I spend my first morning back unpacking the few things I brought, examining the excellent light that trickles through the blinds making everything glow honey warm, and examining the contents of Jules’ pantry—which is mostly empty except for a few cans of creamed corn and green beans. I find the coffee—a bag of somethin’ somethin’ from a shop uptown, the name of the beans handwritten in marker on the indigo blue bag. Jules has a very fancy coffee machine. She’s taped instructions on how to use it on the counter. I stare at her instructions for a few minutes, my palms sweating at the responsibility. Espresso machines are for grown-ups, not girls like me who have never even owned a Keurig. In Port Townsend, I did the smart thing and walked to a coffee shop for my morning joe.
To my extreme delight, there are several coffee shops in the neighborhood. I try the closest one first, a place called Crunchy that has a cat sitting in the window. I smile wanly at the barista when he hands me my recycled cup, my new name scratched on the side in hot-pink Sharpie. Yes! Yes! Yes! That’s me, Wendy from New York! I’m uptown, and I wear a size four, and no man would dare cheat on a woman with such magnificent mermaid hair.
I spend the afternoon shopping for supplies. Instead of a chain grocery store, I peruse a little sidewalk farmers market, plucking vegetables from baskets. In the evening, so as not to break the schedule I’ve been keeping, I pull on my Nikes and go for a run. And then, when the day is over, in the crisp sheets of someone else’s bed, I curl up and cry. It’s a very Billie thing to do, but oh well, no one can see me anyway. Tomorrow it’s back to being Wendy.
The next morning I check my emails on my beat-up old laptop. It won’t even turn on unless it’s plugged in, and I tap my fingers on the counter while I wait for the screen to load. I’d given Woods a little consideration and sent him an email before I left Washington, informing him that I was moving back to the city. He’d responded right away, it was nice. He welcomed me back and asked if I’d be staying in our old loft. I never answered him. I’d put up an ad on Craigslist about the loft and had twenty messages within the first day. I’d chosen a guy in his thirties who was serious about his career and worked in finance. I figured he was less likely to have wild parties in the event that he would be working all the time. All that’s left to do is pick up a box of things the cleaning company set aside and hand him his keys. In my rattiest jeans and an old Pearl Jam shirt, I set out for my favorite street in SoHo. It’s nearly impossible to avoid painful memories in a city you spent ten years living in, but I try anyway, taking the long way around the places where my ex-husband and I spent a lot of our time. The gym, for example—I can’t say I loved going, but Woods and I would trek there three times a week, holding hands, gym bags slung over our shoulders. It was part of our daily lives, a monotony that I appreciated at the time. I’ve found that the small moments hurt more than the big ones. The juice bar on Spring Street where we’d stop for breakfast on the way to the office, trying each other’s drinks and laughing when we always liked the other person's better. The movie theater we went to on 181st, because it had the best popcorn and fizziest Diet Coke. All places that Woods and I shared the most intimate moments, moments that solidified my love for him and our life together. Seeing them ignites a hurt that I wrestle down to a smoldering level. Barely.
The loft is painfully empty when I step inside. My shoes echo on the wood floors; I like the sound because it reminds me of my hollow insides. Washed and scrubbed and dusted of our memories, the loft is barely recognizable. I choke out a laugh, because I laugh when I feel awkward, and I feel hella awkward in the home I shared with my first love. It smells the same and that’s what makes me tremble. I try to shake it off, reminding myself that it’s been two years. Two! I say forcefully to myself. When we’d moved in, Woods had commented on how it smelled like baby powder. I’d scrunched up my nose and agreed, hoping he wouldn’t get any ideas. Babies were not on my radar ... yet. We never could figure out where the smell came from, though on several occasions our friends made mention of it too. I do a quick walk-through, trying to breathe through my mouth, my tennis shoes sweating on the freshly polished floors. Nights drinking red wine in front of our view; Saturday mornings scrambling eggs at the stove, Billie Holiday playing on the stereo. A fight we had about the bathroom paint color that ended in a smashed bottle of perfume and both of us laughing hysterically. Heavy, happy memories that make me swell and deflate at the same time. I thought he loved me, but I was wrong. By the time I make it back to the kitchen dragging the memories behind me like deflated balloons, my new tenant is buzzing through the intercom. I scoop up the box the cleaning people left for me and meet him at the door.
Farewell, goodbye, adios, fuck you! I think.
Chapter Four
Pearl Lajolla is five years my junior. Five years; it doesn’t feel like much, but it is. Five years means fewer wrinkles—probably right around the eyes and mouth—perkier tits, and more innocence. The innocence is the worst part. Men, especially Woods, are drawn to that shit. They act like they’re not the ones who’ve made us jaded in the first place, and then punish us for having battle wounds by leaving us for someone they haven’t fucked up yet. Pearl—was she truly innocent or just feigning? Who knows. There’s a line Shakespeare wrote in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “Though she be but little, she is fierce.” That was the first thing that came to mind when all five feet of her walked into the Rhubarb office the day I hired her on the spot. She was there in response to an ad I’d placed in the New York Times. I’d put the ad in the paper because I liked the old-fashioned quaintness of it. Woods made fun of me—a hundred job sites on the Internet and you take an ad out in the paper! Newsflash, Woods: newspaper is not a dirty word, it’s just slightly antiquated.
The ad went like this: Open-minded blogger needed for an up-and-coming brand! Must love fashion, food, and fun!!
I cringe now at the wording, but my younger, untarnished self had been hopeful and apparently grandly enthusiastic.
Pearl had been wearing too much of everything when she walked through the doors for her interview: jewelry, makeup, perfume ... eagerness. But underneath the heavily made-up face and the heady smell of Chanel was a woman who never missed a thing. She was pretty except you didn’t notice it right away. What you noticed first was the tiny-ness of her, and then the large expressive eyes that were always watching. Her pretty came secondary to her expressions, which were often comical. In that first meeting, she wore her hair pulled back in an impressively large bun. Her hair was a rich auburn that I imagined unfurled to her waist. Within two minutes, she confessed that she was a huge fan of the blog and hadn’t happened upon the ad I’d put in the paper by chance. She’d been waiting for it, she said. Pearl had a friend at the New York Times who worked in classifieds. When she saw my ad, she called Pearl immediately. She told me all of this with the same lack of shame I’d seen on her face after I found out she was sleeping with my husband. Consequently, it was that very lack of apology that made me hire her in the first place. She was a go-getter and the no-excuse way she moved through life was her biggest asset. I’d shared a lot of myself with her that first year. She’d been eager to learn. An easy friend, she seemed to have had my back. But she only had it so she could stab it.
The bar where I’m meeting Woods is more of a dive than one of the trendy drinking spots in Manhattan. I hail a cab instead of walking the seven blocks and slide into the backseat, relieved that the cabbie is blasting the air conditioning. I have to start using the subway if I want my money to last. Just this one time, I tell myself. Small, dangerous luxuries. I call out the address as he almost kills us with his extra terrible driving.
“You’re super bad at this,” I call out to him.
But my voice is drowned out by the motorcycle that passes us. God, I love this city: I love this cab, and the subtle danger I’m always in just by living here. I lean my head against the seat and close my eyes. The cab jerks left and I’m thrown into the door. Outside the car is a cacophony of honki
ng. I don’t even bother to open my eyes. If I die, I die in New York. I’m okay with that. Ten minutes later, we make it to the bar and I slide out of the car, groggy. The cabbie calls after me—I forgot to pay him. Shoving a twenty in his hand I offer a meek apology. He speeds off without responding, and I walk unsteadily toward the bar. Woods used to accuse me of being too distracted with life to remember to do basic tasks like pay the cabbie or push the button in the elevator. He did those things, and I suppose I’m only getting worse at not doing them as I age. I push through the bar door and scan the room for a table. I need to be in just the right spot to hold the upper hand.
I lick the sweat from above my lip and shift in the stool, fanning myself with the sticky laminate menu. Woods is late. I expected as much, but as I glance nervously around the bar, I wish I’d planned to arrive late rather than trying to be here on time. Who knows when he’ll actually show up. He has a knack for either being too early or embarrassingly late. Since he isn’t here yet, I assume it will be the latter. When the bartender makes his way over, I order a lemon drop. My throat can already feel the vodka. I purse my lips and order two.
“So I don’t have to bother you for another,” I tell him.
“Another is our specialty,” he says. “We’re a bar not a gym.”
I’m really soaking in that comeback when my phone pings. Woods telling me he’s going to be late when he’s already late.
I’m on my third drink, my tongue raw from the lemon, when the door opens and my ex-husband walks in. Something about Woods: he has the most sincere, expressive eyes. Brown and cozy like a cabin in the woods ... like a fire in the hearth when you’re cold ... like sex when you’re horny. He’s everything, and I still know that. Cheating assholes shouldn’t have such sincere faces. I’m past sober and well into buzzed as I watch him scan the room for me, hands in his pockets. That’s what he does when he feels out of place—he buries his hands in his pockets. Funny how you can know a person so well while feeling like you don’t know them at all. I thrill when his eyes pass right over me. Like Billie isn’t even here. And she’s not. Wendy raises a hand to beckon Woods over. Wendy smiles when he catches sight of her and raises his eyebrows in genuine surprise. Wendy holds but a shadow of Billie. My stomach is wobbly as I stand to greet the man who’d fucked me for almost a decade, then fucked me over.
“Wow,” he says when he reaches the table. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”
I imagine he’s just given me a compliment because his face is one-half awe, one-half shock. It’s the face of a man who’s just realized his grandma smokes pot.
“I thought people moved to Washington to grow out their pubic hair and drink Kombucha from recycled glass.”
“Says the boy from Georgia who moved to New York to eat dollar pizza and considers himself edgy because he wears black.”
“Hey now,” he says. “Dollar pizza is good even when it’s bad.”
I smile because you can say whatever you like to Woods and he always lobs a comeback even if you’re too dumb to get it.
He picks up my empty glass, tilting it toward his nose as he sniffs.
“Lemon drop,” he announces like I don’t already know.
He licks his lips and I get a flash of his head between my legs, tongue flicking while I scream.
The bartender appears, a new one this time. I’m grateful for the distraction, my cheeks are flushed.
Before Woods can order for himself, I say, “He’s going to order an IPA, but he really wants a lemon drop.”
He slides onto the stool across from me, an amused expression on his face. “She’s right,” he nods, “so just go ahead and bring the lemon drop.”
The familiar banter is painful. God.
As soon as the bartender turns his back, Woods is smiling at me. The corners of his eyes crease and it doesn’t make him look tired, or old, or haggard; if anything, he looks charming. Someone wanting to flatter him could say his wrinkles give him character. I don’t want to flatter him.
“You look good.” He always gets right to the point.
And I do look good. I’ve lost nearly forty pounds since the last time he saw me.
I get right to the point too because I don’t trust myself.
“I’m renting out the loft,” I say. “The cleaning company found these…” I slide the envelope across the table.
Woods tents the opening and peers inside. “My God, the missing social security card and birth certificate. We fought about this for three days. Where did they find them?”
“Under the fridge.”
“Go figure,” he says.
He sets the envelope on the table. A week ago, I’d emailed Woods to tell him I had some of his things that I would be happy to mail to him. He’d responded not ten minutes later, asking to meet instead.
“Where are you staying?” he asks.
I study the hairs on his forearms. “I rented an apartment.”
“Why not just move back into the loft?”
“Been there, done that.” I smile. And then I add, “Too many memories. If I’m back in the city I want to make new memories, not be reminded of all the old ones.”
His lemon drop arrives and he touches his full glass to my empty one in a halfhearted cheers.
“Another?” the bartender asks.
I smile weakly. “I better not.”
“I’ll have another,” Woods says, “and keep them coming.” He unfolds a piece of Juicy Fruit onto his tongue.
“Still with the Juicy Fruit?” I ask.
Woods chewed Juicy Fruit like it was his security blanket.
“Always.”
As soon as the bartender is out of earshot, he turns back to me. “Does Satcher know you’re back?”
It’s an odd question. I haven’t spoken to Woods’ best friend in years.
“No ... I was thinking about calling him.”
Before our split, Woods and I had started our own business, a lifestyle blog called Rhubarb. The day I signed my divorce papers, I sold my share of the business to Woods’ friend, Satcher Gable. All I’d wanted to do was go home to Washington. In retrospect, it was a stupid idea. The company had been my idea, my labor of love. It hurt to think that I handed it over to Satcher and my cheating ex-husband. I rub my forehead trying to recall what my therapist said I should do in times like these. I think I was supposed to repeat something over and over. Something about success ... forgiveness…
Screw it. I cuss under my breath instead, and then liking the way it feels, I say it over and over like my forgotten mantra. Fuck, shit, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuuuuuuck. Shit.
“You okay, Billie?”
Woods suddenly looks like he really needs that next drink, so I decide to change the subject.
“I don’t go by Billie anymore.”
“Why not?”
“She was married to you.”
He flinches but refrains from making a comment, the muscles in his forehead moving in emotion.
“Okay,” he says. “So what do I call you now?”
“I’d imagine nothing. I’m your ex-wife. There’s no reason to call me anything.”
“Come on, Bil—”
“Royden—”
“Oh no, Billie, no. Why are you calling me that? That’s tragic,” he says, shaking his head.
I can’t help the smile that pushes against my lips. I try to hide it with a frown, but he’s noticed and he’s looking at me with soft eyes. Eyes that have seen my best and my worst for nearly over a decade.
“It’s a good name,” I say. “You never liked it, but it’s a good name.”
He shakes his head like he’s embarrassed, but I can tell he likes what I’ve said. When I first met him, we’d been introduced by mutual friends at a small mixer. He’d taken my hand and told me his name was Woods.
“That’s not his name!” my friend Samantha called from across the room. She was drunk, and as she called out to us, her drink sloshed over the rim of her cup and onto the rug.
&nb
sp; “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck.”
“What’s your real name?” I’d asked, turning back to him. I could hear Samantha behind me calling for a rag, her words slurring.
“My full name is Royden Lynwood Tarrow.”
“Yikes,” I said.
“Exactly.” He’d then ducked his head, his mouth tucked in a smile, eyes still on my face, and I’d fallen. Fallen for him, fallen for that sexy embarrassment, fallen so hard I’d silently wondered if the two sips I’d had of my drink went straight to my head.
Now I stare at the man who gave and took my joy, and I can’t help but wonder if I’d allowed him to do it. Woods never asked me for anything. In our eight years of being together, he rarely made demands, and the less he’d needed, the more I’d felt obliged to give. It was a self-imposed pressure to meet his unspoken needs. And I think I’d gotten it all wrong in the end—we both had, which had led to our slow demise.
His phone vibrates on the table, spinning in a slow circle. We look at it at the same time. Pearl flashes on the screen. Woods scratches the back of his head, clearly embarrassed.
“I was supposed to be home ten minutes ago.”
I raise my eyebrows, amused. “A curfew? The great Woods Tarrow has a curfew?”
“Stoooop,” he says, laughing. “You know how it is…”
I didn’t, in fact, know. When Woods and I were married I never told him when or where or how to be. I was the opposite of controlling, so much so that he once accused me of not caring about our marriage.
He suddenly grows serious. “You were never the controlling type.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t need to.
Woods taps his fingers on the table, the fingers of his free hand kneading the back of his neck.
“What do you say we have one more drink, woman with no name?”
I look around the bar—the couples bent toward each other, mouths hovering close, hands pressing into the smalls of backs. There’s anticipation in the air. Everyone is lapping up the night, their blood thrumming with alcohol. Woods and I stand under the apple juice glow of the bar lights and stare at each other.
F*ck Marriage Page 2