A Changing Marriage

by Susan Kietzman

  “Great.” Karen stood next to him. “Mrs. Templeton is absolutely hilarious, and her husband is even funnier. If they weren’t a husband and wife painting team, they could take their personalities out on the road professionally. I’ve got some great quotes.”

  “Good. And the Plymouth School playground?”

  “They asked me to the ribbon-cutting ceremony next week, which would be a good time to run the story. It will be done before then, but I can add a few inches to make it current.”

  “I agree. Did you write both of them today?”

  “First drafts, yes.”

  Nick smiled at her. “Since when have you needed a first draft?”

  “I’m tired today. Bob’s away. Sometimes it takes me several nights to settle into a routine.”

  “Just in time for him to get back, right?”

  “Not this time. He’s gone until Thanksgiving.”

  “That’s a long business trip.”

  “It’s a series of trips, really, starting in Alabama and ending in Australia. He’s doing what he calls a world victory tour.”

  Nick laughed. “It must be the season. Trisha’s going to Asia for the same thing next week. The area hospitals have sent money and doctors to several small villages in China over the last two years. Trisha and two other doctors are going to spend three weeks checking out the clinics. They have to report to three hospital boards when they get back, and Trisha wants more than anything to be able to deliver good news.”

  “You should go, too. That could be a great series for the paper.”

  “Believe me, I’ve thought about it. I just can’t leave the girls that long.”

  “You can’t get someone to take care of them?”

  “My mother would fly out in a heartbeat,” he said, shaking his head. “But I’d miss them too much. I know, that sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

  “Not at all.”

  Over the weekend, Karen wrote six e-mails to Ray, but didn’t send any of them. Even at her loneliest, she didn’t think she was truly in love with him, nor, for that matter, had she been in college. Instead, Ray represented an escape from the ordinary. That kiss in college had been the best kiss of her life. But if she had broken up with Bob and continued to kiss Ray, the kisses wouldn’t have felt that way forever. They, too, would have grown stale and uninspiring. And Karen was smart enough to know that talking to him, even by computer, represented the same thing. It brought adventure and excitement back into her life, and it probably felt the same way for him. Had she gone with him, married him, she could very well be as restless as she was now. Was that what it was, a restlessness? She stopped herself from contacting Ray, but she allowed herself to fantasize about him. And the fantasy, several nights in a row, was the same. They had sex in an empty locker room, with towels still on the floor from his teammates who had showered just minutes beforehand. The steam from the hot water lingered, thickening the air. Bob didn’t exist. The children didn’t exist. Nothing was real, except for the end of the fantasy, when Ray, night after night, turned into Nick.

  Bob called Sunday night from the plant town outside Mobile. He talked to Robert for a few minutes, then spent ten minutes with Karen before he had to go to a dinner celebration. He was energized and encouraged by the workers, who seemed appreciative of management’s efforts to thank them. Bob knew the cash meant more than the words, but he was pleasantly surprised to have received a few compliments here and there. Bob asked for Rebecca, but she refused to come out of her room. She’d had another fight with a friend and was, during the phone call, still pouting. Rebecca was becoming even more mercurial and complicated, and Karen was ashamed to admit that she was less stressed out, happier even, when her daughter and her poor moods were elsewhere. At Rebecca’s annual physical over the summer, the doctor guessed she would get her period soon. Thinking it could only help, Karen couldn’t wait.

  Karen’s Plymouth School story ran the following week, alongside a story about the town receiving an education grant from the state that would pay for new computers throughout the school system. Nick assigned Karen to follow up with the superintendent of schools; Karen’s story, with the headline “Cutting-Edge Education,” ran on the front page two days later. Karen next interviewed a twelve-year-old skydiver and sent her draft to Nick, per usual, via e-mail. Fifteen minutes later, he brought a hard copy to her desk. He pulled a chair up next to her and explained exactly why he liked her work. He liked her transitions from one paragraph to another. He liked her consistently parallel construction. He liked her attention to verb tense and sentence length. And he liked her conversational style. Reading her articles, Nick told her, was like listening to a storyteller. Sitting with and listening to him reminded Karen of a favorite childhood memory. When she was ten, she made the birthday cake for her three-year-old twin brothers as a surprise to her mother. Overwhelmed by her daughter’s generous spirit, Shelley cried and held Karen in her arms, arms that had been busy with her brothers since the day they came home from the hospital. Her mother lavished her with such praise and attention that Karen continued to make their cakes, as well as just about every other baked good in the house, for years. Shelley told her she was an excellent baker, and that’s exactly what she became. And while Karen knew Nick was encouraging her as much as he was complimenting her, she felt appreciated, singled out for her skills.

  She was as aware of his presence as she was the sound of his voice. In the tight space behind her desk, he sat close enough to her that their legs occasionally, accidentally touched. His arm bumped against hers when he moved his pencil-holding hand from one side of the paper to the other, underlining, circling her words. She moved her arm whenever his touched it, but it moved back, like a compass to a true setting, her being unaware of its motion until the next touch. When he turned to say something directly to her face, his mouth was no more than twelve, at the most eighteen, inches from hers. His breath smelled vaguely of coffee, but it was sweet too, as if he had recently finished a cinnamon mint. His body smelled but not offensively: no pungent natural odor or overpowering deodorant. Instead, it had the clean scent of someone who had just come inside from a long walk on a sunny, windy April morning. Karen leaned in a little closer. “Great work,” said Nick, again facing Karen. “I’m so glad you found us.”

  “Me too.”

  “Are you busy this afternoon?”

  “Not particularly. Do you want me to do something?”

  “Yes,” said Nick, leaning back in his chair. “I’d like you to work with Kate for thirty minutes or so. I’ve made hard copies of a few of her stories, which need some work. Are you up for that?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good,” he said, looking at his watch. “Have you eaten lunch?”

  “No.”

  “Walk with me to the deli to get a sandwich.”

  Over lunch, they talked about writing. Nick started writing as a child, in a journal his mother gave him for his tenth birthday. The mark of an intelligent person, she told him, was not where he worked or how much money he made but rather his ability to put words together clearly and concisely so that everyone who read them could immediately grasp the message and feel rewarded for the effort. “Did she have me pegged or what?” asked Nick, taking a sip of his bottled water. Since then, he had written in a journal every day, almost without exception. Most days he wrote no more than two pages, often about one topic, in the fifteen minutes he allotted for the exercise. But on occasion he wrote four or five pages, ignoring and then silencing the kitchen timer. A shelf in his basement held his more than sixty journals, with their colorful hard covers and lined paper. Sometimes, he thumbed through them, particularly the ones from his childhood. It was his hope, someday, to write a novel—not about himself, but about something universal, something, as his mother said, that would make readers glad they chose it. Nick hesitated for a moment. “I haven’t told that to anyone. I have no idea why I’ve bored you with it.”

  “I’m anything but bored.”

>   “Tell me about you. When did you first begin writing?”

  Karen said she was embarrassed to admit she hadn’t thought about it until college. She needed to declare a major and could think of nothing she wanted to specialize in. Her advisor encouraged her to go with communications; its skill set would serve her well no matter what career path she followed. As a result, Karen told Nick, she could speak to anyone with some semblance of confidence, even when she was nervous, and her ability to write had spawned from her desire to communicate with words.

  The conversation turned to parenting. Nick said communication was the single most important tool in raising his girls. Like most kids, they wanted things their way and often did whatever it took to ensure that. At first, Nick fought their selfishness with his denial. What he eventually learned, however, was how much better they behaved with clear direction and consistent guidance. Establishing the rules was the easy part, he said. Making sure they were understood and followed is what separated the successful parent of reasonably content children from the unsuccessful prisoner of tyrants. “Can I take notes?” asked Karen, playfully.

  Nick laughed. “I talk a good game. I’m not always good at living it.”

  Nick insisted on paying for lunch, claiming he had done all the talking. On their way back to the office, he raised several story ideas, including Sharon Oriano, a forty-two-year-old who was dying of brain cancer. She had called Nick the other day to request an interview. She wanted to tell the newspaper her story so her children would have the article, something concrete to hold in their hands after her death. Nick at first thought he would do the story, but wondered if Karen wanted to do it instead. She’d have to be attentive without being subservient; she’d have to be compassionate without being emotional. “I think you can do it,” he said, opening the front door of The Record. “In fact, I think you’d be perfect for it.” When Karen didn’t immediately answer, he told her to think about it.

  Bob sat at the pub down the street from his hotel drinking a pint of Samuel Smith lager at nine o’clock his time, four o’clock Karen’s time. It was Thursday, so he hoped she had just dropped Rebecca off at dance, and was on her way with Robert to piano lessons. He had been taking lessons for four or five months and still sounded like a cat on the keys. Nothing came easily to his son. Karen would sit with him at his lesson, wishing, as she had said more than once to Bob, earplugs were acceptable, encouraged even. Then Karen and Robert would run a couple of errands before picking up Rebecca at five thirty, who would announce that she was famished, her word for hunger since her social studies unit on Africa. And if Karen was in the mood, she would head for the McDonald’s drive-thru. The children’s French fries would be gone by the time they got home.

  The Black Swan was a working class pub in a working class town a couple of hours north of London. Most of the patrons were Forester plant workers, with the exception of a table of secretaries celebrating a birthday. They were young women, in their twenties—the birthday girl, Natalie, was twenty-four. Not yet mothers or wives, the women chatted and sipped their lagers and ciders without glancing at their watches, free from the limitations of a babysitter or the nocturnal demands of a husband, nothing to worry about until managing work the next day with a hangover. With heavily made-up eyes and plump lip-glossed lips on every face around the circular table, the women were aware of their presence in the room, of the effect they had on the plant guys, who openly studied them. Angela, Natalie’s self-professed best friend, had been up to the bar several times, for cigarettes, bar snacks, and light conversations with Bob. She had a blond bob haircut, dramatic green eyes, shapely arms that she showed off in a sleeveless turtleneck sweater, and an instant smile. The first time she sidled up to him, she told him she could tell he was a Yank. When he asked why, she laughed and told him it was his accent, even though he hadn’t spoken to her until then. The next time she came, she sat on the stool next to him while the bartender got her cigarettes. She asked him where in the States he was from and what he was doing in a place like the Black Swan. He briefly explained he was a businessman, visiting the Forester plant, and she acknowledged his response with a head shake. Both her brother and her father worked there. When Bob asked what she thought of Forester, she shrugged and then said the pay was pretty good, as were the medical benefits. The plant was smelly, however. On some days, there was nowhere in town to go to escape its unmistakable odor from seeping into her pores. Bob told her he’d make a note of it. She turned on her smile as she took a small pad of paper from her purse, writing SMELLY PLANT on a sheet, tore it from the pad, and handed it to Bob.

  The secretaries walked out of the pub when it closed at eleven, with the exception of Angela, who lingered at the table looking through her purse. Bob, who had been talking with the second-shift workers, his primary reason for going to the pub, finished his second pint and paid for their ales on his way out the door. Angela followed him. When they got outside, she asked him for a match to light her cigarette. Her flat, she said, was only a short walk away. “Walk me home then?” she asked, after she released a long stream of smoke through pursed lips. When Bob hesitantly agreed, she linked her arm through his and steered him down the alleyway beside the pub. It was poorly lit by low-wattage flood lights attached to the warehouses surrounding them. The rain, which had stopped since Bob walked into the pub, still clung to the brick walls and cobblestones underfoot, making for a slippery stroll. Angela, in heels, seemed either accustomed to the wet surface or oblivious, but Bob was suddenly sober, knowing he’d have some explaining to do if he twisted his ankle while walking an attractive young woman back to her flat when he should have been in his hotel room calling his wife on the phone. At the end of the alleyway, they took two lefts and then a right along narrow streets lined with small, sagging brick houses. One more left and a hundred yards later, they stopped in front of a Tudor-style apartment complex, where she asked him up for a drink. Her roommate, she said, wouldn’t be back that night. Her offer surprised and flattered Bob, who hesitated before speaking. “She’ll never know,” Angela said.

  “Who will never know?”

  “Your wife.”

  “How do you know I’m married?”

  “Smart, good-looking men like you always are,” she said, lighting another cigarette. “Plus, you’re wearing a wedding ring.”

  “Ah,” said Bob, looking down at his hand.

  Angela moved closer to him and draped her arms over his shoulders. “Come on, then.” Bob could feel her breasts against his chest.

  “I can’t,” said Bob, falteringly.

  “Baby, you can.” She dropped her cigarette and pulled his head down toward hers. Bob didn’t resist kissing her. He put his arms around her back, as her smoky tongue explored his mouth. She moaned and moved his hands from her back to her breasts.

  “Come upstairs,” she whispered, reaching for his crotch.

  Bob gently squeezed her breasts as he kissed her. She was right; Karen would never know. He stuck his tongue in her mouth, pushing through a layer of cherry-flavored gloss on her lips. Karen would never know. “Oh God,” he said, suddenly releasing her and backing up. “I can’t do this.”

  She pursed her lips into a pout. “I’ve got so much more to show you.”

  “Undoubtedly,” said Bob, scratching an itchless spot on the back of his neck. “But I’ve got to go.”

  He allowed Angela to kiss him on the cheek. “You know where I’ll be tomorrow night if you change your mind.”

  “Yes,” said Bob, turning to go. “Okay then.”

  He watched Angela fish her key out of her bag and open her front door. She gave him a last look over her shoulder, and Bob lifted his hand in a wave. She went inside and closed the door behind her. Bob took a deep breath and walked back through the maze of streets to his hotel. As soon as he got to his room, he called home. He got the machine. He took a shower and went to bed.

  When Karen arrived for the interview, Sharon’s husband, Louis, greeted her at the doo
r, hung her coat in their small, orderly front hall closet, and told her to ask the important questions first. Sharon had very little energy at this point, he said, and no tolerance for people tiptoeing around her imminent death. They had taken all the videos. They had seen everyone they needed to see. This story in the newspaper was the final step. Sharon had been a journalism major in college and wanted a record of her remarks on newsprint that Louis would have laminated for the girls. It would be the final page in the scrapbooks that Sharon had put together for them over the last six months. Karen, aware of swallowing, nodded her head and then followed him to their living room, to a padded folding chair set up next to Sharon’s armchair. She was dressed in jeans and a soft-looking pink sweatshirt. Her feet were covered with fuzzy socks; her head was wrapped in a pink scarf. Her body looked more fit than Karen had pictured, though her pallid face and shriveled mouth announced her illness. “I’m so glad you could come,” Sharon said, motioning for Karen to sit down.

  “I’m going to get Sharon some water,” said Louis. “Do you want some?”

  “Yes,” said Karen, even though she wanted him to stay in the room.

  As soon as he left, there was no place to look but into Sharon’s blue eyes. “Did you draw the short straw?” she asked.

  Karen smiled, but said nothing. She reached into her bag for a notebook and pencil and started with the question she had rehearsed in the car on the way over. “Why do you want to do this interview?”

  Sharon didn’t answer, instead looking beyond Karen to the window overlooking the street. A full minute passed, and Karen wondered if Sharon hadn’t heard the question or was put off by it and waiting for another one. “Aren’t the leaves beautiful?” she finally asked.