The Silent Wife: A Novel

by A. S. A. Harrison

  He’s still on the phone when Stephanie returns with a sheaf of checks for him to sign. He’s been pacing and comes to a halt by the window. She puts the checks on his desk and waits. Stephanie, he knows, is well aware of the goings-on between him and Natasha, who came here once looking like she could eat him alive. Stephanie’s words. What kind of assistant speaks to her boss like that? And lately, Stephanie has made a point of walking in on their telephone conversations. She leaves him no choice but to end them abruptly, like now. She has a pen in her hand and thrusts it at him as if they were fencing.

  Before leaving the office he calls Jodi to say that he won’t be home for dinner. It’s a courtesy call; she’s aware that he’s seeing Dean tonight. But he likes to let her know that he’s thinking about her. He’s a lucky man and doesn’t lose sight of the fact. She’s still a knockout with her slender figure and dark hair, and in spite of being a homebody herself, she understands that he can’t be spending his evenings sitting around the condo. Some of his friends have to be home for dinner every night. Some can’t even go for a beer after work. Luckily, his buddies are vast in number—including virtually everyone he’s ever worked with—and many of them are single or divorced, so he can nearly always find a drinking partner. Not that he minds an evening on his own, when it comes to that.

  He and Dean Kovacs go all the way back to high school. Dean is his oldest friend and the only one who knew his father. When he speaks of his father as a mean old fuck, Dean knows exactly what he’s talking about. Dean is like family, practically a brother. But he’s also Natasha’s father, and that could be a problem. Or maybe not. It’s hard to say how Dean will react when he finds out what’s been going on. He’ll be shaken up for sure, but once he’s had a chance to get used to it, who knows? Maybe they’ll have a laugh about it—he can call Dean “Dad” or “Pop,” and Dean can tell him to get lost. Ten to one everything will work out fine. At least it’s not him who has to break it to Dean. That’s Natasha’s job. She’ll tell him when she thinks the time is right. That’s what they’ve decided.

  It’s a warm day, and down in the street the heat and grime rise from the pavement like perfume. He loves this city right down to the concrete, loves its sheer physicality, the tonnage of its massive structures, and even more he loves its power and thrust, the religion of its commerce, its proliferating For Sale signs and frontier-style delivery of opportunities. Walking the three blocks south to the private lot where he parks his car, he feels his great good fortune in having landed here now—in this place, in this time.

  Instead of heading straight for Jefferson Park he turns west on Roosevelt and makes a stop at Home Depot. If he added up the time he’s spent in this store it would come to months of his life. He cares about his interiors, has opinions about things like flooring and lighting. The sum total of the details goes a long way toward making or breaking a project. Cliff would be happy to shop for paint, tiles, carpets, fixtures, and add on his ten percent, but Cliff isn’t there when potential buyers walk away because they don’t like the color or the finish, and whatever happens Cliff still gets paid.

  He leaves the store without buying anything and gets on the expressway, his windows down and Nevermind playing on the stereo. The only place he ever attempts to sing is in his car, where the wind in his ears and the drone of the engine mean that even he can’t hear himself. He knows the words to all the tracks and belts them out as he picks up speed. The album dates back twenty years to the cocky young man he used to be, infatuated with his own capability and promise. He first met Jodi the year that Nirvana replaced Michael Jackson at the top of the charts, and now each song is like a time machine, taking him back to the sonic boom of his love.

  He had his first sight of her on State Street, their wrecked vehicles blocking both eastbound lanes, the traffic behind them at a standstill, horns blaring, people crowding round, rain pouring down, her drenched hair stuck to her face, her soaked T-shirt leaving her as good as naked from the waist up. But even though her breasts were resplendent—small but perfect, with nipples standing up like finials in the pelting rain—what struck him blind was her bearing, how cool and unperturbed she was, how regal and dignified. Not before or since has he come across a woman with half Jodi’s class.

  At the building site he finds Cliff smoking out front in his dusty coveralls and sagging tool belt. Cliff is a sturdy man who speaks slowly and gives the impression that he’s putting down roots on the spot. He’s the same age as Todd but has a shaggy salt-and-pepper mustache that adds on ten years. When the plumber pulls up in his van the three of them go inside and stroll through the units. Their conversation centers on pipes and drains and the like, compelling stuff when you are Todd Jeremy Gilbert of TJG Holdings and you are invested up to the eyeballs. The place was near derelict when he bought it, and he had to evict tenants, which he didn’t enjoy, but now it’s just about starting to look like something. The workmen they encounter as they tour around are taking out old wiring and putting up new beams, though it’s not quite the hub of activity that Todd would like it to be. Although he’s worked with Cliff for going on two decades, he still has to stay on his case. His overhead—what he pays out every day just to own this property and keep the bank and the municipality off his back—is enough to feed a village in Africa for a year.

  On his way back to the city he calls Natasha in the hope that she’ll meet him for lunch, but she’s already eating a sandwich.

  “You’re eating a sandwich as we speak?”

  “I’m unwrapping it, and I’m about to take a bite.”

  “Save it and we’ll go to Francesca’s.”

  “I can’t. I have to get to class.”

  “Can you meet me after work?”

  “I’m babysitting from four to seven.”

  “I’ll come over.”

  “Not a good idea.”

  “You know I’m busy later on.”

  “Let’s have lunch tomorrow.”

  “That means I won’t see you today.”

  “Do you think you’ll survive?”

  “What kind of sandwich do you have?”

  “Salami on rye. From Manny’s. With extra mustard.”

  “Are you sitting down somewhere?”

  “I told you. I’m on my way to class.”

  “You’re walking to class right now?”

  “I’m walking north on Morgan. I just passed the library. And I’m going to be late if you don’t let me off the phone.”

  “Tell me what you’re wearing.”

  She feigns annoyance but he knows she likes it. She likes the finely tuned attention with its erotic undertones. He pictures her laden backpack, the straps tugging at her shoulders, her perfect teeth sinking through soft bread layered with meat. She’s in her senior year and will graduate in the spring with a BA in art history. She hasn’t thought about a career; what she would like to do is get married and start a family. Apropos of this she has told him that he’d make an excellent father. He’s encouraged by what this implies—that she’s not about to dump him for a younger man—but hasn’t thought about the future except to admit to himself that what he has with Natasha is different, not what you’d call a fling. A fling to him is like sport, a form of recreation that doesn’t encroach on your way of life or cause you to lose your bearings. This, however, is messy, demanding, addictive, and fills him with angst. At times he swears that he’s going to go straight, but mostly he feels like a drowning man in love with the surf.

  The weekend retreat was her idea. It was she who found the country inn on the Fox River with its seventeen wooded acres, heated pool, and French chef, and it was she who booked the room and talked it up to him. They could go back to bed after breakfast and shower together before dinner. They could walk in the woods and make love in a sunny clearing. As opposed to their usual snacking, done on the sly, they could satisfy their appetites at leisure—and so on and so forth.

  “Or would you rather stay at home with Jodi?” she asked.

&
nbsp; He wished she would not bring Jodi into it. His life with Jodi belongs to a realm that has nothing to do with her, a parallel universe where things run smoothly and will go on doing so, where blameless years stretch sweetly into the past and comfortably into the future. He once made the mistake of telling Natasha that Jodi in bed was a cold dish of porridge. The idea was not to slight Jodi but to reassure Natasha. He’s a generous man whose easy embrace absorbs a world of imperfections, especially when it comes to women. He has a knack for accepting things as they are and working with them. Things about Jodi. Things about Natasha.

  One thing he puts up with in Jodi is the fact that she has a string of degrees. Not just a BA like Natasha will have but a doctorate and a couple of master’s degrees. He doesn’t mind her being brainy—what gets him is the ribbings he has to take from the boys, who like to carry on about Jodi being a cut above him. Not that he ever believed there was any inherent value in having a string of degrees. Getting an education is all about earning power—the threat is that if you don’t go to school you’ll end up working at McDonald’s. It’s money not education that’s the holy grail in America.

  He stops for lunch at a British-style pub and resists the urge to order a beer. When he’s back at the office Stephanie hands him the price quotes he asked for and a list of calls he needs to make. He stretches out on the couch to make the calls and after that takes a nap. When he wakes up it’s four thirty and he heads for the gym.

  Working out is a recent thing. It began as a way to combat his depression when the doctor told him that vigorous exercise would generate endorphins, the body’s own analgesics. He didn’t feel the endorphins at first and found it difficult to bypass the bar on his way to the gym, but that changed when he met Natasha. Now he works with a trainer and uses the free weights instead of the machines, and he’s started wearing wrist wraps and a tank top.

  After pushing himself for over an hour he feels recharged and slightly horny. When he’s showered and dried off he winds a towel around his waist and gives Natasha a call, even though the crowded locker room makes a private conversation out of the question. As a matter of fact, even his thoughts need to be held in check because he doesn’t want his ardor standing up and waving in a room full of naked men.

  He lets her say hello three times before he speaks up.

  “What are you, a pervert?” she asks.

  “That’s exactly what I am,” he says.

  “You know I can see your name and number on my call display.”

  Next time, he decides, he’ll use a pay phone.

  —

  When he walks into the lounge at the Drake Hotel after handing off the Porsche to a valet, Dean Kovacs is already there, seated at the bar. The vintage nightclub with its burgundy leather, gleaming wood, and old-world masculine elegance is a comfortable and seductive home away from home. Right now it’s packed to bursting with the after-work crowd, the din of voices rising and falling in lyrical waves as he weaves his way across the room, thumps Dean on the back, and takes the vacant stool to his left, which is more like an armchair than a stool.

  “Hey, buddy,” says Dean, throwing back the last of his draft beer. “I got started without you.”

  “You old bastard,” says Todd. “You’re one up on me.”

  “I’ve always been one up on you, buddy,” says Dean. He waves to the bartender and shows him two fingers.

  Dean has been packing on the pounds, and with his full face and double chin has come to resemble a chubby baby. He’s wearing a blue summer suit with a wash-and-wear shirt that gapes over his paunch, though nothing worse is revealed than a clean white undershirt. His bunched tie blossoms from the breast pocket of his jacket. For the past twelve years he’s been earning his living as a sales executive for a plastics company, a job that he likes well enough.

  The bartender puts two pints down in front of them. Todd takes a first long swill and wipes the foam from his lips with the back of his hand. Fatigued from his workout, he wants only to sit back and passively assimilate the alcohol and the atmosphere. Dean has the heart of a salesman, and all Todd has to do to get him going is ask about returns. “Last time I saw you there was a downswing,” he says, baiting the hook. Dean obliges by holding forth on market shares and competitive presence, enabling Todd to relax and listen with one ear. He’d rather hear about products and developments—even plastic has its attractions—but Dean is inspired by targets, quotas, profits, and forecasts.

  Todd sees Dean two, maybe three times a year. It’s always Dean who calls to set it up, but Todd would take the initiative if Dean didn’t. Although they live in different worlds the past makes for a strong bond. They grew up in Ashburn on the southwest side and went to Bogan High and played hockey and got stoned and lost their virginity together. The loss of virginity took place on a double date in an RV belonging to Dean’s parents. Give Dean a drink or two and he invariably brings this into the conversation. It’s meaningful to Dean that he and Todd shared that seminal experience, that he overheard the vocals of Todd’s passage into manhood, and that Todd was there for him in the same way. It’s meaningful to Todd as well, but he doesn’t want everyone in the bar to know about it. Before it goes too far he asks for menus and gets Dean focused on ordering dinner.

  After their burgers they switch from beer to shots, and this is where Dean starts in on the resurrection of his wife, who’s been dead for ten years.

  “Don’t tell me she wasn’t the best woman a man could ever want,” says Dean. “A woman who comes along once in a lifetime.” He straightens his spine to emphasize his point and nods randomly like one of those bobblehead dolls. “Once,” he repeats, rapping his knuckles on the bar. “If he’s lucky.”

  “She was a good woman,” Todd agrees.

  “That woman was a fucking goddess,” says Dean. “I fucking worshipped that woman. You know I did.”

  He waits for Todd’s confirmation, which Todd is happy to give. In Todd’s mind there is no contradiction between Dean’s present sentiments and the fact that he engaged in multiple affairs while his wife was still alive.

  “She knew how much you loved her. Everyone knew.”

  “That’s right,” says Dean. “I worshipped that woman. I still do. You know that’s true, because if it wasn’t true I woulda got married again, which I didn’t.”

  In recent years Dean has had a string of girlfriends, none of them as good as his perfect dead wife and none with any hope of replacing her. It works out well for Dean, who likes the game of pursuit and conquest and the feeling of power it gives him to hold a woman at bay once he has captured her interest.

  As Dean downs his shots he progresses from maudlin to bloody-minded. The crowd has thinned, the roar has dropped to a hum, and Dean’s interest is wandering. Dipping and turning in his seat, he spies a young woman of about his daughter’s age with cropped black hair and carmine lips and launches into a loud monologue, only ostensibly directed at Todd, about what he would like to do to her and what he would like her to do to him. Seated in the middle distance, engaged in conversation, she is unaware that Dean is targeting her, but other people—most of those within earshot—are turning to look at him.

  Todd, in the meantime, has slipped into a world of his own. His sense of a benign essential self—his aura, his largesse—has been swelling and expanding and has now realized something like room-size proportions. In his magnanimity he makes no judgments and excludes no one, neither Dean nor the enemies Dean is busy cultivating. Everyone present is contained in the bubble of Todd’s benevolence. This is Todd when he drinks. When Todd drinks he has a silent life as a priest, absolving and redeeming all humanity.

  Having lost interest in the red-lipped girl, Dean now turns to the woman on his right at the bar. She’s overweight and closer to his own age, and in the murk of his alcohol-infused brain this adds up to a good chance that she’ll take an interest in him. The fact that she’s engaged in conversation with her escort, who is seated on her other side, fails to registe
r with Dean, who puts his mouth close to her left breast and makes lapping motions with his tongue. She has already taken note of Dean and edged her stool away. Now she gives him a look of disgust and tells him to screw off. Dean picks up on the word screw and comes back at her with a proposition, whereupon she and her date—a foxy man in designer glasses—stand up and trade places. This man, who now forms a barrier between Dean and the woman he is pursuing, says nothing to Dean, but Dean objects to him on principle and pokes him in the ribs.

  “Hey, buddy,” he says. “I was just exercising my rights as a male of the species.”

  “Yeah, well, go and exercise them somewhere else,” says the man.

  Dean turns to Todd and says, “I was just exercising my rights as a male of the species. It’s a free world, isn’t it?”

  Todd has been a witness to Dean’s scrapping since high school. If Dean were in a seriously pugnacious frame of mind, Todd would take him in hand and get him out of there, but in Todd’s view Dean’s posturing is harmless. “Try to stay out of trouble” is his only remark.

  To which Dean loudly replies, “She’s a dog anyway. I can do better than that.”

  Todd laughs and says, “That’s the spirit, buddy,” and Dean snickers, pleased with himself.

  Todd knows that Dean only gets like this when he’s drinking. Some people can hold their liquor; Dean is not one of them. You wouldn’t know it but Dean is sensitive, the kind of guy who cries easily and likes babies. When Dean finished high school he went in for the marines, but he wasn’t red-blooded enough to see it through and left before he got a posting. That’s when he went into sales. On the whole you’d have to say that Dean is easygoing. He’s been known to lose his temper, but it takes a lot to provoke him. So it’s really just a question of how the news is going to strike him, and Todd is finding that hard to predict. He can only hope that Natasha breaks it to him gently.

  When it’s nearing midnight and Todd is back in his car, he calls one of his cached numbers and after a brief conversation makes his way to the Four Seasons, just a few city blocks away. His date is one of several he keeps on tap, all with enough class to pass muster at a five-star hotel, all available at a moment’s notice, especially when a man of his generosity is asking. It’s on nights like this, when he hasn’t seen Natasha and is too energized, too full of grace to go straight home, that he likes to take advantage of the luxury goods and services the city has to offer.