Eve had done it again. Of course, it was lonely. And it was damned inconvenient. It took thirty minutes to get to the worst grocery store and almost an hour to get to the better ones. And with traffic? It was a huge pain to get anywhere. But I wasn’t going to let the conversation go there.
So, ever the trouper, I began telling them about the good things about living in the country.
“It has some drawbacks, but it has lots of benefits too. The very first thing you notice is the clean air,” I said. “And I love watching the water. But I think what I enjoy most is the quality of life it gives our boys and my garden.”
“Really?” Carl said. “Somehow I can’t see you getting dirty.”
“You should see her garden,” Adam said. “Vegetables on steroids. No lie.”
“It’s because of the compost,” I said, thinking, these birds have no idea how to make compost or why anyone would.
“Ew! Compost? Nasty. What do you grow?” Eve asked.
Maybe this sounds a tad superior, but now I really didn’t like Eve so much.
“Oh, you know, the usual stuff. A row of beefsteaks and other kinds of tomatoes, a row of Silver Queen and bicolor corn, collards and romaine have a row. Then sometimes I put in asparagus and cantaloupe, cucumbers, bell peppers, and then jalape?os and herbs. And I grow zinnias too. There’s just something about them I love, with their sticky stems and weird medicinal smell. This year the boys planted sunflowers. They’ll probably be taller than them by the time they go back to school!”
Eve was rapt but obviously having trouble envisioning the joy of gardening.
“How big is it?” Eve asked. “It sounds like a small farm and an awful lot of work!”
“Not that large, really. And it’s especially fun for the boys. They help me pull weeds. In the fall, we grow pumpkins.”
“What do you wear when you tend your garden?” Carl said.
I looked at Carl to see if he was serious. I almost said, black lace panties. Propriety aside, I could be outrageous with the best of them. But I didn’t know them well enough to be bawdy.
“Well, sunscreen, for sure, and a big hat.”
I laughed over my naughty thought and Carl seemed to have heard it in the ether. I caught his eye and he wiggled his eyebrows at me. Eve saw him wiggling his eyebrows at me, got the joke, and gave him another pinch.
Sometimes even poker players could have their lewd thoughts discovered, I thought. The poor man’s inner arms must be black and blue all the time.
Adam, unaware of any sort of flirtation going on in the room, kept going on about the things I grew and the animals we kept. “You should see the chickens and the goats!”
“Good heavens!” Eve said, honestly shocked over the idea of voluntary ownership of goats and chickens. “Why on earth would anyone—”
“Want goats and chickens? Eggs and weed killers. We have peacocks too,” I said. “A peahen and a peacock just appeared one day and took up residence. Now we have six!”
“Good grief!” Eve said and laughed. She looked at me like I had teleported straight from the set of Little House on the Prairie.
“Watch where you’re walking!” Carl said.
“Exactly!” Adam said.
It should be noted that, while Adam was as gregarious and hospitable as I had ever seen him be, he was stealing a multitude of glances at Eve, thinking he was unnoticed.
I said, “Well, when I was a little girl my grandparents had a farm in upstate New York. Columbia County. I spent my summers there and loved it. And I guess in some perverse way I still think it’s fun. The kids sure do.”
“Yes. It was really fun the time the boys let the goats in the house and they ate the sofa cushions,” Adam said. “You can’t believe how much stuffing is in a sofa.”
“I turned my back for one minute,” I said.
Everyone laughed.
“Where did you grow up?” Carl asked.
“Winchester, Massachusetts. A suburb of Boston.”
“I went to school in Boston,” Carl said. “How did you two meet?”
Adam looked at the ceiling. I could read his mind. Were they about to get a lecture on the history of Harvard and how Carl was the smartest guy who ever went there?
“Business school. Adam and I went to Carolina. He borrowed my statistics notes and the rest is history.”
“I still hate statistics,” Adam said.
“Love it,” Eve said.
Eve was smiling and complimentary and seemed to be no threat at all, I thought. I mean, now that they had seen each other again, would Eve do something insane like leave Carl for Adam? Probably not. There was something a bit snooty about her, as there was about Carl. No. Adam and Eve would not have been a great match.
“So! We’ve got a couple of MBAs, down by the riverside, living the organic dream,” Carl said. “Not too bad. Not too bad at all.”
“How about y’all?” Adam said. “How did you find each other in this cold cruel world?”
Eve drained her glass of wine and refilled it herself.
“Friends set us up,” Eve said. “I was visiting an old roommate in Raleigh and we went to a party. There was Carl standing by the bar. We were introduced and the first thing he said to me was Don’t you think we’d make beautiful children?”
Carl chimed in, “I did say that. Shameless.”
Adam cleared his throat and I knew he was thinking, Well, aren’t you the stud?
“I know, very presumptuous of me. But she said, maybe. I took that as a good sign.”
“And making that baby brought us to the altar,” Eve said, taking a big gulp of wine.
What? I thought. They got married because Eve was pregnant?
Eventually, it came out that Carl was a pediatrician. Not only was he a pediatrician with a huge practice, but he taught at Duke and did research and was always out on speaking engagements. But he didn’t want to brag.
I looked at Adam and he pretended to gag. I didn’t blame him, but I was still impressed.
And somewhere along the line and that third bottle of wine it was revealed that Carl wanted more children and Eve did not. Her pregnancy had been difficult and she didn’t feel like she had the wherewithal to endure another one.
I thought about that for a while. What woman on this earth wouldn’t want to have babies with Carl? Then I thought, what woman wouldn’t want to at least try?
The evening finally came to an end around eleven.
“Max and Luke will be up by seven, raising hell,” Adam said.
“Well, if you’re up at seven,” Carl said, “why don’t we go play nine holes?”
“Actually, I brought my clubs,” Adam said. “But you have to know I’m not much at the game.”
“Oh, hell, don’t worry about that! We can play best ball? I don’t really care,” Carl said. “I just like to get some exercise before it gets to be too hot.”
“Okay. It’s a deal,” Adam said.
Later, when we were in bed and had just turned out the lights, Adam said, “So what did you think about tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, come on. You know you have an opinion.”
“They’re both too good looking. Being that good looking is a curse.”
Adam was quiet for a minute. Then he said, “Please tell me why?”
“Because you’re never satisfied.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really. And you know what else?”