Skipping a Beat (10 page)

Fourteen

I STARED STRAIGHT AHEAD at the double yellow line stretching out on the road in front of us. Our driver was gone; Michael had given him, Naddy, the gardeners, and our chef glowing recommendations and a year’s salary, and our house seemed eerily quiet without their constant bustle. Now it was just Michael and me heading to the grocery store. We were out of milk. Everything was collapsing into a jagged, dusty heap all around us, and here I was doing errands with my husband like it was any other mundane weekend afternoon. Somehow it seemed like ordinary life should’ve frozen around us, but the car still needed gas and the newspaper kept arriving and the refrigerator grew emptier with each passing day.

When Michael had seen me shake the last few drops of milk into my afternoon cup of tea, he’d stood up from the kitchen table.

“I’ll get some more,” he’d said. “We’re out of orange juice, too. Is there anything else you need?”

I’d shaken my head and turned away from him. But when Michael had picked up the car keys, I’d abruptly set down my mug and headed for the Maserati. I didn’t feel like staying in the house.

Now Michael briefly took his eyes off the road to look at me. “I know you’re thinking about leaving me,” he said. “Anyone would be, in your shoes. Just give me a little time before you decide.”

My jaw felt as rigid as concrete; I could barely force out the words: “I don’t know.” I turned my head to stare out the window. Coming with Michael had been a mistake; I was too upset to talk to him.

“I don’t know why I was sent back and given a second chance,” he continued, his voice as casual as if he was discussing the passing scenery. “But the minute I opened my eyes and realized I was lying on a floor with everyone staring down at me, everything changed. My cars and clothes and houses looked so useless. Silly, even. What I felt when I died was … the
connectedness
of us all, of everyone on Earth, and I suddenly knew I had the chance to help people. To make up for—”

I cut him off; I’d heard enough. “Why can’t you give
me
some time before you sell everything?” I asked. “Wait a year. If you still feel the same way, you can sell the company then.”

Something flickered in Michael’s eyes. I knew that evasive look well; it meant he wasn’t telling me something. “I just … have to do it now. Right away.”

“Why are you being so illogical?” I shouted. “I don’t even know who you
are
anymore.”

“I know it doesn’t make sense to you, Julia,” he said, his voice soft. “It wouldn’t have to me either, a few weeks ago. But when I was dead—I can’t even believe I’m saying ‘dead,’ because in those minutes I felt more alive than I’ve ever been—but when I died—”

“Michael! Stop talking about that, okay? You’re not floating on a puffy cloud and listening to harp music, damn it. You’re here with me, and you’re trying to give away everything we own. You’ve got to deal with reality!”

“It wasn’t really like that, but okay,” he said a moment later. “I won’t talk about that part, not until you’re ready to hear it. But can I tell you what the worst thing is for me? I keep thinking about how I wasted all those years with you. I should’ve taken weekends off. I should’ve gone to Paris with you. I can’t believe I never took you on a honeymoon. Julia, we’ve grown so far apart …”

I turned my head to stare out the window and didn’t say anything; too many turbulent emotions were swirling inside me. Anger and sorrow and fear, but something else, too. A glimmer of something that almost felt like hope. For just a moment, those afternoons by the river flashed through my mind. I thought about how Michael and I used to lay together for hours, talking like we’d never stop.
Could
we possibly have that again?

When I’d first seen Kate’s message on my BlackBerry, telling me Michael was in the hospital, panic had seized me so sharply it forced the breath from my lungs. The words blurred on the screen as my mind screamed
No!
and my legs gave out like someone had kicked them out from under me. I calmed down considerably during the drive to the hospital, but during those first few raw moments …

Maybe some part of me
did
still love him. I tested out the thought, then shook my head briskly, trying to whisk it away. It didn’t matter. Michael wasn’t trustworthy. I couldn’t believe anything he said, when he’d twisted around everything he’d promised once before. For all I knew, in two weeks he’d change his mind again and abandon me to build another company, or change his name to Om and go chant mantras in a yogi’s hut.

“I’ve done so much wrong in my life,” Michael was saying. He slowed to a stop at a red light. “I’ve focused on all the wrong things. We should have had”—I felt his eyes on me again—“a baby.”

I felt an awful wrenching in my chest, and I gripped the leather edges of my seat,
wanting
my fingernails to scratch the expensive material. My anger rose again, so swiftly it nearly choked me. How dare Michael cavalierly toss around the idea of having a child? Whenever we’d talked about it before, he’d always said he didn’t want kids. His company was his real baby, the one he nurtured and cherished and watched grow.

“It wouldn’t be fair to the child,” Michael had said when I’d brought it up. Funny, but even though we’d talked about everything else back in high school, we’d never once discussed whether we wanted to have kids. “We work too much, Julia,” he’d said. “Who would take care of the baby?”

“I could scale back,” I’d argued. “And lots of people hire nannies.”

Michael had shaken his head. “I wouldn’t feel right about it,” he’d said. “I’m never home. I don’t want to ignore the kid like my dad did to me.”

At first I held on to hope that he’d change his mind, but as time passed, I didn’t bring it up for another reason. Part of me secretly wondered if it would be a good idea to bring a child into our marriage, since Michael and I were so distant. Still … the guest room closest to our bedroom was filled with windows that let in swatches of bright sunlight, and sometimes I used to linger in the doorway, seeing painted puffy clouds on blue walls and yellow stars on the ceiling. The crib would be tucked snugly in a corner, away from the windows, so the baby would never feel a cold draft, and an old-fashioned rocking chair with a pink or blue blanket folded over one arm would fit perfectly next to the crib.

But of course, Michael didn’t know about any of that, I thought, feeling bitterness rise in my throat. He was never home. He never talked to me anymore. And, the truth was, I’d given up trying to talk to him long ago, too.

“Now you’re just going to the other extreme,” I said through clenched teeth. My body was so tightly wound I felt like I might explode out of my seat and shatter through the car’s windshield. “Why does everything have to be so damn dramatic with you? First you’re a workaholic, now you’re Mr. Sensitive.”

“I’ve changed, Julia. I’m not the same man.”

“I was happy before,” I said.

“Were you?” he said gently. “Or did we just substitute stuff for happiness? Did we keep busy so we didn’t notice how little was in our lives other than work?”

“Are you gunning for Dr. Phil’s job?” I snapped. “You’ve got the lingo down, but you need to work on your good old boy accent.”

Michael hid a grin, which only infuriated me more. “You know the cliché about no one on their deathbed wishing they’d spent more time at the office? It’s true, it really is. When I realized I wasn’t ever going to see you again, I couldn’t bear to …” He paused and swallowed hard. “To leave you. Not like this. Not with so much wrong between us.”

He paused and kept his eyes on the road while he gathered himself. “It’s going to take about three weeks to finalize all the paperwork to give away my company,” he said. “Don’t decide if you’re going to leave until then. Give me one last shot, then you can walk away from me.”

“Michael, what if you’re making a mistake?” The words shot out of me. “What if a year from now you realize you want your company back?”

I saw his fingers fidget on the steering wheel.

“That’s not going to happen,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to lie to you, not ever again. I’m worried about you, too, Julia. I’m worried you care so much about money that it has twisted things for you. I just want us both to see that we can be happy without it. We don’t need it. We never did.” He reached over to put his hand on top of mine, but I yanked mine away. I saw him flinch, but I didn’t care. I
wanted
to hurt him.

“I don’t think I love you,” I said, carefully enunciating every word. He thought he knew what I needed? He didn’t know me at all. The glimmer of hope disappeared, like a bit of bright confetti sinking into murky water and swirling down a drain. “I haven’t loved you in a long time.”

“I don’t blame you,” he said. “But can’t we just talk about—”

“I don’t want to talk to you!” I yelled. “You’re ruining everything, Michael. You promised me so much.” My voice broke, but I kept on, the words tumbling out practically on top of each other.

“You swore you’d give me a good life. Remember all those days by the river? We promised each other we’d have everything we ever wanted. And then we got it all and you left me. You were never home. You never wanted to be with me. You
lied
to me, you broke our vows! And I got used to that. I made peace with it, damn it! Now you’re changing the rules again. You’re not the only one in this marriage.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again, as though those two words could erase all the empty years between us.

“You didn’t go anywhere. You hit your head!” I shouted. “The electrical activity in your brain didn’t stop right away when you died. You just had some kind of crazy dream.”

“It was real,” Michael insisted. “The most real thing I’ve ever felt. As real as that tree,” he said, pointing out the window. “As real as the air we’re breathing.”

“You checked your BlackBerry when everyone else was kneeling to pray at that baptism,” I reminded him. “And when it buzzed, you clasped your hands together to hide it and frowned at the guy in front of you.”

“Julia, I believe in something now. I don’t know what to call it, but I felt love … it was there; it existed, wherever I was—”

“Let me out,” I suddenly demanded, fumbling for the door handle.

Michael glanced at me in surprise, but he kept driving.

“Stop!” I yelled, and his tires screeched against the pavement. I yanked open the door and scrambled out, onto the sidewalk.

“I don’t think I can be with you for three more seconds, let alone three weeks,” I said as I slammed the door shut as hard as I could. I spun around, shaking with anger. Why did Michael get to play God, just because they’d allegedly met? How dare he try to decide what was best for me. This was the worst thing he’d ever done, even worse than the time I’d picked up his BlackBerry and read that e-mail from Roxanne, asking if he could sneak out of work early and meet her again …

I walked quickly, my breath coming in hot gasps, my shoes slapping furiously against the concrete. After a few minutes I calmed down enough to take a look around. I recognized the area, and I knew that, in another couple of blocks, I’d reach a little strip mall with a bar. Perfect, I thought as I picked up my pace again. I’d sit at the counter, sip a cold beer, and figure out what to do next.

I pushed the door of the bar open with so much force that it banged against the wall.

“Sorry,” I muttered to the bartender, who barely lifted his eyes from the sports page of the
Washington Post
. This place was exactly what I needed, I thought as I climbed onto a stool. It smelled like stale beer, and the walls were paneled in something that was supposed to pass for wood but looked more like plastic. The floor felt sticky under my feet, and a beat-up pool table ate up most of the space in the middle of the room. I couldn’t bear to be anyplace fancy and shiny right now; I wanted my surroundings to match my insides. At my usual restaurants—the Old Angler’s Inn or The Palm—the waitstaff would recognize me and rush to offer me the wine list and anticipate my every need. Here no one would bother me. I’d be invisible.

“Sam Adams, please,” I told the bartender, who reluctantly folded down his paper.

“Need a glass?” he asked, popping the cap and handing it to me. In answer, I lifted the bottle to my lips and chugged a third of it down.

He shrugged and went back to his paper. Maybe he was used to frazzled-looking women storming in here and swilling beer like they were pledging a fraternity. I gulped some more, and the bartender absently slid a dish of peanuts closer to me.

“Don’t get too invested in that article,” I warned him, waving my bottle in the air and liking how tough I sounded. “I’m going to need another one in a minute.”

The phone in my pocket vibrated just then, and I took it out and looked at the caller’s name before answering.

“Where are you?” Isabelle demanded.

I squinted and read the sign over the mirrored wall behind the bar. “Joe’s Bar and Grill. Isn’t that a perfect name for a bar?”

“Do they serve vodka?” Isabelle asked.

“Joe, do you serve vodka?” I called to the bartender. “I’m Neil. And yes.”

“I’m on my way,” Isabelle said.

“Excellent,” I said. “Because I left my purse in the car and I’m not sure I can make enough hustling pool to pay off my bill.”

“Maybe we can hustle together,” Isabelle said.

John Mellencamp’s voice was wailing out of the speakers too loudly for me to have noticed it before, but now I picked up something straining Isabelle’s voice.

“Are you okay?” I asked as a wave of guilt flooded me. Isabelle had rescued me enough lately. And wasn’t her big date today? “Michael shouldn’t have called you. You don’t need to come down here.”

“Michael didn’t call me,” she said. “And no, I’m not okay.”

“Starter fucking marriage,” Isabelle said four vodka shots later. Which meant she actually said “starter fuckamage,” but I knew exactly what she meant.

I tossed back a shot in solidarity and followed it up by sucking on a sugar-dipped slice of lemon.

“I can’t believe he lied,” I said, licking the extra sugar off my fingertips. “Men are assholes. Not you, Joe! You’re the only guy we like.”