“We’re home,” I say.
She smiles faintly, stretching.
“Home,” she says softly. “Where is that anyway?”
“The place that makes you feel peace,” I answer.
She stares at me through her lashes, looking momentarily confused, her body angled toward me, palms pressed between her knees for warmth. She seems to be considering what I said because the next minute she reaches for me. Her movement is slow, like she’s underwater. I watch as her hand floats toward me; it hooks around the back of my neck, the warmth of her touch sparking a rush of gooseflesh across my arms.
“Satcher…” she says.
It sounds like she’s asking me a question, so I answer her. I reach out to grab her behind the head, pulling her toward me. With my fingers gripping her hair, we kiss. Our ragged breathing is amplified in the stillness of the car, the almost empty parking garage an even wider emptiness beyond that. It feels like we’re floating in our own world. Without the car on, the cold seeps in and soon the only warmth is coming from our bodies. It makes us hungrier for touch. Billie is halfway across her seat and into mine. Her hands are inside my shirt, held against my skin like she’s trying to warm herself as our lips move slowly together.
“You feel so good,” I say into her hair. My hands are under her sweater, on her breasts, which are hot to the touch.
“It’s just because it’s so cold.” She buries her face against my chest so that her voice is muffled. I cup her head with my free hand, not relinquishing my hold on her breast, and dip down to kiss her crown.
“Billie,” I say, and I swear I can see my breath. “Everything about you feels good: your body, your mind, your company. The cold is convenient, but it has nothing to do with you and how you make me feel.”
She sits very still even though I know she must be uncomfortable stretched halfway across the armrest. I think of something then, and letting go of her head, I reach into my pocket awkwardly, pulling the tiny white button she gave me that night we were at Summertime Sunday. I hold it toward her in the center of my palm.
“What’s—” Her face registers recognition. “Oh…” Her voice is quiet, dropping to a whisper. “You still don’t remember,” she says.
She sounds disappointed which makes me feel guilty.
“You were drunk ... I guess I just thought…” She trails off and stares out of the passenger side window.
I’m losing her. I grab her chin and pivot her face back toward me, looking her in the eye.
“Remind me,” I say.
It’s so cold. We should probably head up to the apartment, but I’m afraid if we leave the car the spell will be broken.
“It was at the wedding—Woods and mine. Halfway through the reception I snuck out to the balcony to take a breather, just to get away from everyone for five minutes and collect my thoughts, you know?”
I nod, urging her to continue.
“You were already out there—” she says.
And then I remember, faintly. I was drunk, Billie was right. I’d gone outside to do something similar while the DJ’s music pounded rhythmically from inside. I’d been staring out over the city, a city that I saw every day but never tired of. That was the way Billie and I were the same—we both loved New York.
I heard the door open, the blast of music from inside, and then it was abruptly cut off as the door closed again. I knew it was her before I turned around. I’ve always known when she’s in a room, I can feel her. Setting my drink down on the ledge overlooking the west side of the city, I’d turned around. Her white dress was framed against the dark backdrop of the doors that led inside. Led to everyone who wasn’t us. She walked toward me without a word and leaned her elbows on the railing, her eyes trailing the lights of the city.
“I want this to be over already,” she said.
When I looked at her, the space around her head wobbled like the air was moving. Too much to drink. I rubbed my eyes. I thought about telling her the truth right then and there, that I shared her sentiment and couldn’t wait for the night to be over. That my heart was throbbing in my chest like someone had squeezed it until it was tender. Before I could say anything, she’d turned to me.
“My hair is stuck.”
“What?”
She turned so that her back was to me and lifted her hair off her neck. In my haze of alcohol and self-pity I saw a strand of brown snagged onto her dress. I reached out, tugging on the hair, and Billie yelped.
“Sorry,” I said, shamefaced. “Hold on…”
She waited patiently, her arms still holding her hair up, her neck exposed. Spread out in front of her was the whole city we loved, and I had the urge to tilt my head down and kiss the graceful slant of her neck. But she wasn’t my bride.
I struggled with the hair for what seemed like five minutes, but it wouldn’t unsnag from what it was caught on.
“Are you happy?” It was a spontaneous question that should’ve received a fairly typical answer. I realized too late that I didn’t want to hear her answer, and that with the current state of my heart, it was a stupid thing to ask.
When she said, “I don’t know,” in that smoky voice of hers, my hand stilled.
“Well, you will be,” I said it with confidence because I believed she would be.
She sighed deeply. “And if I’m not?”
One last tug and to my dismay, the top button of her dress popped off and bounced off the concrete floor. I bent to retrieve it as Billie turned around to see what happened.
“I’m sorry.”
She laughed at the dismayed look on my face. “It’s just a button.”
“Okay,” I said, still holding it, still staring down at it in horror.
“And if I’m not?” she asked again.
I glanced up at her face and saw that she was serious. There was apprehension in her eyes, maybe the wedding jitters. Her brow was furrowed and in that moment I knew she needed something from me—not what I wanted to give her—but something.
“Then give me this button and I’ll come rescue you.” I placed it in her now open palm, closing her fingers over it. Her face swam in front of me. I was so drunk, so drunk and so hurt. She’d smiled and it had reached all the way to her eyes.
“I believe you,” she said.
And then the door opened, and the noise of the party reached between us, breaking the spell. I watched her run back inside, almost in slow motion, one of her bridesmaids holding the door open for her.
“Billie…” I say. My words get stuck.
How could I forget that?
She remembered. She remembered.
“Let’s go upstairs,” she says.
Part III
Chapter Thirty-Six
Billie
The rain hasn’t let up and the bar at Summertime Sunday is closing. The Christmas party ended hours ago, the last of the employees floating out of the door shortly after. Woods and I have been sitting in a booth near the window for the last three hours. Through the rain-dotted windows, the city is a blur of neon signs and brake lights. His suit jacket is slung around my shoulders and my feet rest in his lap. Every few minutes he’ll be saying something to me and his hands will start rubbing my arches. Several times I’ve thought to stop him, but the sentiment is so familiar I don’t have the mental strength.
“I read it again, you know?”
“What?” I’m distracted. His hands are so warm.
“Your blog post.”
“Really?” I perk up. I’d sit up straighter if it didn’t mean pulling my feet out of his lap.
“Yes. You asked me to.”
“What does that mean? Since when do you do things I ask you to do?”
“You don’t always have to be so hard on me, you know.” His eyes crinkle at the corners when he says this.
He’s teasing me. I like it. I tighten my lips and pretend I’m put out.
“You were right. I saw that once I took a step back and read it with my own eyes.”
&nb
sp; “Thank you,” I say.
“I—I knew I hurt you. That’s not exactly rocket science. But reading the details…”
This is it. I’ve wanted Woods to read that post—in a way, I’d written it to him. I don’t have the courage to ask him what I really want to know, so I settle for this.
“Don’t you need to get home?” I ask him.
Woods glances at his watch. “No. It’s still early.”
“Woods…”
“Stop it, Billie. Stop overthinking everything.”
Am I guilty of that? Overthinking? No more than Woods is guilty of underthinking. I smirk at the defiant look on his face ... the wrinkles on his forehead that didn’t used to be there. He used to get that look with me and it infuriated me. Now Pearl is the target of his defiance and I don’t mind. Not at all.
“Should we get out of here?”
His suggestion doesn’t surprise me. It surprises me when I stand up and follow him out. It surprises me when we walk hand in hand through the rain toward Jules’ apartment. It surprises me when I invite him in.
I tell Satcher that Woods and I slept together. I don’t know why, I think it’s the suspicious way he looks at me … or maybe because of my weak moment in giving him the button. The lie uncurls from my tongue in a moment of recklessness, and I’m not sure who’s more shocked by my confession: me or Satcher. The worst part is I’m not even ashamed. I do it for the coldness that filters into his eyes. I know he’s struggling with his feelings for Jules, the lingering effects of what we had together still clouding his thinking. Jules confided her suspicions about being pregnant a week before the Christmas party. Two nights before we all met at the restaurant she took a test and came into my room to show me the results.
Satcher is angry with me. He thinks I’m better than sleeping with my ex-husband who is currently engaged to my nemesis. I’m not sure I am, but the night I claimed I slept with Woods went completely different than the story I told.
After Woods and I got to Jules’ apartment, all of our rapidly building chemistry extinguished. It was as if the walk from the restaurant to the apartment (a mere five blocks) had cooled the attraction, leaving us tired and emotionally tense. I made drinks anyway, feeling a growing heaviness in my chest. What would I have done if things kept going like they were in the restaurant? Would I have slept with him? My mother always said that our intentions represented our depravity, while our actual behavior showed who we chose to be. Currently, I was choosing to be a lukewarm hostess, not meeting Woods’ eyes. I made drinks that were too strong and when I caught sight of my reflection in the kettle my eyeliner had bled and my mascara was smudged. That’s what I got for buying the cheap stuff. I looked like a back-alley hooker. I excused myself to the bathroom as soon as I handed Woods his drink and washed my face with scalding hot water. I emerged pink-faced and wearing my fluffy winter robe. There was nothing about my current look that said I was trying to seduce someone.
“You look beautiful,” Woods said as soon as I exited the bathroom.
“What? No,” I said, stopping dead in my tracks.
He laughed. “You put on your granny robe to send a message, didn’t you?”
I eyed him warily as I made my way around the island putting three feet of space between us.
“How did you know that?”
“You used to put on that robe when you didn’t want to have sex.”
I laughed not just because he was right, but because he knew me so well.
I toyed with the belt of my robe while I stared at him. He watched me so closely, I felt a fleet of goose bumps skitter over my arms.
“Why did you really come back?”
His question jarred me. I was too drunk to lie though, so when I answered it was with the insecure, ugly truth.
“I wanted to know why I wasn’t enough.”
He dropped his head just as suddenly as he asked the question, and I stared at him earnestly. Please, please, I’m so close to answers.
When Woods looked up, his expression was one I’d only seen on his face twice before: once when his grandfather died, and the other when I broke down and sobbed after he told me he wanted a divorce.
“Billie,” his voice was strained. “You were enough. It was me who was never enough. Every day I tried to meet your expectations and every day I failed.”
A cry escaped my throat. How could he say that? I’d adored him. In a flash he’d gone from adoring me to treating me like a stranger. It was shocking. I’d never been able to figure it out—why men were given that internal switch and women were not. One little flick and they could turn their feelings on and off—so in control. I used to love this one and now I love that one. Men were more loyal to football teams than they were to women. They never cheated on those.
“I never asked you for anything. How can you say that?”
“That’s exactly right, Billie. Because you didn’t need me. I’ve never felt more like a useless fuck in my life.”
I was shocked into silence. In the eight years we were together, three of them married, Woods never once mentioned anything like this.
“You were the brains, the talent, the ambition. Anything I offered was a dull knife to your sharp one.”
“That’s not true,” I argued. “What did I do to make you feel like that?”
“I made myself feel that way. In the beginning it was what drew me to you, how you were so sure of yourself. So capable and bright. Your brain reminded me of a big city, always lit up and spinning around and around. I was just always a small-town boy trying to make it in the big city.”
“Goddammit, Woods.”
“Just shush and listen, Billie.”
I closed my mouth. He held his sweating glass between his hands, but I hadn’t seen him drink anything.
He shook his head, curls falling all over. Woods and his big hands, and his big eyes, and his big curls. I always loved being underneath those hands.
“It was easy with Pearl. She thought I was the beginning and the end.”
His words were like an icy hand around my heart, fingers digging, digging. “So you left me for Pearl because she fed your ego? Bravo.” I was already turning away, finished with this conversation. The thief of love was ego. How weak was love that it could not sustain insecurity? Wasn’t it supposed to do the opposite?
“It wasn’t love…”
I stopped.
“Hear me out,” he said.
“I’m listening.”
He walked around to face me.
“What I felt for you was love. The poets, the philosophers—they say things about perfect love. How it heals, how it behaves, how it braves all things. But they’re idealizing it. Best-case scenario: love saves the day. But I was the worst-case scenario. Love is sometimes powerful enough to self-destruct. Because when an imperfect person wields the most powerful weapon in the universe, they’re bound to trip over their own feet.”
“How can you say this to me now?” My voice lifted and warped like old linoleum. Words that could have saved me before—saved us before—given too late.
“I’m just a stupid man, Billie. You always had too much faith in me.”
It was true ... maybe. But it wasn’t Woods I put my faith in, it was love. I believed it to be the ultimate redeemer, never considering that when something so perfect was handed to the imperfect, it was misused.
“I meant it when I said forever. But I overshot my ability to fulfill that promise. And I’m sorry.”
My heart swelled with hurt and flowed into my chest. I let myself feel it rather than pushing it away like I normally did.
“Do you love her?“ I asked.
“Yes.”
“Good,” I said. “Treat her better.”
This time my feet didn’t drag when they walked away.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
That’s how we left it and that’s how I think it is going to stay.
I spend a magical and unexpected Christmas with Satcher, during which my hear
t swells to three times its size. I barely remember that I’m an emotional cripple, that I have abandonment issues, or that I’m in New York for revenge. I’m just Billie, happy Billie ... fun Billie ... witty Billie. Some people have a way about them. They make you feel like ... an unencumbered version of yourself. An alternate reality Billie.
Two days after Christmas, I’m on Satcher’s couch in my pajamas working on some last-minute things for the blog. Satcher left before I was awake, so I’m alone with my foot propped up when the knock sounds on his door. I frown at the disturbance, wondering if I should get up or just pretend no one’s home. Since no one buzzed up, it’s probably a neighbor. I decide to ignore it, settling back into the couch, but then the knock comes again, harder this time.
Cursing, I struggle off the couch and hobble over, just as the intensity of the knocking increases. Whoever is on the other side of that door is about to get a mouthful from me. I fling open the door without looking through the peephole and find myself face-to-face with Woods. I gasp, and it’s sort of funny. Who gasps in real life? He has about four days’ worth of stubble along his jaw and he’s wearing glasses instead of his contacts. I think back to the last time I saw Woods wear glasses, college maybe.
“What are you doing here?” It sounds more aggressive than I intended, but I square my jaw and stare him down.
My place in New York is changing, my feet finally finding solid ground. I may have moved back for the wrong reasons, but I am going to make a life here for the right ones.
“We need to talk,” he says.
My stomach drops. The very words he said to me the night he told me about Pearl.
F*ck Marriage Page 23