Chapter 22
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
JULIE
On Friday Asher takes me to dinner at El Gaucho, a restaurant where we'd celebrated our engagement. I remember loving it at the time. I’d worn a blue dress with a high slit and he couldn't keep his hands off me in the car on the way home.
Tonight, I’m in another blue dress, a nod back to that night. Asher gives a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Clearly this night and that one are not the same. He orders wine. I let him choose because I don't care what we drink.
"This is nice," Asher says.
"It is."
"I'm glad we're doing this."
"Me too."
It hits me that in all likelihood, neither of us are glad we’re doing this.
The conversation is stilted. We talk about work.
He tells me about a contract negotiation that's been dragging on for weeks.
I tell him about the new scents Jamie and I are developing for fall.
He asks questions about that and then about how my mom is doing on her latest retiree cruise.
We laugh about how crazy it is that my mom has embraced the serial cruiser life.
Then we talk about the house down the block that just went up for sale.
It feels like I’m talking to someone I haven’t seen in a long time.
Either that or like we’re two people trying to remember why they liked each other in the first place.
It’s so awkward that I flinch when Asher reaches across the table and takes my hand.
"I know things have been hard," he says. "But I want to fix this. I want us to be okay."
I look at our hands. His thumb strokes the back of mine. It's a gesture that used to make me feel safe. Now it feels fake. And I wonder if it always was and I just didn’t see it. "I want that too," I say.
I want us to be okay. I do. But at this point, my want list is long. I want to stop analyzing every word, every gesture, every moment of silence. I want to relax into this and let it be what it's supposed to be. But I can't.
After dinner, we go to a movie. It’s a comedy.
We sit in the back and Asher eats popcorn and laughs at the jokes.
I laugh when he does because I know I should.
If this were a first date, it wouldn’t lead to a second.
It’s just… flat. When we leave the theater, Asher smiles at me. "Great movie," he says.
"Yeah."
"Do you want to get dessert somewhere?"
I'm about to say sure when his phone rings. When he pulls it out of his pocket I see Devon's name on the screen. Of course. "I should take this."
Obviously. I wouldn’t expect anything else. "Okay."
He steps away, phone to his ear. I watch him from across the lobby. His posture changes immediately. His shoulders tense. His free hand goes to the back of his neck. He's talking quietly, but I can hear the tone. Engaged. Worried. He comes back a minute later.
"Devon's having a panic attack," he says. "She says she can't breathe. She's asking me to come home."
I don't say anything. She’s asking him to come home. Not us. I wonder if he even noticed.
"I'm sorry, Julie. I know this was supposed to be our night, but we need to get home so I can support her."
"Okay."
He doesn’t even notice that I’m serving up monotone responses. Typical. The walk to the car is heavy with a silence I'm starting to recognize. He drives with a frantic edge, faster than he needs to, while I just stare out the passenger window and watch the city lights whiz by.
When we get home, Devon is sitting on the couch in the living room. She's wearing pajamas. Her perfect face is giving sad, but her eyes aren’t red and she looks fine other than the tissue clutched in her hands and the turned down lip.
"I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't want to ruin your night. I just didn't know what else to do."
"Don’t apologize," Asher says as he sits down beside her and places a hand on her shoulder. "Tell me what happened."
She leans into him and starts talking in a low tone. Purposely, I think, so that I can’t hear. That’s my cue to leave. "I'm going to bed," I announce.
Asher looks up. "I'll be up later."
"Okay."
I go upstairs. I brush my teeth. I take off my dress and hang it back in the closet before I put on an old t-shirt and get into bed. I lie there in the dark and wait. Half an hour passes. I hear voices downstairs. Quiet murmurs. I can't make out the words. Eventually I fall asleep.
I wake up when the bed shifts. Asher is climbing in beside me. I don't know what time it is. The room is still dark.
“How is she?” I ask.
“Better. Embarrassed.”
I snicker. “Right.”
He pauses. I swear, even in the dark, I can feel him frown. “She was having a panic attack.”
“I know what she said she was having.”
The tension thickens. “You know what Julie? I’m too fucking tired for this,” he says.
“That makes two of us.”
He sighs heavily before reaching over and laying a hand on my arm. “I know tonight didn’t go how we wanted.”
He says it as if his disappointment and mine are at all comparable. Real talk, I’m not even sure he is disappointed, so that’s a big issue too.
“I wanted a full night out,” I say. “One where you didn’t get a call saying come home because Devon was anxious.”
“She couldn’t breathe, Julie.”
“Crazy that her anxiety is always at its worst when you’re doing something with me. Even if it's as simple as us going to the grocery store together, she calls. Every time we try to do even the smallest thing, we're interrupted. It's becoming a pattern and it's not okay with me.”
The words hang there between us, blunt, plain, and fucking unapologetic. He shifts beside me. I can feel him deciding whether to deny it or insult me for saying it out loud. Finally he says, “That’s not fair.”
“No?”
“No.” His voice sharpens. “And you don’t get to make her problems into some bullshit competition you’ve created in your mind.”
Lovely. He’s insulting me to defend her.
This tone-deaf idiot is not the man I promised to love for the rest of my life.
I want to scream. Instead, I turn toward him in the dark.
“You’re the one doing all of this. Not me.
If you want me to compete with a child, we’re already done.
And in that case, my divorce question has just answered itself. ”
He goes still. For a moment, I think he might snap and say something real. Instead he lies back down and stares at the ceiling. “Whatever. We can talk about this tomorrow.”
“You always say we’ll talk about it tomorrow, and then we never do. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
He moves closer. His hand touches my shoulder. "I'm sorry," he says.
I jerk away from his touch and let out a long breath. I'm so tired of this bullshit. My whole body feels heavy with exhaustion and I want this to stop. I can’t keep chasing my own tail. "Okay.”
"I'll make it up to you. I promise."
Another promise. He doles them out like candy and never follows through. I know this one will be no different. “Okay.”
I roll over, turning away from him.
"Goodnight. I love you," he says quietly.
I close my eyes. “Okay.”