In the kitchen, Eleanor nods. “Did you figure out that Kaye’s not a cop? I hope you aren’t offended. She likes to play games.”
“Not a problem,” Phil says.
Suddenly, Eleanor seems to have nothing to say. She looks at him, then down at the food laid out on the island, and back up again. He is a distraction. His knit shirt fits snuggly on his chest without the doughy rolls of her husband and Eric, who have both sunk into the graceless form of middle age, of train commuters who don’t work out. He smiles genuinely at her. He seems happy to be here. He is a good guest, offering to help. And it’s hard not to stare at him, to think that she never would have imagined him coming over to her house when she was in high school.
“What?” Phil asks, with nothing else to say.
“Nothing.” She smiles. “Help me to bring this outside. I’m sure you’re hungry after standing next to the grill.”
Phil turns toward the screened windows to the patio where the others are laughing again. He gestures for her to go ahead of him and giggles uncomfortably. He wants her to like him, this woman who is comfortably situated in her suburb, with a decent husband, children, friends. She isn’t getting a divorce because she cheated. And yet, she listens to him. In fact, she seems like the kind of woman who would not cheat, but then that is how Sarayu was, and then his wife. Phil wants Eleanor to like him, to approve of him. Beyond that, he isn’t sure. She represents to him the past, when marriage didn’t seem so complicated.
Frank calls from outside. “Eleanor! Chicken is about ready! Start pouring the wine!” Eleanor pauses a moment, to think that maybe he could have reached over to the table to pour it himself, but he is too busy with Eric. She doesn’t enjoy being told what to do.
Phil waits because he has nothing to say, even though he wishes that he did. He is sure that Frank can’t see them from outside. Together, Phil and Eleanor bring out the trays with salads and plates. Eugene and Liam come outside, then they all sit at a long table piled with food.
ERIC WATCHES PHIL pass the salad bowl to Kaye, enjoying himself, knowing that Kaye is annoyed with Phil. She presses her lips together, making creases at the corners of her mouth in a way she does when a man annoys her. At least, he notes, he’s not the only one.
Phil takes the chicken platter from Eric and asks him, “You ordered the boat kit from Sweden?”
“Nooo,” Eric says. He loves talking about his boat project. “Norway. Using the internet. I had tools and a big heated garage, so I thought, ‘What the heck?’ I work on it in the garage and my daughter helps.” He whispers to Phil, “She’s not here today.”
“How long have you been building the boat?”
“KAYE! How long have I been in the garage with the boat?”
“Nine months.”
“Bloody hell, it’s a veritable gestation!”
“Ask him how far along he is,” Kaye says to Phil.
“How far along?”
“Oh, not too.” This is good, Eric thinks. No talk about Kaye’s detective work. Sometimes Kaye’s imagination is tiresome, and she won’t be content with her own life. Then Eric notices Eugene watching his mother. She laughs at everything Phil says as if it is funny. Phil isn’t really funny. Does Frank notice this? Of course he doesn’t. Not after drinking so much. Frank can never hold his liquor. Eugene’s eyes flit between Eleanor and Phil. Eugene is young. He might not notice either. Poor lad, uncomfortable in his own skin.
Just as Phil compliments Eleanor on the chicken marinade, Eugene scowls and says, “We eat this all the time. It’s nothing special.”
Eric stops in the middle of drinking and speaks. “Lucky you then, Eugene! You have this all the time. It’s delicious.”
“It’s not hard when you pour it from a jar,” Eugene says. “She got it from the store.”
Eleanor’s face turns pink. “Since when have you paid attention? It’s not from a bottle. It’s homemade.”
Eric catches Kaye whisper to her friend. “Too much house guest today?”
“It’s in the way I grilled it!” Frank calls out. “That’s the trick to good chicken.”
“You aren’t the greatest cook, Dad,” Liam says, grinning.
A hum of uncomfortable laughter follows. Eleanor turns to Kaye and shrugs, then appeals to her son, “Liam!”
“At least he’s honest. It’s a good trait,” Eric says to her.
Phil turns to Eugene and Liam. “My mother used to make everything from bottles and cans of processed foods, and she managed to make it all taste pretty good. At least, that’s what I remember. She’s no longer living. Really, it isn’t a bad thing. But it’s nice when your mom makes a little effort,” he says. Eugene nods. Liam eats. Eleanor smiles briefly, thankfully.
Liam asks, “Are you drunk, Dad?”
Phil chuckles unexpectedly. Then the laughter stops. Eric has food in his mouth but feels strongly that he should say something. “It’s not so terrible, son, to be drunk sometimes. Someday soon, Liam, you will also be drunk, for that is what young men do before they really grow up.” Eric washes his food down with wine.
Surprised that his father isn’t the one to answer, Liam’s mouth falls open and he doesn’t reply, as though he is caught in a single frame. Then Eric breaks into a smile and they all know that he is teasing Liam. Phil leans over and whispers something to Liam, who begins to appear relieved.
“Eric,” says Kaye, “Leave the boy alone. He is being forced to eat dinner with boring adults. Give him a break.” Then to Liam and Frank, “I think your father has had enough to drink, if that is what you mean.”
“I was just asking. He’s acting drunk,” Liam says.
Eleanor laughs uncomfortably. “That’s because he is drunk,” she says.
Eric says, “Tell me, Phil, where exactly do you live?”
“An hour and a half west of Chicago.”
“Now you can drink more because you aren’t driving home,” Frank holds up the bottle of wine.
“Dad!” Liam says.
Frank puts the bottle down. “No, no, I’m not drunk.” He raises his eyebrows as he locks eyes with Eric and they both break into peals of laughter. Eric isn’t sure why he is laughing. Phil looks to Eugene and smiles awkwardly. Eugene smiles back. Eric pours more wine. “Here, let’s take care of this!”
“You are acting like children,” Kaye says.
Eric steps out of his chair and throws his arms around her. He can feel her stiffness as he withdraws.
“Worse than children,” Eugene says. “We’re children and we don’t act like they are acting.”
“Well! I want to hear more about how Phil here knows the lovely Eleanor,” Eric says.
“High school,” Eleanor and Phil answer at the same time.
“Was she your girlfriend?” Liam asks.
“No. We were just friends.” Phil winks.
“Your mother had no boyfriends until I came around,” Frank says. “And to that I want to make a toast!” Frank raises his glass. “To my wife, who found me perfect and irresistible!” Raucous laughter from Eric and Frank pierces the air around the table. They raise their glasses, and Phil slowly follows suit. Kaye and Eleanor do not. Eric glances toward Eleanor. She looks mortified.
“I am going inside,” Eugene tells his mother. “I’ve got a game to download. Is that okay, Mom?”
“I cannot believe he is so polite and asks,” Eric says.
Eleanor nods. The boys take their plates inside. Frank is opening another bottle of wine. “Now we can say anything we want. The kids are gone,” he says.
PHIL HAS HAD so much to drink that he is having trouble keeping his eyes open. He knows that he has dozed a couple of times. With the beer, the wine, the food, and the intensity of the evening, he has no energy left. It is as if he has been in hyperdrive and has come crashing down. Sarayu’s call hovers in the back of his tired brain. He excuses himself and stands up. Eleanor touches his arm as he passes her.
He places a hand on her shoulder and smiles
. “I need to move around.” Eleanor turns to him and smiles as though she understands. At least, he thinks she does. She is being a good hostess and he hopes she hasn’t noticed him nodding off. In the darkness he walks along the garden path to the alleyway, thinking that he is going unnoticed by everyone else. The dog, wandering in search of table scraps, follows him halfway down the path and growls before turning back.
As he stands at the back gate and the garage, Eleanor approaches him with a mug of coffee, the scent drifting toward him. She is not giving him much time to think about Sarayu, even though she doesn’t know about her. But then, he knows he is here to see Eleanor. Sarayu shouldn’t be part of the picture.
“Sorry, it’s decaf,” Eleanor says as he takes the coffee. “It’s late. We’re having dessert. Want to join us?”
THE DINNER PARTY is over. After helping to do the dishes, Kaye and Eric have left, and Frank and Eleanor have gone to bed. Phil can hear their sons beyond his closed bedroom door, in the hallway, the younger one talking through the bathroom door to his brother inside. Phil holds his phone in his hand, trying to decide if he should call Sarayu. He dials and relishes listening to her voice on her voice mail. When she asks for a message, he hesitates. He is so tired. He has had too much to drink. He is anxious about what to say. “Oh … Sarayu,” he breathes out against the phone, and then realizes that this is the message he has recorded.
He opens the window and sits on the bed, watching the curtain float in the darkness. He hears children from a distant backyard, awake and outside playing, late. Then a barking dog. He feels almost hopeful that Sarayu will forgive him because he will explain that he didn’t know how she felt about him—about how he felt about her—and he feels that he now knows. This will happen and Eleanor won’t think that he is a bad person, and he can move on with his divorce. His life.
He is seeing the consequences of what he has done. He aches at his wife’s tunnel vision, that she did not understand what would happen to him when the physical part of their marriage ended, that her religion, her new boyfriend (he has never before dared to call this guy a “boyfriend”) had made him desperate for the part of a relationship where you touch someone and experience intimacy. The postcoital closeness that he felt when she rested her head in the crook of his arm, her long hair tickling his chest and chin, his shoulder. This was something Sarayu provided generously. He checks his phone again. Nothing. Then he gets into bed, his head buzzing with exhaustion. He climbs under the blanket and waits. Please, Eleanor, don’t think I’m a bad person.
14
LYING IN BED, Eleanor tries to make sense of the evening. She can’t sleep. She replays the scenes in her head. She wonders what Phil is thinking of her husband’s drunkenness, of her sons’ belligerence, of the fact that this, her family, her body of work, isn’t all that she had described it to be. She wonders how people do internet dating, when you can just lie and lie about yourself. How do they maintain the lies?
If she could summon some of Kaye’s courage, she would knock on his door.
But it would be a tremendous act of desperation. Was she desperate to get him to like her—to be attracted to her? How long can you flirt with someone over the airwaves, sharing personal bits of your life as if the person you are communicating with is the only person you share with?
She can hear Phil’s door close from where she sits on her bed. Frank is in a drunken sleep. The boys are in their rooms, probably awake, probably communicating with each other by texting and using handheld gaming devices and headphones. Eleanor recalls a time when Eugene, as a little boy, went to visit his dad’s office on Take Your Children to Work Day, and was shocked that his father spoke to his colleagues in the adjacent offices via email, rather than simply walking next door.
What if the boys knew what she was thinking? They wouldn’t. They couldn’t.
Eleanor listens for more from next door in Phil’s room, but the low hum of the ceiling fan blocks out small noises. Annie lies on the floor, curled up next to the bed. She pops her head up, ears pricked as if she knows what Eleanor is thinking, and she prepares to follow her. She sits up, puts her paw on the bed. Eleanor scratches her forehead and Annie settles down again and closes her eyes. Eleanor puts on her robe, leaves the room, and softly closes the door behind her.
She taps Phil’s door quietly. Phil says to come in. With her head in the space of the open door, she asks, “Everything ok? The temperature? Do you have enough towels?”
Phil looks up from his phone. He is bare-chested with the quilt up high over his stomach, leaning against the headboard, the reading light on. He smiles sadly, says “Everything is fine,” and looks at her as though there might be something else to say. She hesitates and can’t help but glance again at the pale, firm skin of his chest, before closing the door.
Frank is almost awake when she returns to bed. “What’s up?” he asks sleepily.
“Checking on the boys.”
He reaches for her under the blanket. It’s the last thing she wants right now.
“We have a houseguest in the next room,” she says. “It isn’t on my mind.”
Frank passes out again, curled around her. He won’t remember this. She can feel the weight of his body relax and become heavy just as she tenses more. His head is on her shoulder, his arm on her belly, his leg over her thigh as he slips into an oppressive sleep. His body is very warm and his skin sweats onto hers. She can smell the alcohol and the sour sweat. She tries to move his body parts without making him stir. In the next room, Phil’s bed squeaks, his door closes. He is walking down the steps. Eventually she can feel the house adjust as the front door opens. What is he doing? She tries to stay where she is. He could be doing anything, getting something from his car, even leaving. Annie barks once. Frank doesn’t waken. The dog makes a noisy circle before settling into a ball of fur beside the bed. Eleanor looks out into the dark. When she doesn’t hear the sound of Phil climbing back up the stairs, she gets up gently, quietly, puts on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, and creeps out of the bedroom.
PHIL IS SITTING under the roof overhang on the top step of the front porch. It is raining lightly and his long, bare feet glisten with small drops of rain. He turns as Eleanor opens the screen door and smiles. “Do you want the light? You can’t see a thing out here.”
“No.” He pats the space next to him.
“You’re getting wet,” Eleanor says as she sits down there.
He has an embarrassed smile. “I like the rain.” He leans back and stretches his neck. “I had a good time tonight.”
“Really?’ She moves to the side and they brush arms. “Some night.”
“Yes.” He laughs. “That Kaye …”
Eleanor nods. She looks out past the dark walkway to the grass and street, lit dimly by the city’s historical street lamps. Cars are parked intermittently along the curb. The rain makes a soft pattering noise on the roof and the walk and canopy of tree leaves that arches over it, steady and calming.
“I came out here for fresh air,” he says. “I couldn’t fall asleep.”
“Me neither. Is the air conditioning too cold inside?”
“No, Eleanor. Everything is fine. Everything in your house and your family and friends are fine. Honestly, I’m jealous.” He smiles and places a hand on her wrist and squeezes gently. “I have a lot on my plate,” he says.
“The divorce?”
“Not just.” He looks down at the steps. “You know that woman I had the affair with?”
“Yes.” Eleanor’s mood drops.
“She called and left me a message this evening.” He puts his hands together and raises his head and then looks down, but his hand moves back on top of hers. He doesn’t look at her, but she watches his profile carefully. “I don’t want you to think I’m a bad person.”
“I don’t! I don’t think you are a bad person.” In the faint light from the doorway behind them, she can see that his eyes are steady and wide, and his mouth is flat. He turns to see her. His
face begs her to say that this is more than his being a good or bad person. He is someone who makes mistakes, she thinks.
“I don’t think you are a bad person.” She puts her arm around his stiff shoulders, which loosen as she draws him closer. His breath is on the nape of her neck. “Just complicated.” Eleanor feels a line of moisture move down the inside of her thigh. Funny how comforting Phil can make her think about sex. It is never that way with Frank. “Everyone has doubts about marriage. There are moments we all want to stray. Marriage and sex are complicated.” She smiles.
She moves against him and he moves with her. Their lips press, their teeth collide as he attempts to open her mouth further with his tongue. And then she has the feeling of a warm wave overcoming her. He stops. “Don’t think badly of me,” he whispers, but she takes his mouth again, guiding his chin with the tips of her fingers, and then pushes against him.
“I don’t,” she says.
“THAT’S IT?”
Eleanor knows that what she has just said is the wrong thing. But she is thinking about the unsatisfied ache between her thighs and all the trouble she has gone through to be here to try to satisfy that ache. She and Phil are both lying on an old, crusty blanket that she found in the car trunk and put on the cracked cement floor of her garage. She is frustrated, disappointed, and uncomfortable. They are naked, and he is limp.
“I’m sorry,” he says to her. “Maybe this just isn’t meant to be. It’s probably better that it didn’t work out. I don’t want to hurt anyone. Not anyone else.”
Eleanor is struck by the fact that, though the garage is very dark, the floor is cold and it smells like gasoline, and they can’t see much of each other, Phil is not acting very embarrassed while humiliation is seeping into her consciousness. Eleanor can feel her family steps away. They are so close to the house. And still naked.
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