It's About Your Husband

by Lauren Lipton

  I leave a message or two for Vickie, hoping to hear from her. I feel obliged to share my suspicions about Steve and this mysterious Jessica person, but she was so angry when I told her there would be no more marriage advice forthcoming that I am sure she plans never to speak to me again. I miss her more than I expected to.

  Meanwhile as June progresses it grows ever warmer outside and by July Fourth, it’s breathtakingly hot—a wet, woolly heat that I conclude must be what New Yorkers are describing when they complain about summer weather. Despite the most valiant efforts of the air conditioner, my apartment is stagnant and damp at dawn, and by late afternoon, after I’ve closed the heavy shutters and the curtains on my two curved front windows, the room is stifling. Should I do this? Is it worth it? I debate. But I still feel I owe it to Vickie, or at least to myself.

  The heat is no better as I cross the park, with its listless picnickers sharing takeout pizza on old bed quilts, hoping for a breeze, and pass the closed shops on Madison and the sleepy, majestic apartments on Park, until I reach Lexington. I stop across the street from Vickie and Steve’s building. I have no intention of meeting Steve. I’m here to follow him.

  It’s eight fifteen, and the sun is still noon hot in the sky. I settle in for my stakeout in the feeble cover of a skinny city tree and watch the traffic on Lexington ebb and flow, and the Merit House denizens come and go. A white-haired couple arrives with a carful of bulk groceries that the doorman loads onto a bellman’s cart. (Imagine room to store a dozen rolls of paper towels!) A woman steps out onto the sidewalk carrying a toddler in a backpack-style baby carrier. (Aren’t the two of them sweltering?) A few moments later, out comes a trio of middle-aged men in denim shorts and tennis shoes. (Was there ever a time when adults didn’t dress like third-graders?) I fan myself with the hat Simon has loaned me for disguise: a straw bowler he said would be cute for Independence Day.

  Steve, looking thinner and more tired somehow than he did when I last saw him at our doughnut meeting weeks ago, steps out under the awning. He looks first up Lexington, then down Lexington, and then across Lexington and, finally, diagonally across Lexington, directly into my eyes.

  I lower my hat brim and try to fold in on myself, down to a quarter of my width, the better to fit behind the scrawny tree. I hold my breath, as if this will somehow make me thinner. Now, if only there were a way to muffle my telltale heart. Above the street noise, Steve and everyone else in the city must be able to overhear it. Yet, as with every other time before, Steve doesn’t seem to notice me. He turns to look back up Lexington one last time, puts his hands in the pockets of his faultlessly broken-in chinos, and crosses to the subway entrance at the corner. For another few moments he stands there, shifting from foot to foot, seemingly waiting. Could he still be wondering if I’ll come? He looks around one last time and slowly walks into the station.

  That’s my cue. As soon as he’s down the stairs, I run after him up the street, ignoring the brutal heat, calling, “Sorry! Sorry!” to the pedestrians I dodge past, and charge down the staircase after him. At the bottom, I stop short, duck my head, dig frantically in my purse for my MetroCard, find it, and push through the turnstile. Once on the platform I peek from under the brim of my hat to locate Steve. I’m in the wrong place! This is where the local train stops. To get to South Street Seaport I need to be on the express platform. I hurtle down another set of stairs to the lower tracks. A number 4 train has just arrived, and miraculously, as its doors slide open, I see Steve waiting to board the next car up. Coincidentally, directly behind him is the woman with the baby carrier, to which is now tied a red, white, and blue heart-shaped balloon; and behind her stand the three Merit House gentlemen in their shorts and tennies. Everyone on this platform must be going to the same place. It’s too late for me to get into Steve’s car; the train doors are already sliding shut, the sweaty crowd behind me pressing me into the car closest to me.

  Except that, for once, I’ve planned ahead, studied my city map, and am betting Steve will get out at Fulton Street. I’ll have to trust myself: I’m pinned into the center of my car, with little chance to peek out through the doors to check if he exits somewhere before then.

  The train starts with a jolt. I’m thrown off balance and stumble backward. The woman behind me looks daggers at me. “Sorry,” I say, before it occurs to me I’m not at all. As the train lurches its way south, I make another mental note to start using “excuse me” in this kind of circumstance, saving the apologies for times when it’s genuinely my fault.

  Twenty minutes later the train doors slide open at Fulton Street, and the steaming, glistening human blob drags me out with it and deposits me onto the station platform. I look around wildly for Steve and spot him heading toward the exit turnstile. It’s hard to believe how smoothly this has gone so far. How fitting that the first time I have a spying assignment completely under control, I’m working for nobody but myself.

  Someone grabs the back of my shirt.

  I whip around, fists clenched. I’m not paranoid, but even I know that in this city you have to be on guard.

  The tapper turns out to be a woman in her mid-seventies, together with another woman of the same age—sweet, grandmotherly types you’d expect to enjoy guided bus tours, book clubs, and trips to Disney World with their grandkids. “Can you tell us which way to the fireworks, hon?”

  I can’t locate Steve in the crowd. “Uh . . . it’s, um . . .” There he is. Thank goodness.

  The woman pats me on the arm. “Never mind, dear, I thought you lived here.”

  Out on the street it’s easy to figure out where I should be heading, since the entire mass of people is going the same way. All I have to do is stay a few paces behind Steve—and his neighbors, still walking nearby, as if they’d all made a date to see the fireworks together. I let the crowd sweep me along, keeping my eyes on Steve’s straight back, until we all arrive at the security checkpoint at the pier. The crowd automatically funnels itself into a narrow set of rows, patiently waiting as uniformed police officers pat down pockets, open bags, and wave metal-detecting wands. “The price of freedom,” someone says.

  Steve gets through quickly. So do the denim-shorts men, who drift off into the crowd and disappear. The woman with the heart balloon doesn’t do as well; the officers motion her off to the side to check over and around her child carrier, like this would be the ideal place to stash explosives. If it weren’t two policewomen searching her, I’d think the extra attention had more to do with her tall, slender figure and long, honey-colored hair. The toddler—a boy, it looks like, in blue shorts and tiny red sneakers—is as cute as the woman is pretty, with yellow curls and dimpled pink cheeks. He rubs his eyes as if he’s tired, and lays his little head on his mother’s shoulder.

  In the end, the officers wave her through, and in a few more moments it’s my turn. I have no trouble getting past the checkpoint. I move through and propel my way toward Steve. I’ve kept my eye on him the entire time.

  “Watch it!” someone hollers when I squeeze by too closely.

  “Excuse me.”

  Steve finds a spot for himself down near the end of the wooden pier, and I push forward, trying to get as close as possible, no longer worried about him spotting me. If he hasn’t so far, I’m home free. As the sun takes its time going down I look around, at the Brooklyn Bridge looming magnificently above the crowd, at the old pier warehouses renovated, naturally, into restaurants and shops.

  When I turn my attention back to Steve, I have a moment of fright; he’s not standing in the same place. Oh, wait, there he is, a few steps to the left, talking with . . .

  The beautiful woman with the heart-shaped balloon.

  Talking animatedly, as if he knows this person very, very well. She’s laughing at whatever he’s saying. I can’t hear them over the crowd, but it’s evident they haven’t just met.

  He drapes his arm around her shoulder. The toddler is fast asleep. Steve gently ruffles the boy’s hair.

  The woman
leans in close and says something.

  Steve laughs.

  All at once I understand who this is.

  I duck behind a couple dressed in matching Old Navy flag T-shirts. At the top of my lungs, I yell “Jessica!” Yet again I’m surprised by the strength of my own voice.

  The woman turns her head.

  Steve turns his head.

  The two Old Navy wearers turn their heads. Then, probably thinking they’re doing me a favor, they step aside, red, white, and blue human curtains parting to reveal me backstage, exposed, mortified.

  The next four seconds play out like a time-lapse movie: First Steve’s jaw goes slack. His face freezes. Then, slowly, recognition dawns.

  For a moment I’m back in a parking lot fifteen years ago, feeling the same expressions blow across my face like storm clouds.

  He touches the woman’s arm and says something. She smiles and nods. He crosses the eight feet separating us. Then he smiles, a grin of what I could interpret as genuine delight at seeing me, or genuine schadenfreude at catching me. “You made it,” he says. “I’m so glad. I’d still like to talk to you.”

  “I didn’t come to see you. I came for the fireworks.” My face is aflame. It is clear he knows I’m lying. I pull off my sunglasses and hook them onto the front of the new black form-fitting top I bought last week for six dollars at Rainbow. I squeegee the sweat off my nose as delicately as possible with my right thumb and forefinger. “I was following you, Steve, which you doubtless already know.”

  He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. The heat is still unbearable, even with the sun having taken leave of us at last—a guest who’s finally understood he’s outstayed his welcome.

  “I caught you, Steve. It’s obvious what’s going on here. That woman you’re with—she’s Jessica.”

  Steve laughs. “Wrong.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “She’s my sister.”

  Outrageous! He thinks he can fool me with that? “You don’t have a sister! You have two older brothers, Paul and Tommy. Paul is a lobbyist in Washington, and Tommy teaches history at a prep school in Boston. Don’t even try to pretend otherwise, because I got it straight from Vickie.”

  Steve is so calm, it’s galling.

  “How about I ask her myself? Excuse me.” I push past Steve and start over to the spot where he and Jessica were just standing. But Steve’s mistress, along with her heart balloon and her towheaded toddler, has vanished: a hallucination, a ghost. I whirl back around so quickly, I almost collide with Steve. “Exactly what is going on here?”

  A shrill whistle slices through my question. Then a burst. Then, high above me, the explosion of a thousand pieces of light.

  “Oooooh!” shouts the crowd.

  The fireworks have started.

  “Who was that woman?” I yell. “Steve—”

  A shower of diamond glitter floats down over the East River.

  He takes the smallest step toward me and gently, so gently, presses his finger to my lips.

  My entire body goes liquid. Half a dozen explosions rock the sky. I look at him, then past him, at the blue, green, red, and purple sparkles drifting back to earth. He’s going to kiss me. He really is going to kiss me.

  “I’m so happy to see you,” he says.

  Who knows if he’s shouting or whispering. Who knows where we are. The fireworks, the noise, the city, the heat, have all evaporated, leaving only Steve’s touch, the pull of our bodies to each other, and, at long last, the feel of his mouth on mine, his hands in my damp hair, the two of us melting together, heat rising from our embrace like the steam that powers the city and escapes in billows from below the streets. We kiss as fireworks crash across the July sky, as the people whoop and applaud at the spectacle above them, light dancing on their upturned faces. We kiss as “Stars and Stripes Forever” and “God Bless America” swirl around us, the music drowned out by the beat of our hearts. We kiss after the fireworks are over, our arms wrapped tightly around each other, with the crowd pushing past us on the way back to homes and jobs and the responsibilities that await in the morning.

  We kiss until I pull away. “No,” I say. “No, no.”

  Steve brushes his lips against my hair. “It’s okay. We’ve both wanted to do this for such a long time.”

  “We can’t.”

  “We can. I . . . Vickie . . .”

  “No!” I cover my ears. I don’t want to hear his excuse. I search frantically for Simon’s hat, which has fallen near my feet. All I want to do is flee. Down into the sweltering subway, onto a packed train car, back to the lonely safety of my apartment. I take off at a run through the thinning crowd, pushing past anyone in my way. I do not say “excuse me.”

  And I don’t turn around when Steve shouts my name. I keep running, through the twisted, nonsensical streets of downtown Manhattan, turning corners, running into dead ends, doubling back, and running faster, until somehow I stumble onto the subway station. And once down the stairs and through the turnstile, I lean against the white-tiled station wall and try to will my body to stop shaking. I take deep breaths all the way home on the train, my back pressed against the sliding doors, and at last I’m running up Amsterdam from the Seventy-second Street station to my building, up the front stairs, through the two outer doors, and into my hot apartment, where the phone is ringing.

  I unplug it, toss Simon’s hat onto my armchair, strip off my sweat-soaked clothes, and lurch into the shower, letting the lukewarm water cool my face. I towel myself off and climb into bed, with nothing on and my hair still wet. I turn the light off and the television on and stare glassy-eyed at infomercials with the sound on mute, wondering what Joy might say about a situation like this, and what on earth I am supposed to do now.

  I wake up with a start: I forgot something! The thought starts my heart pounding all over again. Surely it can’t be good for it to race as much as it has in the past—how many hours? The TV is still playing infomercials, and headlights from cars passing under my window are flashing hypnotically on my ceiling, and I run through some possibilities for what I’ve forgotten: not Rocky—that starts next week. Not Sandy Christmas—I’ve given up leaving her phone messages. It’s “phone” that finally does it. Right. I still need to call in for my check.

  The thought of my weekly tango with the unemployment office busy signal makes me even more miserable than I already am. Then I decide, why not take a whole different approach tonight to this task? I’ll assume it will take a hundred tries to get through. I’ll put on the speakerphone. After that I’ll lie here in the dark, dialing and redialing, until the computer finally picks up. I’m strangely at peace. You need do nothing but stay calm, I coach myself, and for your trouble you’ll get paid. I plug in the phone, hit the speaker button, and punch in the number I now know by heart. I wait for the sound of the connection being made, and the busy signal to begin.

  It doesn’t. The only sound is silence.

  I keep waiting.

  On the other end, someone clears his throat.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Hello?” he says at the same time.

  I’m hoping beyond hope it’s anyone but the person I think it is. Teddy’s lawyer, a bill collector, some man from my past who’s mad that I stole his T-shirt—anyone.

  “We have to talk.”

  It figures. The one time I guess right. “Steve, I’m hanging up.”

  “First let me—”

  “There’s nothing to explain! What we did was a mistake that won’t happen again. Now, would you hang up? I need to make a phone call.”

  “Now? Why?” He must think I’m going to call his wife. I should call Vickie, but I just can’t face that confrontation right now. Or ever. There’s no need to tell her, is there? It’s a mistake that will never be repeated, and all we did was . . . I shiver involuntarily as the memory of Steve’s kiss plays down my spine.

  “I’m calling the stupid unemployment office. It’s none of your business anyway.”


  “Why are you calling the unemployment office now?”

  “For my paycheck, and it’s going to take fifty tries to get through. So good-bye.”

  “Don’t you know you can do that on the Internet?”

  “Good-bye!” I disconnect. Dare I try to use the phone again? What was that he just said about the Internet?

  I go to the Department of Labor Web site, and there is a way to claim benefits online. Three minutes later I’m finished. I don’t know whether to be jumping up and down with elation or prostrate on the floor, weeping over how much time I’ve wasted. If one wanted, one could extrapolate this to describe my entire life.

  What a mess I’ve made of everything.

  I pick up the phone again. Resolute, I dial Steve’s cell number.

  He picks up on the first ring. “I’m glad it’s you. We do need to talk.”

  “No. I called to tell you we can never see each other again.”

  I hear him sigh softly. “Can’t we have lunch first? Say, next week?”

  “Next week—it couldn’t possibly have slipped your mind—you’ll be in Southampton. Through Labor Day. With your wife. Maybe you’ll get lucky and Vickie will be so busy getting pedicures and shopping for designer baby clothes, you’ll have time to recruit for your harem.” I instantly regret the cheap shot at Vickie. Here we all were thinking she was being pathetic, inventing this cheating-husband nonsense, when, the whole time, she was right.

  “Iris, this has all gotten so convoluted—”

  “Please, don’t call me. Don’t try to contact me. Don’t just happen to show up where I am. I don’t want to bump into you walking down Columbus or at the copy shop.”

  “What?”

  “Forget it. As far as the money I owe you—”

  “Don’t worry about—”