Sleepless Nights (19 page)

In the sway of the baby-carrier, Samuel eventually dozed off, and I walked down the steps through the sunshine to a small Upper East Side trattoria to meet Brianna, a friend and colleague from work. Not one of the people in Caroline’s orbit, obviously: Brianna was a paralegal. To someone like Caroline, she was indistinguishable from the copier machine.

It was hot, a grilling sort of day. Tourists swirled around me, damp, unfolded maps spewing from their unzipped bags, shirts knotted loose around their waists, calloused feet tripping out of
worn flip-flops. Red-faced, red-eyed, hair glistening with sweat, they stumbled blindly toward the Met, looking as if they really hoped it might be closed.

Brianna was waiting for me; flicking her gleaming hair over her shoulder, she tried to enfold me in a huge hug. Samuel rather got in the way. “So great to see you, Q, I’ve missed you like
crazy!”
she screamed, jumping up and down. Adjusting Samuel’s sun hat, I said everything that was needful, then settled with her under an umbrella on the sidewalk and sipped a spritzer while Chihuahuas sniffed hopefully at our chair legs.

With some difficulty, I’d managed to maneuver myself behind the table and into the chair without waking the baby (a complicated dance that at least three other women nearby watched with private smiles of recognition). Apart from the presence of a slumbering child on my chest, the lunch was, therefore, quite like old times-two friends having lunch together.

“I was running out of ideas for takeout,” Brianna began brightly, referring to the last time we really saw each other—just before Samuel was born. “It’s so great you’re out of the house at last, after all those months in bed. You can take a real vacation. He’s very good, isn’t he?” (Peering at his crumpled face.) “But then, babies this age don’t really
do
anything, do they? Just eat and sleep. My mother always said you needed maternity leave when they get to be, like, two. This first bit’s
easy!
Well, that’s what she always said…”

She trailed off a bit, which may have been because I was baring my teeth at her. Now, as it happens, I was actually trying to smile. But I’m not sure that’s how it came across.

She changed the subject. “We’re so glad you’re back. I wish you were staying for longer. Mark was saying just the other day—” she gulped a bit—“that he was really missing Tom…”

Something indefinable had changed in her posture; her shoulders had rounded slightly down. They hadn’t slumped—nothing as dramatic as that, but still, I knew immediately that something was
wrong. She’d been dating Mark, one of Tom’s oldest friends, for a year or so now, this in spite of the fact that Mark’s soon-to-be-ex-wife, Lara, was pregnant with their third child.

I sipped at my water. “And
how
is Mark?” I asked politely. Fond as I was of Brianna, I couldn’t forgive him for the way he’d behaved.

“Fine,” Brianna replied. She looked miserable.

“How do you find living together?”

“Really wonderful,” she went on, blinking hard. “Like, we just get on so well. We both love to—to shop. He’s such a foodie. And we go out a lot. Mark says he’s making up for lost time. All those years with Lara—and the kids—”

We fell silent as the waiter appeared; he fussed with our plates for a moment, officiously rearranging the glasses and the cutlery, then produced our hors d’oeuvres with a flourish: scallops for me, a big plate of garlic bread for her. (As if
that
wasn’t enough of a clue.)

Brianna picked up her bread and ripped it in two. “Work has been all-consuming—for him, I mean. You probably heard. He just had a big case managing a takeover. There’s a firm out in LA—Badden and Scutzer—that wants to hire him. He’s seriously tempted to accept; Badden and Scutzer is doing really well by its partners at the moment. So, you know, financially, given the realities of life these days, it would make a lot of sense for him to jump. Particularly because I—well, let’s just say, I don’t think I’ll have a job past the end of the month. The paralegals are all being pink-slipped.”

“Oh, Brianna—I’m so sorry. That’s just terrible.”

Her long hair had fallen around her face; her nose was just about visible, a little bronzed point peeping delicately through the heavy dark curtain. Rip, rip, rip; she was tearing the bread into smaller and smaller pieces. I squirted my scallops with lemon and began to wolf down my plate—partly because I was starving, partly because I calculated I had six minutes before Samuel woke up. “At least Mark has options, I suppose. How do you feel about living in LA?” I went on, through a full mouth.

“It’s not—I mean—I have family here, and—it will be a big transition for me,” she replied desperately. I watched as the seasoned chunks rained down; her hands were now literally dripping pale green olive oil. “I’ve always lived on the East Coast, and—and I really love the city, y’know? This is my home, I can’t quite imagine living anywhere else. But LA—people say it’s a fantastic place,” she went on feverishly. “If you have a car, obviously. And I suppose we’ll have a villa with oranges in the garden. And peaches. And a swimming pool. So it’ll obviously be great. A dream life. Most people would jump at it. We’re so lucky.”

“What about the children?” I couldn’t restrain myself. “Mark’s kids, I mean. How does he plan to see them if he’s living on the West Coast?”

She had picked up her napkin and now began methodically wiping oil from each finger. “Mark thinks it’s good for them,” she returned, attentively contemplating her right hand. “I mean, the kids have friends who are being pulled out of private school because their parents lost half their savings. He thinks, these days, it’s enough to have a dad with a good income. Plus he says they might find it easier if he’s on the other side of the States. It’ll be a clean break after the divorce. Less messy.” She had now started on her palms.
Scrub, scrub, scrub.

“And what do
you
think?” I asked, laying my fork and knife down. The waiter walked over and, stiff with disapproval, began to clear our plates. Hers looked like a product of the apocalypse. Mine was picked so clean you could have sutured a wound on it.

“I think—I think they’re really suffering, if you want my honest opinion,” she said, sitting back, watching the waiter with brimming eyes. “I think Lara’s all over the place. I think the kids are bewildered and hurt and terrified. I mean, they’re losing friends from school at the rate of, like, one kid a week. Mark needs to stay here and help them work it out—I think. But he says I don’t know what I’m talking about. He says I don’t know the first thing about how to raise
a kid. He says I don’t really understand what being a parent is like. Of course, he’s probably right…”

I miss Jeanie, I thought to myself an hour later, as I walked back to the apartment along the burning sidewalk, with a little start of surprise. I miss having my sister around. My conversation with Brianna had reminded me somehow of her. In a sense I was pleased with the thought; it made me feel terribly sisterly, and it had the added pleasure that in just a few days we’d be back in Connecticut, in the spacious coolness of the house, all together. For years (I thought, as Samuel and I picked our way carefully through the steaming traffic) my relationship with Jeanie had been on hold; there’s only so much of a friendship you can build with someone over the phone, after all. We’d been stuck at the time and date I got on the plane to come to live in America, stuck in a sort of holding pattern. But since she touched down in the US, we’d been getting to know each other as people, as adults, not just as the kids we used to be.

In a burst of enthusiasm, when I got back to the cool of the apartment, I picked up the phone to tell her this. I’m so glad we’re having this time together, I said, and I can’t wait to come back to the house and be with you. How’s Dave? How are you guys doing?

Fine, she told me. Really wonderful. We get on so well together. And—I can’t wait to see you.

It was only later, when Tom was cuddled up to me sleepily on the sofa, Samuel in the bassinet at my feet, that I thought again of Brianna, partying the night away with a man who was using her to try to forget his own mistakes. And, for that matter, of Emmie Cormier, struggling against all odds to keep her child by her side.

I looked at my son, breathing slowly in and out, and at my husband, and remembered to be glad.

33

Jeanie

O
n Dave’s fifth night in Sussex, I slipped into the slithery cotton sheets with a stomach that seemed to have a slab of lead in it. I’d cleaned my teeth so hard the gums were bleeding. I’d brushed my hair so much the brush resembled a small marsupial. My face was red with scrubbing and—for good measure—I’d polished every nail on my feet and my hands with three full coats of “SunGlo Orange.” Eventually, I let myself out of the bathroom and tiptoed across the bedroom floor, listening to Dave’s breathing, wondering if he was already asleep.

As soon as my head was on the pillow, Dave’s arm came snaking through the covers toward me. “Give us a hug, love,” he said softly in the darkness.

We hugged uncomfortably. His hand started wandering downward. I jumped out of bed.

“What the bloody hell’s the matter?” he asked angrily, sitting up and staring at me, rumpling his hair in the gray light.

I danced about nervously. “Um, nothing. Stomachache. And a backache. And you—you tickled me,” I enumerated unconvincingly.

“Since when’ve you been ticklish?” he growled. He watched me in silence for a second or two. “Ah
shit,
” he said at last, subsiding back against the pillows. “Stop playing around, Jeanie. You’re finishing with me, aren’t you?”

His gaze was unwavering. “Is that right, Jeanie?” he pressed.

He started out strong, but then his voice cracked on my name; he got stuck somewhere on the N, stumbled heavily, lost his balance, then failed to lift up the last syllable. Somewhere, because I knew I had to, I found the answer. “Yes.”

We stared at each other as the word left my lips.

I sat down on the very edge of the bed, hands pressed hard between my knees. It was too late—not to mention absolutely cruel—to back down now. “Dave, I’m so sorry—” I began helplessly. “I don’t know what’s happened. It isn’t working for me anymore. I don’t know why.”

He closed his eyes. “That’s that then.” Then, suddenly, he turned to me, his face set. “There’s someone else.” It wasn’t a question.

“Wha—? No, no, of course there isn’t—”

“There is.”

“No, Dave, honestly, there isn’t—”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, of course. Dave, I haven’t even met anyone here in Connecticut except Q and Tom and—”

“And?”

“Now, don’t get the wrong idea, Dave. There’s a friend of Tom’s, the man who owns this house, and he came for a weekend, but
he
isn’t—I mean, we haven’t—”

Dave’s face was as cold and set as stone. “What’s his name?”

“It doesn’t matter—”

“It does to me. What’s his name?”

“He’s called Paul, but I’m telling you, nothing has happened between us. Nothing
will
happen. He has a girlfriend—”

“I see. You’ve bothered to work this out, of course.”

“It just came up in conversation. Dave, there’s nothing going on between me and Paul, I don’t even like him, he doesn’t like me, I’m telling you, he’s got nothing to do with it—nothing to do, I mean, with
us
.” I was very earnest.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I promise you!”

Dave’s suspicious look gradually faded; at last, he sighed. “All right, I’m sorry. I know you tell the truth. I just thought—it’s funny really. There was me, trying to make you jealous about Ellen—I mean, even Badger said he thought you were trying to break up when you came here. Find a way out. But when you chucked half a dinner service at me I thought he was wrong. I told Badger…Christ. And we’ve had such laughs. I thought we were
strong,
Jeanie! I thought” (long pause) “you
loved me.
”

I stared down at the floor, and began counting the knots in one board. (
Four, five, six
…)

“I don’t know why you even bothered to arrange my ticket to America, unless—was it—was it—pity?” His voice was rough as bark. “Did you just feel sorry for me, Dave the loser, can’t afford to pay his own way?”

“Oh Dave, God, no, it wasn’t that,” I said desperately, looking up again at last, wanting to save him something. “I wanted to see you, of course I did. We’ve been together for so long, and besides, I really do like you—”

Like—not love. He saw it immediately and groaned, reaching over to the bedside table for some tea-tree gum, which he pressed out of its wrapper and slipped into his mouth. Then he rubbed his arm across his nose. “’Nuff said,” he replied at last, through the thick wedge of gum. “I get it. I’ll go back to New York tomorrow, by myself, you don’t have to come with me.” He was bitter. “I’ll go back to London, you don’t need to see me ever again.”

“Dave, that’s not what I want—”

“Well, it’s what you’ll get.”

I nodded slowly. I wasn’t in a position to negotiate. “I’m so sorry, Dave” (wailing a bit)—“and you’re being really good about this. Much better than I deserve.”

“Don’t give me self-pity, Jeanie, I don’t want to deal with it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Well.”

His face was like a window that was abruptly closed, a screen that reflected but gave nothing away. “I’ll sleep on the sofa downstairs,” he said suddenly, standing up and sliding out of the enormous bed in a soft
sooosh
of the sheets. “Get out of your space.”

“That’s okay, I quite understand, thank you, not a problem,” I gabbled, with strange formality. I clutched my pajama shirt to my breasts as he walked past. But he disappeared out of the room without a backward glance, shutting the door with a sharp, final bang.

I sat on the bed, my knees tucked awkwardly into my shirt, and listened to the sound of the cupboard opening and closing in the corridor—Dave’s hasty footsteps on the stairs—the sitting room door clicking open and slamming closed. The sounds of pulling and shoving and dropping, followed by the blare of the TV. The sounds of Dave walking out of my life. I started to cry.