself. Urgently. But how? Work was out. The computer wouldn’t be ready yet. Food? I dumped the mug, wandered into the dining room, and decided I wasn’t hungry. There was a TV in the living room, and another in the den, but nothing I wanted to watch. There were books in my study, but nothing I wanted to read. I wasn’t tired. I didn’t want to exercise. Of all the possibilities our home had to offer, nothing seemed interesting. And nothing could distract me from wondering where Carolyn had stormed off to.

Her words from the afternoon started to ring in my head.
How does a pitcher of margaritas sound to you?
So I crossed the room, opened the liquor cabinet, and smiled at the irony. There’d been tequila in the house the whole time. One bottle we’d already started, and another still in its box. What if we’d just got drunk, together, instead of arguing? And with that thought in mind, I did another thing I don’t normally do. Fixed a drink for myself. Then another. And another. And I’m not sure how many others after that …

N
EVER KICK A MAN WHILE HE’S DOWN
MY PARENTS USED TO SAY
.

It’s a shame no one ever urged the hangover I had the next morning to show the same restraint. It had already been to work on my head and my stomach before I woke up, replacing my brain with molten lava and filling my gut with swamp water. Then, once I was conscious, it moved on to my heart, waiting till I’d reached out across the pillow in search of Carolyn to smack me with the memory of why she wasn’t there.