Surface (23 page)

“And that’s just it,” she continued, snapping everyone from their suspended animation. “I think my eyes
were
closed. All those years I assumed that because Michael and I didn’t really argue, and because we enjoyed each other’s company when we
were
together, and of course because of Nicky, that we’d created this solid, happy family. You keep telling yourself that things are fine, even when they’re not
great
because something lovely will happen that allows you to erase a month or a year of whatever’s been prickly or not so perfect.”

“Ah, yes,” Gail said meaningfully. “The little white lies we tell ourselves. It’s much nicer that way.”

Claire nodded for a moment, digesting this. “And when that sense of loneliness or invisibility would sneak in, I’d feel like a jerk for having negative thoughts. I mean, you can’t unroll your yoga mat without hitting some other privileged midlifer mourning the loss of her bliss these days, right? It’s such an embarrassing cliché.”

“But if it helps, midlife
is
the new thirty, hon.”

“I don’t feel old,” Claire struggled. “Looking back, I feel like I was . . . disappearing. Along with whatever intimacy we’d had.” She was as surprised by her choice of description as by its feeling of accuracy.

Jackie turned to her with her authoritative teacher’s look. “You know, Claire, people can’t maintain intimacy if they’re not present or engaged in their spouse’s—”

“Oh, I can totally relate to that, sweetie,” Carolyn cut in. “Robert’s a little light on the ‘tell me your thoughts on the lack of equality for Muslim women’ comments and the ‘you look gorgeous’s these days, too. We become shadows of who we were. Afterthoughts. And I can see how you might have needed some
presence
or validation from another man,” she added, clearly trying to cut to the chase on the Andrew portion of the story.

Claire let the napkin she’d been twisting in her hands fall to the couch, and walked over to the patio door to marshal her thoughts. The winter sun sparkled on the leaded panes, and she leaned into the door frame thinking about how hard she’d worked to make things so comfortable over the years, and wondering how she’d allowed herself to believe the
everything is fine
fiction of it all. The women waited as she watched a squirrel nibble at something small and green, rolling it round and around in its paws. Jackie’s words about being present echoed in her head. Michael hadn’t been present, not
emotionally
present, for over a year—since around the time of Nicky’s birthday, which, as she really thought about it, marked the beginnings of the subtle shifts from normal, pleasant Michael, to edgy and detached Michael—and which seemed to have intensified after the accident. She hadn’t spent much time considering this, or her own lack of presence within their marriage. Probably because the little white lies were much easier to fall asleep to. The squirrel, now watching
her
with a cocked head, stashed its bounty in his cheek, widened its eyes as if to say
Wake up!
and scampered off. She exhaled heavily.

When she returned to her circle, Carolyn was literally balancing on the edge of her chair, and Claire knew she couldn’t get her friends’ insights about Michael and what to make of their situation until she’d satisfied their curiosity about Andrew. And so, standing with the dignified bearing her mother had always commanded for important occasions, she recounted the story of the man who’d set her into the shoals, and her ceaseless regret over her failure to right herself. “It was all so . . . alluring,” she whispered. “He made me feel substantial. And sexy, and valuable, and all those ridiculous things I wanted to be. And I just let myself get sucked in.”

“Fucker,” Gail said.

Jackie nodded.

“It was the wrongest, worst thing I’ve ever done,” Claire continued, cautiously tiptoeing over the torrid interlude in the guest room, and hoping Gail wouldn’t ask her to describe the sex.

“Claire, you’re the last person in the world I’d imagine doing something like that!” Carolyn suddenly blurted, sounding like a tamped-down and tipsy Cora. “And unfortunately, when you play,” she went on, flat-eyed, “you pay.”

Stunned, Claire slunk into the chair next to Jackie, her sense of feeling embraced and empowered, all but eviscerated.

“Okay, this isn’t helpful,” Jackie said, her protective instincts clearly on tilt, as she grabbed Claire’s wrist to stand. “And I think it’s time to go.”

“Oh my gosh!” Carolyn yelped, the harshness of her words only then appearing to register on her face. “I’m so sorry, please don’t go. That was my husband talking, one of his stupid golf analogies. And it was uncalled for. I know how awful it can be, sweetie. Really, I do.”

“Ladies,” Gail said, easing everyone back into place, “we all have a need to be desired. Men included.
Right,
Carolyn?” she added between clenched teeth, leaning in and grasping Carolyn’s knee, as if to keep her from raising foot to mouth again.

Carolyn gave her a pleading don’t-go-there glance, the gloss on her lips bleeding from their tight, pinched lines. And Claire wondered if she had missed some unfortunate development in Carolyn’s world while she’d been away, which was just the incongruous little shot of camaraderie she needed to keep her from decamping.

“It’s all right,” Claire said. “I know the whole thing seems so incomprehensible. I get it. It’s not that I was itchy. I was just lost and . . .” Her voice trailed off. “And I didn’t know it.”

Resuming her role as distracter, Gail poured the last of the champagne into their glasses and lit scented candles around the room.

“Are you okay?” Carolyn asked sheepishly.

“I hate myself for being so impulsive. And I hate
him,
” she murmured. “It’s hard to even say his name.”

Jackie fixed her raised eyebrows on Carolyn and Gail. “Well, then let’s not. From now on he’s . . . Voldemort.”

“That’s perfect. And I think we can all agree that we hate Voldemort, too, honey. But you know,” Gail said, coming to kneel beside Claire, “finding the right person is what life’s all about. And I think it’s a downright miracle that anyone can marry in their twenties and still love the person their spouse has become in their forties. We’re not the same people anymore, we grow, we change. So sometimes we delude ourselves. And sometimes we do these crazy, inexplicable things when we haven’t gotten it right.” There were faint murmurs all around. “Take one part distracted husband, two parts intelligent, unfulfilled wife, add dazzling, passionate stranger, and stir—it’s a surefire recipe for fireworks, wouldn’t you say?”

Claire smiled awkwardly and readjusted the pillows behind her, remembering the good and bad of having outspoken girlfriends, and thinking about delusion and denial, and rattled cages. And when she looked back into their empathetic faces she felt them moving solidly into her corner, which gave her the resolve to finish her saga and get it out of their way for good. “Fireworks, yes,” she replied after a beat. “That’s an understatement. I remember catching myself in the mirror after . . . he left the house,” she said, recalling that oddly visceral moment in the bathroom. “My lips looked bee-stung and my hair was wild. I’d never felt like that in my life.”

“God, I love that look,” Gail said in an obvious attempt to pierce the intensity that stretched around them. “It’s especially great if you can achieve it just before going out in the evening. Hell, who needs Juvederm when you’ve got that!”

“Well, for those of us who don’t get regularly screwed before dinner parties and charity events, Juvederm is
not
such a bad thing,” Carolyn slurred.

“Oh my God, hon, you really should get in better touch with your lower chakras!”

“Ugh. My lower chakras are all about batteries these days. Double-A sized.”

Claire turned to see Jackie trying to contain the champagne in her mouth, just as Carolyn speculated that the Percodan must have kicked in.

“You really
are
something when you’re medicated, honey.”

“I’m something? What about you,
Mrs. Robinson
? Tell me again how many times twenty-nine goes into forty-four,” Carolyn said to Gail with a woozy grin.

“Ah, yes, young Austin of the six-pack abs and insatiable drive. Boys do have their benefits. But that’s another story for another cocktail hour.”

After a welcome digression into the topic of Gail’s boy toys, Carolyn asked Claire about Nicholas, which caused the lightness that had briefly reclaimed the room to vanish. Claire heaved herself up once again, and though her legs taunted her with their unsteadiness, the scent of ylang ylang reminded her that all was not so bleak, and that there was, at long last, warmth around her.

“C’mon,” Gail said, walking them all out to the terrace for lunch.

The four women sat shielded from the midday sun by a magnificent awning with an Italian-inspired trompe l’oeil mural painted on the underside. Claire leaned back to admire the craftsmanship, and was reminded of Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus.” The woman above her stood naked with outstretched hands and pleading eyes behind her smile. Lucy appeared on the terrace with a lunch of poached Mahi.

“You don’t have to talk anymore if you don’t want to,” Jackie said.

“But I do.” Claire placed her napkin in her lap, feeling as if the situation called for a new language—but all she had was her truth. And so she continued, feeling the frazzling months at Nick’s bedside and her failed attempts at rescuing her marriage come alive like a vivid post-traumatic dream.

They all sat silently when she had finished—just short of the lockout fiasco and their current domestic arrangement (for which she had no remaining energy or courage)—and listened to the soft whisper of a fountain somewhere below them. The last remaining paperwhites of the season shivered with the gentle breeze in their cachepots, and warm tears rolled down Claire’s cheeks as Lucy arrived to serve the dessert no one wanted. Gail’s eyes brimmed with tenderness, and Claire noticed that Carolyn’s eyes, too, shared her pain.

“I look at Nicky now, at what my selfishness did to him, and it’s so hard to accept,” she said in a voice overcome with remorse and shame. “Michael certainly can’t. He’s so . . . irritable and out of reach.”

Carolyn stood, taking a moment to catch her balance, and walked over to Claire and entwined their hands. “You’ve been through more than I knew, and I’m so sorry.” She kissed Claire on the cheek. “I think you’ve had enough for one day. Maybe we could all get together at my house again next week? And if there’s anything I can do to help with Nicholas when he comes home, I’ll be there.”

They all waited for Claire to signal something.

Finally she took a small bite of the dessert in front of her but then pushed it away. “You know, maybe next week’s a good idea,” she said as exhaustion put her on final lockdown.

C
HAPTER
30

C
laire pushed the up button in her lobby as she ran through a list of adjectives to summarize the previous three hours.
Wrenching. Thorny. Helpful?
But as depleted as she felt, she also had to acknowledge that the emotional toll was bearable if the process would lead toward some sense of normalcy and connection again, to some perspective. Surely it had to. That, and she hadn’t come up with a Plan B.

When she stepped out of the elevator on six, Claire looked out through her uncertainty and saw an enormous cellophane-wrapped basket sitting in front of her door. Upon closer examination, she saw that it was a cookie bouquet. Peanut butter, no doubt. The envelope on the cellophane simply read, “Smitty.” She opened the door and brought the package inside, removing the enclosure card.
Saw one of these at Mrs. Fields and thought, what the hell?! Hope they don’t taste like socks. Hope you’re settling in. Call if I can help. R.

The man’s timing was impeccable. And she felt guilty for the meager e-mail she had sent him with only a brief hello and her new contact information. But an evening alone with a mountain of cookies seemed like the perfect analgesic postscript to the afternoon at Gail’s, especially since she opted out of the lasagna party at Jackie’s. She sliced open the wrapping and inhaled the luscious, buttery fragrance of her bouquet, and pondered her decision to open herself up so honestly to Gail and Carolyn. And something about sharing the trauma aloud with the support of friends felt useful. Like she was beginning to unearth small clumps of subterranean truth. She bit into one of the chewy cookies, and noticed, too, that her feelings of isolation were beginning to crumble.

In the country of denial, life had been comfortable and beautifully adorned, so easily navigable. Claire closed her eyes, pondering the
truths
she’d tried hard not to see and all those little white lies she’d wrapped them in. There had been too much neglect on
both
of their parts. Too many missed opportunities to make their relationship the source of fulfillment they’d pledged. She wondered what slights Michael had felt from her over the years before her deepest cut. What could have changed him from the thoughtful guy who, unsolicited, would take care of a parking ticket she’d left sitting on the counter, to someone who failed to even acknowledge the greeting card in the bathroom telling him “the best thing to hold on to in life is each other,” or the other missives she’d scribbled on Post-its? Once attentive and buoyant, Michael had become remote and overgrown with dark vines long before Andrew. Yet righting her compass now, when that once-shiny picture with Michael had for so long been her north, was daunting.

She licked crumbs from her fingers and squinted at her bedside table. And for all her desire to stop bedazzling the past and accept the truth in all its screwed-up bleakness, she did the only thing her brain and eighteen years of habit knew to do. Because some habits, in spite of their glaring badness, are hard to break. And because she was still raw and drawn to the irresistible glimmer of reassurance. Much like a bug to a zapper.

Shoving another bite into her mouth, Claire picked up her phone and pressed his name on her Favorites screen, cursing her obvious need for some kind of intervention even as she waited for him to answer.

“Michael?”

“Yeah?”

“It wasn’t always a lie, was it?” she asked, choking a little on all that she was swallowing.

“What? What wasn’t a lie?”

“We had true moments in our marriage, didn’t we?”

“Claire, why are you doing this?”

“I just need you to tell me that most of it
was
good. That over the years you felt it, too.” She hated herself for her weakness.

She could hear annoyance and impatience in his voice, and she inched deeper into the covers, wondering if whatever he was feeling for her now had also distorted
his
perceptions.

“Of course there was happiness along the way. A lot of it. No one’s saying there wasn’t. But things obviously shift. And when you play, Claire”—he paused, sounding utterly worn down—“since you keep questioning everything that seems so obvious, I’ll say it more clearly: You pay. I don’t know why you can’t see that.”

She sat bolt upright against the headboard.

“So there’s really no point in doing this again,” he continued. “It’s just not helpful, you know?”

An unintelligible tangle of
shit
and
right
and
okay
spilled from her mouth as she absorbed the impact of his words.

“Look, Nicky and I are set to leave at noon on Monday. He’s dying for a Larkburger, so if you want to take him to dinner after we get in, that would be good. I have a late business meeting.”

Claire hung up, picturing a golf course conversation between Michael and Robert Spencer, the two of them playing judge and jury to her crimes and misdemeanors. She had been responsible for this catastrophe, so she should remedy the mess and suffer appropriately—that was the penance Michael had levied upon her. And it was a penance she was prepared to do a million times over for Nicholas to be well again. But with that bargain, Claire also had to accept the gobsmacking truth that she could no longer live in a world—obviously of her own creation, and Cora’s—where surface and subtext did not jibe.

She texted Richard an effusive thank-you for the cookies, then flipped on the TV remote and stretched her arms and legs across the sheets like snow angels. A little less stuck in the amber of what was.