The First Husband

by Laura Dave

  “There has been an uproar in your absence. Well, uproar may be a bit strong, but the point is that they want you back, my love. They want you and they want me. Thanks to the minor uproar and some crafty maneuvering on my part. The A-Team! Peter and Annie. Back in business!”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “You’re not the only one!” he said. “But, now, before you get all excited, you need to know ‘Checking Out’ is still over. At least in its former incarnation. Caleb Number Two wants to create a real-time travel column. More interactive in a variety of ways that are still to be determined. Though regardless of the details, you’ll like this part. They’ll be paying you more.”

  “Really? ”

  “Don’t even get me started on how I pulled that off. Just, if anyone ever asks you, a little magazine called National Geographic was very interested in having you head their African Bureau.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “My love, I can go over all the details with you later, but the main thing you need to know is that I got you a three-year contract. A thirty-three percent raise, right off the bat, full health benefits back. And they want much more involvement from you. They want you to help the paper create a travel presence. Whatever that is supposed to mean, TBD, as they say. But, of course, considering the ongoing micromanaging reign of terror, there’s the small issue that they need you to do it from London. Though they will be giving you housing while you acclimate. One of the benefits of being taken over by a massive corporate conglomerate, I suppose.”

  “Wait. Slow down a sec. What do you mean, London?”

  “My love, if you don’t know what I mean by London, I may have to reconsider fighting so hard for your job.”

  I got quiet. I didn’t know what else to do. “I live in Massachusetts,” I said.

  “I know you live in Massachusetts, but Beckett Media is very serious about their European bureau. They’re even considering sending me over for a spell,” he said. “They wanted you based out of London, or out of Berlin. Those were the choices. And, let’s be honest, I’m not sure you’re cool enough to live in Berlin.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I said.

  “All I’m saying is, it’s not forever,” he said. “Can’t you commute home for the time being?”

  “From London? ”

  “Go back on the occasional weekend, perhaps. For the occasional silly Hallmark holiday.”

  “Peter . . .”

  “It’s a great opportunity,” he said. “Perhaps, one could say, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

  “What happened to everything has a season? ” I said. “What happened to your whole speech that my heart wasn’t in ‘Checking Out’ anymore? That it might be time to move on?”

  “I would have said anything to make you feel better!” he said. “And this is London, we’re talking about. You love London. And, keep in the back of your head, you can always make a demand later about returning to America, once they know how much they need you. Six months, and you’ll be good to head back out to Farm Town, USA. Nine at the most.”

  “Peter . . .”

  “Farmland? ”

  “I can’t, Peter. I just can’t right now. . . .”

  “You can.”

  I shook my head. I shook my head as though he could see me. And then I said the truth, my queasy stomach seconds away from a win.

  “Right now all I can do is get off the phone.”

  An hour later I was opening the door to Griffin’s restaurant. I didn’t know how to begin to process the job news, but I knew I had to see Griffin, to make last night right, or more right. I needed to explain to him what was happening with me. And maybe by doing so, I could start to understand.

  But when I walked inside, I felt at a loss all over again. Because sitting at the newly completed bar—sitting on one of the beautifully brushed stools in front of it—was Gia. Gia leaning across the bar top, leaning across her tall mug of coffee, toward Griffin, who was leaning toward her too, both of them laughing. Both of them looking happy, together.

  I stopped in my tracks. I stopped in my tracks, just as they simultaneously turned to look at me.

  “Annie . . .” Griffin said.

  And Gia waved.

  Uncertain what to do, I waved too, a small hip-side one. Then I hurried—too fast for it to seem natural—right back out of the front door.

  Griffin followed me outside, calling after me, and I thought seriously about not turning around. But I had to. For starters, I had walked the wrong way and had no idea where I was going.

  “Will you slow down, please? Annie, come on . . .” Griffin said, putting his hand on my arm.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “That was not what she looked like,” he said.

  That stopped me. “What it looked like,” I said. “It. That’s what you meant to say.”

  “What did I say?”

  “You said she.”

  I wasn’t sure how to explain why that felt worse. Maybe because even when it wasn’t supposed to be about other people for us, it was starting to feel like it was becoming that.

  “Annie, please just listen to me for a second. I see where you are going, but I need you to listen to me. Gia had an argument with her boyfriend,” Griffin said. “She wanted to talk to me, get some guidance. That’s all.”

  “She wanted to get some guidance from you?” I said. “About her new boyfriend?”

  He nodded. “He’s not behaving all that well.”

  He’s not the only one, I wanted to add.

  “Griffin, do you really think you’re the best person for her to be confiding in about that?”

  “I know it sounds silly,” Griffin said. “But it’s a good thing. It’s a good thing for us to be talking to each other. A good thing for all of us. Putting the past in the past, you know that?”

  I shook my head because I didn’t know that. What I did know was that everything was blurring together in my mind, past lives and present ones: Gia and Nick and Griffin and me, Jesse and Cheryl and Jude. “Checking Out” and photography and “Checking Out” again. There was supposed to be a boundary parting them: the past, the present, the time I didn’t understand what I needed for myself, the time I did. The time I felt like I had to keep escaping, the time I wanted to stay still.

  “Will you come back inside?” Griffin said. “It’s freezing out here.” He had his arms wrapped around himself, proving the point.

  I was still too stung. But I let him know in spite of that, and maybe a little because of it, what I had done.

  “I sent an e-mail out for you this morning,” I said. “I sent an e-mail out to all my former colleagues at the paper. All the food critics I know, the style editors, the arts columnists, everyone, letting them know about the restaurant’s soft opening. Inviting them to come then, or anytime in the next few months. As our guests. I thought you’d want to know that.”

  “I do,” he said. “Thank you.”

  Then I started walking, the right way this time.

  Griffin called after me. “Where are you going?”

  But I couldn’t say the words. Only he seemed to understand part of what I wasn’t saying, because he moved closer to me.

  “You’re my choice, Annie. You have been since day one.” He paused. “Even if you pretend not to, I know you know that. And I know I’m your choice too.”

  I shook my head, refusing to let it be that simple. “You keep saying the past is the past,” I said. “But it doesn’t feel past to me when it is immeasurably locked into the present. Then it’s something else.”

  “What’s that?” he said, his voice tensing up. “An excuse to walk away?”

  “At the very least,” I said, even as I knew it wasn’t helping anything, “it’s a reason to end this conversation.”

  That night, when Griffin came home, I pretended to be asleep. I lay there, perfectly still, while he moved around the bedroom, getting undressed and washing up, moving beneat
h the covers, settling in himself.

  He put his arm over his eyes, not saying anything. Not to me.

  And I remembered the first night we spent together—or, rather, the morning after. How I had tried to pretend I was sleeping then too. How he hadn’t bought it. And how he’d gone ahead and done it: the one thing I most needed him to do. He moved toward me.

  Maybe that made it my turn, this time.

  Eight inches. Griffin was eight inches away. I’d traveled clear around the world twice. I’d been to Dubai three times; Hong Kong, four. I’d found the tiniest town in New Zealand, which takes three days to get to by boat, and, then, only if you know exactly where you are going.

  I could get as far away as possible.

  And still. I couldn’t figure out how to move eight lousy inches toward the person I needed most.

  24

  A few days later, I did something I didn’t ever think I’d do. I drove all the way out to Amherst, to the library at the state university there, to write my final column for “Checking Out.” The column was focused on Las Vegas—a city that, despite its close proximity to Los Angeles, I had avoided writing about the entire duration of the time I worked on the column. I picked several things about Las Vegas, several things that would make it a trip worth embarking on—a place where you’d want to escape. They included a beautiful hike out in Red Rock Canyon (for “Open Your Eyes”), an underground Korean restaurant (“Find the Special Sauce”), a bizarrely interesting lake community (“Take the Wrong Exit), and a private downtown casino—far from the strip—that was open only after midnight, and housed Edward, the longest-running blackjack dealer in Vegas, who had been dealing blackjack hands for seventyone years (“Leave Your Comfort Zone”).

  And then, for the final one (“Discover the One Thing You Can’t Find Anywhere Else”), I chose something personal, the first and only personal thing I’d really shared about myself in the entirety of writing my column. I wrote about the chapel, the small chapel with orange shutters right on the Las Vegas city border, where you could have a quiet wedding, quieter then the rest of Las Vegas would certainly allow. Where the in-house chaplain would give you sweet bouquets of white and green flowers, and raspberry-infused champagne. He’d also give you a moment alone. Before and after the service.

  But I didn’t write down any of that. What I wrote was this:

  Because it’s where I married my husband.

  I hit SEND, and left the library quickly. Or, I should say, I intended to leave the library quickly. But, on the way out, I saw it—on a pole right by the main door—a poster announcing MOVIE NIGHT in the Student Commons. And the movie they were showing. Roman Holiday.

  I can’t explain exactly why I went over to the commons to watch it, why I gave in to my need to get lost in its comfort. Maybe because I felt so emptied right then, so very tired. Maybe because I felt something else, something more precarious—that tricky mix of lost and found—which, I was learning, meant I was entering the final moment where both outcomes were equally possible.

  I got to the commons halfway through the movie, in time to see Joe Bradley and Princess Ann sitting together by the incredible Spanish Steps, as he convinced her to step outside herself and do the things she’d always most wanted to do—take a disallowed adventure through Rome’s glorious streets and cafés; ride a motorcycle and go dancing; find the magical wall where wishes came true. To give in, if just once, to her own heart.

  I got there in time to see Ann sitting in Bradley’s car at the end of their adventure, looking dazzling and alive and brutally resolved, saying good-bye to her one love.

  I have to leave now. I’m going to that corner there and turn. You must stay in the car and drive away. Promise not to watch me go beyond the corner. Just drive away and leave me, as I leave you.

  I got there in time for all of that. And I stayed until the very end, enjoying every single second.

  And, forty-eight hours later, Nick came to take me home.

  Part 3

  Happily Ever After . . . Take 2

  You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted.

  Begin again the story of your life.

  —JANE HIRSHFIELD

  25

  It was the morning of Griffin’s restaurant opening and I decided it all came down to this: I needed to remember. Before I opened my eyes, I needed to remember—no, I needed to know—five things about this room. Five was a good number. It clearly counted as several, counted as many. I needed to prove to myself that waking up in someone’s house, someone’s house who was apparently my husband, waking up in a bedroom I had committed to living my life in, I knew many things about it for certain. From memory. From some place deep inside myself. Then, maybe, this was my home. Then I could decide what to do next.

  Number one. On the wall across from the bed, there was a black-and-white photograph of the Strand Theater in Keyport, New Jersey. A beautiful photograph of the theater’s side view, taking up most of the wall. It was a photograph Griffin’s mother had taken, which he’d blown up and framed himself. She had taken it when Griffin was a kid, during a summer the family had spent down on the New Jersey Shore. Griffin told me he remembered standing there, beside his mother, when she took it. He remembered because it was the first time all day she hadn’t insisted that he and Jesse stand in the frame too. She’d wanted the theater alone. I had seen a remarkably similar photograph of the theater in the window of an art gallery in Venice Beach. It had struck me, even then, but I hadn’t gone inside to look at it closely. So maybe I was remembering wrong. What I thought had struck me, what I thought I’d seen. What I thought was connecting Griffin and me, even before we were connected.

  Number two. Large glass doors covered the left wall of the bedroom, two beautiful french doors that led out to a balcony. This was my favorite part of the room. My favorite part of the house. Those doors, that balcony. The house—its sweet Craftsman quality—felt built around it. Griffin put a wicker rocking chair out there, and I loved sitting in it and looking out, toward the backyard, the forest, the river beyond it. The two times I had.

  Number three. There was a desk in the corner of the room, an iron desk—slanted, like an artist’s desk, but with a slender drawer. A drawer that had a gold knob, which I had assumed would open the drawer. I’d assumed wrong. When I turned the knob, it fell off. I’d hidden it in the sock drawer. That tiny gold knob. Hidden the minor crime. And I still hadn’t told Griffin. I still hadn’t gotten around to telling him that either.

  Number four. The walls were painted a pale blue. Not an ocean blue, not a deep royal blue. Softer than all of that. Griffin had these soft blue walls that looked lovely with his brown curtains, a combination that couldn’t help but draw your eyes upward, toward the sky itself. Toward Gia’s incredible design, living there. Still living right above me.

  I opened my eyes. I was out. At four, I was out. I had thought there were two matching nightstands—iron and tilted, like the desk—but that was wrong. When I opened my eyes, I saw that there was only one. By my side. The side that ate my wedding ring. On the other side, on Griffin’s, there was a small table. His ring resting there, safe.

  So there I was. At number four. Four was better than three. It wasn’t five, but it was better than three. So why was my heart pounding so loudly, and so hard, that it was starting to hurt? Why was I panicking? And what did it mean that, as much as I tried to push the question aside, it kept coming back: How could I stay here?

  Because there was this: There was a number five that I knew, only it belonged to me. My suitcase, by the bedroom door, still packed. And ready to be used. In a matter of minutes, ready to come with me out of here.

  Just then, my eyes on the suitcase, Griffin reached out, and put his arm around me. His arm was surprisingly heavy—were many men’s arms this heavy? Nick ’s certainly wasn’t. I didn’t remember ever having an arm around me that was that heavy—that sturdy, that ready. Ready, in its strength, to try and keep me safe. His arm had this long vei
n, running down the middle, not in a straight line, but a jagged one, like the line in the middle of a graph, measuring stocks, or the weather in North Dakota over a five-year period. And when I turned his arm over, I would see on his wrist half a tattoo. Half an anchor tattoo—half his history. And, now, mine.

  Griffin’s arm around me—the way it felt—this part, I already knew by heart.

  26

  Griffin decided it came down to the music. The success or failure of the restaurant’s opening came down, he announced, to the perfect mix of the nine seminal albums he was compiling into one mix, music ranging from Astral Weeks to Boxer to 18 Tracks to In the Aeroplane over the Sea to The Blue Album to End of Amnesia to I’m Your Man. Music that would seep into the way he prepared the food, that would seep into the way everyone tasted it.

  We spent so long trying to get the song order just right (what would best complement an amuse-bouche of grilled figs stuffed with blue cheese? “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”? “Cyprus Avenue”?) that somehow, when it was time to open, I was still racing around with damp hair plastered to my head, in my highest heels, printing out the night’s menus, ignoring the still-empty walls, the not-yet-working fireplace. Ignoring the fact that we were still without a name for the place.

  Griffin was right about one part, though: being nameless wasn’t a problem. Everyone in town knew exactly where to go. Everyone in the six towns over too, judging by the crowd present by 5:35 P.M., a mere five minutes after we soft-opened the door, when already there wasn’t an empty seat to be found.

  There was barely standing room anywhere in the entire restaurant, in fact; the overflow of friends (and friends of friends) who hadn’t secured a table in the five thirty, seven thirty, or nine thirty seatings were all standing anxiously around the bar. Jesse was not yet behind it, as he had promised to be, and the lone bartender was unequal to the task of serving drinks to everyone choosing to wait, hoping that a seat would open up at one of the community tables, hoping someone they knew would walk through the big, red door with a reservation and ask them to join.