When I got home, Jacob was in his bedroom and Mike was in his recliner, a baseball game on. “Hey.” He muted the television, a courtesy that I wouldn’t have received a month ago. “Thought you’d be home for dinner.”
“I had a late appointment, so grabbed something on the way back.” I dropped my purse on the dining room table and started up the stairs. “I’m going to shower and head to bed.”
I was sore—an unfamiliar sensation that I liked. It had been the most physically active day that I’d had in years, and I peeled off my clothes and stepped under the hot spray of the shower, almost moaning at the sting of heat.
When I stepped out, Mike was in bed, his shirt off, face hopeful, and I had a WhatsApp from David. I grabbed a blue plaid pair of flannel pajamas and returned to the bathroom, closing the door as I opened the message.
Good night, beautiful.
Oy. Three simple words that caused a bloom of joy to burst in my chest. I stared at the sentence for a solid minute, then closed themessage and pulled on a clean pair of underwear and the pants, a smile curling the edges of my mouth.
I should have messaged back and reminded David that I was married. Drawn a firmer line in the sand of our friendship. I should have told Mike about my job or, better yet, gotten a normal one and focused on putting my marriage back together.
I should
I should
I should...
But the problem was that I didn’t want to.
“So how’s work?” Mike lifted a slice of mushroom pizza and took a bite. This was the third day this week that I hadn’t cooked dinner, and apparently no one minded. He should have had an affair years ago. The benefits were starting to outweigh the pain of it all.
“It’s good.” I had walked the Trembles’ poodles for an hour and gotten a hundred-dollar tip. Midmorning, I’d eaten an ice cream sandwich while swinging my bare feet off the dock and watching three crew members lift Jet Skis off a megayacht with a crane. One of the liveaboards had given me a bag of swordfish, and David had made tacos with them for our lunch, which I had enjoyed with two beers and our first kiss. The kiss had occurred in the tight kitchen of his boat, my back against the cabinets, his beard brushing against my cheek as he had nuzzled my collarbone, then my forehead, the tip of my nose, and then finally, while I strained and mentally begged for it, my lips.
He’d tasted like salt and mangoes, and had apologized as soon as he had done it.I’m sorry, mon chaton. I just cannot control myself around you. I had blushed and beamed like a schoolgirl for the rest of the afternoon.
Tomorrow we were going to take the boat to Catalina Island for the day, just the two of us. Beneath the table, my foot jittered againstthe chair leg, and I set my slice down after taking only one bite. Mike was still looking at me, expecting more, so I tried harder with my lie. “An older couple died in a car accident, so I have a double obit to do. I spent most of the day with their kids and grandchildren.”
Funny that I used to think of my job as cool. Now it seemed so morbid and dreary. And for what? The bottom rung of journalism salaries? I was making more money in jean shorts and flip-flops than I had at theTimes, and with no Fran to answer to, no traffic to battle, no deadlines continually hanging over my head.
I lifted my glass of ice water and took a sip. “What about you?”
Mike always loved the spotlight, and he took the mic without hesitation, launching into a long and confusing narrative about Bitcoin and a potential financing solution that involved converting funds into blah blah blah—I tuned him out and eyed our son, who was on his phone and his third slice of pizza. Jacob was worrying me. If he sensed the turmoil in our household, he didn’t show it. His emotional detachment was convenient, but becoming more pronounced with time.
“But that’s the issue, isn’t it? If the market turns, then we’re fucked. So it’s this game between buying now, when opportunity and risk is high, or waiting until the price rises with stability.” Mike got so excited about this shit. Wassheinto this? Was she matching him, line for line, and diving into the economies of foreign entities over late-night drinks and expensive steaks? Was that the missing piece, the opening she had used to worm into his life?
“You didn’t tell me that you won Employee of the Month.” I had meant to sit on the info but couldn’t stop the accusation from coming out.
“Oh.” He deflated slightly with the awareness that I didn’t give a damn about his current path of conversation. “Yeah. Last month. And the one before.”
The note of pride that crept into his voice on the added sentence only fueled my anger more. Two months he had gotten the bonus? What had he done with those? Two bonuses would have covered sixmonths of severance from theTimes. “So?” I folded my hands neatly on the table, one over the other, my elbows jutting out to either side. “Where is that money?”
“What money?” He glanced at Jacob, and it was a clear Let’s Talk About This Later sign, one that I ignored.
“Thebonusmoney, Mike. What did you do with it?”
His eyes darted to the saltshaker, then to his beer, then back to me. “Credit cards. Just paid them off.”
“Hmm.” I contained so much in that one word.
The question of what had been on all those credit cards.
The note that Mike had never held a balance on his credit cards, not in twenty years of marriage.
It was a point of pride for him, a notch on some invisible scorecard that made him better than other men, that made us better than other couples, and one he felt the need to point out at any loan appointment or financial-planning session.And, just so you’re aware, we don’t have any credit card debt.He had never had debt, so I had never had debt, because my husband knew best.
Mike wanted to say something, wanted to defend himself against my one snarky, passive-aggressive response, but he didn’t. I let him hang there while I carried my paper plate to the kitchen and dropped my half-eaten slice into the trash. I washed my hands, opened the fridge, grabbed one of his beers, and carried it upstairs.