He has the overwhelming fear that Elinor’s not coming back. Rather, that she is coming back, but not to him. Why won’t she talk to him? What’s the point of doing nothing? Is she reaching some sort of decision? Is he on trial in Ohio for infidelity? Shouldn’t he at least be present at his own trial?
Thankfully, the screech of the table saw is louder than his anxiety. The clean smell of sawdust is comforting, reminiscent of a fresh start. He holds up the directions to read about the fluted corner he needs to make before the bottom apron goes on. He is in over his head. He should have chosen something Shaker-style, instead of this complicated Queen Anne deal, with all its curves and inlays. He decides to work on the drawers instead.
He is upset by the fact that it was good to see Gina at the restaurant. Why didn’t she ever tell him she had a kid? He’s a strange boy. Cute little guy. Elinor needs to come home, damn it, before Ted loses his mind. He draws two X’s where the brass handles will go on the drawers, pressing the pencil so hard that the lead snaps off. He reaches for the electric screwdriver.
During the affair, Ted liked seeing Gina outside the context of the gym—in long skirts and sandals, with her hair down. He remembers the time he and Gina smoked pot and had sex in the backseat of her car. He left his car at the gym after work and they went for a drive in hers under the pretense that she was going to show him a local track where he could run. As they drove away from the gym, she pressed in the lighter, lit a joint. Despite his better instincts, Ted took a hit. He held the smoke in, coughed, exhaled, and felt the stress of the day float away from him. He imagined it running alongside the car, like a dog trying to catch up. He laughed. Gina smiled. “Better not smoke and drive,” she said, pulling into a darkening cul-de-sac. Ted handed her the joint. She took a hit, exhaled, tipped back her head, closing her eyes.
“My one vice,” she said. She rolled her shoulders a few times and sighed with satisfaction, as though someone had reached an itch on her back.
What about sleeping with a married man? Ted wanted to ask. Yet he didn’t want to know anything more about her love life, past or present.
Gina smiled, opened her door, got out, opened the back door. “Come on,” she said to Ted, giggling. “Let’s ride in the back for a while.” He climbed into the backseat after her. They ate grapes out of Gina’s grocery bag. She carefully rinsed them, bottled water running down her arms. In the distance, streetlights came on. They ate and stared at the backs of the headrests.
“Are we there yet?” Gina giggled. She kicked off her sandals and leaned over to kiss Ted, her mouth warm and sweet from the grapes. Then she pulled off her underwear and threw it into the back. She reached for Ted’s pants and got his zipper and belt undone.
Ted said no, but it came out ner. What if people saw them? But there was no house in front of the car, just bushes. The street behind them was empty and dark. Then Ted didn’t care. Gina straddled his lap, one knee on either side of his legs. She lifted her skirt and it fell around them so that nothing showed. The soft fabric tickled Ted’s arms. In one swift movement Gina arched her back and plunged down on top of Ted. Then she rose up onto her knees again, pulling away from him completely, bowing her head so it wouldn’t hit the roof of the car. Ted squeezed her thighs, which were remarkably strong. Gina froze. Ted thought they were stopping. Okay. This was crazy. But then Gina plunged all the way down again, and he was gone.
“I’m an adult, goddamn it,” Ted tells the cherry hutch now. I have control over my life, over my desires. I do! Crack! He drives his fist through the front door of the hutch for emphasis. His arm catches in the jagged wood and he can’t move it. His hand throbs and burns. He’s standing there in his garage, up to his elbow in splinters, when he hears the voice of his neighbor, Carl, from the driveway.
“There’s no end to the frustration, eh?” Carl waves and laughs.
Ted turns, waves with his free hand. “Damn hinges.” Next time he should close the garage door.
Carl, a retired civil engineer who recently gave up cigars, takes two walks a day in lieu of his post-lunch and post-dinner stogies. He shakes his head, laughs. “Elinor away on business?” he asks. The retired neighbors notice everything. When the sprinklers are busted, when your car hasn’t been in the driveway for a few days. Ted and El used to think of this as lucky. What a great, safe neighborhood. But now Ted wishes he were anonymous.
“Yeah,” he lies, tugging his arm through the door of the hutch. Blood and splinters streak his work shirt, which he hasn’t bothered to change out of. The sleeve is torn.
“Hey, buddy, can I help you?” Carl steps toward the garage. “Maybe you need stitches.”
“Nah, I’m fine.” Blood soaks Ted’s tie. “Better run in and wash up.” He heads for the kitchen door. “I’m okay!” He calls over his shoulder, pressing the button to close the garage door, leaving Carl standing there, hands in his pockets, mouth agape.
Elinor is nervous as she dials. One phone call isn’t going to make or break an entire marriage, she tells herself. Just thank him and tell him you’ll be home soon.
There’s a commotion as Ted answers the phone, dropping it, then picking it up again.
“Hello?” Elinor says tentatively.
“Elinor!” Ted’s surprised, out of breath.
“How are you? What’s going on?” She’s childishly nervous, as though he’s a boy she likes in school.
“I’m . . . Nothing. I cut myself.”
“Are you okay?” She sits down on her mother’s bed, rubs the nubby chenille bedspread under her fingers. Its frayed familiarity relaxes her.
“I think so. Oh, it’s so stupid.”
“What?”
“I put my fist through the door.”
“In the house?” Despite Ted’s sweetness, his compassion, he has a short fuse. He loses his patience easily, often pounding his fists or breaking things. The outbursts are almost always directed at himself, and he recovers from them quickly.
“Through the hutch.”
The hutch. Elinor feels guilty for not caring about that thing, for resenting Ted’s attention to its every detail. But why? She hasn’t wanted him to pay attention to her. Maybe because he found solace in the project, while no activity comforted her. Unless you counted folding the laundry. She could have helped Ted with the hutch. Read the directions aloud. Instead she shunned every idea that Ted came up with for their recovery together. “Are you okay?” she repeats.
“Sure.”
“Ted. Thank you so much for the flowers. They’re beautiful. And for the note. Just . . .” Elinor stands up. “Thank you.”
“In-the-doghouse flowers.”
“No, you’re not in the doghouse. We’re in the shitter. Together.”
“Yeah?” Ted says sadly.
“I’m coming home. I’m sorry I wouldn’t talk to you. I was afraid I’d make things worse.”
“Leave that to me.”
“I love you,” Elinor says. “I’ll see you soon.”
Ted stands bare-chested before the smashed hutch, his throbbing arm swaddled in a dish towel. He jumps when his cell phone rings in the kitchen. He stumbles back inside. Hopefully it’ll be El calling back. Or maybe God calling to say there’s been a mistake: The past three years didn’t happen. He and Elinor aren’t infertile, Ted didn’t have an affair, his wife isn’t in Ohio. He hasn’t just trashed a woodworking project he wasted two months on.
“Ted?” It’s Gina’s slightly gravelly voice.
“Gina?”
“Hi. I’d like to talk to you about something. I need to see you, if that’s okay.” She sounds nervous, rattled. Not her usual cheerful self. “It’s a logistical thing.”
“Well,” Ted says. He’s an idiot. He shouldn’t have drooled over her, told her that his wife left town.
“I have to go right now,” Gina says. Ted hears something crashing in the background. “Can you stop by my house tomorrow night? Around seven?”
“I . . .” Ted is taken aback by he
r tone, which is fraught with worry.
“See you then?”
“But—”
Gina hangs up.
Ted starts doing math in his head, counting backward to the last time he slept with Gina. Could she be pregnant? Wouldn’t that be the hellish irony Ted deserves? She’s on the pill, but crazier things have happened. Jesus! Ted’s losing his mind. It’s as though he’s impregnated Gina with his outrageous fantasies of her. He tries to calm himself with the argument that Gina certainly would have told him at dinner. But how could she have, with Toby there? What else could she possibly want?
Exhausted, he stumbles into the living room and collapses onto the couch, elevating his injured arm on a pillow. He should get up and fetch a drink—straight vodka from the freezer, the biggest bang for the carbs. He tries to gather the energy to stand.
Here’s the bottom line: Gina is a vibrant young woman and Ted’s an unavailable geezer. After this favor, or whatever it is, she’ll likely want nothing to do with him. Ted waits for the sense of relief that should follow this conclusion, but it doesn’t come.
4
Quit staring, Elinor wants to tell the baby curled on the woman’s lap beside her on the plane home. The baby’s blue marble eyes—which seem too big for his head—lock onto Elinor. Blink, why don’t you! Elinor looks out the window at the tarmac, tears burning the edges of her eyes. Babies under a year old are still so generically soft and doughy and underbaked looking. They could be anybody’s, really. The baby screeches and Elinor turns and forces a smile. The mother blows her bangs off her forehead and smiles back apologetically. Elinor worries she’s exuding a bitchy vibe. In Ohio, bitterness gave way to forgiveness and optimism. But now she feels bitterness wafting off her body again, like heat emanating from pavement.
She wants to tell the woman that her baby is sweet, and she’s sad because she can’t have children of her own. But that’s far too much information. Besides, is it even relevant? When will this fact stop defining every moment of Elinor’s life?
The baby lurches and throws his pacifier, bubbled with spit, at Elinor’s feet.
“Sorry,” his mom says.
“Please, don’t worry.” Elinor bends to pluck up the pacifier with a tissue and hands it to the mother, mustering another sympathetic smile. Then she turns to rest her forehead against the cool Plexiglas plane window. You’re supposed to love babies, not recoil from them. It doesn’t bother Elinor anymore that she can’t have her own baby. She’s not wild about her DNA anyway—an alcoholic gene from her grandfather, her proclivity for the blues. She’s more disappointed that she can’t have Ted’s baby. That they can’t have a child with Ted’s smarts and boyish good looks. Whenever Ted held a baby at a party, Elinor’s throat swelled.
Elinor sits up and cracks open The Iliad. The goddess Athena has created a blazing light around Achilles’ head to intimidate the Trojans. Achilles has lost his armor, but his mother arranged for him to get a special shield made by the gods. Elinor doesn’t like Achilles, who is driven by revenge and always gets saved by the gods. What kind of hero needs his mom to commission him a special shield?
A flight attendant bangs an overhead bin shut, and Elinor jumps. She pokes a finger through the hole in the knee of her jeans. At her mother’s house, she found her old 501 Levi’s and her cowboy boots. She’d left them behind on an earlier visit—shedding the clothes she preferred to wear, but rarely got to, given her corporate schedule. Somewhere along the way to becoming a successful businesswoman, it seems Elinor left her identity at the coat check. She tugs at the ends of her short hair. Before leaving Ohio, she drove into town and got highlights—bright strands that make her look and feel younger. She wishes she could get her psyche highlighted, brighten it up, too.
The plane rattles and rumbles and takes off. Achilles thunders after Hector, spears flashing. The baby screeches. Achilles drives his sword through Hector’s throat. Why can’t Elinor travel with magazines, like a normal person? As the plane reaches cruising altitude, Hector’s body is dragged through the streets, his muscular limbs torn apart.
Below, the neighborhoods and swimming pools blur into a patchwork of brown earth and white clouds. As much as Elinor wanted to get away from home—from Ted and his gym bimbo and his turkey bacon and their troubled marriage and her demanding job—she realizes now what she really wants to get away from: herself. She’d like to escape to the tropics and leave her churning inner monologue behind.
For the first time that she can remember, Elinor doesn’t look forward to going back to work. Suddenly employee relations seems so petty. She thinks of the one file on her computer that’s labeled COMPLAINTS, SMELLS. By law, workplace rights prohibit “offensive conduct of any type.” Sexual harassment and outright hostility are easy enough to identify and address. But Elinor’s come to dread the more obscure, trivial grievances, many of which seem to fall into the “odors” category lately. There’s the woman who microwaves fish for lunch every day, the guy with the caustic BO, the admin with the suffocating Chanel No. 5. Their managers want Elinor’s legal advice on how to approach these people. The corporate world has become so formal and paranoid and litigious, that you can’t just sit someone down and tell them to get a clue. Instead of firing off her typical diplomatic e-mails, Elinor has let her inbox overflow while she hides in the laundry room at home.
Wispy clouds skitter by below the airplane. Maybe Elinor should take her sabbatical from work. She’s been eligible for it for over a year now. Ted wanted her to take the time off while they were doing in vitro, so she could really relax. But Elinor was certain she’d lose her mind if she didn’t work. Sitting at home between appointments, crossing days off the calendar, waiting for test results. She needed her job, which at least she could control. But she’s tired of trying to control things. She can’t even control her own biology or her husband’s sex life.
What will she do during her sabbatical? Maybe soon she, too, will be guessing the prices of Bob Barker’s appliances. She had hoped to take the time off after the baby was born. Dizzy with sleep deprivation, she’d make her own baby food. She butts her head against the plane window, wishing she could burst through and fly away.
As Ted steps through the door into Gina’s condo, the smells of hot sesame oil and ginger from the wok, and the spice of her China Rain perfume, make his head swim.
“Hi.” Gina lightly touches his arm. She looks worn out. Her eyes are sunken with bluish circles. Baggy sweats and an old men’s T-shirt hang from her limbs, looking as defeated as she does.
“Toby?” Gina calls toward the spare bedroom.
“Minute!” Toby hollers.
“Turn it off, please.” Ted’s surprised to see Gina agitated. At the gym, she uses praise and encouragement to motivate her clients. Yet she doesn’t seem to have this finesse with her son.
The computer game emits a great rumbling crash.
“Ten more minutes,” Gina concedes. “Glass of iced tea?” she asks Ted.
“Sure.” He follows her to the kitchen. She fills two glasses with ice, pours the tea, and cuts slices of lemon.
“You okay?” Ted asks. Gina cooked dinner for him twice in this small, narrow kitchen while Elinor burrowed in the laundry room, refusing to eat. What’s he doing here now? He should have flown to Ohio and surprised Elinor.
Gina nods dismissively and puts down her tea without drinking any. “Listen, may I ask you for a favor?”
Ted’s shirt sticks to the perspiration gathering between his shoulder blades. “Shoot.”
“Toby needs a tutor. He’s so smart, but he can’t focus. He needs help with his math and science. I can’t help him. The two of us sitting down together turns into a disaster. I hired this high school kid, but Toby gave him a rough time and now the guy won’t come back.” She looks at the floor. “I explained to Toby that if he doesn’t work with a tutor once a week, he’ll have to go to summer school, which means staying here, God forbid, instead of going to Maine for the summer. That caught
his attention. He asked if you would tutor him.” She turns away from Ted to fuss with a dish in the sink. “I explained to him that you and I are just acquaintances.” She laughs, shakes her head. “But you’re the only thing he likes about California so far.” She turns to Ted, raises her eyebrows. “See what you can do to a person in half an hour?”
Ever since Ted met Gina, she’s had this unwavering admiration for him that he’s never understood. You’re mistaken, he always wants to tell her. Is that why he slept with her? Because she made him feel worthwhile? How narcissistic.
“Die!” Toby shouts from his room.
“I want Toby to like it here.” Gina wipes the counters, even though they’re already clean.
“How come you never told me about Toby?” Ted asks, trying not to sound critical.
“Too complicated.” Gina’s tone flattens, and she bows her head. The topic is obviously painful for her to discuss. “And embarrassing. What kind of mother doesn’t have custody of her own kid? I mean, I have joint custody, but then Toby decided he didn’t want to live with me during the school year.” Gina’s persistent cheer and optimism seem even more remarkable to Ted now, given that her life clearly hasn’t been easy. He wants to comfort her, without hugging her. He takes a step toward her, jams his hands in his pockets.
“Were you married to him?”
Gina shakes her head. “No. We only dated for a few months. He’s a lobster fisherman.” She examines her cuticles indifferently. Ted can’t read how she feels about Toby’s father. “Toby always lived with me and spent summers with his dad. Then when he turned eight, he said he would rather live in Maine with his father. Now Rod’s going back to school to study landscape design. His new wife doesn’t want Toby living with them, since Rod will be gone most evenings. Toby loves her, even though she doesn’t even want him there. She doesn’t have kids.” She squeezes her palms together, visibly trying to maintain her composure. “My son prefers to live with a woman who doesn’t like kids.”