Wife 22 (32 page)

6:51:
William pulls me aside and says he can’t believe I’m still going—Bunny and Jack have just arrived.

6:52:
I tell him I’m sorry, but I have to go.

6:52:
William reminds me that having Bunny and Jack come stay with us was my idea. It’s not fair to make him play host alone. He asks me please not to go.

6:53:
I go.

7:05:
High on adrenaline, I arrive at Tea & Circumstances and grab a table. Researcher 101 is late, too.

7:12:
I check the time.

7:20:
I open the Facebook app on my phone. No new posts and he’s not online.

7:25:
I order a lemon tea. I’d rather have coffee, but I don’t want to risk the bad breath.

7:26.
I check Facebook.

7:27:
I check Facebook again.

7:28:
I turn my phone off and on.

7:42:
I feel middle-aged.

7:48.
I send him a Facebook message.
Did we say seven or eight? Maybe we said eight. Anyway, I’m here!

8:15:
You stupid, stupid woman.

I look down at my espadrilles, and at the lip gloss smeared on the rim of my mug. My body shudders, starting from my toes and working all the way up to my shoulders.

“Are you okay?” asks the waitress gently, a minute later.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I mumble.

“You’re sure?”

“I just got some bad news.”

“Oh—gosh. I’m so sorry. Can I help?”

“No, thank you.”

“Okay. Well, please don’t hesitate to let me know if you need anything. Anything at all.” She hurries off.

I sit at the table, my head buried in my arms. Suddenly my phone chimes. It’s a Facebook message from John Yossarian.

I look at the words in shock. Okay, okay, okay. There’s a reason he didn’t come. But who does he think he is, standing me up? I swing between wanting desperately to believe him and wanting to tell him to fuck off, but before I can stop myself I type
I was worried something had happened to you
.

My phone chimes again almost instantly.

I glance up from my phone. Tea & Circumstances is deserted. Apparently nobody wants Tea & Circumstances after 8 p.m. I read and reread his last two messages. Although he’s saying all the right things, I don’t think I’ve ever felt lonelier. Did something
really
come up? Was he even planning on coming to meet me? Or did he change his mind at the last minute? Did he decide he liked me better at a distance? That meeting the real me would ruin his fantasy? And what about
my
fantasy? That there was a real man out there who saw me. A man who couldn’t stop thinking about me. A man who made me feel like a woman worthy of being obsessed about. What if the truth is that Researcher 101 is just some stupid jerk who gets off on leading pathetic, lonely, middle-aged women on?

I’m too heartbroken to lie. I type
I wanted you to be here more than anything, too.

8:28:
I get in my car.

8:29:
I drive home.

8:40:
I pull into the driveway.

8:41:
I unlock the front door.

8:42:
“Alice?” William shouts. “We’ve been waiting for you. Come join us.”

8:44:
Flooded with guilt at the sound of William’s voice, I force a smile on my face and walk down the hallway to the living room.

“P
erfect timing, Alice will settle the argument,” says Bunny, smiling at me as I enter the room.

Bunny sits on the chaise, looking as if she’s been sitting there for a hundred years. Her bandaged leg is propped up on a pillow, her feet are bare, and her toenails are painted a cheerful shade of tangerine. Even injured, she’s a veritable poster girl for aging gracefully. She must be in her sixties now and she’s more beautiful than ever.

“Bunny, I’m so sorry about your leg,” I say.

“Pah,” says Bunny. “We’re practically friends now, aren’t we, Jampo?”

Jampo is curled up on his dog bed in the corner of the room. When he hears his name he lifts his head.

“Bad, stinky dog,” I admonish him.

He growls softly and then lays his head back down on his crossed paws.

Jack stands, all limbs and freckles and a full head of ginger hair. He has the coloring of a tabby cat; peaches and cream, just like Caroline. I never got to know him as well as I did Bunny, even though he practically lived at the Blue Hill Theater when I was mounting my play (he liked to refer to himself as Bunny’s personal
jack
-of-all-trades), but he was always very kind to me.

“Take my seat, Alice,” he says.

“There’s plenty of room here, too,” says William, patting the cushion of the couch.

I can’t bring myself to look at him. “I’m fine. I’ll sit on the floor.”

Jack raises his eyebrows.

“Really, the floor is my favorite place.”

“It’s true, she prefers it,” says William. “Frequently she sits on the floor even when there are chairs available.”

“I used to like the floor, too. Until my hips stopped preferring it,” says Jack.

“Did you take your baby aspirin today?” asks Bunny.

“Baby aspirin has nothing to do with hips,” says Jack.

“Yes, but it has something to do with hearts, my love,” says Bunny.

I had forgotten how Bunny called Jack “my love.” That term of endearment always struck me as so romantic. After the
Barmaid
run was over, when I went home to Boston I tried calling William “my love,” but it just felt too much like an affectation. “My love” was something you had to earn, or be born into. I glance at William, who smiles pleasantly back at me, and I feel nauseous.

“Jack had a thing with his heart a few months ago,” explains Bunny.

“Oh, no—was it serious?” I ask.

“No,” says Jack. “Bunny worries unnecessarily.”

“That’s called looking out for you,” says Bunny.

“ ‘Looking out for me’ means she took all the Rihanna off my iPod and replaced it with Verdi.”

“
You
listen to Rihanna?” I ask.

“He was playing his music too loud,” says Bunny. “Deaf and a bad heart are too much for me to be expected to bear.”

“A shame,” says Jack. “A little deafness isn’t the worst thing for a marriage.” He winks at me.

“Alice,” exclaims Bunny. “Look at you. You’re glowing! The forties are such a wonderful decade. Before you get too comfortable, come here and give me a proper hello.”

I cross the room, sit down on the edge of the chaise, and sink into her arms. She smells exactly the way I remembered—of freesia and magnolia.

“Everything okay?” she whispers.

“Just life,” I mumble back.

“Ah—life. We’ll talk later, hmmm?” she says softly into my ear.

I nod, embrace her once more, and slip onto the floor beside her. “So what’s the argument?” I ask.

“Christiane Amanpour or Katie Couric?” says Bunny.

“Well, I like them both but if I had to choose,” I say, “Christiane.”

“We’re arguing about who’s more attractive,” says William, “not who’s a better reporter.”

“What does it matter how attractive they are?” I say. “These are women who talk to presidents, prime ministers, and dignitaries.”

“That was exactly my response,” says Bunny.

“How’s Nedra?” asks William.

“I—uh.”

“You—uh,” he says.

“Sorry. I’m just tired. She’s wonderful. We had a lot to catch up on.”

“Really?” he says. “Didn’t you just talk to her yesterday?”

Stay calm, Alice. Keep it simple. Whatever you do, don’t look up and to the right when you talk to him. That’s a sure sign somebody is lying. And don’t blink. Absolutely no blinking.
“Well, yes, on the phone, but we rarely get a chance to talk in person. Without anybody else there. You know how it is,” I say, my eyes boring into his.

William gives me a bug-eyed look in return. I try and soften my gaze.

“Nedra’s Alice’s best friend. She’s getting married,” says William.

“How wonderful! Who’s the lucky man?” asks Bunny.

“Lucky woman. Her name’s Kate O’Halloran,” I say.

“Well. All right. Nedra and Kate. I can’t wait to meet them,” says Bunny.

“Alice is the maid of honor,” says William.

“Actually, I haven’t quite agreed to that yet.”

“I can see why.
Maid
is so medieval. Why not
woman
? Woman of honor,” asks Bunny.

I bob my head agreeably. Why the hell not? I’m a woman of honor—at least I used to be, before tonight.

“Well,” says Jack, looking at his watch. “I’m beat. Let’s hit it, Bunny. It’s nearly one in the morning our time.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, leaping to my feet. “I’m being so rude. Has anybody shown you to your room?”

I hear the TV blaring from the den and the sound of the kids talking over it.

“Yes, yes. William already brought our luggage up,” says Bunny. “And, Alice, you must promise to tell us when you become sick of us. Our return tickets are three weeks from now, but like Mark Twain says, visitors and fishes start to stink after …”

“I’ll never be sick of you,” I say. “You can stay here as long as you like. So you’re between shows?”

Bunny nods, following Jack up the stairs. “I’ve got a pile of scripts. I’m trying to decide what to do next. I’m hoping you’ll help me. Read through some of them?”

“I’d be honored. I think I’ll go to bed, too. It’s been a long day,” I say, faking a yawn. I plan to pretend to be asleep when William comes up.

“I’ll check on the kids,” says William once Bunny and Jack have disappeared into the guest room.

“Make sure that you tell them to shut off all the lights when they’re done with their show.” I head up the stairs.

“Alice?”

“What?”

“Should I bring you up some tea?”

I spin around, paranoid. Does he know something? “Why would I want tea? I just spent all evening drinking tea with Nedra.”

“Oh—right. Sorry, I just thought you might want something warm.”

“I do want something warm,” I say.

“You do?” he asks.

Is that eagerness in his voice? Does he think the
something warm
I’m talking about is him?

“My laptop,” I say.

His face falls.

I wake at four the next morning and shuffle downstairs, a raggedy mess. I walk into the kitchen only to find Bunny already there. She’s standing at the stove. The kettle is on and two mugs are lined up on the counter.

She smiles at me. “I had a feeling you might join me.”

“What are you doing up?”

“It’s seven for me. The question is, what are
you
doing up?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t sleep.” I hug my ribs.

“Alice, what is it?”

I groan. “I’ve done something really bad, Bunny.”

“How bad?”

“Bad.”

“Addicted to painkillers
bad
?”

“Bunny! No, of course not!”

“Then it’s not that bad.”

I pause. “I think I’ve fallen in love with another man.”

Bunny slides into a kitchen chair slowly. “Oh.”

“I told you it was bad.”

“
Are you sure, Alice?”

“I’m sure. And wait—it gets worse. I’ve never even met him.”

And so I tell Bunny the entire story. She doesn’t say one word while I’m speaking, but her face tells me everything I need to know. She’s an amazing, responsive audience. Her eyes widen and narrow as I show her the emails and Facebook chats. She murmurs and clucks and coos as I read her my answers to the survey. But mostly what she does is receive me—with every bit of her body.

“You must be heartbroken,” she finally says when I’m done.

I sigh. “Yes. But I feel so much more than that. It’s complicated.”

“It seems simple enough to me. This man, this researcher—he listened to you. He told you exactly what you wanted to hear. I’m sorry to say you’re probably not the first woman he’s done this to.”

“I know, I know. Wait. Do you really think that? God, I don’t think so. I really don’t. It seemed we had something kind of special, something just between me and—”

Bunny shakes her head.

“You think I’m a fool.”

“Not a fool, just vulnerable,” says Bunny.

“I feel so humiliated.”

Bunny waves my words away. “Humiliation is a choice. Don’t choose it.”

“I’m angry,” I add.

“Better. Anger is useful.”

“At William.”

“You’re angry at
William
? What about this Researcher?”

“No, William.
He
drove me to this.”

“Now, that’s not fair, Alice. It just isn’t. Listen. I’m no saint and I’m
not sitting here in judgment. There was a time with Jack and me—we went through a rocky patch. We actually separated for a while, when Caroline left for college. Well, look, I don’t need to go into the details, but my point is no marriage is perfect and if it looks perfect, the one thing you can be damn sure of is that it isn’t. But don’t blame this on William. Don’t be so passive. You need to take responsibility for what you’ve done. What you
almost
did. Whether you end up staying with William is not the point. The point is don’t just
let
this happen to you.”

“This?”

“Life. Not to be morbid, but honestly, Alice, you don’t have enough years left to just fritter away. None of us does. God knows I don’t.” Bunny gets up and puts the kettle back on. The sun has just risen, and the kitchen momentarily fills with an apricot light. “By the way, do you have any idea what a natural storyteller you are? You’ve held me enraptured for the past two hours.”

“Storyteller?” William walks into the kitchen. He surveys the mugs. The dried up teabags.

“How long have you two been up,” he asks,
“storytelling?”