This Christmas (3 page)

“There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

Sarah pauses, shrimp halfway to her mouth, as she looks at Eddie in alarm. Is this it? Is this how it’s going to happen? She finds herself waiting for him to tell her he’s having an affair, he’s leaving, half aware that it’s only wishful thinking, that it’s not actually going to happen like this, only in fact happens like this in the movies.

The waiter comes over and asks if everything is okay, and Sarah forces an impatient smile as she nods. It’s not often they go out these days, and she was surprised when Eddie had suggested they go to their favorite fish restaurant this Friday, surprised because it was so rare these days that the two of them go to dinner for no reason at all.

She had arranged a baby-sitter, had met Eddie at the train station, and now here they were, halfway through their shrimp cocktails, and Eddie looking like he’s about to drop a bombshell.

Sarah puts the shrimp back on the plate and raises an eyebrow in anticipation, waiting for him to go on.

Eddie takes a deep breath.
Good Lord
, Sarah thinks.
Maybe I am right. Maybe he is leaving
. And relief washes over her.

“You know that building we’re buying in Chicago?”

Sarah nods, although she doesn’t. They don’t tend to talk about work anymore. About anything anymore.

“Well, it’s become complicated. The lawyer in the Chicago office just left and they need someone who’s there to take things over, and they want me to go.” Eddie looks at Sarah expectantly.

“Right.” She nods, waiting for him to continue.

“So, I haven’t really got a choice,” he says. “They want me to take his position in Chicago, and obviously it’s not really commutable, so…” he trails off.

“So you’re moving to Chicago?”

“Well, that’s what we have to talk about,” Eddie says, unable to read what Sarah’s thinking. “I know you love this town,” he says, “but Chicago’s a great city, and one of my colleagues offered to send me information about the schools there, and the thing is it may even be temporary. They want to see how things work out with this deal, but I think you would really like Chicago—”

“Whoa”—Sarah raises a hand—“let me just take this in. They want you to go to Chicago and you want us to come with you?”

Eddie looks wounded. “Of course I want you to come with me. You’re my family.”

Sarah looks at him in amazement. Is he really that obtuse? Is he not, surely, as unhappy as she? Why would he want them to come with him? This is it, she realizes. It’s now or never. God has presented this opportunity to her on a platter and how can she not take it and run with it.

She takes a deep breath, wondering how to say it, how it could be so hard to say when she has rehearsed this moment for weeks, months, when she thought she knew exactly which words to say, and how to say them.

She would be kind, but firm, she had decided, all those long, lonely nights lying in bed and planning for her single future. She would tell him it was best for the children, and even though he might not be able to see it now, he would eventually realize that it was best for all of them. He deserved more happiness, she would say. They both deserved more happiness.

“Eddie,” she starts, all her preparation having flown out the window, “do you really think it would be a good idea if we come?”

Eddie looks confused for a moment. What is she trying to say? “Well, I guess I could work something out, maybe three days a week in Chicago and home for weekends—”

“Eddie—” Sarah stops him by placing a hand on his. Now this feels familiar. Now this scenario is turning into the one she had thought about, the one she had planned for. “Eddie,” she says again, “stop. Do you have any idea how unhappy I am?”

The blood drains from Eddie’s face. Now he knows where this is going.

“Eddie,” she says softly, “do you remember what it was like when we were first married? Do you remember how happy we were? How we used to make each other laugh, and how we always used to say how lucky we were that we were each married to our best friend?

“When was the last time we laughed, Eddie? When was the last time we had any fun together? Or even talked, for Christ’s sake, without it ending in a huge row, in us screaming at one another?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says finally. “But all couples go through bad times, Sarah. This is just a patch. It will get better.”

“This is a patch that’s lasted for three years,” Sarah says, not unkindly. “Eddie, it’s not going to get better; it’s only going to get worse. Listen, you are a great guy, but I think we’re just not the right match anymore. We’ve grown apart and, frankly, I want what’s best for the children, and they hardly see you anymore; they hardly know you.”

Eddie is silent. He can see Sarah has made up her mind. What is there left to say?

“I think this is God’s way of telling us we should have a trial separation,” Sarah says quietly. “This has happened for a reason. I’m not saying it’s necessarily over, but face it, neither of us can carry on the way it’s been going. You going to Chicago will give us both time to think about what we really want.”

Eddie sits in shock. Of course he knew things were bad, but how did they ever get
this
bad? His parents had fought about the same amount as he and Sarah, and he didn’t remember ever seeing any open affection between them, but they never thought about a trial separation. They stayed married until his mother died of ovarian cancer at seventy-nine, after which time his father started referring to her in Godlike tones: the most wonderful woman in the world; the love of his life.

“It’s for the best,” Sarah says gently, thrown slightly by the shock on Eddie’s face—didn’t he
know
? Didn’t he guess it was all going to end this way? And a trial separation is really a way for Sarah to soften the blow—everyone knows a trial separation means it’s over, but Sarah can’t quite kill all his hope in one blow—what would be the point?

“We’ll tell the children in the morning,” she says, as the waiter comes over to collect their half-eaten plates. “We’ll have to make sure they know we still love them and it’s nothing to do with them.”

Eddie watches her mouth move in a daze.

How does a marriage end so quickly? So quietly? So conveniently? How did they ever get here?

The first time Eddie saw Sarah was at a Halloween party in their neighborhood bar. Ninety percent of the women had gone as sexy nurses, sexy witches, sexy devils. If Eddie had a dollar for every pair of fishnet stockings he saw that night, he had joked to his friend Todd, he would be a rich man.

And then Sarah had turned around, and Eddie and Todd had cracked up laughing.

“She must be new here,” Todd had said, slapping his friend on the back with mirth.

“Or maybe no one explained to her how the women here dress on Halloween.”

It wasn’t true that Sarah had misunderstood the unspoken rules of Halloween; it was that she was fed up with following them. She knew that all of her friends tried to look as sexy as possible, and up until this year she had done the same thing, but some Machiavellian impulse had stopped her from donning her red patent platform boots and satin devil’s tail tonight.

Tonight Sarah had come as a corpse or, to be more specific, as she had explained to her horrified doorman who had turned from waving good-bye to a group of gorgeous witches and Queen Malificents, she was one of the evil dead.

“Uh huh,” had said the doorman, who wasn’t even sure who this horror was until she spoke. God, he had thought when he realized it was the girl from apartment 26. Such a pretty girl, why did she choose to look like this on Halloween?

Sarah had blacked out half her teeth, had turned her skin to a deathly shade of gray, complete with sunken eye sockets and hollow cheeks. She was wearing filthy, ragged clothes, and to cap it off her hair was hanging in greasy tendrils.

The truth was that Sarah had decided she was sick of New York’s dating scene. She was sick of the men, sick of the scene, and was absolutely determined to stay single for a while. This was her statement, she had decided. This was her way of absolutely, positively ensuring she didn’t get drunk and do anything stupid on Halloween, for who in his right mind would look at her like this? She was going to meet her girlfriends, have a few drinks, and have a great time.

“A hundred bucks if you get her phone number,” Todd had nudged Eddie, indulging in their ongoing game that had started when they were frat boys in school together.

“Oh, no way,” Eddie had groaned, his eye already on a luscious redhead on the other side of the room. But once the gauntlet had been thrown down the rule was it had to be picked up. Goddamnit.

Eddie had walked up to Sarah and said, “Nice costume.”

“Go screw yourself.” She had smiled pleasantly at him and turned away as her girlfriends giggled.

“What?” Eddie, resplendent in his Superman costume, was not used to being turned down, and particularly not when he could have done so much better. Hell, he was only doing this for a dare.

“Go screw yourself.” Sarah had turned and smiled a toothless smile, and Eddie had jumped in front of her, his cape billowing, and had raised a hand in Superman’s salute.

“Young lady,” he had said in a deep, powerful voice, “if this was Clark Kent talking to you, you would have every right to tell him to go screw himself, but it is Superman, the most powerful superhero in America, and”—he had pulled a green plastic crystal out of his belt, brandishing it high—“by the laws of kryptonite I command you to have a drink with me.”

The room had erupted in applause, including Sarah’s friends, and although she rolled her eyes, she had to admit she was impressed.

Half an hour later Sarah and her girlfriends left to go to another party, and Eddie had walked back to Todd, triumphant, phone number in hand.

He hadn’t meant to phone her. Hadn’t thought he would ever think of her again, but she had been funny during the half hour they had chatted together over their dirty martinis garnished with a plastic spider. She had been sarcastic, clever, and opinionated.

Oh, what the hell
, he thought, one night when his date canceled him at the last minute, leaving him with a reservation at Bouley.
I’m sure she won’t be able to come
.

But she had been able to come, and when she walked in, this time in tight black pants, high-heeled boots, and a plunging white shirt, her hair a deep chestnut brown, swinging at her shoulders, her skin as clear as the day, Eddie had almost fallen off his chair in shock. And delight.

And that was how it had started. So how in the hell did it ever come to this? How did that clever, funny, sophisticated woman turn into this nagging, miserable, constantly tired wife?

How did the two of them, who had once been such a sought-after couple, sociable and fun, become two ships that pass in the night, only coming together for collisions and fights?

Is there any way for him to make it better? Is there any way for Eddie to stop his marriage from disintegrating before his eyes? He looks at Sarah, sitting there so firm, so resolute in her decision-making, and he vows to make this work. He knew, almost from the start, that Sarah was the one for him, and even though they’ve both been blown off course, he will put it right. He may not be able to do it immediately, but he won’t let go this easily, despite what she thinks.

“You’re right,” he finds himself saying, knowing that doing anything other than agreeing with her will result in more confrontation, and that isn’t what he wants. “I think a trial separation is the right thing to do.”

Sarah now looks shocked that Eddie has conceded so easily. Her words of sympathy and comfort no longer needed. “I’ll start looking for a place in Chicago immediately.”

Sarah nods, and Eddie plans. He needs time to think. Time to get a plan of action into place.

“I’m coming over.” Caroline puts down the phone, leaving Sarah sitting quite still, listening to the dial tone.

Caroline calls back ten seconds later. “Can I call an emergency book club meeting or do you not want me to tell anyone?”

“You can call the meeting,” Sarah sighs. “Right now I could do with the support, never mind the company.”

“Gotcha. See you within the hour.”

From time to time the girls will call an emergency book club meeting, or an EBC, which occurs when, naturally, an emergency comes up. The last time an EBC was called was when Lisa’s son was beaten up on the school bus by a kid known as a bully and all-around general bad kid. They all agreed long ago to drop everything and come over should an EBC be needed. Within the hour, all of them, except Nicole, who is on vacation, are once again sitting around Sarah’s kitchen table, looking at her with soulful, sympathetic eyes as she explains how unhappy she and Eddie have been, how it is better that he has finally gone.

“How terrible for you,” they murmur.

“We never realized.”

“You’re so strong.”

“But I’m not strong,” Sarah sighs. “I’m scared. I know I’ve fantasized about this for months, but I didn’t really think it would happen, and certainly not this quickly. I mean, one minute he was here, albeit barely”—she rolls her eyes—“and the next minute he’s gone.”

“Does it feel lonely?” Caroline ventures.

“Well, that’s the odd thing. I would have thought no, because I’m so used to being on my own, yet it kind of does. It just feels surreal. Every now and then it kind of hits me, but only for a short while, and then it carries on feeling like it didn’t really happen, that he’s going to walk in this evening and sit in front of the set drinking beer.”

Lisa leans forward and looks into Sarah’s eyes earnestly. “Have you ever thought he may have a problem with alcohol?” she says slowly.

Sarah shakes her head. “I think he may have a bigger problem with pizza.” She manages a grin. “Do you think there’s a support group called Pizzaholics Anonymous?”

“You may laugh,” Lisa says sternly, “but you do always say he drinks a lot, and I’m just wondering whether he may need some help.”

“I know you’re trying to help”—Sarah puts her hand on Lisa’s—“and I know how much you know about it given Max’s situation, but I would tell you if I thought there was a problem. Seriously, I would.”

Lisa sits back and shrugs. “Okay. I was just trying to help.”

“So how do you
feel?
” Cindy, in true Californian style, asks.

“Comfortably numb?” Sarah offers hopefully.

“Have you thought about what’s going to happen?” Caroline reaches for a brownie from the plate in the middle of the table, giving the others license to follow suit. “What you’re going to do? Whether you’re going to stay in the house?”

“Of course I’m going to stay in the house. This is my home. But I have been thinking that maybe I could get a job.”

“A job!” The rest of the women eye her suspiciously, all of them having been successful career women who gave up their careers in the blink of an eye once they gave birth.

Cindy is the only one who is truly happy as a stay-at-home mom. Caroline has started working part-time as a grant writer at the local arts center now that her kids are in school, and Lisa, when not at Al-Anon meetings, is heavily involved in the Junior League and chairing various charitable events, which she claims to be doing for solely altruistic reasons, although she can’t help but secretly love the fact that she’s climbing the social ladder while doing so.

Nicole, once the CEO of a large advertising agency in the city, now “CEOs” her kids with just as much enthusiasm and drive. Whatever ambitions she once had were left behind on the birthing table, and now that her children are in elementary school she is pushing little Nicky into baseball, soccer, and the Suzuki school of music (the baseball he loves, the rest he would happily leave), and little Tori into ballet, art class, and theater (the ballet’s a win, the others, a disaster) with just as much determination as she once used to win some of the biggest ad campaigns in the business.

Aside from Caroline—Caroline who is itching for her kids to be old enough for her to go back into the workplace on a more permanent basis, who knows she needs to be defined by something other than her kids—the members of this book club are proud, occasionally smug, in their decision to be “stay-at-home moms.”

“Why would you want a job?” Cindy is furrowing her brow, truly perplexed.

Lisa touches on the subject all of them are thinking, none of them daring to say. “Are you having financial concerns?” Her voice becomes earnest again. “Because you know if Eddie does have a problem with alcohol, it wouldn’t be unusual for him to have a problem with spending too. It’s called cross-addiction, and it’s—”

“Lisa,” Sarah stops her, “I promise you, Eddie is neither an alcoholic nor a compulsive spender. No, there is not a problem with money, but in the couple of days since this happened I’ve done a lot of thinking, and part of that thinking has been if this is permanent, what am I going to do with the rest of my life?

“And, Cindy, while I think you are the greatest mother in the world, and I know how much you love being with the kids all day, I’m starting to feel that I need to do something else. Clichéd as it may sound, I want to give something back, and find some purpose in life other than just living for my children.”

“Good job,” Caroline almost cheers, as Cindy sits perplexed, wondering how on earth anyone could not think that being a mother was the most fulfilling job in the world, and Lisa wracks her brain trying to think of what it would take to organize an intervention and how she could get Sarah to come with her to an Al-Anon meeting.

“So what are you going to do?” Cindy finally asks.

Sarah shrugs. “I used to be a features editor, so it makes sense to stay in journalism.”

“Could you do some freelancing for your old magazine?”

“I thought about it but I’m not young and single anymore. I’m exactly the demographic that terrifies them, and, to be honest, I’m not that interested in writing anymore. Also, I know this sounds ridiculous, but I find it very scary, going back into the workplace. I feel as if my brain shrunk to about a quarter of its size once I had Maggie. I could never do some high-powered job. I’m just looking for something small that keeps me busy.”

“If it makes you feel better,” Caroline says, “I have no memory anymore, and I manage my job. Just…”

Cindy laughs.

“No, I’m serious,” Caroline says. “This morning I opened the door to the fridge in the butler’s pantry three times before I remembered why I was doing it. I kept opening it, looking blankly inside with no memory of why I was there or what I was looking for. Then I’d go back to the kitchen, remember what it was I wanted, go back to the butler’s pantry and whoosh, there I’d be, staring blankly into the goddamned fridge again with no idea why I was there. Three times that happened. Can you believe it?
Three times!
”

They all start laughing. “I went to the mall last week,” Cindy admits, “and had no idea where I parked the car. It took me an hour and twenty minutes to find the car—can you believe that? I just parked, got out without looking which floor I was on, or which bay, or anything. Just merrily went off shopping and didn’t even think about it until I was in the elevator and they asked me which level and I had no clue.”

“You know what you should do?” Caroline, ever the sensible Caroline, says. “You should get a car that’s a crazy color. Like bright pink or green. That way you’d never lose it.”

“Or a Hummer,” Lisa says. “You’d always find a Hummer.”

“Especially if it was banana yellow like that woman’s at my gym.”

“Oh, my God, I hate those cars,” Sarah says. “You can’t get one of those cars, not unless you have a tiny penis and a huge superiority complex.”

“The last time I looked I had neither.” Cindy grins. “And don’t worry, I won’t be getting a Hummer. I’m quite happy with my minivan.”

“I think I may get a Porsche,” Sarah says suddenly.

“No!” Their voices, a combination of shock and envy, echo round the kitchen.

“Oh, I’m just kidding,” she says. “But isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you’re suddenly single? Get a fast car, lose loads of weight, and get a whole new wardrobe? Mind you, the losing weight thing I could cope with.” She gestures to the spare tire around her middle. “Maybe I should join a gym.”

“You’d better not change too much or we won’t be able to be friends with you anymore,” Lisa jokes, although there is a hint of seriousness in her voice—after all, she feels safe with these women, is not threatened by any of them, but what could be more threatening than a newly single, newly skinny glamorous divorcée in their midst?

“Never gonna happen,” Sarah sighs. “I haven’t got the energy.”

“So bring the local paper over,” Caroline says. “Let’s have a look through and see if there are any jobs that sound interesting. Hell, why don’t we even help you get your resume together.”

Sarah’s face brightens. “You’d do that for me? You wouldn’t mind?”

“Of course not. That’s what friends are for.”

By the time the women leave, at the untraditionally late hour of 11:30 that night, there are four sealed envelopes sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting to be mailed.

Each contains a letter that was written by Caroline and Lisa and edited by Sarah, and an updated resume, which made Sarah’s life, or at least the last five years of it, sound infinitely more interesting than it actually was.

The resume had her organizing various school events (trueish—she had provided the cookies for the annual bake sale), co-chairing charitable committees (she had attended as a guest), and being household manager of a busy household (true, but only because Eddie had never done anything that had been asked of him).

Even Sarah had to admit it was fairly impressive. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been many jobs that she was suited for. She had ended up applying for a retail job in a clothes store, an administrative manager position in a realtor’s office, and a job as a personal assistant to an accountant.

Now it’s just a question of time.

By the time Sarah goes upstairs and checks on the kids, she’s far too excited to sleep. She runs a hot bath—a treat she rarely makes time for anymore—pours in almost half a bottle of Crabtree & Evelyn bath foam, and lies back in the steaming water, thinking about Eddie, wondering what he’s doing, how he’s getting on.

Eddie has been wanting to call Sarah all evening. He just wants to hear her voice, find out how the kids are, how she’s doing, whether she might have changed her mind. Several times he’s picked up the phone and started dialing, but each time he placed the phone gently back in the cradle, knowing that he can’t chase Sarah, can’t phone her or pursue her until he’s figured out exactly how to win her back; exactly how to make his marriage work again.

He’s staying in a hotel in the city for now. His office has already found a serviced apartment in Chicago for him, and he’s planning on going out there after the weekend. He’s going back to see the kids, and then flying out on Sunday night.

The last couple of nights he had initially accepted invitations to go out and hit the bars with his younger, single colleagues. They had tried to encourage him to let loose a little, but the truth was that now that there was nothing for him to get back to, now that there was no home waiting for him, even if it was a nagging, unhappy home, the prospect of drinking all night and ending the evening with a pizza in front of the game just wasn’t that appealing right now.

In any event he had stayed for one drink, then had gone back to his hotel room. He’d thought about a few beers but realized he didn’t really want them. The evening had stretched out ahead of him, so he’d put on some sweat pants and a T-shirt that barely covered his expanding girth and had headed upstairs to the hotel gym.

What the hell
, he thought, as he breathlessly pounded the treadmill, sweat dripping off the end of his nose.
What else am I supposed to do to kill a couple of hours?

Eddie woke the next morning with calves that were cramping in agony. “Shit!” he muttered as he sat up in bed and massaged the cramps away, stretching his legs in almost-forgotten exercises. But he had to admit, despite everything that had happened, it felt pretty good to have exercised last night.

Sitting on the edge of the bed in the darkened hotel room, Eddie decided that step one of his resolution to make his marriage work was to work on himself.
I’m going to get myself in shape, even if it kills me
.

And that morning Eddie went to work with a bounce in his step that he hadn’t felt in a very long time.