Single Wife

by Nina Solomon

  “Dad, I’m sorry. I was rushing to meet Kane and I completely forgot. I didn’t mean to worry you.” Grace could hear a muffled sniffle on the other end and then a high-pitched blow, which signaled her mother’s presence. “Tell Mom I’ll call her later,” she said.

  “I will,” her father assured her. “And Laz really must come over and see the new Canon copier. Fifty pages a minute—unbelievable. And it collates. He’s going to get a real kick out of it.”

  “Milton, leave the lovebirds alone,” Grace’s mother blurted out. “I’m sure they have plenty to catch up on.”

  “Mom’s right, sorry. Enjoy. Bundle up—the temperature’s dropping. And don’t be a stranger.”

  SHE HUNG UP the phone, suddenly remembering the e-mail her parents had received from Laz the night before. She ran to the computer and turned it on. Laz surely had e-mailed her, too. She clicked on the incoming mailbox. There were several from Laz’s editor, one from Miltonfyi@yahoo.com, and a confirmation from the lipstick company. Then she saw one with an unfamiliar address: Oblomov. It was Laz! She was delighted beyond belief. Not only had Laz contacted her, but his reference hearkened back to one of their sweetest times. She opened the mail and read: I think we should meet. How’s tomorrow at eight at the Pink Tea Cup? Bring Oblomov. It was unsigned. Tomorrow? She looked at the date. It had been sent before midnight. Tomorrow meant tonight.

  The tone was so formal and unlike Laz. Was this Laz, or someone else? And who did she really want to show up? Maybe a stranger would be better. At least for now, while she sorted through things. In place of the marriage, there would be mystery men—the one she had married, and perhaps new ones as well.

  Grace stared at the clock on the computer. Nearly an hour had passed. She must have been daydreaming, although about what she had no clue. She could go blank, almost at will, turning off her mind when convenient, such as when she had been on hold with the UPS tracker, trying to trace the mysterious bulbs to no avail, or when she was stuck in traffic or just feeling overwhelmed. Kane was one of the few people who ever inquired about her “absences.”

  “Grace, you can’t just go blank,” Kane once said, while they watched the Super Bowl at his apartment.

  “Yes I can,” she countered.

  “You have to be thinking about something. Or trying not to. Like what are you thinking about this instant?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing, really.”

  “Come on, don’t play dumb.”

  “I’m not playing dumb—I’m trying to tune you out.”

  “Okay, but I’m going to ask you every two seconds from now on.”

  “Just watch the game and leave me alone,” Grace said.

  Kane leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Never,” he said. “That, you can count on.”

  GRACE TURNED OFF the computer. She dressed and then went into the bathroom to wash up. As she was putting away her toothbrush, she saw a flash of gold on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet. Reflexively, she adjusted the can of shaving cream until the ring was concealed to her satisfaction, and closed the cabinet door. Then, hoping to clear her mind, she turned on the water full blast and washed her face a little more vigorously than usual, but the doubts she had about her rendezvous at the Pink Tea Cup still remained. After drying her face, she brushed her hair and pulled it back. Before leaving the bathroom, she checked the medicine cabinet once more to make certain that Laz’s ring was still out of sight.

  Grace’s bedside clock read nine-thirty. If she didn’t hurry, she was going to be late for Laz’s mother. She ran to get her coat. As soon as she opened the closet door, she knew that something was missing. Where Laz’s leather jacket had hung last night was now a bare wooden hanger. One by one, she pushed aside each coat in the closet, even working her way through to the second rod in the back, until she realized that she must have left it at the bar. Tap A Keg probably didn’t open until noon. She decided to go there after the museum, pledging never to have another cosmopolitan —ever—as she slipped her arms into the silk-lined sleeves of her pink cashmere princess coat, a present from Laz for her last birthday.

  The Museum of Natural History was busy, even at this early hour, filling up quickly with families and tourists. Grace stood under the prow of the Native American canoe in the Great Hall and waited nearly twenty minutes for Laz’s mother to arrive. As she came around the bend, Nancy was easy to spot in her winter whites, as she liked to call them, and her thigh-high lizard-skin boots. She gestured as if annoyed that Grace was late, instead of it being the other way around.

  “Come on, darling, everything’s already set up. No time to waste.” Nancy led her through the hall of reptiles, past the Eskimo exhibit, and into a room that featured a life-size diorama of Native Americans presenting maple syrup to the pilgrims. The origami tree loomed in the background, unadorned. There were two long tables set up with stacks of colored origami paper and metal folding chairs for the volunteers.

  Grace sat down and got right to work. It was easier than making chitchat with Laz’s mother, especially after the little talk they’d had about Kane the night before. She preferred to concentrate on folding paper. She soon became so immersed that she practically forgot that Laz wasn’t actually at home, catching up on sleep or watching football, as she’d told her mother-in-law.

  Grace’s hands had formed these creases so many times before, the paper seemed to fold itself. She created the usual array of animals, lanterns, and stars, choosing the iridescent sheets over the plain colors. Unfortunately, Laz’s mother was not so well occupied, and as was her usual propensity, she began to gossip with anyone at the table who would listen. Grace was in the middle of making a silver swan when Nancy began talking about Kane.

  “He’s quite a catch for anyone, you know. We’ll see if this one can hold his interest.”

  “He seems happy,” Grace said absently as she folded the swan’s tail into the center. She was about to create the wings when Laz’s mother turned to her.

  “You look a little puffy. Anything you’re keeping from me? You better not be planning on making me a grandmother. Are you?” Grace looked at Laz’s mother. She was about to speak when she realized that she had inadvertently decapitated the swan she was working on, its tiny silver head crushed between her thumb and forefinger.

  “We can’t be wasteful, Grace,” Laz’s mother chided. “Try to concentrate.” Grace left the headless swan on the table and reached automatically for another piece of paper. She began folding but felt all thumbs.

  She thought back to the last time she’d gotten her period. It was still second nature for her to mark the date in her calendar. It couldn’t have been more than four weeks ago, four and a half at the most, but she couldn’t be certain of it. Her cycles used to be so regular.

  The possibility that she might be pregnant was not an unpleasant prospect. She allowed herself to entertain the idea, imagining the scene that night at the Pink Tea Cup. Laz would be seated at a small table by the window. She’d enter, her skin aglow. When he saw her, he’d get up and approach her, and without needing to utter a word, he would take her in his arms, hold his fingers to his lips, and tell her that this is what he’d wanted all along.

  Grace replayed this scene in her head several times, fine-tuning the lighting, the wardrobe, and the dialogue, until the realization that the scene would go nothing like that in reality crashed down on her. Her IUD was purportedly ninety-nine percent fail-safe, and, moreover, Laz had never wanted to have children.

  After making a few final folds, Grace regarded her swan for the first time. She had chosen a piece of paper in an unfortunate mustard brown. The wings were lopsided, the body on the squat side; it was not at all graceful. The head looked twice the normal size and was turned down slightly as if ashamed of itself. Grace was about to throw it in the garbage, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, when a little girl who’d been sitting at the far end of the table ran over and snatched the swan out of Grace’s hand.

  “L
ook, Mom,” she cried, as she held the mutant swan in the air for her mother and all present to see, “it’s the Ugly Duckling.”

  SEVENTEEN SWANS LATER, Grace exited the museum and stood on the street in front of a pretzel vendor. It was just after eleven. She’d have to wait outside Tap A Keg for nearly an hour. A puff of steam emerged from an open manhole, obscuring the pretzel man’s cart from sight as she started for home.

  The metal stands were still up from yesterday’s parade, laced with puckered frost. Her father was right; the temperature was dropping. Each breath made her head pound as if she’d eaten ice cream too quickly. Grace had always found something appealing and romantic about the bleachers, each year eventually convincing Laz to sit on the top tier the night before the parade with a thermos of hot chocolate. But today, as she passed a couple nuzzled together on the bleachers with their hands in each others’ pockets, she felt a vast sense of deprivation and wished the city would hurry up and dismantle them.

  JOSÉ GREETED HER as she walked into the lobby. “Señor Brookman always knows when I’m doing a double. He leaves two cups of coffee for me. And he knows I can’t resist sweets. My wife says I’m getting fat. Tell him no more crullers, though, I need to go on a diet.” Grace assured him she would.

  When she got upstairs, she found a stack of mail waiting in the vestibule and picked it up, glancing quickly at the letter on top of the pile as she reached for her key. She had to read it twice. To Our Single Friend. Her initial reaction was that it had been delivered to her by mistake. She was not single. But as she looked again, she saw her name on the envelope. Instinctively, she touched her wedding band. Her head began to pound again. The more she tried to reconcile all the opposing thoughts, the more she felt as if she were losing hold. She wished she could go blank—blanker than blank—but instead her head was spinning with no off switch.

  11

  PAST DUE

  Inside, Grace ripped the envelope addressed to Our Single Friend in half and was about to throw it in the garbage when she caught sight of the familiar logo and began to read: “We at A Perfect Match are thrilled to have you as a member. . . .”

  This was too much. Grace felt invaded as if by some obsessive, matchmaking stalker.

  She’d received other odd solicitations before in the mail and over the phone—even an offer to buy flavored condoms from an Orthodox prochoice organization, whose products came in flavors such as Cookies and Cream, Baked Apple, and Peppermint Stick. They were all glatt kosher and no-cal, just in case. Grace had politely declined, explaining that she and her husband had already purchased a supply elsewhere. She tried to suppress the image of Laz in a minty-flavored, candy-striped prophylactic, the whole episode arousing in Grace a queasy feeling akin to the time she stumbled upon a caterpillar-shaped vibrator on Francine Sugarman’s nightstand.

  THE BILLS WERE beginning to accumulate like leaves from some deciduous tree. Laz had always taken care of the finances, writing checks in between mouthfuls of Marisol’s sweet concoctions. Grace straightened the pile, dismayed that there was still nothing from the lipstick company, and noticed one envelope with the words Past Due in red letters on it. Just as she was about to open it, the intercom rang. She stuffed the bill underneath the latest issue of New York magazine and pressed the button.

  “Mr. Kane to see you,” José announced.

  She had no recollection of having made plans with Kane the night before, although he could be known to drop by on a whim. Moments later, the doorbell rang. When Grace opened the door, there stood Kane, looking like he’d just tumbled out of bed, which wasn’t an unlikely scenario considering he owned his own software company and could work from home.

  “Feeling a little bedraggled this morning, Kane?”

  “Just a little. Thanks for your concern. I had an early doctor’s appointment.” Grace noticed that Kane’s arm was no longer in a sling, but supported by an air cast made of clear plastic.

  “Your arm’s better?” she inquired in a sympathetic tone, but the concern was more about how to get Laz out of his Wednesday night hockey games now that Kane would soon be playing again. Maybe Laz’s elbow would flare up with an acute case of tendinitis.

  “The doctor says a few more weeks.”

  “By the way, I’m never going out with you again,” she said. “Thanks for telling me my lips were bright orange.”

  “You looked quite fetching, actually.” Kane checked his watch. “My car’s double-parked. Tell Laz he better hurry if he wants to get back before dark.”

  Grace was at a loss. Back from where? She stared at him, trying to find some thread in the conversation that would help her understand what he was referring to. Did he and Laz have a game that Grace had forgotten about?

  “Don’t tell me Laz isn’t up yet. I thought you said he was all excited about going upstate for the tree.” Then she remembered talking with Kane at the bar about the tree.

  She found herself faltering. She fumbled with the buttons on her cardigan sweater. “Laz had to go to this . . . thing,” she said, finally.

  “He had to go to a thing?” Kane asked. “What kind of thing?”

  “He tried get out of it. Really. But he just couldn’t,” she said, trying to sound firm but appropriately apologetic.

  “If I didn’t know Laz better, I’d take it personally.”

  “It’s not that, Kane, really. He just couldn’t get out of this . . .” Grace paused, trying to find the right word.

  “I know—that thing,” he said, looking down at his hiking boots. Grace noticed that they were brand new. He looked like a small boy dressed up for the first day of camp.

  “I’m sorry.” Grace hoped Kane didn’t think that Laz had bailed out because of the Greg situation. Kane picked up Time Out and began flipping through the magazine distractedly. Grace looked at his unshaven face and his hair, which was somehow disheveled despite its short length. It was out of character for him to be even the least bit unkempt, but in a strange way, it made him look more masculine. She shook the thought from her mind. Laz’s mother could be wrong. After all, Kane wouldn’t keep something like this from her.

  “Well, I’m up for it, if you are,” he said stoically. “Why let him ruin a perfectly glorious day?” He put down the magazine. Grace thought about the tickets and the bills, about her seemingly not-forthcoming period and the jacket at Tap A Keg, and with the precision of a bug zapper on an August night, she decimated these thoughts from her consciousness. The thing she wanted most of all right then was to not think, so she agreed to go. And depending on how things went at the Pink Tea Cup, a tree would serve as either a nice homecoming or a comforting consolation prize.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” she said as she left the room to put on a pair of old boots and to locate Laz’s sheepskin gloves. When she returned, Kane was on the phone, speaking quietly.

  “Around six, I think. Depending on traffic.” He paused. “I know,” he said, in a tone unfamiliar to Grace, “I wish you could come, too.” Grace noticed a folded piece of paper on the front table that looked like it had been torn out of a magazine, and she opened it. It was part of the classifieds. On one side was the weekly horoscope and on the other side a section from the personal ads.

  Grace read: Men Seeking Men. It was one thing for Kane to be dating someone named Greg, quite another for him to be browsing the personals! Was he looking to cheat on Greg? She’d always known him to be faithful, and this possible indiscretion upset her more than anything. When she heard Kane hang up the telephone, she folded the page quickly and pretended to be busy sorting through the mail when he walked in.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” she answered, trying to appear casual, but her voice was noticeably higher in pitch. “How long a trip is it again?”

  “If you don’t want to go—” he started.

  “No, I do. I just need to be back. Laz and I have plans later. It takes about an hour, right?”

  “Closer to two, but y
ou guys always fall asleep, so it must seem shorter. It’s like driving with two lumps.”

  “Laz doesn’t always fall asleep.”

  “I beg to differ.” Grace thought back to the ride home that first year, and the feeling of Laz rubbing her feet.

  “Well, maybe he just rests,” she said. She handed Kane the folded piece of paper. “Is this yours?”

  “I hope you don’t mind. I tore it out of one of your magazines. Just some stuff I’m interested in.” Grace found his tone uncharacteristically flippant. So now they were swingers, no less! She looked at him, trying to pick up any traces of his having been found out. He seemed as regular as ever.

  “Not at all,” she said. “I certainly have no need for it.”

  THE DRIVE UP the Taconic was more scenic than Grace had remembered. She and Kane chatted as usual, the only difference was Grace’s painful self-consciousness about her choice of topics.

  “Where are you going with Laz tonight?” Kane inquired.

  “Il Duomo,” she answered. Grace had slipped up. She didn’t know why she hadn’t just told him she was meeting Laz at the Pink Tea Cup.

  “Il Duomo?” Kane asked. “Isn’t that the place Laz calls the Old-Age Home?”

  Grace remembered one meal there with her parents. Laz, after scanning the room, which was filled to capacity with white-haired gentlemen and their “blond,” coifed companions, had asked the waiter if he recommended the gnocchi.

  “It’s not one of our zippier dishes,” the waiter replied, suggesting instead the spinach ravioli and the shrimp diavolo, both of which turned out to be bland, saltless, and utterly flavorless, leaving the blood pressure and cholesterol levels of Il Duomo’s patrons uncompromised. Grace’s father had salted his dish as if he were salting the city streets after an ice storm. After that, zippier turned into one of Laz and Grace’s standard expressions.