Listen to the Marriage

by John Jay Osborn

  “I get that,” Sandy said. “But let’s put that aside for a moment, because it is another big issue. We need to feel our way toward it. Let’s deal with the issue at hand. I’m sure Steve made himself feel a lot worse than you’re feeling now. He went on your computer and discovered how much you love some other guy, and then he commissioned a report that told him that Bill was a charismatic guy and a real threat.”

  Sandy turned and looked at Steve.

  “How much did the report cost?” Sandy asked.

  “Fifteen hundred dollars,” Steve said.

  “It must have hurt,” Sandy said.

  “You can’t imagine,” Steve said.

  “Oh, yes I can,” Sandy said. “Have you learned anything?”

  “I’m feeling sort of dead right now,” Steve said, sounding down, defeated, depressed. “Like I’ve been paralyzed and can’t move. It’s hard to explain. I feel like I’m just going to be tossed around by a huge storm and I can’t control anything, the storm is just going to throw me wherever. Just wherever.”

  “That’s a good statement of what you’ve learned,” Sandy said. “I think that is an honest description of how you feel right now. I also think it is a good thing that you feel you can’t control anything.”

  Steve looked at Sandy as if she were completely crazy. It was not the first time he had looked at Sandy that way. And Sandy was pretty sure it was not going to be the last.

  “I’m lost,” Gretchen said. She sat up in her chair, crossed her arms, then looked back at Sandy. “What has he learned?”

  “That he can’t control anything,” Sandy said. “That he can’t control you. That he’s got to let go. He has to let go of you. He has no choice. The storm is going to take him wherever it wants. You are the storm. He’s not going to fight you. He can’t.”

  Gretchen took that in. After a moment, she nodded.

  “Does that mean he doesn’t fuck with my computer? With my privacy? With Bill? With my life?” Gretchen said to Sandy.

  Gretchen doesn’t get it, Sandy thought. She was surprised. Sandy looked at Steve.

  “Yes,” Steve said. “I’m not going to invade your privacy again.”

  Sandy was still staring at Steve.

  “Of course you will invade her privacy. You’ll do it again, and again,” Sandy said. “And it will often be a good thing. This is a really hard lesson to learn. Where the boundaries are. When to cross over them. If you learn it, it will take you months or years. Here is something simple to learn right now: You both need to tell each other everything, but you can’t demand that. You have to make the other want to tell you everything. You can’t make them. That never works.”

  “Why not?” Steve said. “Why couldn’t we just agree to tell each other everything?”

  “You already tried that,” Sandy said. “See how well it worked?”

  She meant, you agreed to that when you got married, and Sandy could see that both of them understood what she meant.

  Could they go further? she wondered. She looked at Steve.

  “Let me ask you a question. If I had a magic button and pressed it, Bill would just evaporate. It would be as if he had never existed. Now suppose I handed that button to you, would you press it?”

  Steve looked at Sandy. He looked over at Gretchen, then back at Sandy. A thought flicked across his face, a ripple over the dark sea.

  “No, I wouldn’t press it,” Steve said.

  5.

  “You guys got together in college, right?” Sandy said.

  “Yes,” Gretchen said. “I was a freshman, but I had sophomore standing, so I could take pretty much any course I wanted. Steve was a junior. We met in class.”

  “What class?” Sandy asked.

  “Elizabethan poetry,” Gretchen said finally.

  “A seminar?” Sandy asked.

  “A seminar,” Gretchen said. “I’m not sure, but I think there were perhaps twelve students in the class.”

  “And somehow Steve came to your attention,” Sandy said. “Why?”

  Gretchen looked at the ceiling for a moment, and then back at Sandy.

  “There were only twelve students in the class, you pretty much notice everyone,” she said evenly.

  “Maybe I phrased it wrong,” Sandy said. “You first met Steve in an Elizabethan poetry seminar. From there it led to a love affair. Why?”

  “Do we need to talk about this?” Gretchen said.

  “Humor me,” Sandy said.

  “You want to explain it?” Gretchen said to Steve. He shook his head.

  “So the professor was trying to make some broad points about how Elizabethan poetry was different from, say, modern poetry. Anyway, there were some pretty affected guys in the class, sort of mega-intellectual guys. With scarves. You know. And then there was Steve, who looked like he’d just blown in from L.A. or something.”

  A little change took place. Sandy saw not a smile, not anything you could define precisely, but Gretchen was looking sort of into the middle distance. She was going back to that moment.

  “Anyway, there was a huge amount of stupid convoluted stuff being bantered around. You know, whenever someone talks about semantics I get nervous. And that was the general direction we were going in. Semiotics and hermeneutics.

  “But we all had the book right in front of us, and on the cover was a picture of Queen Elizabeth. All dressed up with this incredible ruff thing around her neck, this dress with billowing sleeves that was covered with tiny pearls in intricate designs. And Steve said that if we wanted to understand the difference between Elizabethan poetry and modern poetry, maybe we ought to think about the difference between Elizabethan dress and modern dress. And he held up the book. I noticed him when he suggested that. The professor noticed too.”

  Gretchen crossed her arms and sat back.

  “That’s a nice story,” Sandy said. “I want to try something. Gretchen, I want you to look at Steve and tell me what you see now.”

  But Gretchen didn’t look at Steve. She said: “I’m so fed up with Steve, I’m not sure I can see him objectively.”

  “So don’t be objective. Just look at Steve,” Sandy said. “Describe him the way you would any object. What do you see?”

  Gretchen looked at Steve, in a cursory way, as if he weren’t of much interest. She said nothing.

  She’s beginning to tick me off, Sandy realized. She stared at Gretchen and said nothing.

  “You want me to just describe him?” Gretchen asked after a few more seconds.

  “Yes,” Sandy said flatly, thinking, Isn’t that what I asked?

  “Okay,” Gretchen said. She perked up. “I see a guy in his mid-thirties, he’s got brown hair, brown eyes. He wears yellow glasses. He has on a blue button-down shirt, cords, driving shoes. How’s that?”

  That was pretty good, Sandy thought, these two are good little wonks, you give them an assignment, they can’t help themselves, they want to do a good job.

  “I think you could go a little further,” Sandy pushed.

  “You’re pushing me, but that’s okay,” Gretchen said, Sandy noticing their minds were now in sync.

  Gretchen looked hard at Steve.

  “Everything about him is kind of perfect,” Gretchen said. “He has a silver belt buckle, and it’s polished. His shirt is ironed nicely. He has a great haircut and it’s pretty recent. Those yellow glasses? I happen to know they’re Italian. Very stylish. So I guess I think he’s looking casual, but he’s put in a lot of effort to do it.”

  “A little further?” Sandy said.

  “You’re not making this easy,” Gretchen said. Gretchen looked hard at Steve, taking him in for a good minute. Sandy noticed that Steve reacted to Gretchen’s stare, looking away toward the window.

  Gretchen said, “I think Steve has a sort of boyish look.”

  “How do you mean boyish?” Sandy asked.

  “I may be reading too much into this,” Gretchen said. “It’s like he’s really trying hard. He wants to look
all grown-up, and he’s trying so hard. You feel as if you don’t want to pop his balloon. You want to tell him, Nice job, you look good.”

  “That was a good effort,” Sandy said, and then looked at Steve.

  “Steve, are you trying hard to look good?” Sandy said.

  “Yes,” Steve said. “I am. It’s sort of a big deal to come here. It is a big deal to come here. So yes, I’m trying to look good, I think about what I’m wearing when I come here.”

  Steve threw his arms out, an expression that said something like What do you expect?

  “I mean, I’m nervous,” he said.

  “What are you nervous about?” Sandy asked.

  “For one thing, my marriage is on the line,” Steve said. “That’s a pretty big thing. I guess I want to do all I can to try to get my marriage back on track.”

  He sighed. He looked uncomfortable.

  “When we first separated, I felt as if I was in a dense fog. I was disoriented. It was hard to make even small decisions. I remember I went to a cash machine. I put in my card. And then I couldn’t remember my PIN. I couldn’t remember four numbers that I had been using it seemed like all my life. After a while, I canceled the transaction, took my card, and went and sat in my car.

  “I sat there for like half an hour and then, by some miracle, my PIN floated up to me as if it were coming to the surface of a lake. And I went and got two hundred dollars out.

  “I don’t mean to go on and on,” Steve said.

  Sandy saw that Gretchen was staring at Steve, giving him her complete attention.

  “Go on and on,” Sandy said. “Please.”

  “So, anyway, it was like I needed to teach myself how to do things. The first thing I did was I gave my car an inspection. I checked the oil, I checked the tires, the water, everything. I wanted to make sure that I had the basics covered. Then I sat down at my desk and checked all my accounts and all the bills. I hadn’t paid any attention to that stuff for weeks.

  “It was like I was creating myself from the ground up. So, that’s why my shirt is pressed, and my hair is cut. I feel as if I need to make sure I tackle the little things. All the things that most people take for granted, I have to make sure I’m doing them. I’m still having trouble.”

  “Gretchen, what Steve said, does it make you see him any differently?” Sandy asked.

  “I never thought I could knock Steve back on his heels,” Gretchen said. “I’m still surprised. I didn’t realize he was so vulnerable. So, I want to make a connection. I said he seemed boyish, young. What I was seeing was that he was vulnerable. I used to be scared of Steve.”

  “I’m sorry I made you scared,” Steve said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Gretchen said. “You don’t make me scared anymore. In fact, you don’t make me feel anything anymore.”

  “Okay,” Sandy said. “Now it’s your turn, Steve. Can you describe Gretchen?”

  “One thing first,” Steve said. “Right after we first split up, I said it was like I was in a deep fog? The one thing I could see clearly was Gretchen. It was as if I hadn’t been looking, but now I saw her really clearly.”

  Steve looked at Gretchen.

  “So I see a really beautiful woman. I see blond hair, blue eyes, I see that she’s not wearing a wedding ring. I see that she has little gold circle earrings, a gold watch. No other jewelry. She’s wearing stretchy jeans, a white shirt, black shoes. Flats, no heels. I see the brown leather purse on the floor, which I know comes from Bottega Veneta because I bought it for her.”

  He looked away from Gretchen.

  “Can you see more?” Sandy said.

  “This is making me feel sad,” Steve said. “I can’t believe I ever hurt you.”

  “Well, you did,” Gretchen said. “But it’s not going to happen again.”

  “What do you see?” Sandy said.

  “Gretchen, you look as if you’re only partly here,” Steve said slowly. “I don’t think you’re engaged with me. A part of you is far away.”

  “You’re right,” Gretchen said. “I can’t help it. I’m trying to be engaged with you. I’m coming to these sessions. But it’s hard to be with you, Steve.”

  Gretchen looked at Sandy.

  “When I was describing Steve, I felt detached, almost clinical,” Gretchen said.

  “I know,” Sandy said.

  “I’m holding him at a distance,” Gretchen said.

  “That’s okay,” Sandy said. “You need to.”

  “If I can’t empathize with Steve, then this isn’t ever going to work, is it?” Gretchen said. She pushed back in her chair. She seemed fragile to Sandy. Now she looked at Steve again.

  “I just can’t believe you put everything we had at risk. I mean, how could you be such an idiot?” Gretchen said to him.

  “I can explain how I could be such a complete idiot,” Steve said.

  “I already know,” Gretchen said. “You were miserable. Our life made you miserable.”

  “I had made myself miserable,” Steve said.

  “So you made us both miserable,” Gretchen said. “That was smart.”

  That was smart. She hit the word hard.

  Steve was reaching out to Gretchen, and she beat him back with sarcasm and contempt. Steve kept coming. He dusted himself off, and made sure his shirt was pressed and his buckle was polished, and he went at it again.

  Look at him, Gretchen, Sandy thought. Really look at him. Look how he comes back again and again to you.

  6.

  The boom-boom of Steve’s big car …

  They came in one right after the other. Gretchen first, then Steve.

  Gretchen was skittish, energetic. She sort of pranced into the office. Steve was glowering, looking down.

  They sat in their usual places. Sandy looked them over, trying to get out in front of them. There was tension. They were wired, nervous. Sandy felt a bit like a cowgirl, working a cattle herd that was on the edge of a stampede, the kind of herd that takes off wildly heading for a cliff, and the cowboys try to turn the herd back toward safer ground. Turn them, head them off …

  “So what’s going on?” Sandy said. “I sense something is.”

  “As a matter of fact there is something going on,” Gretchen said. “I’m going to a conference at NYU in two weeks. I’m going to be gone five days. Thursday, Friday, and then over the weekend, and I return on Monday. So the idea is that Steve would take the kids while I’m away. I was thinking that it would probably work best if he had them at his parents’ house, but Steve doesn’t seem to like that idea. So we need your help to resolve the issues.”

  “The conference doesn’t go over the weekend,” Steve said evenly. “It runs Thursday and Friday. Gretchen is staying over in New York City.”

  “Apparently Steve did a little research,” Gretchen said. “That’s predictable. Just like you said, Sandy.”

  It was predictable and human and Gretchen didn’t seem angry about Steve’s research. Good for you, Gretchen. So what is this about?

  “Your friend Bill is going to the conference, and you two are staying over the weekend?” Sandy said.

  “I don’t know that it’s anyone’s business, but yes, something like that,” Gretchen said. “But not exactly. We’re not staying in New York City over the weekend. We’re going to an inn up the Hudson River.”

  Sandy noticed Steve flinch when Gretchen said inn.

  “Can I ask a personal question?” Steve said.

  Gretchen immediately saw where this was going. Sandy saw her sit up in her chair.

  “I don’t know, Steve,” Gretchen said.

  You only know if you know the question.

  “What is the question?” Sandy said.

  “I would like to know if Bill has told his wife about his affair with Gretchen,” Steve said.

  Gretchen stood up.

  “That is despicable,” she said. “I can’t believe you. That’s it. This is over.”

  “Sit down,” Sandy said. She said it as
if she were in complete command. Her office, her chair, her rules. She had no idea if Gretchen would obey her, but in fact she sat.

  “Why is that such an outlandish question?” Sandy asked.

  “It’s…” Gretchen struggled for a second. “It’s a way for Steve to say that Bill is a terrible person. He hasn’t told his wife. He has been divorced. He doesn’t see the kid from his first marriage. Everything Steve asks about Bill is designed to make him look bad.”

  “I have never asked you about Bill’s kids from any of his marriages,” Steve said.

  Oh, Steve, give it up, Sandy thought. Give up all the little issues.

  “If you give me this literal shit of yours, I’m going to hit you,” Gretchen said. She was beginning to rise out of her chair again. Sandy spread her arms wide in front of her, like a conductor leading toward a quiet part of the symphony.

  “What does it matter if Bill has told his wife about the affair with Gretchen?” Sandy asked, looking at Steve.

  “Okay,” Steve said. “Look. I just looked up the conference and saw that it only went two days. It didn’t take any special talent. I googled the conference. His wife can do the same. Isn’t she going to wonder why her husband is staying two extra days?”

  “Why would you care if she does wonder?” Sandy said.

  Steve shut down, drew into himself and looked toward the window. No you don’t, Steve, Sandy thought.

  “You had something on your mind,” Sandy said. “What was it?”

  “I thought she might go nuts,” Steve said quietly.

  “So she goes nuts,” Sandy said. “Isn’t that Bill’s problem?”

  “Unless she goes violent,” Steve said. “Unless she wants revenge.”

  “Oh for God’s sake,” Gretchen said. “You’re worried Bill’s wife is going to kill me?”

  “No,” Steve said. He paused, thinking over what he was going to say. Knowing where this was going. Scared. Go on, Sandy thought, wanting to push him. “I was worried she might kill our kids.”

  “Fuck,” Gretchen said. “What is wrong with you?”

  It was such an outlandish statement. Weren’t they all solid middle-class people? Of course they wouldn’t do something like that. But they might, Sandy thought.