Goodbye To All That

by Judith Arnold

  When was the last time he’d lingered over a cup of coffee with her? In the morning, he was always gobbling breakfast while reading the newspaper, and then filling his travel mug with coffee and bolting out the door. If he had a cup of coffee after dinner, he drank it in front of the TV while he clicked through the channels.

  Sorrow laced through him. He never drank coffee with Ruth anymore. More important, he never went someplace with her for coffee. If they had a cup, it was in the house. They never went on dates.

  Sure, they’d go out for dinner—when Ruth was tired from tennis or a three-hour meeting of the fundraising committee at the synagogue and couldn’t bear the thought of cooking, or when the potatoes in the bag under the sink unexpectedly went moldy and she didn’t have a chance to run to the supermarket to buy fresh potatoes, and the menu she’d planned for that evening wouldn’t work with rice.

  But a date? Richard calling her from his office, the way he’d called Shari Bernstein, and saying, “Let’s get together after work today.” And then ironing his shirt so he’d look spiffy for her. Surprising her, treating her, making something special out of a coffee tête-à-tête. When had he last done that?

  Before they were married, probably.

  No wonder she’d walked out. No wonder she thought working as a clerk at First-Rate was better than staying with him. He was doing for a stranger, a doctor with porcelain skin and a phony little nose, something he never did for his wife.

  She’d been gone a month. Tomorrow was Halloween, and Jill had promised to buy some bags of candy and explain what would be expected of him. He’d never dealt with trick-or-treaters before. When his own children were young, he’d been the parent to accompany them through the neighborhood in their costumes. Doug had favored superheroes until about the age of ten, when he’d decided to dress up as a doctor, which Richard hadn’t thought was much of a costume, let alone a scary one, though he’d been deeply flattered that his son had wanted to dress like him. Melissa had loved flamboyant, glittery outfits—a fairy, a princess, an angel. One year, as he recalled, Jill had wanted to trick or treat as a teacher. She’d worn a cardigan, wedged a pencil behind her ear and carried a globe under her arm.

  Ruth had always been the one to stay home, answer the door and distribute the candy. Once his own children were old enough to trick-or-treat on their own, he’d spent the evening in the den, watching television while Ruth had answered the constantly ringing doorbell. Over the din of the television he’d hear her exclaim, “Oh, my goodness, you frightened me! You are definitely the scariest Teletubby I’ve seen tonight!” and “Aaaiiee, is that a Dick Cheney mask? You’re giving me nightmares!”

  He’d answer the door tomorrow night, but he doubted he could charm the trick-or-treaters the way Ruth could. In all honesty, he’d be happy to skip the whole thing. Kids didn’t need that much candy, anyway. Eat enough candy now, and in forty years they’d be his patients.

  Shari Bernstein was still talking, he wasn’t sure about what. He nodded, smiled, discovered how difficult it was to drink hot coffee from a mug while smiling, and stopped smiling.

  He wanted to go home. He wanted to scrub the bathroom sink. He wanted to hand Ruth the remote control. He wanted to sleep next to her and wake up next to her and let her know, on either end of the night, that she was the only woman for him.

  Shari Bernstein finally wound down, thank God. Richard realized that it was once again incumbent upon him to say something, and he truly meant to be courteous. But the only thing that came to mind was, “Well, I think I need to be getting home.”

  And amazingly, his queasiness vanished.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Doug kissed Mackenzie goodnight first, and then Madison. He had to remember to alternate which one got the first goodnight kiss; they complained loudly if he kissed one first two times in a row. As if who got the first kiss, or the last, indicated favoritism.

  They were twins. And they were female. He’d long ago quit expecting them to make sense.

  He turned off their bedroom light, reminded them to go to sleep—he knew they’d whisper and giggle for another half hour at least, but the warning was his attempt at discipline—and headed downstairs. Brooke awaited him in the den nursing a glass of wine, and he poured some scotch for himself and joined her there.

  She sat on the sofa, her legs tucked beneath her and her gaze on the gas fireplace. Flames flickered behind the fireplace’s glass doors, but those doors prevented the fire’s heat from filling the room, and the gas had no scent. Without the aroma of burning wood, without the crackling and hissing and the wafts of warmth, the gas fireplace was about as exciting as the burning yule log some television station used to broadcast for twenty-four hours on Christmas day, back when he was a child.

  But Brooke loved the gas fireplace. She loved being able to start and stop a fire with the flick of a button.

  He settled onto the couch next to her and she sent him a smile. “I talked to your sister today,” she told him.

  “Melissa?”

  “Jill.” She sipped her Chardonnay. “She said that since your parents are separated, she’d host Thanksgiving this year. She didn’t sound too thrilled about it.”

  “Of course she’s not thrilled about it. Our parents are separated. It’s a tragic situation.”

  Brooke shrugged. So much for tragedy. “She’s being a sweetheart about taking the girls when we’re in Nevis.”

  “Jill’s good that way. She picks up the slack.” He hadn’t even considered the logistics of a Thanksgiving dinner with his parents living apart. Thank God Jill had.

  “I think it’s the cooking and preparing she’s not thrilled about.”

  “You could help her,” Doug suggested.

  “Me? Cook?” Brooke tossed back her head and laughed, causing her hair to ripple. He still wasn’t used to its darker color and shaggy style.

  He conceded her point with a nod. For tonight’s dinner, she’d prepared soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Soup from cans and sandwiches prepared with a gadget the sole purpose of which was to make grilled cheese sandwiches. God knew, if she’d had to make grilled cheese sandwiches in a pan on the stove, she might not be able to manage it.

  “I was thinking you could help her with setting up,” he explained. “We could buy the pies. And the wine. And a centerpiece for the table or something.”

  “A centerpiece would be nice,” Brooke agreed. “I’d have to know the theme of the dinner so I could pick out an appropriate one.”

  Did Thanksgiving dinner have to have a theme? Other than giving thanks, of course. Harvest? Turkeys? A memorial to whoever came up with the notion of turning cranberries into a sticky sweet jelly?

  “And the color scheme,” Brooke went on. “Her dining room walls are such an awful green. I don’t think it’s a good idea to eat surrounded by green. It reminds me of mold.”

  “Why doesn’t it remind you of salad?” he asked, then realized he didn’t care about her answer. He’d never before spent a moment contemplating Jill’s dining room décor. If Brooke hadn’t mentioned that the walls were green, he probably would have been unable to recall what color they were.

  Brooke laughed again and shook her head, clearly considering him a philistine for being so insensitive to the nuances of green walls. “Speaking of food, can you pick up some dinner at Colonel Ping’s on your way home from work tomorrow? You can skip the egg foo yong if you want. Although the girls love it.”

  “I hate Colonel Ping.”

  “Lotus Garden then. I don’t care. You can get those cold sesame noodles you love.”

  He swallowed a mouthful of scotch, feeling it numb his throat going down. For some reason, Brooke’s simple request filled him with apprehension. “Why can’t you get dinner together tomorrow? Where are you going to be?”

  “New York. I should be home in time for dinner, but last time you got home ahead of us. If you pick up the food while I pick up the girls at Stephanie’s house, we should arrive home a
t the same time.”

  “New York.” More than apprehension. Apprehension augmented by dread.

  “I need a touch-up on my hair,” she explained, her voice calm and even, as if driving two hundred miles for a touch-up—a fucking touch-up—was perfectly normal.

  “You just had your hair done last week.”

  “It was more than a week ago, and I think it should be lightened just a little bit. Don’t you? I think he went a tad too dark.”

  The ratio of Doug’s mood shifted. Now it was dread, augmented by apprehension. “You’re going to New York to get your hair lightened a tad?”

  Her smile was like the gas fire, visually alluring but exuding no warmth, as if a pane of glass blocked it from him. “Luc did the job in the first place. I need to give him the opportunity to adjust it. And he’s so talented.”

  Luc. Shit. “Melissa’s boyfriend,” he said, just so they’d both know what was at stake—if, indeed, anything other than Brooke’s hair was.

  “Not anymore,” Brooke told him.

  Apprehension. Dread. A huge wallop of terror. “He’s not?”

  “When he was working on my hair last time, he said they were breaking up. Well, not exactly. More like drifting apart.”

  “He discussed their relationship with you?” Melissa was Doug’s sister, and she didn’t discuss her relationships with him. Why should her hairdresser discuss her relationships with Brooke?

  “He was just talking. Stylists talk while they’re working.”

  “He wasn’t just talking. He was talking about my sister.” To make sure Brooke understood, he added, “Your sister-in-law.”

  “It wasn’t like he said anything bad about her,” Brooke said defensively. “He just said they’re traveling down different paths.”

  “That’s obvious. She’s traveling down the successful professional path. He’s traveling down the beauty parlor path.”

  “It’s not a beauty parlor, Doug. It’s a spa. A lovely place. They’ve got a wonderful atmosphere there, tabletop fountains and relaxing flute music playing. Everything smells of hibiscus.”

  Doug thought fondly of the barbershop where he got his hair trimmed once a month. It smelled of soap, and instead of flute music, the owner usually had the radio tuned to a right-wing talk radio station. He claimed to disagree with everything the hosts said, but he found the guys’ rants hilarious. Doug found nothing humorous about a couple of yahoos howling that when restaurants supplied soup kitchens with their unused inventory they were contributing to the homeless problem because why would anyone get a job and buy his own food if he could eat leftover dinners from Legal Seafood and Chez Henri? But he knew better than to disagree with a man wielding extremely sharp scissors in the vicinity of his ears.

  At least the place didn’t smell of hibiscus—whatever the hell hibiscus smelled like.

  “Luc said Melissa was obsessed with buying an apartment. He has no interest in co-ops and condos.”

  “Like I have no interest in Gulfstream jets,” Doug muttered. “Of course he has no interest in co-ops and condos. As a barber—excuse me, a stylist—he’ll never be able to afford Manhattan real estate. It’s completely out of his range.”

  “It’s not about what he can afford,” Brooke argued. “His salon isn’t cheap. I bet he makes good money.” She took another sip of wine and sighed. “It’s about settling down, planting roots. Melissa is looking for a commitment. Luc isn’t.”

  Doug took a deep breath. He took a deep swig of scotch. “Brooke,” he said as gently as he could, given the adrenaline rampaging through his bloodstream. He absolutely did not want his beautiful wife having her hair done by an uncommitted New York City stud. “Why go back to the guy who botched your color? Why not have someone else fix his mistake?”

  “It wasn’t a mistake,” Brooke said. “He didn’t botch it. He just took it a little darker than I’d like.”

  “So you want to spent four hours driving down to the city so he can make it lighter, and then drive four hours back?”

  “It’s not four hours,” she said, then flashed him a wicked grin. “I drive fast.”

  “Three and a half hours. Brooke, it’s crazy. Boston is full of fancy salons with flute music. The suburbs have spas with tabletop fountains. Why do you want to kill seven hours on the road so this uncommitted schmuck can mess with your hair?”

  His anger—which he was trying hard to keep under control, but apparently not succeeding—seemed to take her aback. “He’s not a schmuck, Doug. He’s incredibly talented.”

  “And no one in the entire state of Massachusetts is as talented as he is?”

  She frowned, as if the possibility had never occurred to her. “Well, he was Melissa’s boyfriend. And she looked fabulous after he did her. I like to have a recommendation, and Melissa’s hair was quite a recommendation.”

  Okay. Okay. More deep breaths, and the anger began to wane. Maybe it was as simple as Brooke made it out to be: she’d loved the way Melissa’s hair had looked, so she’d gone to the same person who’d done Melissa’s hair.

  Or maybe not. Maybe she’d been so impressed by the way Luc did Melissa that she’d decided to have Luc do her, too.

  Oh, God. That possibility shifted his mood ratios once more. Less anger, but a lot more terror. A shitload of terror.

  Eight years ago, he’d married this woman. He’d fallen in love with her because she’d been charming, beautiful and blessedly undemanding. She’d asked of him only security, support, devotion and a credit card with no limit—things he’d been happy to give her. He’d believed marriage was as simple as that.

  Not any longer. Not since his parents, whose marriage he’d always viewed as being built on the very same foundation of security, support and devotion, had proven that such a foundation could crumble, that those elements weren’t enough. Now his mother had walked out on his father, and his wife was traipsing down to New York, where people talked funny and littered the sidewalks with empty food wrappers and cigarette butts and cheered for the Yankees and booed the Red Sox, to meet with the incredibly talented hunk who’d done Doug’s sister.

  Panic seasoned the terror, anger and dread. “What would you do if I told you I really, really didn’t want you going to New York?” he asked, a tamer question than the one burning in his mind: What would you do if I forbade you to let that man near your hair? He couldn’t ask that question. Asking it would send any woman storming out the door. And it would make him sound so unreasonable, so bossy. So panicked and angry and terrified and filled with dread.

  “Why would you say that? It’s not like the girls don’t love spending the afternoon at Stephanie’s.”

  “But . . .” He turned to stare at the fireplace and prayed for his control not to slip. “But New York, Brooke. It’s so damned far to travel just to get something you can get right here at home.” Oh, shit. He’d meant she could get a haircut here in the neighborhood. His words hadn’t come out that way, though.

  She looked bemused, then suspicious. Evidently she’d figured him out. “Do you think something’s going on between me and Luc?”

  The accusation lay between them like a dead cod, wet and slightly smelly. No sense denying that that was exactly what he thought, and what he feared. “You were the one who said he was doing Melissa.”

  “Doing her hair, you idiot.”

  “He was doing more than her hair.”

  “Well, he isn’t doing more than mine. For God’s sake, Douglas.”

  He felt ashamed and a little ill. Brooke leaned away from him and managed to fit her downturned mouth around the edge of her wine glass so she could drink and pout at the same time.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “How could you even imply—”

  “Look. I’m an idiot. Ever since my parents split, I just . . . I’m afraid to believe anything is forever anymore. They had the most stable marriage in the world, and it fell apart. We have the most stable marriage in the world.” I hope, he added silently. But God o
nly knew. If he hadn’t lost Brooke to Luc’s incredible talents, he might lose her because he’d insinuated that he’d lost her to Luc’s incredible talents. Either way, he lost.

  “He’s a nice guy,” she said, her tone softer, less indignant. He sneaked a glimpse and saw that she was pouting a little less. “He’s got an amazing aestheticism when it comes to hair.”

  Doug nodded. He didn’t dare to say anything. Whatever he said might land him in even deeper trouble.

  “And it’s New York. It’s a whole different place. The trip is relaxing. I listen to an audio book while I’m driving. I don’t have to think about play dates or dentist appointments or volunteering for the class trip to the animal hospital. I just drive. And then I get there, and the city is noisy and gritty and fun. And I get a fabulous haircut and color—although the color could be a little more fabulous. And I come home refreshed. And while I’m in New York, I can treat myself to one of those big hot pretzels. The New York pretzels are better than the ones they sell in Boston.”

  “So—it’s like an outing.”

  “Exactly. It’s a day away. And Luc is very talented.”

  Doug wished she wouldn’t keep reminding him of that. “What, are you bored?”

  “Bored? Me?” Her eyes grew round.

  “Bored of being home. Bored of the usual routines. So bored you consider trekking all the way to New York City for a haircut exciting.”

  “I’m not bored,” she said in a wavering voice.

  “Sure you are. The girls don’t need you twenty-four-seven anymore. They’re in first grade. They’ve got their own lives. The cleaning service takes care of the house. There’s only so much shopping you can do. You’re bored.” He felt his anger and panic and dread seeping away as he said this. It made sense. She was bored, and sitting in a contoured chair having a handsome guy fuss over her hair gave her a charge. That was what this was about. A change of scenery for the day. And a fat, hot pretzel.