Still Life with Husband (21 page)

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll be back.” I say this in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger imitation, which I instantly regret, since a guttural Austrian accent is something of a mood killer. Although not for Maria Shriver, I guess. But David just keeps gazing at me from the bed, surrounded by rumpled dark blue sheets and scattered pillows. I’m momentarily taken aback by the tableau of it, the sordid vision of the naked man in repose, his face still flushed, the absence of me there next to him practically a palpable presence. It’s a snapshot of sex, and the caption underneath reads, “Girl Deliberately Loses Track of Self, Commits Adultery.” My chest tightens; I recognize this feeling as remorse, an even bigger mood killer than an Austrian accent. So I repress it, a skill I hadn’t developed until recently.

The afternoon light has already faded, and even if my imaginary errand for Dick had caused me to work late, it’s still time for me to go home.

Dressed now, I wait a minute for David to get out of bed and see me to the door, but for some reason he doesn’t make a move to get up. And it doesn’t seem quite right for me to go over to him and kiss him good-bye, somehow; it seems too affectionate, too familiar. I’m the tiniest bit disappointed that he’s not walking me out, but he’s probably just tired, or processing what has just occurred, and who can blame him for that? So I wave like a movie star, and then I turn and leave.

I barely manage to get the key in the door of the car. My hands have started to shake. Inside the car, my breathing suddenly seems fast and shallow, and my stomach starts to hurt. Maybe I really do have the flu. My skin has gone clammy and I’ve begun to sweat; I can’t quite swallow. I feel like I’m on the verge of a panic attack. I pull down the visor and look at myself in the mirror: my hair is messier than usual; my face is a startling shade of gray. My lips are still swollen from kissing David. I crank up the heat, rake my fingers through my hair. I can’t seem to catch my breath.

It’s not as if I didn’t think this through. But I guess I didn’t think through: how a person feels when she’s suddenly alone in her very warm car on the street in front of her lover’s apartment after she’s just had sex with him for the first time; how a person feels when for once she’s done something, instead of always letting life do things to her, when she’s acted on her cheating heart’s desire, when she’s finally, irrevocably Done It; how a person feels when she’s only thirty and quite possibly having a heart attack. I grip the steering wheel and stare at my knuckles, at the blue veins on the backs of my hands. I have to concentrate on breathing.

My marriage is over. Or it’s not: it will survive and be the kind of marriage I never thought I’d have, one with a huge lie like a crater at the center of it. Or I’ll tell Kevin I slept with someone else and his heart will be smashed into tiny pieces, and he’ll be the one to decide if our marriage survives or it doesn’t. I roll down the window, but that doesn’t let in enough air, so I throw open the door, lean out over the curb on Stowell Avenue, and swallow huge gulps of fresh air like I’m trying not to drown.

When I pull up in front of our apartment building, the familiar redbrick exterior smacks me in the face with the feeling it evokes, unbidden, of comfort and refuge. Cheaters don’t deserve refuge; adulteresses aren’t allowed comfort. I can’t go inside. So I detour across the street to Meyer’s Market, a fancy specialty grocery store. I’ll buy a few things for dinner. I’ll cook Kevin a nice dinner. If I cook for Kevin for the next month, will my debt to him be erased? How about if I do all his laundry, too, for the next forty years? I’m not that stupid. But I am that scared.

I slowly stroll up and down the aisles of Meyer’s. The store is lush with overpriced produce and tempting displays of nine-dollar boxes of cookies. Jazz drifts softly through the aisles. Because it’s right across the street, Kevin and I shop here almost every day, but since it’s so expensive, we’re never extravagant. We buy grapefruit, cheese, bread, yogurt, occasionally something from the deli for dinner if neither of us feels like cooking. But now, I take my time, pull jars and boxes from the shelves and examine them. If I like what I see, I place it carefully in my cart. I probably look like I’m savoring this shopping excursion. I doubt a casual observer would notice my trembling hands. I’m sure I don’t look like a criminal who can’t bear to take the perp walk back up to her apartment.

The store at 5:00 p.m. is crowded with women and young children. Strollers colonize the narrow aisles. An exasperated mother stands near the refrigerator section, her hands on her hips, and scolds, “Gwyneth Kate Metzger, if you don’t get over here right now, I Am Leaving Without You,” while Gwyneth Kate Metzger ignores the empty threat, gleefully rearranging cartons of soy milk. The line at the bakery counter is full of toddlers clamoring for cupcakes.

I don’t mind the delay. I’m an anthropologist, observing these women—female humans, just like me—and their children. It swirls around me, warm and messy and colorful, this life I could have had. But I slammed the door on it. And now I’m alone in an expensive grocery store at the end of the day, shopping for food for the husband I’ve just cheated on. The music suddenly gets louder. Two women at the end of the canned goods aisle laugh. A small child in pink overalls bumps into my leg, looks up at me, smiles, then careens away.

It’s only at the checkout counter, forty-five minutes later, that I realize what I’m about to take home: two cans of water chestnuts, a one-pound deli container of roasted red peppers, a box of bland-looking Scottish cookies in the shape of women drinking tea, a wet hunk of fresh mozzarella, two organic tomatoes, one jar of extra-spicy pineapple salsa, a can of chickpeas, and twelve dollars’ worth of kalamata olives. It’s too late to stash my shopping cart in a corner and turn tail and run. So I hand over my credit card and smile. The checkout girl scans my items and, I’m pretty sure, raises her eyebrow at me like I’m either insane or bulimic.
I’m a professional chef,
I think.
Prove that I’m not.

Kevin is home when I get there. He looks the same: his fine blond hair is sticking up in strange places, as usual; his gray pants are too long. His pale, hairless chest is visible through the unbuttoned top of his shirt. I thought he might look different. A rush of affection for Kevin flows through me with such surprising force that for a second, I can’t move. He smiles and waggles his fingers at me from the living room couch, where he’s watching the news. There is a sudden, metallic taste in my mouth: if self-loathing had a flavor, this would be it. I take my shoes off, hang my coat up, take my time changing into sweatpants and a sweatshirt. I sniff the clothes I wore today for traces of an unfamiliar scent, then stuff them in the bottom of the hamper. Even though it’s almost completely dark outside, Kevin hasn’t turned on any lights or closed the blinds. I can see our neighbors in the apartment building next door. The couple on the east side of the second floor are eating dinner and watching TV. The single man in the apartment next to theirs is lifting weights, wearing a muscle shirt. Even from here, I can tell that he’s red-faced and sweaty, most likely grunting from overexertion. He probably swigs protein drinks and eats raw eggs. I suddenly hate him. The single woman in the apartment below the beefy weightlifter’s doesn’t seem to be home yet. Her apartment is dark. I spy on this woman in particular as she’s going about her business, moving around her apartment. She looks like she’s my age. She goes to work in the mornings and comes home most evenings at around six, once in a while much later. I don’t think she has a boyfriend. I never see anyone but her in the apartment. I wonder if she’s lonely. She looks, at least from my window, serene.

“Em!” Kevin calls. “Come here, will you?” He’s in the kitchen now. I hadn’t even noticed that he’d gotten up from the couch.

I close the blinds slowly. “Coming!” I yell. Maybe the weightlifter only pumps iron to suppress his despair, and the single woman who looks so peaceful weeps silently into her cornflakes every morning. Maybe they’re soul mates, but they’ve never seen each other, never bumped into each other at the mailboxes, never realized that destiny is just a flight of stairs away. I could set them up. I could make a big sign:
HEY, WEIGHTLIFTER GUY AND SINGLE WOMAN
!
YOUR LONELY DAYS ARE OVER
! I walk from window to window, carefully smoothing the blinds to block the light from the street below. I suddenly realize that I should have jumped into the shower as soon as I walked in the door, should have scrubbed my body from head to toe. I can still feel David’s hands on me. What if I exude his raw, wrong scent? What if, like a dog, Kevin picks it up? I sense that I’m not thinking rationally. But for the millionth time today, my heart hammers in my chest.

“What is it?” I say to Kevin as I walk into the kitchen. He’s standing with his back to the counter, leaning against it, my absurd culinary purchases arrayed next to the empty Meyer’s grocery bag. He’s tossing the can of water chestnuts up and catching it. His face registers confusion. If he has somehow psychically uncovered my deceit, it hits me that I will deny it. It flashes through my brain like fireworks:
Deny! Deny! Deny! No, no, no!
I suppose that in moments of crisis a person’s true self shines forth. My true self is a coward. I’m already adopting a defensive posture. I cross my arms over my chest. “What’s up?” I say again, more coldly than I mean to.

“What’s the deal with the groceries?” he asks quietly. Slap—the can of water chestnuts lands in his palm. “Twelve dollars’ worth of olives? Tea biscuits and spicy pineapple salsa?” Slap.

“I—” Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit. It suddenly dawns on me where this is going.

“Is there something you want to tell me?” he asks in the same even tone. Sweet, transparent Kevin. Clueless Kevin. There’s a trace of excitement on his face, and I can see that he’s trying valiantly to mask it. I’m sunk with shame.

“No, oh, God, no. Kev. I honestly don’t know what I was thinking, buying all this crap, but I’m not pregnant. There is no physical way I could be pregnant.” Unless I became pregnant approximately three hours ago. “No way at all!” I repeat, my voice surprising me with its decibel level. I need Kevin to know this. “I was really tired at Meyer’s, and I kind of spaced out. I guess I was preoccupied.” This, at least, is not a lie. “So I ended up with all this crazy stuff.” I try to laugh, but it comes out a sort of whinny. “I mean, it’s a good thing we both like olives, huh?”

Kevin doesn’t laugh with me. He presses his thin lips together into hard white lines. His shoulders hunch. In the dim light of the kitchen, his blond hair is almost translucent, like a baby’s. He looks like a disappointed Muppet. The image of David Keller’s face appears for a second, superimposes itself on my husband’s. I turn toward the groceries, away from him, so that he can’t see my face.
Kevin, say something,
I think. I turn back to him as he places the can of water chestnuts down gently on the counter, picks up the box of Scottish cookies, and returns to the living room couch.

Later that night, Kevin emerges from his office, blinking. He retreated there after dinner, mumbling something about instructions for a food processor. Kevin takes work home sometimes, but I know that he finished this project days ago. (He told me how he struggled, as he always does, with the cautionary phrases: Beware of sharp blade? Blade is sharp and dangerous? Keep fingers away from blade? Don’t touch the blade, idiot?) But I didn’t argue with him. Instead I took my time doing the dishes, and then I spent the rest of the evening aimlessly channel surfing, replaying the day’s events over and over in my head. Again and again, I recalled the rhythm of David’s breathing, the weight of his body, and I had to close my eyes. I wonder if he’s thinking about me.

“What, um…” Kevin looks around, disoriented, scratches his head. He always does this, takes a few minutes to shift from his computer to his life, from his brain to me. I’ve always found it endearing, and right now it makes him seem even more innocent and vulnerable than it usually does, as fragile as a baby bird. I hate myself. I press the mute button on the remote control but keep the TV on. I look at him and wait. “What kind of errand were you doing today?” he asks, finally.

“I told you, I zoned out in the store. I’m really sorry I came home with that ridiculous bag of groceries.”

“No, Emily,” he says with a sigh. “I don’t care about that. I mean, what kind of errand were you doing for Dick today?”

In a better mood, Kevin likes to refer to both my boss and the actual journal as “Dick.” I had forgotten the lie I concocted about that errand. I rub my eyes, trying to think fast, covering for myself by acting tired and confused, pretending I’m still oddly spacey. “Oh, right.” What kind of errand was I doing? What kind of errand was I doing? I let the remote control fall from my hand to buy myself another moment, then I bend and retrieve it. My mouth is dry. What the hell kind of errand was I doing? “Dick wanted me to drop off a manuscript with one of the reviewers across town,” I say, straightening in the chair. This is something I have had to do on occasion; local scientists at the Medical College or Marquette or the infertility clinic on the west side of town often review papers for
Male Reproduction.
It’s more than plausible! I’m relieved, so I keep going. “Then he had me wait while the reviewer read it and made his comments.” I flash what I hope is a little smile. “I had to wait in this guy’s office for an hour!” I scratch my wrist with the remote control. “He had a fish tank,” I add, inexplicably.