Forget You Know Me

by Jessica Strawser

  And Liza had been a fixture at all of them. Could this be a good thing, that Daniel had been the one to put her on the spot? If Liza was back for good, then letting her fade off was too awkward to contemplate. For one thing, it wouldn’t go unnoticed by their families and mutual friends. Some reason would need to be given for a rift, and Liza wouldn’t give a pretty one. There was also this: A part of Molly was glad Liza was returning. Her other friendships were flimsy things that bobbed untethered on the surface, with the lone exception of Rick—who’d reached, perhaps, too deep. What she and Liza had was, regardless of how things were between them now, anchored to the bottom. Or at least it was supposed to be.

  “We did used to be pretty fun,” she said, smiling weakly.

  “It’ll be nice to have her back, won’t it? She made us funner, I think.” Although he said us rather than you, Molly feared that was what he’d really meant, and an old irritation flickered. She ignored it, managing a smile.

  “It never was the same here without her.”

  “I told her to bring whoever she wants. Maybe check in with her next week?”

  Molly relented with a nod, and a beat of silence settled between them.

  “I’m glad you’re home,” she blurted out, surprising herself. But what she was feeling was more than being loath to be alone. She suddenly had the nonsensical urge for her husband to swoop in and reclaim her: from Rick, from the lenders, from the pain itself—anything that dared stand in their way.

  “Me too,” he said, looking equally surprised—by his own reaction or by hers she couldn’t say. He reached out a finger and ran it down the bare part of her arm, and there it was: that old feeling of security.

  It had been a long time since she’d thought of Daniel this way—as someone capable of doing the saving. But that was how they’d met, in a scene out of a storybook—or an early-aughts film adaptation of one. She’d driven a little red hatchback in those days, a tin can of a car that burned oil so fast she had to add a quart every other time she filled the gas tank. She was amazed by the attention she could draw simply by being a woman confidently unscrewing and pouring things under the raised hood of her very own vehicle all by her sweet little self.

  It wasn’t always wanted attention, though. Least of all on the night she failed to latch the hood and subsequently locked her keys in her running car when she got out to secure it. She had to stay with the vehicle while waiting for roadside assistance, lest anyone smash a window and drive off with the thing, and was wishing she’d parked in a more visible area when the trouble started.

  Replaying that moment was a funny thing. Both the casting and the cinematography varied based on her shifting view of the present-day version of her husband. Sometimes she pictured Daniel swooping in like George McFly in Back to the Future, awkward but determined: Hey, you. Get your damn hands off her! When things were especially good between them, or when she was missing the days when they had been, it was more of a sexy, emotionally charged step outside his comfort zone, à la Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook.

  She couldn’t recall if she’d ever thought of him as more of a Clark Kent type, back in the early days when even his missteps seemed adorable, well intended. She thought not. Equating your husband to a caped superhero seemed like something not easily forgotten.

  “Can we talk more about that ‘we used to be fun’ thing?” he asked gently. His eyes were searching hers, but for once, the judgment was gone.

  Or maybe she’d been imagining it all along. Projecting what she feared he thought of her or—she hated to think of it—what perhaps he should.

  “Okay.” She looked down at the rumpled sheets, suddenly shy.

  “We’ve both been so focused on the kids, we’ve neglected things. I’ve neglected things. I think most couples go through this phase, but on top of the usual stuff, you’ve been dealing with a lot, and … I flubbed it. I haven’t been there for you the way I should have been.”

  It was like someone had given him notes on what to say. Liza, at Lunken? Would she have somehow rebounded from Molly’s inexcusable cold-shouldering with an admonishment on her behalf? Unlikely. But so, too, was the idea of him coming to this on his own, out of nowhere.

  “I can’t go back and change it. But I want you to know I’m sorry. And I’m hoping maybe we can—turn a page?”

  She met his eyes. She should say yes, but … She should also tell him, all of it. Now. Maybe not the Rick part, but the money part. The lost savings, the bad decisions, the messenger’s appearance, the lawyer’s advice—this was her chance to lay it out. He was accepting some responsibility for where they’d landed, so maybe, crazy as it seemed, he wouldn’t lay the blame for the bigger mess she’d made entirely on her.

  Then again, she deserved this apology. She’d earned it. In fact, an apology might not cut it. Daniel was the one, at the risk of sounding childish, who started it. He’d made her feel as if she couldn’t turn to him. As if she were exaggerating her pain, failing them all by not doing a better job of sucking things up on her own. He might not have put her through hell, exactly, but she’d been in it, and he had not walked through with her. No. He’d gawked at her like a displeased spectator, waiting for her to pull her act together for the win. For years. And now that he was finally owning up to the damage he’d done, she was going to deflect all the hurt and blame right back on herself at the risk of resuming that scorching walk on her own?

  “I want to suggest some things,” he continued. “But I’m not sure how to do it without sounding cliché. Like, what if we go away, just the two of us? Someplace with a great view and room service. Someplace we can stay in bed all day if we want to.” She raised an eyebrow, and he offered a sheepish laugh. “See? It sounds like a page from the midlife crisis playbook. But maybe there’s a reason it’s in there.”

  She missed their sex life, too. She’d never been one to beg off with a yawn until her rotating wheel of discomfort had ruined her enjoyment of just about everything. Nothing on her knees, which had become too volatile. Nothing that put pressure on her slipped disk, either. And then, there was the popping in her jaw, of which they dared not speak.… Maybe the bad wouldn’t have so easily canceled out the good if either of them had been kinder, about any of it.

  And now? They couldn’t afford a trip like he was proposing, even if she wanted to.

  “We don’t need to make a big thing of it,” she said. “We can just, you know, get a babysitter, plan a date night. Be intimate more.” It sounded laughably simple, yet these were things they didn’t do.

  She didn’t know, though, if halfway wanting to was enough. Somewhere along the line, she’d lost hold of the connecting thread that allowed her to lay herself bare for him. She hadn’t found a way to maintain the physical weave of their relationship when the emotional one was so frayed, nor could she make out how to pick the thread back up, though she missed the feel of it in her hand, the sensation of giving it a tug and knowing she’d feel the reciprocal pull on the other end.

  Daniel rarely initiated anything anymore, which had occasionally made her wonder, with more sadness than hurt, if he was getting those needs met elsewhere. Not that her conscience was entirely clear. She couldn’t claim, for instance, that she hadn’t wondered what Rick would be like in bed. Not in a serious way, though, as one might shop for a new laptop or a smartphone. It was more like gazing through the display case at Tiffany’s, knowing everything was out of her price range but drawn by the idea that for someone else it could be real.

  “When did we get so damn middle-aged?” he said, trying to laugh. She resisted, though. She would not relegate their marriage to the ordinary rut column when plenty of out-of-the-ordinary things had brought them to this point.

  Still. She had no desire to be the sort of woman who caught herself thinking things like there’s more to life than being fun, defending changes she wished she’d never undergone.

  “Try me,” she said, aiming to sound more mischievous than annoyed. “For instan
ce, do you know where we can get weed?” When they’d started dating, they’d spend an occasional lazy Sunday getting high and taking their time in bed, their sensations heightened. They hadn’t even spoken of it since becoming parents, but if he wanted to spruce things up, that was the kind of tension release that appealed. Less pressure than a negligee or some sticky new cream. Just—something to take the edge off.

  He laughed, more genuinely. “I do wish they’d get around to legalizing it. Short of that, I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “You could start with me,” she said. Might as well see how he’d react to certain boundaries being pushed. Boundaries she’d already broken.

  He looked amused. “You have a hookup?”

  “I have the goods.” He gaped at her, and she heaved her upward-facing shoulder in a guilty half shrug. “Don’t look at me like that. I’ve tried everything to combat the pain. But it turned out I didn’t like doing it alone. It’s different when it’s not social. Made me nervous.”

  “Wow.” He fell silent for a minute, and she figured he was thinking, as she was, of all the other prescriptions she’d filled and abandoned—the lawful ones. Her body tended to be so sensitive to medications that she usually didn’t like them, though she went on wishing for a magic pill. She supposed she should be grateful she hadn’t found one; otherwise she could have ended up on a slippery slope to dependence. “I’m sorry it came to that, Mol. I’m sorry I didn’t realize.”

  If she responded sincerely, she’d cry. She offered another shrug. Better if he looked back on her indiscretions, if everything came out in the open, and thought they hadn’t been all bad. “Maybe fun would be a better cure,” she said.

  He grinned. “You’re on, Mrs. Perkins. This weekend, after the kids are down. You bring the contraband; I’ll bring every munchie you could dream of. Snickers. Doritos.”

  Would he still be so eager to rekindle their spark, even fleetingly, if he knew all the ways she’d betrayed his trust, all the things she’d done? If it turned out Daniel would be willing to save her again, would she still want him to?

  She supposed she’d better figure it out.

  18

  Liza was going on a hiatus from her hiatus.

  In other words, a date.

  Her problem with men had never been getting them to ask her out. It took exactly one day on the job to run into Henry, to whom she delivered a courtesy side of French fries just on the right side of crisp, and exactly one minute after that for him to invite her to dinner someplace “even fancier.” She’d been waiting for it, even fishing for it, but still she hesitated as if teetering on some point of no return. The airport was small enough that this could be akin to dating a coworker. Although the risk, she supposed, was his; should things go south, he’d just have to find someplace less convenient to eat.

  “Do seven things have to go wrong for you to have a disastrous date?” she’d teased. “I’m a little rusty, so if the bar is much lower, I’m not sure I’m up to the challenge.”

  He’d answered with a look of exaggerated nervousness that made her laugh.

  More often, her dates were near-certain one-offs, easy come and easy go and might as well have fun along the way. She’d thought of it as a good thing when her attitude toward them changed some months ago, when she’d stopped so readily settling for so little—only now she’d swung too far the other way, to a place where every decision seemed too big. Earlier today, she’d been tripped up at the grocery store when Steph asked her to run in for a premade salad on her way home. There were, Liza counted, forty-two different kinds of prewashed, bagged salad. Forty-two! And that was not counting a middle row where the inventory had been replaced by recall notices warning of a listeria outbreak. Had all the rest of these brands really avoided the same crop of romaine, or radish, or whatever the culprit? What if contamination in the others just hadn’t been discovered yet? What if she picked the wrong one and Steph—being pregnant and susceptible—was affected worst of all? She’d stood frozen, while other shoppers reached around her and mumbled their excuse mes without a second thought beyond the sale price. Ultimately she went home empty-handed, pretending to have forgotten to stop. Let Luke choose on his way home instead. His odds would be the same, but at least she wouldn’t be the one responsible if not in their favor.

  Thus, on the specifics of the date, she voiced no opinion. Let Henry pick; it would tell her something anyway about who he was and, perhaps, what his expectations were. She was so eager, in fact, to defer that she thought fleetingly of how nice it would be for this relationship to take hold just now, and of how disastrous, for the flip sides of all the same reasons.

  Liza had restocked only on lounge clothes and androgynous restaurant manager wear, so Steph let her raid her closet for the occasion.

  “It’s the least I can do!” her sister-in-law gushed, breezing through the guest room door with a selection of hangered dresses over her arm. “I mean, you took my advice! Luke never listens to me.”

  “Oh, please,” his voice shot back across the hall. “She can see I obey you like a Labrador.” The two of them seemed to be trying too hard since Steph’s appointment to keep things light between them—between all three of them, really. Luke didn’t even gripe at having to stop for the salad Liza had “forgotten,” but somehow even his grace was another reminder of the tiny life at stake inside Steph. Liza was glad of the excuse to get out, even if she was a bit nervous for what Henry had in store. Her first dates in Chicago often meant brief wine bar meet-ups that might or might not continue past a single glass, or at their most committal perhaps a be forewarned that this takes a while to bake deep-dish pizza and a draft beer. But Henry had made reservations for a seasonal wine tasting followed by a three-course food pairing at a winery in Kenwood, so she’d be locked in for a few hours at least.

  “This guy is full of good signs,” Steph assured her. “First, he’s a reliable regular. Second, he’s clearly not afraid it’s not going to go well. Can’t wait to find out what’s third!” How quickly her married friends forgot the potential negatives of spending an evening with a stranger. In spite of their long-standing agreement never to discuss their mutual ex-boyfriend, she resisted the urge to bring him up to Steph now, to remind her of how storybook those dates weren’t. The “let’s just catch the first half” stops at sports bars that turned into hours-long marathons of watered-down pitchers and drunken darts, for instance. Then again, maybe his dates with Liza had reflected his attitude toward her. Maybe Steph had been treated to trendy cafés and riverboat cruises. Better not to know.

  Liza had unintentionally lost a few pounds these past couple of on-edge weeks, and a satisfied smile spread across her face at the way Steph’s silky black A-line draped over her frame. If only she’d thought to get some heels. Steph wasn’t her shoe size, so the plain-Jane flats Liza had bought for her interview would have to do.

  “They look fine,” Steph assured her. “Besides, he knows about the fire, right?”

  Liza pursed her lips conspicuously.

  “Well, I guess you don’t have to worry that you won’t have anything to talk about. You’ll be his most interesting date ever. A survivor.”

  The word jarred Liza. She kept forgetting that was how she was supposed to see herself.

  * * *

  The tasting room was crowded, a yuppyish clientele who made Liza think wistfully of the more diverse mix at any given place in the Loop—but then again, in that whole vast city she’d never met anyone like Henry. They stood next to their wine flights at a small high-top that no fewer than two other couples were sharing, but his energy drew a circle around them, in spite of the fact that it was too loud to carry on much of a conversation. She leaned in to catch the words he shouted over the din, asking how her first week at work had been (fine, if not terribly interesting) and telling her about his (drunken passengers and all).

  She’d never enjoyed how even the most engaging first encounters had to be followed by a requisite debriefing
that put the initial spark in a holding chamber, where it would either bloom or be extinguished. But so far, chatting with Henry felt more like catching up with someone she already knew on some level. Someone she was very glad to see again.

  “Should we get the awkward stats out of the way before they call our table?” he called, his grin mischievous. A woman in a fuchsia shirt that bared her shoulders plunged into him from behind, but he seemed impervious, intent on Liza even as the wine in his hand sloshed dangerously close to the rim.

  “Such as?” Liza pulled him forward by the arm, and their circle tightened. He was taller than she’d realized—until now, she’d only seen him seated at Sky Galley—and she smiled up at him. His hair seemed redder in this lighting, not the carrot of many so-called redheads but a more striking cousin to brunette.

  He grinned back. “Exes. Timetables. Regrets.”

  She nodded, game, and ticked off her fingers, touching on the basic points—the move to Chicago, the lack of anyone serious in her time there, the decision to come back. She left off the reason—even if they were getting things out of the way, this didn’t seem the time.

  “Regrets?”

  She shrugged. “I disbelieve people who say they don’t have any.”

  “Smart.” He took his turn. His last serious relationship was long distance, which almost worked because she was on his route but petered out six months ago. He’d begun his career flying regional jets into Canada, but his French—not required but strongly preferred—was so terrible he bowed out before they could come up with some other excuse to fire him. He liked flying the shuttles out of Lunken, wanted nothing to do with the big airlines.

  “Regrets?”