3. Zelda
ZELDA
Itie Jeremiah’s tie before we leave for Suri’s.
He stands still for me, his chin lifted, watching my hands in the mirror. I get the knot right and keep smoothing it after it needs smoothing. Last night we ate the potatoes and left the plates until morning. He asked which dress I was wearing tonight. I’ve chosen that small question to believe in.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Yes.”
At the party, Suri offers me a mug of cider. Candace takes it before I can reach.
“She’s exhausted. We nearly had to drag her out of the house.”
“I was asking Zelda,” Suri says.
I love her for saying my name, for waiting for my voice. “I’m glad to be out.” I reach again, and Candace passes me the mug. “I can get my own drinks.”
“Relax,” Jeremiah says behind me. “Don’t start in on Candace.”
I turn. We’ve been here twenty minutes. His tie is already a little loose.
“She answered for me.”
“She worries about you.” His hand lands at the small of my back. “So do I.”
I want to put my own hand over his and remind him, quietly of last night. What I asked. Before I can, Candace speaks across the room.
“We’re allowed to worry when she takes a drink she doesn’t want just to stand beside her husband for five more minutes.”
The mug burns my fingers.
I hear the words in my own voice first, in Candace’s car outside the library. It had been dark. I’d laughed when I said them, then cried so hard I couldn’t find the end of the seat belt.
She’d passed me a napkin and waited. I told her I felt ridiculous. She said I could tell her anything.
I look at her. Please don’t say the rest.
Jeremiah’s hand leaves my back.
“You could have told me you felt that way.”
“I tried.”
He glances toward the guests. I lower my voice, although Candace didn’t lower hers.
“When I asked for an evening.”
“Zelda—”
Someone calls him over to ask about the new manufacturing plant. He goes, and I let him. If I follow, they’ll hear the next part too.
Candace joins him. She asks a question that makes him turn fully toward her, interested in her opinions. I watch his face while he answers. When I ask about the plant, he usually says it’s work and he’s tired of talking about it.
I take a chair by the tree. Paper stars hang over Suri’s mantel, and the room smells of hot cider and the tiny sandwiches she keeps bringing out. I eat one. Then another, because I haven’t tasted the first.
When Jeremiah passes, I hold up the star cookie I saved for him.
“Your favorite.”
He smiles. “Keep it for me.”
I almost tell him I’m sorry I spoiled the conversation. The thought makes me put the cookie down.
Candace catches his arm before he gets back to me.
I stand.
“Come with me a minute,” I tell her.
Suri’s study is off the hall. I leave the door open and put my mug on the desk. Candace follows, looking concerned.
“What is it?”
“Why did you tell them about the tea?”
“I thought he should know you’re unhappy.”
“I told my friend, Candace. And then you didn’t just tell him, you told the room.” My voice won’t stay low. “I cried in your car because I trusted you.”
“I remember.”
I think she will reach for me. If she does, I might let her. I want her to be appalled that she hurt me. I want us to go back out together with some small private understanding that she won’t do it again.
“He’s been trying everything,” she says. “You know how he gets when he feels he’s failing you.”
I stare at her.
Apparently, there is a Jeremiah she get to talk to after I’ve made him feel that way.
I don’t know where they sit or what he says first. I know the sound of her defending someone she loves. For eleven years she used it for me.
“Stop discussing our marriage with him.”
“He needs someone he can talk to.”
“Then he can call a friend of his own.”
Her face closes. I hate that I’ve done that to it. She once stood outside my apartment in the rain because I was too ill to come down for the soup she’d brought. She was the first person I called after Jeremiah kissed me.
“You know things, too many things,” I say. “About my own husband.”
“You’re jealous of your best friend.”
The shame is so quick I nearly agree. Nearly apologize for seeing something ugly in all that help.
Then I hear Jeremiah laughing in the next room, and a soft smile flickers across her lips.
“Do you want him?” The words are out before I can stop them. “Is that what this is?”
Her eyes go cold. “You’re being horrible.”
“Answer me.”
A quick twist of her lips as she moves toward the door. I step back against the desk, one hand finding the mug and the other resting on my belly. Let her go. I cannot ask it again.
She stops beside me, close enough that only I can hear.
“You’ve already lost. Watch.”
She passes without touching me.
“Jeremiah!”
I pick up the cider. I don’t know why I take it. I’m still trying to understand the change in her voice when I follow her into the hall.
Her hand is against her cheek, eyes wide, suddenly full of tears.
“She slapped me!”
I wait for someone to laugh. It is such a ridiculous thing to say about the room we’ve just left. I’m holding a hot drink.
She just walked past me. Jeremiah knows me.
“I didn’t touch her.”
He pulls out a chair. “Sit,” he tells Candace.
I take a step toward him. Now he’ll ask. He has to ask me.
“What is wrong with you?”
The step stops halfway. Cider rocks against the rim of the mug.
“Ask me what happened.”
“She thinks I’m trying to take you away from her,” Candace says.
He looks at me, impatient rather than surprised. My stomach knots in realization. They’ve talked about this too.
“I asked her. She wouldn’t answer. Then she?—”
His face shuts down. “You’re upsetting her again. Apologize, Zelda.”
“For what?” I can’t believe this is happening. It’s a dream. A nightmare. How can this be real?
“For hitting her.” He speaks like he’s talking to a wayward child.
“I never did.”
Suri sets down the plate she is holding. “Perhaps the three of you could speak privately.”
“Please.” I turn toward her quickly. “Just a minute with him.”
“First Zelda makes this right,” Jeremiah says. “She can’t have this tantrum and think she’s going to always get her way.”
The room is terribly small. I can hear the song playing behind Suri’s tree. Somebody sets a glass on the mantel with a sharp little knock and leaves it there.
“You weren’t in there.” My words are small.
“Nobody was. We heard an argument.”
“Then how can you—” My voice catches. I swallow and try again. “You heard me arguing. That’s all.”
He draws a breath through his nose. I know that look. At home I sometimes wait it out. Here everybody can see him losing patience with me.
Candace wipes under one eye. “I don’t want everyone fighting because of me.”
“Tell him.” I am looking at her now, because I can’t keep looking at him. “Candace. Tell him where I was standing.”
She lowers her face.
I want to go to her chair and make her look at me. The thought frightens me. If I move toward her now, they’ll think I’m threatening her.
My husband will think that.
I stay where I am.
“Enough,” Jeremiah says. “Say you’re sorry. We can go home and talk about this privately.”
Home. Our kitchen, with last night’s plates still drying. No guests listening. No Candace answering before I can.
“You’ll listen?”
“If you stop making this worse.”
The front door is behind me. I could get my coat. I could call Hedy, except she’s working, and say I need a ride because my husband thinks I hit my best friend. I could walk out and leave Candace in the chair he pulled out for her.
I want to leave with him.
I hate how much I want it. Enough that I hear myself asking, “And then we can go?”
All it takes is one small lie. One more time, being small.
I just want to leave.
And this is the only way.
“Yes.”
Candace’s cheek is unmarked. She looks back at me through wet lashes.
Say something, I want to scream. You know what he’s asking me to do.
Dax raises his phone.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“So there’s no argument later,” he tells Jeremiah, keeping the lens pointed at me.
I wait for my husband to tell him to put it down.
He doesn’t.
The first word won’t come. I wet my lips. My hand has started shaking badly enough that I brace the mug against my dress.
“I’m sorry.”
Candace waits. Those words aren’t enough. Everyone is still looking.
I turn toward Jeremiah. I want him to see that I’m saying this to him, for the promise he just made me.
“I’m sorry I slapped you, Candace. It won’t happen again.”
I hear slapped you after I’ve finished. In my voice. Clear enough for Dax’s phone.
Jeremiah’s shoulders lower.
That is when I know what they’ve heard. Not take me home. Not please listen. The man by the mantel reaches for his glass. Someone moves a chair. They can go back to their party now.
“I forgive you,” Candace says. “I know you haven’t been yourself.”
I can’t answer. If I open my mouth again, I don’t know what will come out.
Jeremiah bends toward her. “Do you want me to stay a little longer?”
I wait for him to add that I’m leaving with him. He keeps looking at Candace.
The mug is too heavy. I put it on the nearest table, carefully, because I can’t bear to spill something and give them one more reason to stare.
In the spare room I find my coat by its familiar lining. My arm goes into the wrong sleeve. I pull it out, try again, and still can’t make it work.
I put my hand on my belly. Fifteen weeks. Too early for an answer from the baby. I need to touch something that hasn’t heard me say that lie.
Hasn’t forced me into it.
Jeremiah calls my name.
I turn so fast the coat slips off my shoulder. He has come after me. We can go. I can tell him now, in the hall, before we even reach the car.
“Your scarf.”
He holds it out by one end.
I take it. He turns back to ask whether Candace needs her coat, and I stand with mine hanging from one arm until I remember how to put it on.