Chapter 68
WHEN I WALKED BACK INSIDE the house after waving Laura and Bobby off, Paul was standing at the kitchen sink, washing dishes. “There’s no hot water,” he said in the matter-of-fact tone of a man who believes the world is out to get him.
“We’ve got to turn on the water heater. Fifteen minutes beforehand. Remember?”
His shoulders sank a little. “Right.”
I leaned against the doorframe and watched him rinse the wine stains out of our coffee mugs with the pads of his fingers. “I guess I need to buy a sponge,” I said.
He nodded. “And some dish soap.”
Was it possible, I wondered, for us to lob enough mundanities at each other that we glazed over what had just happened out on the patio? It seemed unlikely.
Paul placed a mug in the drainboard above the sink, then turned to look at me. “Why did you tell Laura about that shit at the bar?”
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “It was something to talk about, and she’s my friend.”
“Yeah, but the whole thing’s trashy.”
The word trashy hit me wrong, but I didn’t have a quick comeback.
“You’re out there smoking and drinking with a bunch of random Italian guys. Laughing at every single fucking thing they say. Why tell her about it when it makes you look bad?”
“Makes me look bad?” I said, bewildered.
“You don’t think so?”
“Paul, I was just having fun.”
“Yeah,” he said. “It looked like it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“You tell me.”
“I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That guy Teo?” said Paul. “Your face was fucking three inches from his when I got out there.”
“It was not.”
“You looked like you were about to stick your tongue down his throat.”
“Jesus, Paul.”
Paul cut off the water, dried his hands on his pants. “What I can’t figure out is why you’d want to keep talking about it. Does it make you feel good to tell Laura some guy thinks you want him?”
I’d had enough. “I didn’t even know what Afonso said until you told us. So, how exactly do you think I ran to Laura with that information?”
“Whatever,” he said, and left the room.
I followed him down the hall to our bedroom, where our mattress was still covered in crap we didn’t know what to do with. He began shifting piles of it from the bed to the floor. “Do you know where the sheets are?” he asked, but I wasn’t done with the conversation.
“Do you know that I met a woman who—for the entire two years she’s been here—has moved a bean from one jar to another every single fucking day? She hates it here so much that she’s been counting down the days until she goes home, bean by fucking bean.”
“And?”
“And I don’t have a fucking bean jar. Because I like it here. It’s not perfect. I miss my parents and I have no job and sometimes my husband’s an ass, but I’m really trying.”
“You want a prize?”
“No, but I’d like an acknowledgment that this is hard.”
“This is the navy, Eileen.”
“Which I didn’t join.”
“Yes, you did,” he said. “When you married me, you signed up for all of this.”
I couldn’t help it. I started to cry, which softened Paul a little.
“I’m sorry this is how it is,” he said. “But the way you conduct yourself matters. It’s not about you or even us. It’s about my career.”
“Your career is riding on me not accepting cigarettes from guys at bars?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but what you do or don’t do can literally make it into my fitness report, which affects my next assignment and even my chances at promotion.”
“You’re serious?”
“As a heart attack.”
I was still pissed, but I took a deep breath and tried to be mature about it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”
“It’s fine,” he said, and he took a tentative step toward me, then pulled me into his chest and gave me a chaste kiss on the lips. “Glad to know you don’t think that dork’s attractive.”
My instinct was to argue that Teo wasn’t a dork, but I decided it wouldn’t help my cause. Instead, I said, “I think you’re very attractive.”
“That is good to hear,” he said. “Now will you help me find the sheets?”