Chapter Twenty Augusta
Twenty
Augusta
Three’s A Crowd
Augusta couldn’t stop thinking about the hidden folder on Colin’s phone.
Not about the screenshots of passwords, she already knew all those, but what he might have wanted to keep hidden if he weren’t afraid of her seeing.
Colin had let go of the corporate apartment in Boston, he had moved back into their house and into her bed, but Augusta still couldn’t shake the feeling that even if she was starting to forgive him, there was a hole in her understanding about her husband, a sexual-shaped lacuna she wanted to uncover.
At dinner, as Colin helped Charlie spear green beans and Beatrix delicately tossed hers on the floor, Augusta watched her husband’s face.
He truly was the most handsome man she’d ever kissed.
Even as he got older, even as a light splay of creases arrived, a precursor to the wrinkles he would one day have by his eyes, Augusta saw how gorgeous she would always find him.
She loved his sturdy jaw, his thick short hair, his bottom lip, slightly fuller than her own.
He looked like his parents, a perfect mix of his father’s heavy brow and his mother’s pretty mouth.
His parents had to be part of this whole thing, she figured, the reason Colin had been closeted for so long.
They were traditional with a capital T, the sort of couple who went to church because it was socially required rather than because of their actual faith, the sort of couple who owned pearls and cuff links and wore them regularly.
Colin’s father had gone to Princeton for undergrad and then Harvard Law before working his way up to partner at a top Boston firm.
Colin’s mother had been a professional wife, keeping their calendar full of dinners and galas and serving on the board of at least five different organizations.
Augusta hadn’t known them very well in high school, despite Colin’s friendship with Eben.
His parents never came to the pink house for dinner, but Augusta knew they had been as strict as they had been loving.
After dinner Colin cleaned the kitchen while Augusta gave the children a quick bath and helped them into their cotton pajamas.
She braided Jane’s hair and brushed Charlie’s teeth with a bubblegum toothpaste that made his spit bright blue.
After the kids were tucked in, lights off and doors closed, Augusta opened a bottle of wine and poured two glasses, carrying them to the bedroom, where Colin was checking sports scores on his phone.
“Oh, hi.” He looked up, pleased.
“Oh hi,” Augusta responded playfully, handing him a glass of wine and locking the bedroom door.
“This is a nice idea.” Colin pulled off his socks and unbuttoned his shirt.
“I actually was thinking about something.”
“Oh yeah?” Colin took off his belt and dropped it on the floor with a grin.
“Do you want to watch porn together?” Augusta asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Um, hunh.” Colin suddenly went still. “We haven’t done that.”
“No, I know, I was just thinking that maybe we could watch something that you like, so that I could learn more.”
“Oh, we don’t have to—”
“I think it would be good.” Augusta smiled awkwardly. “I want to think about the things you’re thinking about. Like, see what else you like.”
“Okay.” Colin nodded.
“So, when you watch porn, do you watch two men together?” Augusta pulled out her phone. “Are there certain search terms I should use?”
“Yeah, try ‘watersports,’ ” Colin cracked, and Augusta giggled. “ ‘Ping-Pong’?” he suggested.
“Oh my God.” Augusta scooted herself next to him on the bed. “Okay, no, for real.”
“Um, well, how about a threesome?” He wasn’t looking at her, exactly.
“Yeah, great. What site do I…?” Augusta held her phone out hopelessly.
“Here.” Colin swiped and typed.
“Let me just get the lights?” Augusta jumped up and turned down all but the bedside lamps. “And the pillows.” She removed the three decorative pillows from the bed. “Great.” She took a big sip of her wine and climbed back in next to Colin. “Okay, press play.”
Colin started the video and Augusta watched as two men took turns kissing a woman.
The room looked like an ugly hotel room, the couch a cheap gray tweed with metal legs, the kitchenette in the background all black shiny countertops.
Where did they film this? Some Red Roof Inn outside Memphis?
Yuck. Was all porn like this? She tried to make herself stop judging the set and pay attention to the people.
“Do you think those are her real breasts?” Augusta whispered.
They didn’t seem real, but Augusta couldn’t be sure.
“I don’t know,” Colin whispered back. Augusta didn’t find any of the actors especially attractive.
The woman had a good figure, but her eyes were sort of deep-set and her chin long.
Then men weren’t exactly her type either, one with a slightly scrunched face that reminded her of a bulldog, the other with a blobby-looking tattoo across his back.
Augusta suddenly felt a gnawing sense of worry.
Was this what Colin liked? If he liked men who looked like this she couldn’t possibly compete.
It was worse than realizing your husband loved brunettes while you were a redhead, worse than realizing he liked curvy women while you were shaped like a reed.
They had something Augusta couldn’t possibly make up for and she felt herself starting to spiral.
Pull it together, she admonished herself. This is about Colin. About learning.
Colin’s eyes were fixed on the screen, but in a way that looked slightly frozen. Augusta kissed his neck, and he sat still. She reached her hand down past his waistband, but Colin gently stopped her. “I’m not…this isn’t…”
“Oh, okay,” Augusta whispered. They watched the screen in silence for another minute or two and then Augusta tried again, running her hand up and down his chest.
“I…I…Augusta.” Colin paused the phone and sat up.
“What?” she asked, alarmed. Could he tell she was faking it? Was she radiating her own discomfort?
“I really don’t want to watch porn with you.”
“Okay,” Augusta said, embarrassed. “Am I doing something wrong?”
“No.” Colin hugged her close and she couldn’t see his face, but she could tell he wanted it that way. He talked over her shoulder. “That’s just not who we are. What we have totally works. We don’t need to watch these strangers pretend to have a threesome to connect with each other.”
“But I want to know what you like,” Augusta said.
“I really appreciate that, Auggie. But this is just…I don’t…Look.” He pulled back so she could finally see his face. “I’m in bed with the most beautiful woman in the world. Why do I need to watch an actress with a weird chin simulate an orgasm?”
“I thought her chin was weird too!” Augusta confessed.
“Okay, can we not do that again?” Colin looked relieved.
“Lots of couples watch porn together. But maybe we’d like more high-end porn? With a better set design and lighting?”
“The black countertops were horrible, right?” Colin grinned.
“Oh my God, YES!” Augusta clapped her hands together.
“Why don’t we just talk about what we like?” Colin looked at Augusta hopefully. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“Oh.” Colin made it sound so simple. For months, really years, Augusta had been trying to guess what he was thinking, what he wanted, deep down. Maybe it was that simple, though. Maybe she could just ask him. “Okay.” She turned to face her husband. “I have some questions for you.”
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The rest of September passed in a blur of beach days with sweatshirts and towels draped across legs, dinners on the porch where the sun set by seven, last rides in the boat before they pulled it out for the season.
Then it was Bailey’s birthday with a cookout at Budweiser Manor, and the mad rush of packed lunches and new backpacks and the sudden realization that all Charlie’s pants were shin-length since he had grown like a weed.
Augusta went to see Eben’s baby at least twice a week.
They had named her Issa, short for Isabel, in honor of Eben’s grandmother, and Max was already teaching the baby French, committed to raising her completely bilingual.
“You can tell she’s smart,” Augusta’s mother insisted. “I’ve never seen a baby so alert this young.”
“Hey!” Augusta objected, but she didn’t mean it.
Her mother had spent eight years maintaining that Augusta’s children were the most brilliant, beautiful creatures on the planet.
It was only fair that Issa had a turn. When Augusta’s father and Samantha visited the baby, bringing a silver rattle from Tiffany, as useless as it was expensive, Samantha sat on Eben’s couch and asked him if the birth parents were “good-looking people,” and Augusta had to leave the room to avoid a fit of giggles.
For Halloween Augusta made costumes for the children: a witch outfit for Jane, a green shiny dragon’s cape for Charlie, and a mermaid costume for Beatrix, the whole thing studded with purple and turquoise rhinestones.
Beatrix tore after Charlie like a wobbly drunk, crashing into the doorframes and falling on her bedazzled mermaid bum.
Russell Orchards had a Halloween party with hayrides, a petting zoo, and mulled cider and everyone dressed up for it, a hundred kids in Spiderman and Elsa costumes hopped up on sugar, chasing the geese and poking the sheep while their parents tried to alternately scold them and take their pictures.
Fran and RJ were there with the boys, Hale reprising his role as a sexy ladybug, and London something called a “Charizard” that he insisted was “really valuable.” The other adults took the big kids off to get in line for the hayride, and Augusta wandered aimlessly with Beatrix, letting her tumble gently in the dry grass and hold on to fence posts, squatting up and down and looking thrilled with herself.