Chapter Two #2
“But how did you get in?”
She winces. “I broke your bathroom window. By mistake. I went to give it a little jiggle, to see if it was unlocked, and I didn’t think it would really shatter but it totally did.”
“Shatter?”
“But guess what I’m getting you for your birthday? A new window! And…”
“Let me guess. You?”
“Me!”
We clink glasses and then, like every year, we recount our favorite birthdays together—all of them in Santa Fe when we were young and broke and catering other people’s extravagant parties.
Near the bottom of her cocktail she says, “I really am so sorry about the window.”
I shrug, letting her know not to worry about it. “Oliver can replace it. He’s a full-on Property Brother now, remember?”
The vodka is making me floaty and warm. Or maybe it’s being with Alicia.
She rests her head on my shoulder. “Tell me everything. How was therapy? I need to know, like, from the minute you walked into Miriam’s.
I was telling the woman next to me on the plane—you would love her, a retired nurse from Savannah and a massive Louise Penny fan; dead ringer for Heidi Klum’s mom, or what I imagine her mom looks like—anyway, I told her all about how you and Oliver were going to tell your therapist that you were finally ready to be handcuffed and she’s dying to know what happens next.
So I do have to text her later. But first, I’m starving. ”
—
For dinner we find a BBQ restaurant with sawdust on the floor and bottomless soda refills.
“ Vogue? This is the best!” Alicia grins over an ear of corn.
“Everyone will know that I’m Dirty Diana.”
“Finally! I am so ready.”
“I’m glad you are?”
“Diana, what’s the worst that can happen? Detractors—mostly anonymous and online—will call you a slut? Depraved. Sex-obsessed. Selfish and unlikable? Because why? You’re advocating for pleasure?”
“That’s depressing.”
“More depressing, some of the hate will come from other women because we’ve been told it’s impolite to ask for what we want.
We’ve been conditioned to take less money, less power…
less say over our own bodies. We’ve been told to please our man so many times we’ve forgotten that we can experience pleasure, too. ”
“So I should be excited about the Vogue piece?” I grin.
“You’ll also be celebrated. Because you are starting a conversation so many women have been dying to have.”
After less than an hour in Alicia’s presence, the stress of going public gradually melts away as we catch up on our lives.
After dinner, she flags down a waiter and he brings us a warm blueberry cobbler.
Alicia grins but it quickly falters—an expression, faraway and sad, crosses her face.
Then she smiles again and grabs her purse to find a box of rainbow-colored candles.
She sticks one in our dessert and lights it. “Make a wish?”
I close my eyes and imagine a world where I’ve already told Oliver about the site and we feel as close as we did the day Emmy was born. Then I blow the candle out. When I open them again, Alicia’s own eyes are shiny with tears. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She shakes her head. “Something. I don’t know.”
“Is it Nico?”
“I’m just tired. Mom-tired. I probably need to get my hormones checked. I’m sure some testosterone would perk me right up.”
“What is it?”
She picks at the cobbler with her fork then sighs and pushes it away.
“I don’t know. It’s been fun watching you get back to painting and building the site.
You’re making stuff. Like we always said we would.
All I’m making these days is beige food.
That’s literally all Elvis will eat. French fries and banana pancakes.
But it’s not just that. If you told me while I was in grad school that I’d be teaching film instead of making my own films, I wouldn’t have believed you.
I had so much confidence to just do. I don’t know where that went. ”
“You haven’t been sitting around doing nothing. Look how much you’ve helped me this year. And your students. They love you.”
“Meh. Let’s face it, they don’t really deserve my wisdom.” She grins then, trying to tell me not to worry. “And I can’t get that saying out of my head. The one that haunts every teacher. Those who can…”
“Oh, please.”
“I know. But. It’s like time sped up. I thought I had so much of it. Then I woke up old. And people who hire directors don’t want old.”
“You thought we were old when we were in our twenties. Remember?”
“But now we might really be. Old.”
“There is always an appetite for creative and brilliant female directors with strong visions.”
A woman across the room laughs—a little raspy and a little too loud—and the sound is so familiar that we both snap our heads in her direction expecting to see L’Wren. But the woman who laughed is a total stranger to us both.
“I wish she were here,” Alicia says.
“Me too.”
“You still haven’t spoken?”
“We’ve spoken. We’ve even seen each other around school. But it’s different.”
“What do you think she would say? If she were here now?”
“To you?”
Alicia nods.
“I think she would say…‘listen to your heart.’?”
Alicia nearly chokes on her Dr Pepper. “She definitely would not.”
“Fine. You’re right. She’d say, ‘Direct a cat movie and I’ll write the check.’?”
Alicia’s expression softens. I reach for her hand across the table. “Elvis is still little,” I say. “He’s barely in school full-time. And the lie that you can do it all, all at once…it’s not just untrue, it’s mean. There’s a whole part of your brain still recovering from the soup of having a baby.”
“I know.” Her bottom lip quivers.
“And you’re about to find the next great thing you’re excited about making. And it’s going to be brilliant.”
“Ugh. Nico really does owe you a thank-you.” She wipes her tears with a BBQ wet nap.
“And while we’re crying into our barbecue and this couple is pretending not to eavesdrop”—Alicia tilts her head toward the next table and neither of its occupants bothers to look away—“can I just say, you’re doing the right thing, Diana. With Oliver. Date your husband.”
“But I want to have sex with my husband.”
“Date your husband so you can eventually fuck your husband.”
“Mmm.” I finish my soda. “Miriam would like you so much.”
“Right? God, I do really love winning a therapist’s approval.
Probably why therapy never works so great for me.
You really are doing the right thing. Oh, that reminds me.
” She composes a text to her new airplane friend, reciting loud enough for the next table to hear.
“Therapist told them to date. No crotchless panties. Yet. More later.” She hits send.
“I think it’s hot. Like a tantric marriage or something.
Can you imagine what’s going to happen when you finally have sex? ”
“Tantric? You think we’ll go for hours?”
Alicia snorts. “No. God no. Oliver’s gonna come in like negative two seconds.”
—
That night I sleep with my bedroom door open so I can hear Alicia’s light snoring from the guest room.
I lie awake feeling grateful for the familiar, reassuring sound in this otherwise empty house.
I try to make a plan to help Alicia, something that will get her to stumble into the next thing.
I tell myself to fall asleep and maybe it’ll come to me in a dream.
But at 12:30 I’m still wide awake with no plan. On the nightstand, my phone buzzes.
A text from Oliver:
You missed a mean eggs Benedict at my mom’s. AND SO MANY OBJECTIONABLE COMMENTS.
I laugh to the empty room and type:
Remember the time your cousin brought his vegetarian girlfriend and your dad just lied and said the ham was vegan?
That was a bold move. For both of them.
I do miss your mom’s meringue pie…
That she pretended to bake herself?
???!!! I’m sorry…what?
From a bakery in McKinney.
No wonder she would never give me the recipe.
I brought you a slice. Sending it home tomorrow with Emmy.
Thank you.
There is a pause. Three lingering dots, and then he finally adds:
I’m lying here planning our first date.
Very exciting.
I’m having a hard time. Ok to admit that?
Of course.
I googled “where to take your wife who is still your wife but you might be getting back together with depending on how dating goes.”
What’d Siri have to say?
Chick-fil-A
Nice.
She pinned every location within 30 miles.
I do love waffle fries.
Nope. Still not sexy. I’m going to come up with something great.
It doesn’t have to be sexy.
Fine. Chick-fil-A it is.
Can’t wait.
Really?
Really.
You know what’s really great about dating your wife? You don’t have to play it cool and pretend you’re not excited.