by Lisa Dale
Thea looked up at him, her brown eyes dark like oubliettes. “That maybe there was something you needed that I couldn’t give you.”
“But that’s just it,” Jonathan said. “You could. If you wanted to.”
The breeze picked up. It blew a strand of Thea’s hair across her face. And Jonathan saw that the gray in the sky was from clouds that had not yet formed into storms. He hadn’t realized how angry he was. How deeply, powerfully, resentfully angry. Until this moment—Thea looking up at him, the slight shadow of disbelief in her eyes—he’d thought the entirety of their failed marriage fell on his shoulders, and his alone. But now, a kind of fury he hadn’t known himself capable of was raising the temperature of the blood inside him—and it didn’t feel bad.
“I tried to tell you,” he said. “A thousand times. A million. But you wouldn’t hear it.”
“Jonathan …”
“Where did you go, Thea? After we got married. Where did you disappear to?”
“I don’t understand—”
“You left me alone. For years. And I’m sick of it. I was there, Thea. For you, for Irina. For our family. I was there. But where were you? Tell me. Where?”
Thea held her ground. “Are you saying it’s my fault that you slept with someone else? Like I locked you naked in some room with her and made you do what you did?”
“No,” Jonathan said, his head getting clearer by the moment. “But what I’m saying is that I don’t need you to assure me that you’re not mad at me. That you understand. That you forgive me. Because from where I stand, you should be asking me to forgive you.”
Thea made a small noise, the sound she made sometimes if he accidentally stepped on her foot or caught her hair on his ring. And Jonathan felt fantastic. He took a few breaths, then started to walk away from her. It amazed him—how good he felt. When was the last time he’d had a fight with Thea? He couldn’t remember. They should have fought more often. The thought made him mad all over again.
He turned to her over his shoulder. “I’m glad we had this talk,” he said cruelly.
She hurried a few steps to catch up with him. He saw there were tears in her eyes. “What about Irina? Do you want her to have parents who can’t stand to be in the same room as each other?”
“The kind of father I am isn’t your business anymore,” he said. He stopped walking. “I love Irina, and I’ll be the best father I can be to her. I’ll see her all the time. But as for you …” He thought of their first Christmas together, of their fifth anniversary when he gave her a diamond-crusted wedding band, of the way she slipped her hand in his pocket when she got cold. “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer,” he said.
Then, with the wind nudging him forward, he walked away.
July wore on. The City by the Sea steamed and sweltered, and the speed of pedestrians walking down the streets grew slower and slower with each rising degree. The tenor of the crowds changed like the tides: one weekend it seemed everyone who had come to Newport was under thirty—drinking fruity cocktails and making out in the streets—and the next weekend Thea found herself surrounded by rich Wall Street retirees. For relief, they signed up for cruises and boat rides, or they left the congestion of Newport for the cooler vistas of Aquidneck Island’s nature reserves and parks.
On an especially hot Saturday evening, Dani had invited Thea and a few of the baristas to her house in Middletown—her way of saying “thank you” to the baristas who normally had her regular order ready even before she walked through the coffee shop door. Her home, occupied by herself and her two teenage children, was a small but comfortable bungalow on a hillside near a Christmas tree farm.
On Dani’s deck, Thea leaned back in her chair and sighed with pleasure. It had been a long week. She was glad for the chance to get away. The air was oppressively hot, and the citronella torches did little to ward off the mosquitoes, but the sky was turning a gorgeous orange pink. She would slip an extra twenty in Jules’s paycheck at the end of the week to thank him for manning the shop tonight.
Dani slid into the chair beside her, biting a corn chip in half. “Glad you could make it,” she said to Thea.
“Irina’s been staying later and later at Jonathan’s, so I’ve got a few extra hours to myself these days.” Thea closed her eyes as a hot, gentle breeze made her hair stick to her skin. She thought of her daughter, of Jonathan’s words yesterday afternoon. Where were you? She hoped Irina was having a good time.
“That’s probably a good thing.”
“Irina does seem to be getting more comfortable being away.”
“I mean it’s a good thing for you both,” Dani said.
Thea’s best friend was no stranger to divorce. Thea had met her years ago—more years than she cared to count—not long after she married Jonathan. In that time, Dani’s children had gone from elementary schoolers to teens who gave their hard-nosed mom a run for her money. With dark hair cut severely short, Dani fought hard for her family even when her ex-husband stopped paying child support. She’d gone back to school, went to the police academy, and ultimately earned a position with the city. But it hadn’t been easy. Thea admired her determination and grit.
On the other side of the table, Claudine, Rochelle, and Lettie had been having a conversation of their own, and when their laugher crested in a wave that rolled out over the green countryside, Dani butted in.
“Hey now. What’s going on over there?” she asked.
Claudine, cross-legged in her chair, filled them in. “Lettie won’t say her new man is her boyfriend.”
“Women my age don’t have boyfriends,” Lettie said. Despite the heat, she’d draped a light, lacy scarf around her shoulders. “He’s just a friend.”
“Yeah. And I’m Joan of Arc,” Claudine said.
Lettie pulled herself up straight with all the bearing of a duchess. “And should we call that young thing you’ve been hanging around with your boyfriend?”
“What young thing?” Rochelle asked, her ponytail bobbing. “You didn’t tell us about a young thing.”
Claudine laughed. “He’s not that young. He’s nineteen.”
Thea sat up a little, and the backs of her legs stuck to her chair. “You’re dating a nineteen–year-old? He’s—what—seven years younger than you?”
“I wouldn’t say I’m dating him. More like—” Claudine pulled a cigarette from her purse. “What do you call it? Tutoring.”
Thea laughed. “That’s not a boyfriend. That’s a boy toy.”
Claudine coaxed a flame from her lighter, then puffed on her cigarette until it was a deep orange blister against the dusk. “What about you?”
“Me?” Thea asked.
“Don’t you have a backup plan? You know—a man to fall on.”
“You mean, ‘fall back on,’ ” Rochelle said.
“Oh, no,” Thea said. “No man.”
Claudine’s breath was gray with smoke. “Was Jonathan the only man you’ve ever slept with?”
“Well, I …”
“You don’t have to answer that.” Rochelle smacked Claudine’s arm. “And you shouldn’t smoke.”
Thea reached for a sip of lemonade, not really afraid of telling the truth but not sure of how to explain it either.
“So, let me understand.” Claudine slouched in her chair, something catlike in her long fingers and curling spine. “You married your high school sweetheart. You took over your parents’ café, where you’d been working since you’d learned to talk. And you inherited your house from your parents—all before you were twenty years old.”
“Not all of us want to be globetrotters,” Lettie said. “I’ve known Thea since she was a baby. And she’s had a very exciting life. More exciting than she wanted, I’d bet.”
“Thank you, Lettie,” Thea said, and she hoped her friend, who had been a part of her life for longer than she could remember, who had seen how her relationship with Garret had changed all their lives, would leave it at that.
“Claudine’s right.
” Dani canted her head, thoughtful. “Look. I know a thing or two about getting divorced. You’ve got a whole new life that you’ve got to get used to now.”
Thea put down her lemonade; the glass was dripping wet with condensation. “What do you mean, a whole new life? I like my life.”
“You’re divorced now,” Dani said. “Life’s going to change. And you might as well be ready.”
“It is like this.” Claudine uncrossed her legs and sat up, leaning her arms on the table. She tied her dark blond hair in a spiky bun as she spoke. “People have to collect experiences—like I do. I try to collect all experiences, good and bad. This is a great time for you to become a bigger person, n’est pas? Branch out. Try new things.”
“Like what?” Thea asked.
Lettie’s voice was soft but hopeful. “Whatever you like or don’t like,” she said.
Thea got up, unsticking her sundress from her skin, and went to the railing of the patio. A hundred pint-sized fir trees were lined up like little soldiers, the evening shadows sinking into the gulfs between rows. The air was heavy, and haze softened the distant hills so they were nearly indistinguishable from the sky.
Dani’s words echoed in some deep place within her: You’re divorced now. Life’s going to change. Already, she could feel the primary purposes of her life—her reasons for living—being relegated to the sidelines. She’d felt so comfortable in her role as wife, as mother. But perhaps Jonathan was right. Perhaps she’d been operating on autopilot for a few years too long.
“Irina’s been going to see her father every weekend,” she said, her back to the group. “And I’m glad he wants to be with her so much. But it feels so strange …”
“Why?” Rochelle asked gently.
“Irina gives me these in-depth reports. What Jonathan ate for breakfast. How the bathroom at her uncle’s house has water jets in the walls. It makes me feel so … left out.”
“Understandable,” Dani said.
“But there’s more.” Thea turned around to face them; it felt good to be talking. She hadn’t realized how much she’d bottled up. “Some days she’ll come home and say, ‘We all went kayaking down the river in Providence,’ or ‘We all played Yahtzee and I won.’ And I realize, she’s talking about all of them—my family. Everyone getting together, but not me.”
“They can’t very well invite you.” Claudine put out her cigarette on the bottom of her flip-flop. “You’re split up. It would be weird.”
“Hush,” Rochelle said. She turned to Thea, her doe-brown eyes full of compassion. “Have you tried talking to them about how you feel?”
“They must know,” Thea said.
“You gotta speak up for yourself.” Dani’s voice had gotten louder. “Are you still not talking to your husband?”
“I saw him yesterday. It … didn’t go well.”
“Hmm,” Lettie said.
“So, no. I guess we’re still not talking.”
“But you must see him when he comes to get Irina,” Dani said.
Thea shook her head. “Garret picked her up again this morning. Which means Jonathan’s back to giving me the cold shoulder. I think it’s meant as punishment. The silent treatment, with the added bonus of making me deal with Garret—who is not exactly my biggest fan.”
“The brother? Is he a jerk to you?” Rochelle asked.
“No more than could be expected.”
“Still acting like a child,” Lettie said, shaking her head. “And after all this time.”
Thea laughed a little to herself. “He once said marrying me was the worst decision Jonathan ever made.”
“Good Lord,” Dani said. “The man’s a beast.”
“No,” Thea said. “Just hurt. The point here is that the whole situation feels terrible. To know that the family—my family—is going on these outings without me. It makes me feel so alone. There’s a gap in my life—a pit—that used to be filled up by them. But that’s not the worst of it.”
“What’s the worst?” Dani asked.
Thea scrutinized a spot in the center of the table. A breeze rolled over the hillside, but did nothing to cool her down. “The worst is knowing that as hard as this has been for me for the last few weeks, this is how Garret must have felt for years.”
“He thinks you stole his family from him,” Lettie said.
“Yes.” She looked over her shoulder, where the orange of the sunset was fading to blue. “And maybe I did.”
From “The Coffee Diaries” by Thea Celik
The Newport Examiner
At one point in history, coffee held as firm a place in apothecary shops and doctors’ offices as it did in coffeehouses.
In fact, coffee was thought to be so important a medicine that at one point a group of physicians in England were said to have petitioned the Crown to make coffee a controlled substance.
Today, proponents of coffee’s healing properties proclaim that Americans get more of their daily antioxidants from coffee than they do from vegetables. Coffee has been used in skincare products, has been said to fight cancer, and allegedly wards off the signs of aging.
Regardless of whether or not you believe coffee can heal, many of us agree that coffee feels good—that there’s something invigorating about the brew, even if it’s not technically medicinal.
Is it any wonder that when we want to help a friend feel better, we offer her a cup of coffee? Sometimes, it’s the best we can do.
SIX
Thea’s mother had never been a gentle woman. When Thea was sick, her mother’s voice was like sandpaper on glass. When Thea was upset by something that had happened at school, Thea’s mother rarely showed sympathy with kind words and soft smiles.
And yet, a person who thought Thea’s mother was gruff would be wrong. Her tenderness came in different ways. On days when Thea was not feeling well, she would go to her daughter with bowls of broth, with strong black tea, with bread that steamed from the oven. When her parents fought, Thea knew she and her father would eat like royalty for at least a week—her mother cooking the richest foods, buying the best cuts of meat, preparing desserts and candies to make her mouth water.
She would not accept refusals. Take this. Eat. Drink. Only as an adult did Thea come to understand the deep satisfaction that came from offering another human being the fleeting pleasure of good food.
Newport on a weekend evening during summer vacation had no patience for adolescents who could not yet drive, and so Garret, Thea, and Jonathan had been forced to improvise. The evenings buzzed with an energy Garret hadn’t quite been able to put his finger on—something adult and off-limits, something to do with sex and alcohol and jokes that went over his head. On those nights, all he and his best friends could do was watch from the sidelines as Newport swung into high gear, the parties revving up around them but without them.
When they were bored, they sat on the grass in the park and spied on the various groups of people who rented out the fire hall for music and dancing. Different communities showed up on different Saturdays—sometimes Asians, sometimes Latinos, sometimes people speaking a language that Garret couldn’t identify. The lights in the hall blazed through wide-open doors—a bright, warm glow against a cooling blue evening—and from across the street, Garret could glimpse the occasional girl in a bright skirt and listen to the cheerful beat of a salsa band. If the mood struck her, Thea would take off her shoes to dance and spin in the grass.
“Why don’t your parents hang out with the other Turkish people?” Garret had asked her once.
“Because we don’t know any in Newport,” she’d said.
For Garret, going over to Thea’s house was always an experience. Her parents were friendly enough, but their mannerisms threw him off. Her father was loud, and he always wanted to talk about the exchange rate—which Garret knew nothing about. Thea’s mother was doting to the point that it made Garret uncomfortable, but he’d learned early on never to tell her no.
At other people’s houses Garret got to eat
pizza and hot dogs, but at the Celiks, he had to choke down lukewarm, vegetable-laden meals: white beans and tomatoes in olive oil, raw meatballs, wheat salad with onion and mint, and fifty kinds of eggplant. Only the dessert made up for the strange dinners; he, Jonathan, and Thea would wait eagerly for colorful little squares of Turkish delight or baklava.
Occasionally Garret could see the Celiks’ culture in Thea’s behavior, like when she insisted that he put a knife or scissor on the table instead of passing it directly to her, or when she wore a little blue bead at her wrist to keep away the evil eye. But mostly, Thea was as different from her parents as water from stone. She didn’t have her parents’ accent and couldn’t speak their language. When she got in trouble, her parents accused her of “being too American.” Garret couldn’t help but feel she fit in better at his house than she did her own.
“Do you wish there were more Turkish people in Newport?” Jonathan had asked her one night while they sat waiting for the Saturday revelers to begin filling the fire hall.
Garret had held his breath.
“Nah,” she said. And she punched Jonathan so hard he had to rub his shoulder. “Why would I? I have friends like you.”
Dear Jonathan,
Just a quick e-mail to let you know I got the divorce papers in the mail. The terms are fair—of course I’ll sign them—and I guess we’ll have this whole thing behind us in about three months. But I hate to think of the words “joint custody.” Sounds like we’re transporting a prisoner.
I don’t know how Irina’s been acting with you, but with me, she hasn’t seemed like herself lately. If we’re going to have “joint custody,” we have to be joint parents. We have to parent together—whether we’re married or not.
The last time I saw you, you said some things. I need you to know that I’m not afraid to hear them—whatever it is you need to say. I know I wasn’t the best wife. And I’m sorry for that. Lately, I’ve had a sense of myself like I’m just a mirage.