Even So

by Lauren B. Davis

  Derrick, one of the lawyers from next door, was just coming home. He poked his head around the side of the house from his porch.

  “Hello, darling, how are you?”

  “Excellent,” she said. “Just great.”

  Derrick was the younger of the two men and had apparently been something of a beauty when in his prime, but had now gone jowly and thick-thighed. He wore a rumpled shirt and had his jacket slung over his shoulder and carried a heavy-looking briefcase.

  “Air conditioning broke down in the office again and I cannot cope. I am not made for hot weather. A child of the Outer Hebrides. How do you manage to look so cool and composed?”

  “Clever disguise.”

  He nodded. “Into the air conditioning and a shower for me. See you later.”

  “You’ll be seeing a lot more of me!” She giggled, then felt silly and shrugged. She remembered then that she wasn’t wearing a bra under Carsten’s shirt. Seeing more of her indeed.

  “I’m moving in,” she said.

  “Are you? Well, that’s lovely. We should get together for dinner soon.”

  “We’d like that.”

  She went back inside thinking how good it felt to say “we.” She set out the champagne flutes, plates, and napkins. She arranged the grapes next to the brie-and-blackberry tarts. She rolled the goat cheese in crushed pistachios and found some water crackers to go alongside. She made the salad and sprinkled pomegranates on the top, popping a few in her mouth and revelling in the sweet acid spark. Carsten would surely be home any second. She checked his progress. Almost home. She poured the champagne, drinking some in anticipation, and then dashed to the powder room with her lipstick.

  Yes, that was the sound of his truck door slamming. She was sure. She looked okay, a bit flushed, but why shouldn’t she be? Pity about the nap, but never mind, they’d be in bed soon enough. She tousled her hair and reapplied lipstick, unbuttoned another button on the shirt. Yes, let him see that deep cleft between her breasts. Her feet were bare, and she liked the way the red nail polish looked against her sun-browned skin.

  The front door.

  “Hello?”

  She ran to him, this big, beautiful Viking of hers, and she threw herself at him, loving the fact he was a bit dirty and smelly and hot.

  “My God, such a welcome,” he said between kisses.

  “I’ve been crazy, waiting for you,” she said.

  “I am here now.” He held her at arm’s length, considering her face. “You must tell me what has happened.”

  She hooked her arm through his. “Come into the kitchen. I have champagne and food and I’ll tell you everything.”

  “Champagne?”

  “To celebrate!”

  “You have already started, I think.”

  “I am in a celebratory mood. I feel like my real life has just been waiting to begin, and now it has.”

  His arms were thick beneath her hand, his body a tower, an oak, next to her. He was solidity and surety made flesh.

  In the kitchen she poured him champagne, and herself, as well. She held the glass out to him from across the expanse of the marble island. He took it and was about to drink.

  “No! We have to toast. To us, to our love, and our future,” she said.

  He raised his glass.

  But his eyes were downcast. “No,” she said, “you’ve taught me we must look each other in the eye and pledge our toast or else it means nothing. Eyes on mine, Sir Carsten!”

  He smiled, and his eyes locked on hers.

  “To the future,” he said. And then, “Okay, we have had our toast. Now you must tell me what happened.”

  And so, she told him what had happened and who had said what and how stupid and unfair, but maybe not, maybe how inevitable it all was and for the best and how it had to happen sometime and how it was better even for Philip, or would be, in the long run. She came around the island to where Carsten stood and hopped up on the counter and spread her legs and she pulled him in, close between her thighs. “Philip will find himself another wife,” she said. That was inevitable; men like Philip couldn’t be alone for long, they needed someone to take care of them, but it wasn’t going to be her. “I only want to take care of you, of us.” She wrapped her legs around his, tucking her ankles around the back of his knees. Then she leaned back so her spine was arched and reached for one of the tarts she’d made. She nearly upset the plate and then felt dizzy but pulled herself up against the strength of Carsten’s arms.

  “Try it, I made them for you.”

  He dutifully opened his mouth, his hands on her hips. He chewed. “Delicious,” he said. “You are as good a cook as you are a gardener.”

  “I want you to fuck me,” she said, and she poured what remained of the champagne in her glass down the front of the shirt she wore. “Lick it off me,” she said.

  He lifted her off the counter and stood her facing away from him. He took her that way, with her still wearing his shirt and her jeans in a loop around one ankle. It wasn’t what she wanted, although it aroused her, and she came in a spasm that made her hips bang against the counter and she knew would leave bruises.

  He pulled away from her and tugged his pants back up. She turned and kicked her jeans away. She plucked a tart from the tray and popped it in his mouth.

  “Good, right?”

  “Very good. I’m going to take a shower. Want to join me?”

  She did.

  LATER, WHEN THEY WERE CLEAN and freshly dressed, she in a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants she’d thought to throw in her bag, he in jeans and a shirt, they went to the back porch, where he would grill the lamb. There was a small table there at which they’d eat, and Angela had brought out the champagne and cheese and plates.

  They were on the second bottle of champagne now, and by rights she should have felt intoxicated, and perhaps she did, but she could hardly tell where the high from the sex and all that had happened that day ended, and that from the alcohol began. She was dizzy with possibility and only wanted it not to end.

  Carsten put the lamb on the grill and closed the lid. He sat down on the wrought-iron chair on the other side of the table, picked up a grape and sucked on it a moment before chewing it, and then said, “So, a great deal has happened today.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “He knows everything, then.”

  “Yes. Everything.”

  “He knows where I live?”

  She didn’t want Carsten to panic. “I think so.”

  “Will he come here, do you think?”

  “I doubt it. It’s not Philip’s style to fight or anything like that.”

  “Good. I do not want to fight him. I have nothing against him.”

  “Well, no.”

  A catbird flew into the yard, and landed on the birdbath, flicking its tail and flying off again without drinking.

  “I mean, I guess you’ll have to meet him sometime,” she said. “It’s bound to happen. It’s not like he just disappears now. He’ll always be Connor’s father.”

  “I do not want to meet him.”

  “You might not want to, but I don’t see how you can avoid it.” She reached out for his hand, but it was awkward, holding it across the table with the plates and the cheese in the way. She let it go.

  “Why should it be necessary?” said Carsten. “What is between us is between us. It has nothing to do with your relationship with your husband.”

  She drank, considering Carsten over the rim of the glass. “Philip’s not going to be my husband much longer.”

  “You do not think?”

  “What are you talking about? Of course not. We’ll divorce.”

  He stood and checked the meat. “Almost done,” he said. He liked it rare. He reached out for a plate and she handed it to him. He put the meat on the plate and tented a piece of tin foil over it. “We will let it rest for a moment.”

  “Carsten, why would you question whether I’ll divorce or not?”

  He sh
rugged. “It is not required because of an infidelity. It is not pleasant, of course, but not all couples end their marriages over it. My father and mother were married fifty-three years, and were happy, I believe, despite the fact my father took other lovers. My mother might have, as well. I do not know this for certain, though.”

  Parents? Infidelities? It occurred to Angela how little she really knew about Carsten. Did he have brothers and sisters? It also occurred to her they had never really spelled out what would happen in their future. She knew he didn’t want a family, but she had never asked him to define what he meant by “family.” She had assumed it meant children, a suburban life. She finished her champagne, took the bottle from the ice bucket and poured herself another glass.

  It was hard to think. Hard to put everything that had happened, was happening, together in a reasonable, logical fashion. She was here. They were having a celebratory dinner. They had made love like starving people, and … what? It felt as though she was expected to ask a particular question. Something specific. Something definitive. She didn’t want to. The smell of the meat was thick and made her a little queasy. It was cooler now in the garden, and the sun was a flame through the pine tree at the back. It was a great yellow ball of fire through the branches, just the sort of thing one might confuse with a burning bush, if one was so inclined. The sort of sign — big and bright and impossible to ignore — that pointed to a crystal moment. Oh, pay attention, it said. Pay great attention.

  Carsten sat across from her and picked up his glass, taking a small sip. She caught him glancing at her from the corner of his eye, as though checking on her, as though waiting for something.

  She would not ask anything. Not now. Not this minute. She had to catch her breath.

  After a moment, he rose and cut the chops with quick efficiency, the blood pooling on the white plates.

  “I do not think I want champagne with this. There is a bottle of Merlot. I will have that. Do you want some as well? I’ll get glasses.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Fine.”

  He disappeared into the house. He’d changed the music to play the blues music he loved. Howlin’ Wolf was singing about evil going on, and brother, something ain’t right at home. Jesus. Carsten had said, more than once, that he loved her. She was being an idiot.

  He returned with an opened bottle of wine and two glasses. He poured them both good measures. He grinned at her. “This is good,” he said. “And a good meal, too. Thank you for all this preparation you did on such a difficult day.”

  “I wanted to do it.”

  She served them salad on separate plates. That’s the way he liked it. The European way, he said, to eat one’s salad after the meal, which was good for digestion. She felt the urge to put hers on the same plate with the lamb, to cover up the blood, but didn’t.

  They ate for a moment in silence and then Carsten said, “So, we must talk, I think. I know you are happy this has happened, but tell me, do you know what you want to do now?”

  And there it was. Oh, that burning sun through the trees. It might as well have been a flame-thrower. Carsten had his eyes on his plate, on the meat he was cutting. She understood he was deliberately avoiding her gaze. She wanted to believe this was because he was afraid she was going to reject him, that he was concerned she would say she was going to go off and start a new life in Bora Bora or someplace without him. The mouthful of lamb in her mouth was fatty and slimy and salty and she wanted to spit it out. She swallowed it, not without difficulty, taking a drink of wine so it wouldn’t choke her.

  She put her knife and fork down. She dabbed her lips with her napkin. She put her hands in her lap and sat up straight, just like a good girl. Howlin’ Wolf sang about being built for comfort, not for speed, and she wanted to go into the kitchen and throw the speaker in the garburator. She wanted to listen to it grind and shatter and scream.

  Oh, how still the world became when it teetered like the sun on the apex of a mountain peak, just before it tumbled down the other side. What a long and silent moment it was. And yet tumble it would. The world was designed that way, with a before and an after. She thought, with some tiny part of her brain still capable of objectivity, I’m going to remember this moment forever, aren’t I? It’s going to change everything. It’s going to be a tattoo on my heart.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “At least I hope I don’t. What I want to do is what I’ve wanted to do for months. I want to live here. I want to live with you. I want my life to be entwined with yours in every way — in work, in our bed, in our garden, in the kitchen — I want to be with you.”

  Carsten put his fork down as well now. He ran a hand over his face. “Angela,” he said, “you know I care for you deeply.”

  “I believe you’ve used the word love.”

  “Yes, this is true. I have said that, and I do love you.”

  She waited. She would not, she would not help him.

  He hitched up in his seat. “I also said I do not want a family, that I was happy with the way things are between us.”

  She had become as cold as frozen steel. She was regal, she hoped, in her frigid fury. “I don’t believe you put it quite that way. Not when I was helping you renovate this place. Not when I was picking out your furniture and your bedding and your dishes and fucking you. No, certainly not then.”

  “There is no reason things should change, Angela.” He reached for her, but she would not meet him halfway and so he got up and came to her side of the table, squatting beside her. She pushed him back, so he had to reach out behind to catch himself from falling. She stood and, picking up her glass, went into the kitchen. She stood leaning against the sink, shaking. She was an idiot. She was a fucking idiot.

  He came in and stood near her but did not touch her.

  “Come on,” he said. “You can stay here for a while, of course. But you must know I am not good at living with others. I like to live alone. We will find you a place somewhere. And you and I can still see each other. But I must be clear, Angela. I must be. And I hope you will forgive me if in any way I misled you …”

  “Misled me? Are you fucking kidding me? Misled me? You seduced me.”

  He ran his thumb and index finger around his lips. “That is not the way I remember it. You cannot say you were innocent. You wanted me, as well. And what, now that I turn out not to be the same man as the one you married, someone who will take care of you, because I want my independence and assume a woman of your age —”

  “My age?”

  “You are not a child, Angela.”

  How she wished he would stop saying her name. The kitchen, which that afternoon had seemed the heart of her new home, full of light and space and cleanliness, full of possibilities, now seemed stark and cold and, if she were being honest, a little shoddy. The renovations had been done so quickly, and not with the best of materials. Corners didn’t quite meet. The cabinets were only veneer. It was entirely possible she was a child; possible she was a child just playing house.

  “No, I’m not, am I?” She began to cry.

  Carsten tried to put his arms around her, but she pushed him away. “Don’t, don’t, for God’s sake, don’t hug me.”

  “Angela, you are making things far more dramatic than they need be.” His voice was calm and measured. So deliberate and adult. Some girl was singing now about chills and fever.

  “Turn that goddamn thing off,” she said. “I can’t believe this. I mean, I have no one but myself to blame, obviously, but you couldn’t let me have even one night, even a week, thinking I was home and safe with you, when all I am to you is a convenience that has now become inconvenient?”

  “You are talking nonsense.”

  “Am I? Nonsense. You fuck me and eat my dinner and then say you’re throwing me out —”

  “I am doing no such thing.”

  “After I got champagne? Made this dinner?” She finished the last of her wine, knowing how idiotic it would be to insist that because she made him ta
rts, he should want to live with her. But he should. He should.

  “Look,” he said, “we will eat the rest of our dinner, which is lovely, and we will talk and then sleep and in the morning things will look much better and not so awful, yes? We will make plans. It is late. We are both tired.”

  Every nerve in her body ignited in white-blue flashes to the ends of her fingers and toes. Stay? Eat? Sleep? Talk? Make plans that didn’t include them as a couple? Although that wasn’t exactly what he’d said, she understood what he meant. Oh, yes, she could plainly see where they would be in a few months. She would be in an apartment somewhere, looking for a job, and he would be getting on with his life, letting her come over maybe on weekends, if he hadn’t found someone else by then. She couldn’t. Every second spent in this house would only be another reminder that she was wanted only when it suited him.

  She could go back to Philip. Beg his forgiveness. She pictured herself prostrate on the stone steps of their house, begging him to let her in, while Deedee and Ed peeked out from the windows, their faces full of pity. She let out a strangled noise.

  “I have to get out of here.” She pushed past him.

  “Do not be ridiculous,” he said, but didn’t go after her.

  There were so few things to gather. Had she not been blinded by tears, it would have been a matter of seconds, but she had to stop twice to wipe her face and blow her nose. She threw the wadded, mucous-covered toilet paper on the bathroom floor and left it there.

  Leaving two houses in one day? Quite an accomplishment, wasn’t it? She had wanted freedom and a life of passion? Well, she thought bitterly, I’m getting freedom at least. Free as a fucking bird.

  Carsten was standing at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Angela, come on, don’t leave. I do not want you to leave.”

  “What you want doesn’t matter.”

  “All this because I said I don’t want you to move in? My God.” He was in front of the door. “I think you are hysterical.”

  “I’m furious. There’s a difference.”

  “But I don’t understand why. Is it so strange you should have your own place, if you are really leaving your husband?”