The Intermission

by Elyssa Friedland

  Cass stared at the text. She really should go—she saw those kids almost every day, or at least she heard them through the plaster walls of their adjoining apartments. But birthday parties brought back the very worst of her childhood, and she’d need more than wine to get through this one intact. For sure Jemima and Henry would pull out all the stops for Blake and Jasper—probably two cakes, two sets of decorations, two tables overflowing with presents. Through age nine, Cass had never had a birthday party. Her mother would buy a Duncan Hines cake mix that Cass would be tasked with making, except there’d always be some essential ingredient missing, like the eggs or the vegetable oil. Nota bene: Do not substitute canola oil. Finally, for her double digits, her mother promised her a party at Miss Louise’s Dance Studio in the nearby and exclusive town of Bloomfield Hills. In this, Cass felt the effects of her extra leverage that was due to her parents’ recent split. For weeks in advance of the party, Cass went over every detail with Tiff, whose father was a known drunk and whose mother had abandoned the family years earlier. She was maybe the only person to whom Cass felt lucky in comparison. She and Tiff discussed ad nauseam what games would be played, what the favors would be, and who would be invited—both Melanie R. and Melanie B. had said yes! Cass tried on her party dress a dozen times—a bit small on her but still stylish—and twirled around in front of the mirror every night until she was dizzy. And then, three days before, when the anticipation was mounting so much that she could barely concentrate on homework, her mother came into her bedroom looking solemn. “What’s up?” Cass had asked, though she had a sinking suspicion what was coming.

  “Listen, Cassidy, the landlord said if I don’t get him the back rent by Friday, he’s going to kick us out. We just can’t have your party. He’s being a real son of a bitch,” she added, as though it was their humorless landlord who was to blame. Cass looked up at her mother. The black streaks that Donna swiped across her top and bottom lash lines every morning had smudged into puddles of coal. She looked like a witch.

  That night Cass waited until her mother was asleep, then used the kitchen phone to call her father. She explained the situation to him, begging him to help her out. She knew that his new girlfriend was already pregnant and that money was tight, but her father had an ego and she used a mixture of flattery and supplication to convince him. “You got it, baby girl,” he said, and she exhaled fully for the first time since her mother had dropped the bomb a few hours earlier. But her relief didn’t last long. The next day her mother came back up to her room after work and said, sharply, “Next time, talk to me before going to your father for help. Miss Louise said there is no chance she’ll host your party if your father is paying. He subbed in shitty parts last year during her renovation and left her with a leaky roof and warped doors. She said he was lucky she didn’t sue.” And with that, Donna walked out of the room before seeing her daughter collapse in a fit of tears. The rest of the night was devoted to scheming up a cover story to hide the shame of her canceled party. She settled on telling her classmates that she’d twisted her ankle at gymnastics (as if her parents would ever pay for an after-school class) and couldn’t dance. Cass spent the next two weeks getting around school with a fake hobble. And the thing was, the kids bought the excuse, helping carry her books and sitting with her on the bench during recess. By age ten, Cass had learned the simple and useful art of lying.

  Of course we’ll be there, she texted back to Jemima. Hope Blake feels better.

  When was Luna coming to clean? she asked herself, studying the aftermath of the twins’ visit. They had pillaged drawers, spilled juices, pulled off every pillow and somehow managed to go through at least six plates and four cups each. Hopefully their cleaning lady would show by Wednesday.

  Cass disliked a mess. Unfortunately, just not enough to do much about it.

  4. JONATHAN

  “THANK YOU” WAS definitely not what he planned to say to Cass after he rolled off of her, peeling the condom off carefully so as not to drip on the sheets because his wife hated the wet spot. Sex with a latex barrier between them. It was like high school all over again. He was in the music room at Exeter and had come, once again, way too quickly with the captain of the girls’ field hockey team and his first, if not true love, then at least infatuation.

  He wanted to say to Cass, That was great. Or, even better, I love you. But instead he said, “Thank you,” like he was some pathetic teenager. Maybe it was the condom, the déjà vu of it all, wreaking havoc on his mind-to-mouth neural pathways. Or maybe it was just that they hadn’t had sex in a while, and he was genuinely grateful and wanted his wife to know it.

  Cass had been off the pill for more than a month already. By the spring, they would start trying, when the hormones were definitely out of her body. He didn’t even mind the wait—the timing could mean a Christmas baby. So for the time being, it was condoms. Why he felt like a pervert when he bought them at CVS he didn’t understand. Or maybe it was more that he felt pathetic. Like the checkout girl with the overflowing breasts and the tongue ring gave a shit whether he had to wear protection. He made sure she took note of his wedding ring, swiping his AmEx awkwardly with his left hand. Only on the way home did he realize the stupidity of that move. It was much worse to be married and wearing a condom than to be some single guy running out to the pharmacy while a hot body waited in his bed.

  Cass giggled at him. “Anytime,” she responded, pulling down the Brown T-shirt that was hiked up to her shoulders. He wanted her so much more when she wore a ratty tee to bed than when she had the whole lacy getup on. Made him feel like he was in a porno, where people were always having sex at unexpected times: borrowing milk from a neighbor, buzzing the nurse to adjust the light. Sometimes he liked to be reminded of her grittiness.

  It had been thirteen days since the last time they’d had sex. Jonathan could rarely remember what he’d had for breakfast, or how many times a day the vet said to give Puddles his reflux medicine, and certainly not whether he had locked the front door. But Jonathan could always pinpoint the last time he and Cass had had sex. Before tonight, it was after they came home from a fortieth birthday dinner for one of his colleagues. Cass had had three basil Bellinis, he’d had two scotches—double his usual; both were primed and ready the minute their apartment door slammed shut behind them. Cass was adventurous early on, but things had definitely taken a turn for the routine. Maybe they’d just run out of things to try. No, that definitely couldn’t be—there was a world of kink and experimentation that he and his wife had never so much as approached. Twice he’d suggested that they try “the back door” and both times Cass brushed it off. Once she emitted a nervous laugh, trying to play it off like he was joking. The second time she’d just pretended not to hear him.

  So they tended to stick to missionary, and foreplay was often forsaken in favor of watching Shark Tank, but what disappointed him most was the occasions on which they had sex. After a dinner party. On their anniversary. When he got his bonus. It was so . . . so . . . so not the kitchen floor at 10:00 a.m. just for the hell of it. Still, he wouldn’t quite say he was bored, not yet anyway. Sex was like pizza. Even when it was cold and soggy, it was still good.

  “I think Jemima had Botox,” Cass said, and Jonathan understood at once why she was so forgiving of his embarrassing show of gratitude. She wanted to get to her climax—the gossip. “She’s all, I used to live in Brooklyn, Jasper and Blake have never eaten a goldfish cracker, but I swear her eyebrows are no longer moving.”

  “I thought she looked good,” Jonathan said, realizing his mistake a second too late.

  “Really?” Cass said, propping herself on her side, primed for battle. “You like that cellophane look?”

  “I like your look,” he said, disarming her. “I like your little chin, your eyes, your tiny nose, your smell, your everything.” He meant it. Cass was soul-crushingly beautiful. She knew it—the way she could turn heads—but it wasn’t a crime to own
your own power. That day six years ago, when he ran into her at Park Avenue and 52nd Street, she had literally taken his breath away, doubly so when he realized who she was. In college, his vague recollections of Cass were that she was something of a tomboy. She wore cargo pants, Converse high-tops and simple tank tops—clearly not an L.L.Bean shopper like everyone else he knew. Her top half was lithe (breasts barely jutting out farther than her flat stomach), but her bottom half was round and full, making the boyish-girl thing never fit her quite as believably as perhaps she hoped for. But professional Cass, the one standing outside the Seagram Building looking for a taxi, was a different story. She was wearing tight black pants, high heels and a sleeveless top with a pair of oversized sunglasses perched atop her shorn and highlighted hair. Jonathan was sure he liked what he saw—so did all the guys in his group, from what he could tell. When she smiled, he noted with pleasure that she hadn’t fixed the imperfection of her two front teeth (the left slightly encroaching on the right) that he remembered from that night at Paragon. And now this gorgeous creature, evolved better than Darwin could have imagined, while still possessing enough nuance to make her approachable, wanted to talk to him. She hugged him. Asked him to have coffee! The woman had a face he knew he could look at for the rest of his life and be content. A thousand-watt smile that could literally serve as his power source. Yes, he would have coffee with her.

  “You spoil me,” Cass said, but he knew she would have been happy for him to go on.

  “Tonight was fun,” he said, after Cass settled herself back into the crook of his arm. “Thank you for having Henry and Jemima over.” Damn it, he’d thanked her again. They were married five years already. When would his constant need to praise and thank his wife for every little thing start to subside? If the answer was never, well, that was a large pill to swallow.

  “They’re my friends too,” she said, stiffening just the slightest bit in his embrace.

  “I know, of course. It’s just I know Henry can be a jackass sometimes, when he’s not being hilarious. Tonight he was decently behaved, I thought. His fund closed down 20 percent. Maybe his shitty Christmas bonus is fostering some humility.”

  “Well, your fund is up, what, like a billion percent? Is that going to make you an asshole?” Her words were harsh but her voice was sweet, teasing.

  “You know it’s not, Cass. Anyway, their kids were pretty cute, up until Blake’s stomach explosion. Jasper must have rubbed Puddles’s back for the entire third quarter.”

  At hearing his name, Puddles rolled over and let out a screechy bark.

  “It’s great that kids love our dog. Actually, even better that Puddles loves kids. Jem told me her doctor said she only had to be off the pill for two months before they tried. Maybe we can start sooner.”

  “That’d be amazing. Oh—Ginny wants to take you to lunch. Sorry, but you gotta go. Jerry really goes in for this Winstar family stuff.”

  “No, it’s fine. I’ve been starving from all this damn exercise. I’ll suggest we eat at the Cosmopolitan Club. They do a decadent lobster lunch on Wednesdays. If we’re going to be trying, I might as well just get fat now anyway. I’ll tell Ginny I have an appointment right around the club. Trust me, she’ll pounce on the chance to show off her protégée in the dining room. Because Jerry’s kept her around, she thinks we’re supposed to take her word as gospel. You’re not the trade-in type, though, at least I don’t think.” She jabbed him playfully in the ribs, then looked up at him in expectation of more praise.

  “Definitely not,” he said, happy that was at least true. Whatever his misdeeds, he’d never seriously entertained trading Cass in for anyone. “Besides, you’re practically like Sybil. I already feel like I have multiple wives.” He liked that answer. Normally Cass was the quick one. And he was happy to hear her say she was ready to bulk up in anticipation of the baby. He felt reassured knowing they were on the same page.

  “Very funny. One of my other personalities feels like reading now,” she said, reaching for the hardcover on her bedside table. It was a biography of Harry Truman. He found it sexy that Cass read only nonfiction, that she liked documentaries, that she was amazing at trivia. The trouble of course was her memory, which rivaled the wisest of elephants. It would surely come to bite him in the ass one day. Telling Cass something and hoping she’d let it slide to the outer recesses of her mind was impossible. Everything seemed to stay front and center. Her institutional memory of every play and musical performed in the past three decades was a valuable asset at work—but at home, her recollection of every one of his missteps was less beneficial. It was the price he paid for a wife with a mind on steroids.

  At that moment, Cass leaned over unexpectedly and planted the gentlest of kisses on his cheek, which left residue from her fragrant lip balm. It was sticky and he thought to wipe it off, but he liked going to sleep with a piece of Cass on him. He felt his eyelids grow heavy with happiness. It wasn’t the end of the world that his wife left her glasses, books and the TV remote in the bed every night instead of putting them on her empty night table. Those were nothings—just tiny spikes in his blood pressure. And he knew he had plenty of annoying habits too—though come to think of it, Cass was vocal about his, whereas he generally kept mum.

  He wished he could stay awake a few minutes longer, to fully enjoy this precious time with Cass, her curled up next to him, the melody of their chatter punctuated with only a few car horns and the purring of the radiator. In this moment he was sure they were happy, still capable of making each other laugh after six years together. It wasn’t that much time in the grand scheme of life, but a divorced friend once told him he knew on his wedding day that he was making a mistake. Jonathan had taken that to heart, always finding comfort in his lack of wedding-day jitters. And what about Cass? Had she been nervous in the moment? There was definitely a tense look on her face that he caught when he glanced over at her during his toast—but he was fairly confident it was because of her family’s presence, which could send anyone’s orbit into a tailspin. His family wasn’t much better, though proper behavior at weddings was not something he needed to worry about. If anything, that type of thing was their forte.

  “Great. Love you, Cass,” he said as he rolled away from her. “Can you please—”

  “Done. It’s set for a quarter to six. Love you too,” she added softly.

  He noticed her looking up at the ceiling, probably calculating how many hours of sleep she could get if she fell asleep right then. Why couldn’t she sleep well anymore? he wondered again, hoping it was Percy and nothing more. He turned on his side, his back to Cass, and in no time he was out.

  * * *

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  THE NEXT MORNING, Cass’s side of the bed was empty when Jonathan blinked open his eyes at sunrise.

  “Cass?” he called to the blankness, and got no response. He pulled himself out from the covers and ambled over to the laptop they shared, which was open atop their dresser. The screen was all hard bodies and glistening muscles. He squinted and made out the schedule for Core-Train, one of these crazy hybrid workouts Cass had told him about. Looked like she’d set out for the 6:15 class. Hadn’t she just said the night before she was ready to give it all up since they were going to have a baby? He couldn’t shake the feeling at times that he was only hearing 50 percent of what she was thinking.

  When she threw him for a loop, like this morning, he always went back to their origins. Cass didn’t seem particularly withholding when they first got reacquainted, the bits and pieces of her backstory flowing to him in a steady tide. At their first coffee, she told him all about her job on Broadway, triggering the memory of her telling him years earlier that she was a theater arts major and that she took classes at the Rhode Island School of Design. She said it was why she had chosen Brown, and that puzzle piece clicked nicely, but years later he overheard her explaining to one of the Big Brother kids that Leon hung with that Brown had offered
her the most generous financial-aid package of the Ivy League schools, after she had been admitted to an embarrassing six of eight. Why didn’t she tell him that the first time they met, Jonathan had wondered, and what else was she keeping from him? And did he exude such an obvious elitism? It was like the Coyne travel schedule—the summers on Martha’s Vineyard, the winters on Fisher Island—was printed across his goddamn forehead and not just noted in his mother’s datebook. After he’d worked so hard to beat back any latent propensity for snobbery in high school, here was this interesting girl who still chose to stay silent about her upbringing.

  Maybe his mother’s hoity-toity affect was hereditary. No, then it wouldn’t be an affect. It would be imprinted in Betsy’s DNA, and she was too deliberate about her every move for that to be true. Maybe Cass’s lack of candor had more to do with using one’s youth to try on different identities. Jonathan told Cass, on that first night in the bar, that he chose Brown over Harvard just to piss off his parents. Though it was true he was accepted to both schools, his proffered reasoning for choosing Brown was false. He wondered if lies—little ones, big ones—were a part of every relationship. A necessary part, even. Certainly in his case they were.

  Five years into his marriage, he still found himself surprised by the things Cass said and did. There were benefits to having some layers unshared. It was the consequence of their spontaneous meeting. They hadn’t had adequate time to prepare the versions of themselves they would proffer. But it was worth it. To bump into his wife in a city of eight million—especially when he’d been feeling so low—was a gift. One he shouldn’t be rethinking.

  5. CASS

  THREE IN THE morning and her mind was a runaway train. All day she’d done nothing but tire herself out with mindless errands—tailor, three Puddles walks, returning a sweater—in the hopes that she’d be able to break her sleepless spell. But it was the middle of the night and she knew it was fruitless. All she wanted was to reach for the materials stashed in her night table, but she knew if Jonathan were to wake up, she’d be busted. Instead, she quietly padded toward the kitchen and opened the fridge, looking for anything that might calm her nerves. Chocolate pudding, a wheel of Brie or, better yet, wine. An open bottle of white was lying on its side. She took a large glass off the shelf and went to pour. Only a single drop rolled out, and there was no more wine in the house either. She’d taken the empty bottles lining their countertops to the recycling bin just that evening.