by Julia Kent
“Of course,” Simone says, her hand still on my wrist, remaining. “As it always was.”
As it always was.
* * *
My daughter – our daughter – delivers a flawless performance for her concert.
And all Simone can do is critique.
“Your articulation on the reed needs more precision,” she says, her voice all business. I’ve wondered whether Amelie chose to play oboe because she thought it would bring her closer to Simone. Would offer some affinity, or just a sense of approval.
If that was her motivation, it’s backfired horribly.
From the look on Amelie’s face, it’s time to intervene. What is Simone’s purpose in coming to this concert? I spent the better part of the performances mulling over her presence. Why now? Why this event?
Just... why?
Covert glances from her during the concert look like flirting. That touch on my wrist. The laugh. The flattery.
She’s not coming on to me.
Impossible.
Sixteen years ago, she decided we were done. And when Simone is done with something, it doesn’t exist for her.
Yet here she is, done to the nines and talking to me as if we’ve been separated all these years by pure happenstance. Circumstance.
Fate.
And not intent.
“Maman!” Elodie comes up from the rear, hooking her arm in Simone’s, interrupting the stream of French coming out of her mother, all of it advice on how Amelie could hold the instrument better. “Where are we going for dinner?”
“We?” Simone’s gaze flits to me. “Oh, chérie, we can have dinner tomorrow en famille, together. I hoped to spend some time alone with your father this evening.”
You would think that Simone had just said she’d found Chloe’s ex’s strap-on in my bedroom closet and was about to use it on Rolf at the Esplanade during a Boston Pops concert.
“What?” All three of our children ask the same question in unison.
And they look at me when they ask.
I frown, turning to Simone in amazement.
“What?” I echo.
She laughs, the sound throaty and sensual. “Oh, Nick. You act as if I’m asking for the moon.”
A slightly different analogy, but let’s go with it.
“A steak and some wine and good conversation to catch up on all these years is what I ask.” She smiles at Amelie, who is dissolving under the surface but putting on a good front. “You understand, chérie. Tomorrow is for you. Tonight is for the adults.”
Jean-Marc’s nostrils flare. He and Elodie exchange a glance without moving a muscle.
“No. Simone, I—”
Amelie interrupts me, blinking hard, chin up and defiant. “It’s fine, Daddy.” She gives a tinny laugh that makes one of the chambers of my heart stop working. “You have your dinner tonight. We’ll get Maman for a whole day instead, tomorrow.”
“Yes,” Simone says, beaming with approval. Amelie is on board, locked and loaded, in place as expected. That’s all that counts for Simone. What might be churning under the surface does not matter. The words Amelie says, the compliance, are enough.
I had forgotten what it felt like to live in a box. Watching my daughter rein in her expectations, right in front of the woman drawing the edges, is too much.
“But—”
An imperceptible head shake from Amelie and wider, blinking eyes are the only signs I get from my daughter, who is simultaneously fighting an inner battle and learning the art of decorum. “Daddy, it’s fine.” The vocal fry at the end of her sentence sears me. These are new dynamics. When did my children become complex, emotionally-nuanced social beings?
It is anything but fine. I open my mouth to argue, but shut it abruptly.
My kids can fight their own battles.
And so can I.
“Fine,” I say, a bit gruff, turning to Simone. I name an Italian place in the North End that she hates.
She wrinkles her nose.
I don’t react. Simone always despised my poker face.
From her reaction, she still does.
Tough shit.
I pull Amelie into a hug and whisper fiercely, “You can tell her no. You can.”
“It’s easier this way,” she whispers back. I can hear the fear in her voice. I know what she’s afraid of.
She’s not afraid of Simone. Not afraid of disappointing her.
Amelie is afraid of letting go of the pretend mother who lives only in her imagination.
The real one in front of her, the one scowling at me for choosing a restaurant I know she hates, has already disappointed her.
She cannot let go of the imaginary one just yet.
And I cannot help her. The realization hits me hard, the wind knocked out of me as I nearly choke on my own understanding.
Elodie’s hugging me, then I get a clap on the back from Jean-Marc, and they’re off, walking toward the T, the girls arm in arm and with huddled heads, Jean-Marc’s head down as he texts someone.
“They’re so mature,” Simone says, in a tone that says homeostasis has been achieved.
“They get it from their father.”
“If you were mature, you would not torture me with inferior Italian food.”
“Let’s not crack open this topic.”
“Fine.” She pouts. “I’ll suffer in silence. For you.”
When the world has only one camera lens and it’s your eyes, any other perspective feels like an invasion. I’ve no doubt she’ll suffer.
But not in silence.
We walk slowly, her heels an impediment, my ability to engage in small talk long gone.
Bzzz.
A text. From Chloe.
Parenting manuals don’t mention the need for a hazmat suit, tongs, and a never-ending ability to sing Mac the Knife until you’re hoarse.
I smile.
“Something funny?” Simone doesn’t look at me, staring straight ahead, blinking.
“Something poignant.”
I become my son as I walk, half-aware of the sidewalk, mostly focused on my glass screen.
Consider a change in tune, I text back.
Suggestions?
Every suggestion that pops into my mind involves sex.
Honesty is the best policy.
I can’t think about lullabies when you’re texting me. All I can think about is you, I reply.
Simone huffs. “Must you text and walk at the same time?”
“Work,” I mutter.
You wouldn’t want to see me. I’m wearing eau de formula and I think I have dried pee on the hem of my shirt, Chloe texts back. From yesterday, she adds.
No power underwear? I answer, smiling.
We turn a corner and the front door to the restaurant appears. I halt.
“You’re not really texting for work, are you?” Simone asks, her voice dripping with suspicion.
“A colleague,” I say. Which is technically true.
Power bustier currently doubling as a diaper-changing pad on sofa, Chloe texts back. Sexy. I know.
She doesn’t know. She really doesn’t know.
“Nick!” Simone’s angry hiss makes my name sound like a rebuke. “You picked this place. Be a gentleman and deal with the maître d’!”
TTYL, I type slowly, not caring about the sunburn I’m getting from Simone’s heated glare.
SOS, Chloe replies, then adds a wink.
I say two sentences to the man in the white coat and black tie, we’re seated, two martinis ordered, and then Simone demands, “I’ve never seen you that happy about a work issue.”
“There’s a lot you’ve never seen about me, Simone.” The glow from the quick interchange with Chloe is wearing off.
Fast.
Tends to happen when you talk to an ice queen.
“Is it that woman?”
“That woman?” I don’t like her tone.
“The one the children told me you’re dating.”
My turn to n
arrow my eyes and study her.
She doesn’t like it.
I say nothing, but I don’t break eye contact.
She squirms. Funny. She never squirmed before when confronted.
“Good for you,” she finally says, then sips her martini, evaluating the quality. From her expression, she’s satisfied. Barely. “I’d assumed you’d been a monk all these years. The children never mentioned any women.”
“We’re not going to talk about my love life, Simone.”
Her eyes widen. “I wasn’t talking about your love life, Nick. I was talking about your sex life.”
“The fact that you don’t realize they can be the same thing tells me nothing’s changed.”
Her face turns ugly. Deeply ugly, with a pent-up anger that a part of me jumps to soothe. I’m able to stop myself. Old habits run deep, but they’re not etched in my core any longer.
She shakes it off, clearly working hard within to find that delicate balance that gives her a feeling of control. “I’m glad to hear you’ve found some joy. Have you been dating her long?”
“I’m not going to talk about her.”
“Chloe, is it? You can’t stay away from French women,” she says with a smile and a wink, moving with feline grace as she crosses her legs, leaning back in the chair, her smile flirtatious and dangerous.
I start to argue that Chloe isn’t French. This is a trap, though. The best way not to engage is to withhold.
That’s how the last two years of our marriage worked. Simone poked and demanded, and I withdrew.
And then she left.
“I can’t stay away from some women,” I say with a laugh, pulling out my phone and typing just as the waiter brings a bread basket. I look up from the phone, ignoring Simone, and order for us both. As she stares at me, nonplussed, I type out a text.
I’ll save you. Say the word. Can I come over tonight?
But I don’t hit Send.
Not yet.
“You’re different.” Simone’s statement makes me look up, placing the phone face down on the table. I dip a piece of bread into the olive oil the waiter just plated and fill my mouth with something other than a retort.
Mouth full as I chew, I just shrug.
“Harder.”
I check in below the belt.
Nope.
“More authoritative.”
I raise my eyebrows and look at her.
“More commanding. You’ve come into your own, Nick. And I deserve some of this.”
It takes everything in me not to choke on the focaccia. A piece of rosemary pokes my tonsil. The martini washes all the uncertainty away.
“You deserve what exactly, Simone?”
“I never thought this would be easy.”
“What would be easy?” A preternatural sense of unease creeps through my skin, making my hands clench, thighs tighten, body priming for battle.
“Testing the waters. Seeing what’s left between us.”
Instinct is a double-edged sword. I didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t think the signs she was sending were real. Couldn’t fathom that this was happening. Thought I was making it up.
No.
Simone is coming on to me.
“What’s left between us are three beautiful, kind, good children we produced, Simone. And that’s all.”
Caprese salad is delivered. I dig into mine. Simone orders a vodka soda with lime.
Guess the martini didn’t meet her standards after all.
“That’s all?”
Flavor explodes in my mouth as I chew, the fresh basil sweetening my thoughts. She’s looking at me with bedroom eyes, and I can’t help myself.
I pick up my phone and push the damn Send button, then set it back down.
I smile.
She smiles.
“Thank you,” I say.
She leans in, her mouth tight and loose at the same time, her eyes victorious. Simone looks like the cat that ate the canary.
“For what?”
“For clarity.”
Bzzzz.
I check my phone.
k, says the text.
I blink. I look at Simone. Amelie’s face flashes through my mind, a snapshot of the moment Simone shunted them off, picking dinner with me over the kids yet again.
Deserve. What does Simone deserve? She doesn’t deserve whatever she wants from me. A reconciliation? A roll in the hay for old time’s sake? Something in between, more likely.
I’ll give her a taste of her own medicine.
My body decides before I do, the napkin against my mouth, folded on the table as I stand, shoving my phone in my back pocket.
“I’m so sorry, Simone. I’m having a work crisis. A colleague needs me.”
She flinches, her swan’s neck graceful, pulse thready and quivering at the hollow of her throat, where the skin is suddenly flushed with anger. “What?”
I pull out my wallet and throw a handful of twenties on the table, a sense of power building in me. Her face is tipped up in shock, eyes tracking my movements, her expression one of disbelief.
“I’m sure you’ll be well taken care of by the waiter, Simone. Perhaps you can call the children and invite them to join you. I can’t have dinner tonight.”
“You’re leaving me for her.”
“No.” And this is the truth. “I’m leaving because I have to go save someone.”
Not Chloe.
Me.
* * *
I wait at her door after pressing the bell. Feels like ninth grade, when I asked Mary Elizabeth Manning to the Valentine’s Dance, and had to stand in the cold, wearing an ill-fitting suit, wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself into, but unable to undo it.
The door opens.
Chloe’s there, hair in a messy topknot, wearing an Ed Sheeran concert t-shirt and brightly-patterned leggings. No make-up, and she’s holding Holly on one hip. The baby is playing with Chloe’s ear like it’s the best toy ever.
“Nick. Hi.” She looks down at herself. “As you can tell, I made a big effort.”
God, I’ve missed her.
I kiss her cheek, then Holly’s, trying to hide my disappointment that the baby’s awake. They both smell like lavender lotion.
“You look fabulous, as always.”
She ignores the compliment. “I’m about to put Miss Fussypants down for the night. Come in!” She shivers. I take her up on the offer, crossing into the warmth of her place.
Holly stares at me, bouncing slightly in Chloe’s arms.
Her eyes are so wide.
Wide awake, that is.
“Why the sudden visit?”
I haven’t been honest with Chloe. Didn’t say a word about Amelie’s concert and Simone being in town. I regret it. If I mention it now, my sudden appearance will rub her the wrong way.
If I say nothing, chances are good she’ll find out one day, assuming...
Assuming this isn’t just a short-term relationship.
“Just missed you. Missed talking.”
“Talking?” That seductive eyebrow arches, curling like a hand around the base of my shaft.
“Everything. I missed everything about you, Chloe.”
Holly yanks a piece of Chloe’s hair hard enough to make her yelp, tears filling her eyes.
Holly stares at her mother in wonder, then turns to me and grins.
“Sadist,” Chloe mutters, bopping Holly on the nose with great affection. “You infant sadist.” The casual way Chloe welcomes me into her place, how she chats with her baby, the way I’m just here, out of the blue, and that’s fine, makes my edginess that much worse.
It shouldn’t.
It does.
The dissonance between my hours with Simone and these two minutes with Chloe and Holly is so extreme, it’s like I’m living parallel lives in two different universes. Two different Nicks. Two different paths.
I want slow, languid time with Chloe. Explorative, contemplative time. I want hours at wine tastings and long walks
on the beach, rented houses in Wellfleet and red-eye flights to Rome. We can have that.
We could have had that.
Holly nuzzles Chloe’s neck.
I could have that.
Chloe’s at the beginning of a life lived in quicktime, where every day feels like a race to get to the end, the finish line resetting itself every sleep-deprived morning. Her batteries will hold a charge less and less over time, and just when she thinks she can’t take it anymore – the baby will become a child. Sleep will re-enter her life, but a new set of challenges abound.
I’m at the end of the long tunnel of parenting, the arched doorway of light in the near distance.
Which Nick do I choose?
And where would I fit into Chloe and Holly’s life?
“Grab a beer,” Chloe tells me. “This could take a while. Have to read her Guess How Much I Love You before bed, then rub her back until she closes her eyes.”
“No Walter the Farting Dog?”
She pauses and turns around, giving me a mock angry look. “You’ve ruined my daughter with that story.”
“Then my work is done.”
“And she doesn’t even understand the words yet.”
Chuckling, she heads down the hallway while I make myself at home. Two bottles of my favorite beer are in the refrigerator.
I’ll take that as a sign.
Twenty minutes later, Chloe’s ass walks into her living room. Just her ass, as she tiptoes backwards in an exaggerated creeping motion.
“What are you doing?” I whisper, loosened by the beer, relieved to be away from Simone.
“Shhhh,” she answers, barely audible.
“Did you say the ritual prayer? Sacrifice a goat to the druid god of sleep?”
She smiles and turns to me, arms in the air like an Olympic gold medalist. “Ah! I did it! Baby asleep.” She does a silent victory dance. Hmmm.
No bra. Nice.
We both pause, because the sleep gods do not reward hubris.
No cry.
“C’mere,” I order, pulling her into my lap. She’s on me, straddling, more aggressive than I could have hoped, her tongue tangling with mine, hands everywhere, supercharged.
“I don’t know how long we have,” she moans against my mouth, hands pulling at the tails of my shirt, yanking the cloth up, palms on my skin in seconds as I strip her shirt off, one rosy nipple in my mouth.
Which means I can’t answer her.