“You don’t have to do that. I’ll be fine. They say it’s routine. Just a follow-up.”
“I know, but I still want to be there.”
She wondered if he had sensed her absence and was trying to pull her back by showing increased worry over things he was generally stoic about.
“Really, it’s no big deal.”
“I know, Ronnie, but I said I want to be there,” he snapped.
“I feel like as soon as we get these abnormalities out of the way the sooner we can get back to our plan.”
Abnormalities. The word and its lack of feeling hit her hard. The notion that her illness was an obstacle to breeding, nothing more.
Ronnie forced a smile despite the sting. “That would be nice. If you came.”
“It’s settled then. You sure you don’t want to come to the gym?”
Ronnie shook her head.
Aaron left the house and Ronnie continued to ponder if bodies being exchanged were worse than thoughts being obsessed over. If all this innocent touching and fantasizing was really as wrong as it seemed.
If it was wrong at all.
If she could keep this thing with Charlie all in neat little private thoughts, then maybe it wasn’t all that bad.
Was it really wrong to find solace in someone else when you felt so neglected? Was the betrayal really hers or was it Aaron’s? He had made a promise to her that he would love her, give her what she needed, and now she found only emptiness, a nagging doubt that there must be more to love than this.
It was difficult not to list the things that Aaron did that drove Ronnie crazy, things she assumed Charlie would never even conceive of doing.
He washed his jeans inside out so they wouldn’t fade, and hung them to dry in neat rows from their shower rod. He made her use a coaster, heaving a tremendous sigh when she failed to remember to do so. He hated that she ate the olives out of his martini with her fingers, cocking an eyebrow of judgment while she licked the gin from her fingertips. All those nagging questions he had about her sleeping too late and not going to the gym. The silent judgment as he collected her discarded clothes from their bedroom floor.
And the baby. All those relentless questions about the baby.
And while wisdom, or tradition, suggested that if she was so unhappy she should leave, there was a part of her that believed that holding together their lives with those private thoughts of Charlie, keeping a tolerable stasis that avoided any pain, was actually more generous than blowing the whole thing . . . his family, her life with Aaron . . . apart.
So while Aaron was at the gym she lay on her back in their bed, staring at the ceiling, and slipped her hand slowly into the front of her underwear, closed her eyes, and thought of Charlie.
( CHAPTER FOURTEEN )
The Chronology of Infidelity
A slow slide. A stumble you don’t know how you made.
First there was just talking. Nothing more.
Just talking.
A shot glass in the pocket.
Then sharing secrets.
“I’ve never told anyone this.”
Emotional infidelity. That’s what they call it.
Drinking too many beers and kissing at last call.
Drinking too many beers and having phone sex.
“We can just make out.”
The fucking.
The lying.
Falling in love. (Just don’t fall in love.)
I love you I love you I love you
In love and planning an escape.
No other love that is happening to you right now is this big.
( CHAPTER FIFTEEN )
In the first few weeks after their walk in the snow Charlie and Ronnie did innocuous, non-threatening things together.
There was just talking. Nothing more.
“You have the most beautiful neck, you know.”
“You like my neck?”
“I like your neck.”
Ronnie instinctually put her fingers on either side of her neck and looked away shyly.
“It’s a lovely neck.”
“Do you have a neck thing?”
“A neck thing?”
“Some people have a breast thing or a foot thing. Maybe you have a neck thing.”
“Not as a rule. In fact, I think it may just be yours. My one and only neck.”
I just picture my hand on it. Drawing you to me. Kissing the length of it.
“In case it seems like I’m dense or unobservant, it’s not just your neck that’s lovely.”
“Not just my neck?”
Fishing.
“No. Not just your neck.”
“What else is lovely, then?”
“Other parts. But it’s easier to openly adore your neck than other parts of you.”
“I feel like my neck might unfairly be the front runner. Given its constant exposure.”
“You occasionally wear scarves. It’s not as if you’re exploiting it. It’s a very demure neck.”
In the absurdity of their conversations, Ronnie reasoned that there couldn’t be anything wrong with feeling this light, nervous, and happy about a new companion.
We’re just talking, she thought.
They engaged in activities they could easily justify, despite the fact they never told anyone they were spending time together. They would go for an afternoon coffee when Ronnie was finished her shift at the salon and when Charlie could take a break from his required time at the university. They sat across from each other awkwardly, Charlie responsible for bad jokes, and Ronnie responsible for inappropriate, teasing comments.
“Do you ever worry that people only like you because you’re a famous writer?” she asked one afternoon.
“Famous is generous.”
“Well, those people at that party all seemed to think you were important.”
“Well, do you worry that people only like you because you’re a hairdresser?”
She laughed. “Sometimes, I guess. People tell me really personal things and I’m never sure why.”
“People don’t tell me things, and I’m sure it’s because they think I’ll steal them.”
“And sell them out.”
“Precisely.”
“Well, do you?”
“All the time. I’m surprised anyone talks to me, really.”
“If I was you, I’d worry about false friends a lot of the time.”
“That’s funny. I never really worry that people like me at all. I can be insufferable.”
“Tamara fell in love with you, though. She must have thought you were at least vaguely tolerable.”
“Tamara never had very good taste in men.”
“I think you’re resigned to being hard on yourself, Charlie. I think it’s lazy.”
“Do you now?”
“Like you’re living some easy cliché. I think acting like you’re likable might actually suit you if you gave it a try.”
Charlie enjoyed this suggestion. It certainly wasn’t one that he, or anyone else, had thought of.
Ronnie and Charlie pretended to be friends, but every so often Charlie would hold a door open or put his palm lightly on the small of Ronnie’s back, or Ronnie would lightly touch Charlie’s arm at the elbow when laughing at his jokes.
Additionally, Ronnie found herself putting effort into her appearance that she hadn’t since she and Aaron had started dating five years earlier. She’d make sure her bra matched her underwear and that her legs were shaved. She’d reapply lip gloss constantly and every so often excuse herself to the bathroom to check her teeth or smooth her hair.
This shift made her feel giddy, like a teenager, and she enjoyed the resulting self-conscious compliments that Charlie would inevitably pour all over her. He enjoyed that she was making an effort—he could ba
rely remember the last time a woman had done that for him.
When they weren’t together they would email each other, Charlie from his office at the university and Ronnie from the kitchen table at home while Aaron cooked complex dinners and talked about himself. As time passed they would fill each other’s inboxes with hundreds, thousands of messages, meaningless and meaningful digital notes throughout the day that sketched out a picture of their lives. It was in this way that they were rarely apart, every moment of every day captured and shared.
What are you doing?
Nothing much. How are you?
I miss you.
That’s sweet.
You’re sweet.
When can I see you again?
As soon as possible I hope.
Do you miss me?
More than anything.
( CHAPTER SIXTEEN )
“It doesn’t exactly take a genius to see that you’ve got something on your mind, girl,” Lisa observed, shivering in the cold outside the salon’s back door.
“I’m just tired,” Ronnie said, watching Lisa smoke and wondering why she’d agreed to come outside to do so. The two of them huddled together against the wall in the alley, thankful for the break but lamenting the weather.
“Don’t lie to me, Rons. Tired is the excuse people use when everything is shit and they don’t want to talk about it.”
“Fine. I’ve got something on my mind.”
“Let me guess: is it your cervix?”
“Lisa.”
Befriending Lisa meant a constant experiment in tolerance of the inappropriate. Ronnie wrapped her sweater more tightly around her and looked away uncomfortably.
“I told you, honey. It’s not something you should be worried about. This kind of shit happens to women all the time. Abnormal results are our cross to bear. I’m sure it’ll clear up.”
“It’s not that.”
“Existential, then?”
Not entirely sure what Lisa meant, Ronnie nodded regardless. “Can you hurry up and finish that? It’s freezing,” she said, eager to change the subject.
Lisa ignored her and continued smoking. “You know, you’re not obliged to do anything you don’t want to. And you’re not obliged to not do anything you want to.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Ronnie knew exactly what she meant.
Lisa didn’t push it. Simply flicked her cigarette in a slush puddle and pulled open the heavy metal door back to the busy salon.
( CHAPTER SEVENTEEN )
“My mother? She was obsessed. But sometimes I think she enjoyed it,” Ronnie said. “The attention she got from doctors. From the other mothers. Attention she didn’t get from my dad.”
Ronnie was unpacking her life history during one of their coffee dates, dates that now happened at least three times a week, telling Charlie stories about what it was like for her growing up. He was enthralled with tales of her divorced parents and her subsequently emotionally damaged mother.
“Didn’t that seem strange to you?” Charlie asked.
“I was a kid. Nothing seems strange when you’re a kid. Only adults take the time to figure out that things are not right.”
It was impossible for Charlie not to think of Noah, that perhaps the only thing wrong with him was how others perceived him.
“And anyway, it was good for me,” Ronnie continued.
“How?”
“Well, I was doted on. I could do no wrong. And my absent father made every payment and bought every gift on time. Sure, my mother’s anxiety made her enjoy her Chardonnay too much, but she was a really good mother.”
“So rare that someone refers to their drunk mother as a good mother.”
“She did her best,” she said. “And I was useful. I gave her something to fix.”
“Sounds familiar,” Charlie offered.
“Your parents?”
“No. I meant Tamara. I’m her broken thing.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Well, to be fair, when Tamara met me I wasn’t exactly functional.”
“No?”
“I was a little boy masquerading as a badass,” Charlie said, looking away, embarrassed.
“Well, some people like to have someone to take care of, I guess.”
“It’s funny, because as soon as we met it was a given we were going to be a couple. It was never questioned.”
Ronnie chose not to pursue this. Talking about Tamara made her uncomfortable, despite the fact that she was endlessly curious.
“So. Are you going to sell me out, Charlie?”
“You mean for literature? Unlikely. I prefer having a secret.”
An uncomfortable silence settled between them, one Charlie chose to interrupt with an uncomfortable question.
“So your mother was a drunk?”
“Yeah. My mom liked the bottle,” she said, staring into her coffee cup to avoid the eye contact, thankful they’d managed to stray from talk of his wife. “I think I inherited that from her. I try to keep it under control. Aaron helped me with that.”
“He doesn’t like your drinking?”
“Not really that. He’s not a substitute father figure or anything. He just lives clean. Goes to the gym. Is obsessed with food. I think he views food the same way I view hair.”
“How’s that?” Charlie asked.
“It’s a way to be in control of things.”
“Like writing.”
“I suppose.”
Over endless cups of coffee Charlie learned Ronnie had spent her life pushing limits . . . she drank early, did drugs early, had sex early. As a teenager she followed a band around the U.S. for a summer, was strip searched by U.S. border guards, got in a fist fight over a boy in Boston, watched a friend get stabbed in the shoulder with a penknife in New York, only to end up on a pay phone in Vermont, asking her very worried mother for some money so she could get on a bus and go home.
“Ronnie. Your life. I feel so . . .”
“Famous?”
“Stop it. I was going to say inadequate.”
Ronnie smiled. “I was happy and loved and don’t regret my youth at all. I had the ability to be reckless and careless and enjoy life.”
“Unlike me. Afraid of everything.”
“People like you better when you’re afraid,” she said mournfully. “More coffee?”
Charlie nodded despite the fact that he knew the caffeine was making him anxious. He watched as she got up from the table and walked toward the counter to request a couple more refills.
When she sat down again he stared at her intensely. “I think I may be falling in love with you, you know.”
“How do you know?” she asked.
“It’s just a feeling I have. I think you may bring out a masterpiece in me.”
“That’s what love is?” Ronnie laughed at this, but noticed immediately that Charlie appeared to be serious.
“I mean it. I could write an entire book about you. For you.”
“No one’s ever written anything for me but a prescription.”
“Oh, that can’t be true. I’m sure there are boys who you’ve been in love with who’ve got some Veronica poetry hidden in a desk drawer somewhere.”
“Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever really been in love. I mean, I’ve probably loved a hundred times, you know? But the kind of love that was the moment, the drama of it.”
“Sometimes I think you should be the writer,” Charlie said.
She laughed. “No. Far too much commitment.”
“So commitment’s not your thing either?”
“I was never really good at relationships. I tended to mistrust anyone who fell for me. Their love made them boring.”
“What about Aaron?”
“Well, eventually
I got things together. I went to hairdressing school and then I met Aaron at a bar when I was out with my girlfriends one night. Ladies night.”
“One of those, eh?”
“No. Well. Yes,” she laughed, blushing slightly.
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“Well, there used to be nothing wrong with that.”
“Did you know, right away, when you met him?” Charlie asked.
“Know what?” Ronnie asked genuinely.
“That you two were meant—”
“To be? Oh god no. I’ve never been romantic about that sort of stuff.”
“Yes. I know. Hard-hearted. You hate feelings.”
“I just find them messy. They’re not really worth it.”
“I have to disagree,” Charlie said, smiling. “I bet under the right circumstances you could fall head over heels.”
“How would you know? You’ve been in love with the same person most of your life.”
Charlie ignored this. “I have to wonder how someone so reckless could be so guarded.”
“Armour for fighting, I guess.” Ronnie looked at him mournfully, apologetically.
It was Ronnie’s recklessness that was most appealing to Charlie. He was in awe of her ability to put herself in compromising situations and come out unscathed. Her example suggested he might finally overcome the nagging fears and irrational thoughts that had plagued him his entire life. She seemed incapable of fear, a feeling he hoped would rub off on him when he touched the small of her back. Perhaps he was deluding himself, justifying her presence, but she had a calming disposition, this way of speaking to him when he was in the throes of irrationality, that successfully pulled him back.
“Did you know with Tamara? That you were meant for each other?” Ronnie asked suddenly.
“I like to think so. Yes. She made me feel safe.”
“And how does she make you feel now?”
“I guess I don’t feel safe anymore.”
“And with me? How do you feel right now?” Ronnie asked.
Charlie smiled, reaching his hand across the table to touch her cheek. For the first time she didn’t flinch or look around before his skin touched hers. “Scared. And safe.”
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