He nodded at me to continue.
“We may not have a perfect marriage, Chris, but we have so much. We have money and our health and an amazing home and families who love us.”
Chris watched me, his eyes intent on mine.
I took a gulp of air. “But more importantly,” I said, “we have something special between you and me. It’s love. I don’t just mean that I love you like I love my mom. I am in love with you, Chris. And I think that’s a big distinction. I nearly forgot that after we first got married. I forgot it recently with the whole…” I couldn’t bring myself to say Evan’s name.
Chris winced a little. “Go on.”
“What I’m trying to say is we can’t blow this. We can’t take this gift for granted.” I got a catch in my throat. I willed myself to plow forward. “Look, I know what happened at the beginning, from my point of view anyway. I expected you to run, and in a way you did, but I need to know why. You said something the other night about how during the wedding I cared more about place settings than I did about us. And you said that afterward I cared more about work. Then you shut down. Is that really what you felt?”
Chris took a sip of his wine and looked across the park. A pack of joggers ran by. A lone biker rode past. But on the patch of lawn, we were alone. Now it was my turn to stay silent.
“I don’t know how to describe it,” Chris said, “and this is going to sound, well…silly. But I felt left out during the wedding. You and your mom were the fearsome twosome. You were planning that event for the whole year, and I rarely got consulted. I started to wonder whether you wanted to marry me, or whether you just wanted to get married.”
“That’s crazy. I’ve never been one of those girls who was just looking for a ring.”
“I know, I know. But I started to wonder. I felt so isolated from you during that time.”
“I didn’t think you wanted to be that involved. I had no idea you felt left out. Why didn’t you say anything?”
He shrugged. “What guy wants to get all worked up about flowers and tablecloths? I can see now that I should have talked to you, but I thought I’d wait it out. I just wanted to be married so things could get back to the way they were before.”
“But they never did get back that way. You stayed distant.”
He took a bite of cheese, his jaws moved sharply as he chewed. “Not always.”
“No, you’re right, not always, but…”
“I know what you mean,” he said. “I was…what’s the word? Removed. A lot of the time. It was kind of easy to be that way. You were working your butt off to make VP.”
“And you were working your butt off to make partner.”
“I know. We didn’t put our marriage first.”
I looked down at my glass. I thought of my mother’s words about lack of blame. “No, I guess we didn’t.”
“I held myself back from you more and more,” Chris said. “I hated it, but I didn’t know how to change it. And I missed you, Billy. I mean I really missed you, even though you were right there.”
I nodded. I knew what he meant.
“The days slipped by,” he said. “It’s such a lame excuse, but I got used to acting that way.”
“We should have talked about this before,” I said, mastering the world of understatement.
He nodded.
“Do you think it’s too late?” I had to ask.
Chris stared at Lake Michigan, then turned toward me. “Do you?”
In his brown eyes, I saw memories. The blind date when we met, with Tess and her husband smiling proudly across the table. The walk home down Sheffield Avenue, when Chris loosened his yellow tie and stopped me on the sidewalk, saying, “Can I please, please kiss you?” Chris with his shirtsleeves rolled up, making me sea bass and salad in our condo. The times when we’d lie nose to nose in bed, talking about our day.
“No,” I said. “I want to try.”
His hand slid across the blanket and touched mine. “Me, too.”
“Would you go to therapy?” I said this quietly. I’d brought up the topic before, but he was always reluctant.
“Yes,” Chris said without hesitation.
I gripped his hand. “You would?”
“Yeah,” Chris said. “You’re my wife.”
Those words-my wife-sent me soaring to the sky.
Chris and I had enjoyed the picnic in the park, but now we had to clean up. Literally and emotionally, there were dishes to be scraped, food to be thrown away, the blanket to be folded and stowed. And none of it was neat. Crumbs were everywhere, the blanket had grass sticking to it, and spilt wine made it all sticky.
The rest of Friday evening was beautiful, as if Chris and I were lit by candlelight. Saturday morning, however, brought harsh sunlight.
“Why can’t you put this stuff away?” Chris said through the open door of the bathroom. I was still in bed, stretching like a cat and ready for our pasts to be over, for the rest of our life to start.
I blinked at the irritated tone of his words and pushed myself up on my elbows. The first thing I noticed was the frog, still on my nightstand. I looked past the frog to Chris and saw that he was holding a white bottle of face cleanser I’d left near my side of the vanity. “I always leave that out,” I said.
“I know. And it bugs me.” He made a big show of opening the maple medicine chest and placing the bottle firmly on a shelf. He closed the cabinet with something nearing a slam.
I flipped the covers back and went into the bathroom, slipping my arm around his waist. “What’s up?”
His body was tense. “Nothing.”
“C’mon.”
“Nothing.”
I turned him to face me. “Chris, we decided yesterday that we wouldn’t say nothing’s wrong if it is, and I know it’s not my face soap. So tell me.”
His eyes roamed my face. “It really is nothing. Nothing specific. I just think it’s going to take some time to get over everything.”
I felt a sinking of my spirits, then the familiar desire to hide. Or run from what we had right in front of us. Instead, I paused and thought about the concept of time and what Chris had said. “I get it, okay? You need to trust me again, and that’ll take time. In some ways, I feel the same. It’s going to take me a little while to accept the fact that you withdrew from me years ago and didn’t tell me why. And I have to get over that I didn’t do anything about it.”
His face was impassive.
“We’re in this together,” I said. “That’s the whole point. We have to start from right now.”
“It’s not going to be easy.”
“I know.”
His eyes studied mine, then something in his face relaxed. He put his arms around me and pulled me into his chest. “I fucking love you,” he said into my hair.
At that moment, I realized that our relationship, if we could get it to work, would never be as perfect as when we were first dating. But then I was also coming to recognize that our life back then probably hadn’t been perfect either. I’d just wanted to see it that way.
And since I was redefining words and concepts, like “marriage” and “accomplishment,” maybe I needed to redefine “perfect” too. “Perfect,” in the context of our relationship, didn’t have to mean a marriage free of conflict or tension. But it would, hopefully, mean a marriage free of apathy and of deception. It would mean a relationship heavy on trust and affection.
Something made me turn and glance at the frog then, and I could swear I saw it wink.
chapter nineteen
S unday afternoon was muggy, but the early evening was willow-tree cool. With Chris napping on the couch, I put on my running shoes, left the condo, and walked and walked and walked. I wasn’t sure what had drawn me outside. I had nowhere to be, no errands I needed to run.
As I crossed LaSalle Street, I figured it out. I couldn’t help but glance at the brick three-flat across the street. Blinda’s place. I’d walked by a number of times since she left on her trip, and her basement unit was
always dark, the shades pulled tight. Now, the drapes were open and there was lamplight from within. I fought the urge to head straight to her door and pound on it. Instead, I hurried home. Chris was still asleep. I went into our bedroom and lifted the frog from my nightstand.
I looked at its little face, which I’d grown oddly fond of. I studied its legs that appeared ready to leap.
“Time to say goodbye,” I whispered.
I rushed back to LaSalle Street and crossed the road, hitting the buzzer for Blinda’s apartment.
“Hello?” came Blinda’s melodic voice through the intercom.
“Blinda, it’s Billy Rendall. Sorry to just stop by on a Sunday, but I saw your light was on and-”
The buzzer sounded. The door clicked open. I pushed it and moved to her inside door. And there she was, looking just like she always had. Her long blond hair was in need of a good brushing. She wore a flowing pink skirt in some kind of crinkly cotton material and a navy blue top with spaghetti straps.
“Billy,” she said kindly, waving a hand inside. “I’m so pleased to see you.” She made it sound as if she’d been calling me for weeks, instead of the other way around. “Sit, sit,” she said, gesturing to her woolly red and orange couch. The place looked the same, too-yellow candles flickering from the bamboo side tables, boxes of Kleenex at the ready.
“How was Africa?” I said to be polite. What I wanted to say was, Where have you been? How could you give me that frog and then disappear?
“Africa was surreal and sublime and heartbreaking,” she said. “It always is.”
“Good,” I said. “Well, I think that’s good, right?”
She smiled beatifically. “It was good. And you, Billy? How are you?”
“Huh. Well.” Where to begin? “About the frog.”
She took a seat across from me. “Yes, the frog.”
“Why did you give it to me?”
“Why don’t you tell me what happened first?” Her green-blue eyes widened and she leaned forward, as if waiting for my answer with great interest.
I thought about demanding that she tell me everything first, everything she knew about the frog and why I’d received it, but I was struck with the thought that none of it really mattered. The fact was she’d given it to me, it had changed me and eventually I’d dealt with that change.
So I started talking. I told Blinda how everything had been altered after that one night. I told her about the last month and what I’d done after I couldn’t get rid of the frog-how I’d gotten my life back to the way I wanted it at this moment.
“Sounds like you’ve got it under control,” Blinda said.
“For now.”
She laughed, nodding. “I’m glad you realize that. Life is always a balancing act. There’s no goal line.”
I reached for my purse and removed the frog at the bottom. “Is that what you were trying to teach me when you gave me this? Were you trying to show me that no matter what you want or what goals you have, there will always be something to deal with when you reach those goals? Were you trying to show me that no one’s life is ever perfect?”
“I’ve been told everyone learns their own message from the frog,” she said.
“What do you mean ‘everyone’?”
“Everyone who’s had him.”
“So other people have had this frog and been changed by it?”
She nodded. “That’s what I’ve been told. I was one of them.”
“Oh.” I stared at her, stumped. I wanted to ask, What happened to you? Tell me your story. But somehow I knew Blinda would only smile peacefully and ask me a question in return. “Well, look, I’ve got to give the frog back.”
She shook her head. “No, no. You have to give it to someone else.”
“What? Says who?”
“That’s just how it works.”
“I already tried to give it to a museum.”
Blinda cocked her head a little. “What happened?”
“It came back.”
“I’ve heard that would happen if you weren’t truly done with it. Now that you are, you have to pass it on to someone else. An individual who needs it.”
“But I can’t give this thing to someone else.” I glanced at the frog. His eyes bulged up at mine. His slash of a mouth seemed to deepen in a grin. “He brought me hell.”
Blinda gave me a patient smile. “Is that really true?”
I looked at the thing again. I rubbed the little bumps on his back, letting the last month swirl through my head. “It hasn’t been all bad. The things I wanted were legitimate. But after I got what I wanted, some things, like my job, weren’t how I imagined they would be. And others-” I frowned “-like having Evan flirt with me and my mom get her own life. Well, they just brought their own issues. Mostly, I wanted to feel like I had some part in the course my life was taking.”
“But you did in the end, didn’t you?” Blinda asked. “You’ve created the world you’ve got now.”
I nodded.
“So, now you’ve got to pass him on,” Blinda said. “That’s how it works.”
Three weeks later, Alexa and I met for coffee at a diner on Lincoln Avenue; in fact, we met regularly for coffee or tea now, discussing Alexa’s dream of opening her own firm, filling her in on the gossip from Harper Frankwell. I’d also been going to the suburbs one night a week to see Tess and the kids, but it was nice to have a girlfriend in the city.
At each of the get-togethers with Alexa, I carried the frog with me, looking for the right opportunity to carry out Blinda’s mandate. Whenever I saw one, though, I began fretting-Could I do it? Should I do it? It seemed reckless. Who knew what havoc the frog could wreak? And yet when I called Blinda, she asked me to look around and see what the frog had brought me. And what I saw was a life that fit and a husband to share it with. I wanted that for Alexa, too. Or whatever her version of happiness entailed.
“I’m just nervous,” Alexa said now. “It’s nearly impossible to get money to start a business, you know?”
I nodded.
“I was turned down again for a small business loan. And of course, I never heard from that Carlos Ortega guy I was hitting up for capital.” She shook her head sadly. Her hair was loose around her face. She wore white Capri jeans and a white blouse.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“I am, too.”
“It’ll come together.”
“So why is nothing happening? I’m getting scared.” Her eyes darted to mine, then back down. She seemed slightly embarrassed by her confession. She rushed on. “And it’s not just professionally. I mean, I’m tired of living with my family. I’m tired of dating these neighborhood boys my mother keeps setting me up with.”
“Alexa, you’re an awesome person, and let’s face it, you’re gorgeous. You’re going to find someone.”
She blew on her coffee. “Someone like your Chris, huh?”
“Exactly.” Chris and I had been working hard to be honest with each other, to make time for each other. We’d begun to carry the packages of our marriage more carefully again. It was sometimes uncomfortable and foreign, but it was imbued with the low light of optimism, bringing our home a whole new kind of feeling. “You’ll find a Chris for you,” I said to Alexa.
“I’m starting to doubt that.” She stared at the white mug of coffee in front of her, her eyes flat, her mouth downturned.
“Hey, look at me.”
She glanced up, her eyes still emotionless.
“I think you’re going to get everything you want,” I said. “And I mean everything. It just might not be an easy road. Can you handle that?”
Her eyes flickered with passion now. “Are you kidding? I’ve never had an easy road in my life. I just want something to happen. Now.”
I sucked in a chestful of air, biting my lip. “I want to give you something.”
“A loaded handgun?”
“No,” I said, chuckling. I reached in my bag and found the frog, my hand closing over it. I l
ooked up to meet her eyes, nervous. “Here you go.” I held out the frog, a scrap of jade in my pale hand.
Alexa took it. “That’s really nice of you.”
I could tell she was underimpressed, and I couldn’t blame her. I remembered my own less than wondrous reaction when Blinda gave it to me.
“It’s sort of a…” I said. How to put this? “It’s a charm.”
“What kind?” Alexa turned it around and studied it.
“Trust me on this.” I closed her hand around the frog and gripped her fist in mine. “It’s a good luck charm.”
epilogue
A lexa Villa moved through the darkened apartment. This was her favorite time, when the place was silent. When her mother, her aunt and all the kids were asleep. The apartment was never truly dark, due to the blazing streetlights outside, but with the blinds closed like now, those lights gave a yellow radiance she found comforting.
She found her purse on the kitchen counter, next to a stack of dishes crusted with macaroni and cheese. Ignoring the dishes, she brought the purse back to her single bed. Across the room, in the other twin bed, two of her nieces slept soundly, their dark hair mingling on the white of the sheets.
Alexa switched on the tiny, bedside lamp and dug in her purse for her notebook. She’d just had an idea about a Hispanic university dean who might give her some work. Her fingers brushed past pens and lipsticks and her checkbook. The notebook seemed to be missing. But what did it matter? He probably wouldn’t want her PR services. Probably no one would. She didn’t have an office yet or any capital to get one. The doubts about this path she’d chosen got bigger and bigger. She lay back against the headboard, feeling overwhelmed with a sense of futility.
Think positive, she told herself, but it was tough. Listlessly, she reached for the purse again and pushed her hand deeper inside, her fingers closing over something small and cool and smooth.
She sat up and took it out. She held it under the lamp’s circle of soft light. The frog Billy had given her. An odd present.
She looked at it closer, she saw that it glittered in the lamplight, as if it was made from polished stone. Something about the frog struck her as charming. She studied it some more, turning it around in her hand.
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