Elinor has insisted that Ted not call her in Ohio. They’ll talk when she gets home. By then she will have figured things out. So far she hasn’t figured anything out. She and Kat talk every night. Elinor feels a mixture of gratefulness and guilt for rattling on about the affair. She doesn’t want to be a drama queen. “It’s so cliché,” she says. “It’s okay to feel like crap,” Kat tells her. “Cut yourself a break.” Elinor loves Kat because she’s never one to dole out silver linings. (You can sleep in when you don’t have kids! You can fly to Paris!)
Many couples are able to put an affair behind them, Abby would probably advise. Creak, snip.
Maybe Elinor can forgive Ted for the affair. She’s pretty sure she can. Snip, snip, chop, snip. But not while anger boils so close to the surface of her skin. Frightening anger. Yesterday, when she went to the store for her mother’s yogurt, she had a panicky thought when she saw an attractive woman in yoga pants by the sorbet. What if the affair isn’t over? What if Ted’s shacked up with Gina and her flax? She wanted to ram her shopping cart into the glass freezer case.
Snip, snip, snip. Just a teeny bit more off the bangs. When she gets back from Ohio, she and Ted will go see Dr. Brewster. Snip. Arguments in that office are somehow productive. Snip, snip. Snip. Shorten up the sides.
She steps back from the sink, contemplating her shaggy haircut. The raggedy style is a little longer than she’d like in the back. No more cutting, though. She’ll go to a hairdresser when she gets home to get it cleaned up. To make it the right kind of messy.
She bends forward and blows off the back of her neck with a hair dryer she finds under the sink. The heat warms her scalp. When she lifts her head, her hair is tousled in a million different directions, reflecting her emotions.
“Oh!” her mother says when she sees Elinor’s hair. She smiles. “You did that? It’s darling.”
“You think?” Elinor stammers, pulling at the ends of her hair. “You think Ted would like it?” She wants her hair back. Her waistline. Her ovarian function. Her sex life. Her bikini. Her husband.
“Oh, honey.” Beatrice clicks off the TV and hoists her lame leg off the couch, patting the cushions for Elinor to sit. Elinor sinks into the sofa and rests her head on the soft shoulder of her mother’s frayed robe. Beatrice rubs Elinor’s back, but doesn’t say anything. She’s never one to pry. For once, Elinor wishes she would.
“Ted and I are having troubles,” she says softly.
“Oh, honey.” Elinor burrows her forehead into the warm, dry crook of her mother’s neck, breathing in the comforting smell of A&D ointment.
“Is it the infertility? That was so much for you two to go through.”
As Elinor clutches her mother’s back, she’s alarmed by the sharp frailty of her vertebrae. “That, and other things.”
Beatrice nods. “The miscarriage must have been so hard on you two.” Her tone brightens. “But at least you know you can conceive.”
Many people said this after the miscarriage. But Elinor is ashamed to admit that she already knew she could conceive. She’d had an abortion in college. Her boyfriend, Caleb, a poet and fellow prelaw student, had been killed in a car accident over Thanksgiving break. Elinor returned to school in a daze. One night she drank too many Kamikazes and slept with James Slandler, a Tom Cruise look-alike who was sweet and tender and had had a crush on her since they’d been debate partners. Since her heart was broken, she had the melodramatic notion that she’d lost the will to live. So she went to James’s room, and she didn’t worry about not having birth control. That was the only time she hadn’t used contraceptives, and boom, she’d gotten pregnant. From then on she mistakenly thought she was “fertile as a henhouse.”
James was sweet. He drove her to the abortion clinic and brought her chocolate milk shakes and cut daisies. At the time, Elinor was sure she’d made the right choice—college first, baby later. By contrast, her mother, a straight-A college student, had gotten pregnant in her freshman year at Ohio State when she and her father had had too much beer after a football game. Beatrice dropped out of college, trading Yeats and Keats for Dr. Spock and the diaper service. She’d had Elinor and never returned to school.
“I already knew that I could conceive,” Elinor confesses, studying the black spidery threads of stitches in her mother’s knee. “I had an abortion. A long time ago. In college?” She looks up at Beatrice, whose expression is so accepting and nonjudgmental, Elinor could cry. “I thought it was the right thing to do at the time.”
“Oh, honey, it was.” Beatrice gently rearranges pieces of Elinor’s newly shorn hair.
“Maybe I was supposed to have my baby back then.” When she and Ted couldn’t conceive, Elinor began fantasizing about her “college baby,” who would be a teenager already, probably arguing to pierce her navel or go to rock concerts on school nights.
“No, no.” Beatrice shakes her head. “That’s just what we did back then. We women didn’t have choices the way you gals do.” She adds this last part a bit wistfully, then stops herself. “Oh! Not that I didn’t enjoy every minute of having you. You were such a sweet baby.”
“God, I hope so.” Elinor has always felt a little guilty that she’s the reason her mother couldn’t finish college.
They sit quietly staring at the blank gray TV screen, and Elinor actually misses Bob Barker.
“Choices.” Elinor finally says, repeating her mother. “That’s kind of a fairy tale, you know?” She leans her head on Beatrice’s bony shoulder. Elinor has always been pro-choice, but it never occurred to her that one day she’d have no choice. There are many things you can do later in life, but having a baby isn’t necessarily one of them.
Ted sits down a little too heavily in the booth beside Gina at the Country Kitchen Café, making her bounce in her seat. They both laugh nervously. Gina gives him a light, friendly hug. He touches her shoulder, which is tanned beneath the thin straps of her white yoga leotard. The round outline of her breasts shows just beneath the thin fabric. Ted glances away.
“This is my son, Toby,” Gina says. She looks at the boy, smiling, almost bursting.
“Your . . . son?” Gina never told Ted she had a son. Were there even any pictures of him in Gina’s house?
The boy peeks out from his moppy snarl of curls.
“Toby has been living with his dad.”
“Oh.” Ted blows on his soup even though it isn’t hot anymore.
Gina’s trying to be cheerful, but he can tell she’s stressed. She finishes her wine and orders an iced tea, stirring it until the ice cubes begin to melt.
Toby sighs, raps the table with his spoon. “Now I gotta live here.” The disdain in his voice makes Ted feel bad for Gina.
“That’s great,” Ted tells Toby.
“Toby’s father is going back to school,” Gina says. “So he won’t be home much.”
Toby kicks the table leg, and their glasses wobble.
“How old are you, Toby?” Ted takes a spoonful of the black bean soup. It has a mushy cardboard consistency.
“Ten.”
“Eat your salad, honey.” Gina points to a pile of greens beside Toby’s french fries.
Toby wrinkles his nose. The weight of his curls seems to pull his forehead toward the table. His elbows, which are too big for the rest of his body, are covered with splotchy brown scabs. He scratches them.
“Don’t, honey.” Gina reaches for Toby’s hands. He recoils, shoving his arms under the table. “Somebody’s accident-prone and has eczema,” Gina tells Ted.
Ted orders a half-bottle of Chardonnay, which the waitress brings with two fresh glasses. Ted tries not to drink too quickly.
Gina nods at Toby. “Somebody needs to lay off the McDonald’s. I’m trying to get him to eat just one small salad a day.” Her silver bracelets tinkle as she dips into her own salad.
It annoys Ted the way Gina refers to Toby in the third person—as though he’s not really there. He can’t remember Gina ever annoying him. Of course not, if
all you ever do together is climb the Precor, eat home-cooked meals, and have sex.
Toby furrows his brow at Ted, crossing his arms so he can scratch both elbows at once. “Did you know that a decapitated person can remain conscious for up to four minutes, because there’s still blood in their brain?” Toby’s back straightens with enthusiasm as he asks Ted this.
“Really?” Ted sets down his fork, refilling Gina’s wineglass, then his own.
“Yeah, but probably you wouldn’t feel any pain.”
“Somebody’s got a penchant for grisly stories,” Gina tells Ted. “Ted’s a doctor,” she tells Toby.
“They’re not stories,” Toby says. “They’re anecdotes. They’re true.” Blood runs from one of the scabs. “What kinda doctor?” he asks Ted hopefully. “A surgeon?”
Gina hands Toby a napkin and he blots at his elbow.
“A podiatrist. I do some minor surgeries.”
“Cool!”
“Say, what’s your favorite subject at school?”
“History. Only we don’t really have it yet. We have stupid social studies. Junk about Plymouth Rock. I like real history. You know, Greece and Rome. I watch the History Channel and my grandfather has these Time-Life books.”
Normally, Ted worries about coming up with something to say to kids that will pique their interest. Questions that will solicit more than one-word answers. But this kid talks nonstop.
“We can’t get Toby to read his schoolbooks,” Gina tells Ted, a little exasperated, “because he’s always reading those Time-Life books.”
“Wow,” Ted says.
“She doesn’t read anything,” Toby tells Ted.
“I read.” Gina stops eating, aligns her place mat with the edge of the table.
“Yeah, those stupid nutrition books. Buncha baloney.”
Ted finds it odd how Gina and her son talk to him rather than to each other. “Well, that baloney helped me lose fifteen pounds,” he tells Toby.
“Yeah,” Toby says. “Hey, you know Cicero? You know how he died? He wanted Rome to be a republic only Marc Antony didn’t, so Marc Antony murdered him and then you know what?”
“Breathe, Toby.” Irritation creeps into Gina’s voice.
“Cicero was murdered?” Ted says. He knew Caesar was murdered, but frankly, he didn’t remember what the hell Cicero wrote or did. He was just another Roman C-guy. Elinor would like this kid. This stuff’s right up her alley.
“Yeah, they chopped off his head and hands and nailed them to the Forum walls.” When he says the word chopped, Toby karate-chops the table. Gina’s wine tips over and splashes onto her leotard. She jerks backward, then presses her napkin to her chest.
“Sorry,” Toby says. But he keeps his eyes on Ted, his captive audience. “Yeah, and that was when the republic started going down the tubes.”
Ted wants to help Gina, but he doesn’t want to look at the yoga leotard, let alone touch it. He hands her his napkin.
“Wasn’t our republic based on theirs?” he asks Toby.
“Yeah!” Toby says, giving Ted a verbal high five.
“Jeez, I hardly remember any of this stuff,” Ted says to Gina. “You okay?”
Gina nods, shrugs, puts down the napkin. There’s a South America-shaped splotch of wine across her chest.
“Toby was in the GATE program last year in Maine, where his dad lives,” she tells Ted. “But he stopped doing his homework and his grades went down. So now he can’t be in GATE here.” She raises her eyebrows at her son.
“Gate?” Ted asks, feeling his face flush. He’s embarrassed by the fact that he knows the details of Gina’s outfit by heart. The Indian skirt is a wraparound deal, and you take it off by unknotting the bow and then with one tug you can whip it off, like a bullfighter snapping his cape. The white yoga leotard is also one piece. There are three tiny snaps at the crotch that come undone with a gentle tug. Sometimes Gina wears underwear underneath and sometimes not. If there’s underwear, Ted would quickly push it aside and slide his fingers inside her, always surprised by the warm wetness. She would arch her back and bite into his earlobe. Soon she’d be straddled on top of him and he’d be pulling the yoga top up over her head and tossing it onto the floor.
“It’s the advanced program—” Gina explains. She’s clearly proud of Toby. Proud and exasperated at the same time.
Ted pushes his soup away. Clears his throat.
“I don’t care.” Toby sulks. “I don’t even want to go to school here.” He starts with the kicking again.
“Toby’s used to living with his dad,” Gina explains. She tries to run her hand through Toby’s curls, but her fingers get stuck. Toby turns his head to release himself from her touch.
Ted spears a banana on his fruit plate.
“That’s the carbiest fruit,” Gina says, smiling.
“Carby?” Ted pops the banana into his mouth.
“Worse than ice cream.” She raises her eyebrows. “And sooooo good.” Her skin is golden and somehow glistens with tiny sparkles.
“It takes an hour and a half to reduce the average adult corpse to ashes,” Toby announces. “You know, like when they cremate a body.”
“Sprinkle me in a redwood forest,” Gina says.
Toby pulls a paperback out of his backpack and buries his face in it: A Macabre Miscellany. A THOUSAND GRUESOME AND GORY FACTS! the cover boasts.
“I joined the Y,” Ted tells Gina. He wants to declare his separation from her gym.
Gina agrees that the Y is pretty good, but recommends other gyms. Of course, hers is the best, considering the outdoor pool, and the yoga studio with all the windows. She looks around the restaurant as she talks.
Ted has the urge to remove her yoga leotard with his teeth. It is a sudden and alarming compulsion—what he imagines Tourette’s must be like. He should have gone home and grilled himself a burger for dinner. Watched the ball game. Gina wants to know if he’s training for a second triathlon. No. He shakes his head. It’s probably too late now. But he’s found a bunch of guys to play soccer with two nights a week. Gina insists it’s not too late to train. She seems to think Ted can achieve anything he’ll put his mind to. The waitress says she has to go home, and another waiter is taking over.
The waiter, Derrick, arrives to ask if they’d like dessert. He doesn’t take his eyes off Gina. She doesn’t seem to notice. She touches Ted’s arm, suggesting a lemon sorbet for him. He feels like an ass for being proud of her attention. See, Derrick, his self-esteem says. She prefers me. He declines dessert. While he hasn’t eaten much of his dinner, he’s no longer hungry.
“Didn’t like the soup?” Gina asks as the waiter clears it away.
Ted shrugs.
“It’s better to eat at home,” she says. “Listen to me, the food Nazi.” She sips her wine. “I’m taking this job way too seriously.”
“No, you’re good at it,” Ted says.
“Yeah, well, you should cook,” she says sadly. “You should cook dinner for Elinor.”
“She left,” Ted says. “I mean, she went to stay with her mom for a few weeks.”
“I’m sor—”
“So she could help her after her knee replacement. She’s coming back.” Ted wishes he hadn’t shared this information. “She’s—”
“Somebody’s got homework to do,” Gina says.
Gina’s car is across the parking lot in a lone corner. Ted remembers that she parks far from places so she can fit in extra exercise. As they part ways in front of the restaurant, she gives Ted a little kiss on the cheek. It’s dry but soft, and causes a spark of static electricity.
“Nice to see you.” She absently pats Toby’s curls. Distracted by his book, Toby leans into his mother, resting against her hip.
“Great seeing you,” Ted says. Too enthusiastic. He coughs. “Good,” he adds.
Gina nods, smiles. Her eyes scan his face as though reading something.
“Toby,” Ted says, extending his hand for a shake, immediately feeling like a g
eek. “Keep on top of those battles.”
“I should show you my battle of Salamis book,” Toby says, squinting up at Ted. “This one guy—”
“Good luck with the triathlon.” Gina steers Toby toward her car, moving ahead of the boy at a fast clip. She never lingers over good-byes; her departures are sudden and quick, leaving Ted wanting more. Cursing himself for always wanting a little more.
When Elinor opens the front door to retrieve her mother’s morning newspaper, she finds a huge bouquet of coral-colored roses on the porch. Her favorite.
“Oh!” Her breath puffs up in a cloud. She doesn’t like red roses, which are almost artificially perfect. Red roses usually mean somebody got laid or somebody’s in the doghouse. Ted knows she likes messier, more natural-looking flowers.
Maybe the roses are for her mother. Elinor reaches for the card.
Come home now. Bring your mom. She can fly. Call me. I love you. I need you to come home. A long, detailed message for flowers. Elinor imagines the clerk at the florist trying to get it all down, reading it back to Ted. She’s sorry she made him resort to this method of communication. She knows it’s illogical not to talk to her husband on the phone. But she wants to say just the right thing. The words to make him love her again. She realizes this now, standing on the porch, cradling the flowers to her chest, breathing in their hopeful fragrance. She knows her husband still loves her. But maybe he’ll never love her the way he once did.
Ted decides to finish the damn cherry hutch before Elinor returns home. Get the mess out of the garage. If he stays up all night, maybe he can finish it. El clearly doesn’t care about the thing. He thought she would like to store their china, silver and candleholders and crap they never even use. But he could tell she struggled to muster enthusiasm for his project, trying not to hurt his feelings. She’s not domestic, not a nester. She’s too cerebral to be picky about that stuff. Except for the yard. She’s very particular about plants and flowers.