“I THINK IT WENT well. What do you think?” Jaime said later that night when their guests had left into the chilly February night and she and Mark were lying in their black four-poster bed.
Jaime was making notes about the dinner party in an orange leather-bound notebook. She always made a habit of this after they entertained—what was served, who attended, notes on what she might do differently.
The orchids were a bit too delicate looking. Also, taller candlesticks, so the guests can see each other better, she wrote.
“Hmm?” Mark asked. He was, as usual, fixated on his iPhone.
Jaime tapped her pen against the notebook. She thought the dinner party had been a success overall. Everyone seemed to like the food, although she worried that the filets had been just a touch overdone and thought that maybe the potatoes were just slightly underdone.
“Did you think the potatoes were underdone?” she asked Mark.
“Maybe a little,” he said.
“Really? Do you think anyone noticed?” Jaime asked.
Mark continued to stare at his iPhone. Then he looked up, as if only just realizing she’d been speaking to him. Jaime wondered who he thought she was talking to, considering they were alone in their bedroom.
“The potatoes,” Jaime repeated. “You thought they were underdone?”
“No, they were great. Everything was great. You outdid yourself,” Mark said. He patted her hand, and then turned his attention back to the iPhone.
Jaime sighed and rolled away. The potatoes were underdone, she decided, and made a note of it. The chocolate pots de crème—each served with a dollop of freshly whipped cream—had been a huge hit. Will, especially, had loved his, scraping his spoon against the bottom of the pudding cup to make sure he got up every last bit.
Pots de crème were the perfect dessert, Jaime wrote. Simple but elegant.
“Do you think Will and Fran have the happiest marriage of anyone we know?” she asked.
There was another long pause. Jaime was just wondering if Mark had tuned her out again, when he said, “I don’t know, really. It’s hard to tell about someone else’s marriage.”
“But do you get the sense that they’re really happy together?” Jaime persisted. “I would say that they’re comfortable with each other. But I don’t get the sense that they’re still madly in love.”
Mark put down his iPhone and glanced at Jaime over the top of his horn-rimmed readers. He hadn’t worn glasses until recently, and even now insisted that he didn’t really need them. But Jaime had noticed that he’d taken to wearing them more often while reading, at least while he was home.
“They’ve been married for, what, twelve years?” he said.
“Something like that,” Jaime said.
“I think it’s unrealistic for any married couple to still seem madly in love after that much time.”
“That’s not true,” Jaime said. “Leland told me that he was married for forty-years, and I could tell he adored his late wife.”
Mark shrugged. “I think that’s the exception, not the norm.”
“What do you think other people think about our marriage?”
“Who knows?” Mark said. “And, really, who cares?”
“I care,” Jaime said.
“I meant, who cares what anyone else thinks about us? People can think what they want to think. We have no control over that,” Mark said. His iPhone dinged, and, like Pavlov’s dog, Mark immediately turned his attention back to it.
Jaime set her notebook down on the nightstand, and then rolled over on her side, her back to her husband. How long had it been since she and Mark had made love, she wondered. A few weeks? Longer? Over a month?
That was worrying.
Although, Jaime had to admit, at first she had been grateful that her husband’s libido had taken a nosedive shortly after Ava’s birth. Her days were spent with one or both children in her arms, picking up their warm, solid bodies, their small hands always reaching out to grab on to her shirt or a lock of her hair. By the time she fell into bed each night, the last thing she wanted was to have anyone else touch her, even her husband.
But a month or more? Jaime felt a prickle of unease. That was a long time to go without sex, even for a couple with two small children. Was this further evidence that Mark might be having an affair? And if he was, was it because she’d been sexually inaccessible to him? Or was it the other way around—had he lost interest in her because he’d found someone else? A swooping, sickly feeling spread through her stomach.
This can’t go on, she thought. We need to fix this. I need to fix this.
Jaime rolled back toward Mark, intent on doing something. They needed to talk. Or no, forget talking, she’d just seduce him. But Mark’s eyes were closed, and his breathing had deepened, so that he was snoring softly on each exhale. His iPhone was still clasped in his hands. For a moment, Jaime considered taking the phone gently out of his hands and sliding his reading glasses off his face. But for some reason she wasn’t quite sure of, she instead rolled back over, turned off her bedside table lamp, and closed her eyes.
“ARE YOU TALKING TO me?” Fran asked when Audrey answered the phone.
“No,” Audrey said.
“Will you at least listen while I apologize?” Fran said.
There was a pause. Fran wondered if Audrey was so mad, she’d actually hung up.
“Are you there?” Fran asked.
“I’m waiting for my apology,” Audrey said.
“Oh good, I’m glad you didn’t hang up. I’m sorry I told you Coop is gay,” Fran said.
“And that you humiliated me?”
“You weren’t humiliated, were you?”
“Of course I was humiliated. I spent the entire evening trying to talk a straight man into having a homosexual relationship with one of my spa clients,” Audrey exclaimed.
“Well, yes, I can see how that would be slightly embarrassing.”
“I’m still not clear why you lied about his sexuality in the first place.”
“I didn’t want you to think it was a set up. I know how you feel about that.”
“Are you really going to take the position that you lied to me in order to spare my feelings?” Audrey asked.
“No,” Fran said. She smiled. “Well, yes, sort of. It was Will’s idea, I swear. Back when I wanted to invite both you and Coop to our New Year’s Eve party. I told Will you’d think it was a set up, so he said to tell you that Coop was gay. It all seems so stupid now.”
“Yes,” Audrey agreed. “Very, very stupid.”
“I know.” Fran sighed. “It was all part of some weird revenge plan Will had cooked up. Something to do with Coop telling a girl that Will only had one testicle.”
“Will only has one testicle?”
“No, he has two.”
“I’m confused.”
“It’s not important,” Fran said.
“Except for my public humiliation.”
“Right. And just so you know, I would never have tried to set you up with Coop.”
“Why not?” Audrey asked. “You try to set me up with everyone.”
“I can’t see the two of you together. You’re a much more serious person than he is.”
“Serious? That makes me sound like a drip.”
“No, not at all. It’s more that he’s never serious about anything. And besides, you’re a go-out-to-a-nice-restaurant-in-heels kind of woman. Coop is more of a beer-and-chips-on-the-boat kind of guy,” Fran said.
She was sitting on the living-room couch, her bare feet tucked up beneath her, a worn purple chenille pillow clutched to her chest. She’d always thought the purple had been a mistake, a discordant note in a room that was dominated by heavy brown leather sofas and an ugly sage green rug they’d gotten on sale years ago.
I want to live in an all-white room, Fran thought. Tailored sofas with crisp white slipcovers. One of those furry white rugs. Maybe a small punch of orange here or there, a pillow or a small round stool. Modern and stark and completely impractical for a family that liked to lounge in front of the television with their bare feet up on the furniture.
Fran looked down and noticed a smear of something—it looked like chocolate—on the pillow. She sighed and put it to one side.
“I don’t know. I thought Coop was interesting,” Audrey said thoughtfully.
Fran’s attention snapped back to their conversation. “You think he’s interesting?”
“Sure. How often do you meet someone who directs oceanographic documentaries?”
“But he’s not at all your type,” Fran said.
“Do I have a type?”
“I don’t know, do you?”
“Hmm,” Audrey said. “I’ve always liked Jeff Goldblum.”
“The actor.”
“Mmm.”
“Really?”
“You don’t think he’s attractive?”
“No, not really. And is he a type?”
“He could be a type. Funny, dark hair, sexy glasses.”
“I guess. Nothing like Coop, though.”
“No,” Audrey agreed. “But I never said I was interested in Coop. I said I thought he was interesting. Big difference. Besides, Coop seemed full of himself.”
Fran tried to ignore the trickle of relief she felt at these words. “Yeah, he can be. And when it comes to women, he has a short attention span. He’s had a lot of girlfriends.”
“Really?”
“Yes. A lot of girlfriends,” Fran said again. “We need to find you someone who’s ready to settle down.”
There was a huff of impatience on the other end of the phone.
“First of all, as I’ve told you about five hundred times, I don’t want you to find me anyone. And second of all, why do you assume that I would only be interested in someone who wants to settle down? Maybe I want to sleep around. Sow my wild oats. Have wild sex with anonymous strangers.”
“Mmm. That sounds exciting.”
“Really? You think so? Because I think it sounds exhausting,” Audrey said. “The entire idea of dating is exhausting.”
“Speaking as someone who has been in a relationship with the same person forever, I think it sounds like fun.”
“Please. And first dates are the worst. They’re so awkward. You spend the evening trading boring bits of information back and forth, while the entire time you’re making constant superficial judgments. Like, why did he choose to wear a T-shirt and flip-flops on the first date? Does he have bad taste, or just not care about making a good first impression? And you know he’s making the same sort of judgments about you. Thinking that your breasts are too small or your ass is too big. It’s all too hideous. I’ve tried it, and frankly, I’d rather just be alone than go through it again.”
“But what about those amazing first dates? The ones where you have that great immediate connection, and you’re both leaning forward across the table, wanting to know everything about the other person there is to know. Even the minor stuff, like whether they like licorice or if they played an instrument when they were a kid,” Fran said dreamily. “And the entire time, there’s this energy vibrating between you, so that every time your arms brush up against each other, you feel a shock of excitement.”
“You,” Audrey said severely, “have been reading too many romance novels. It’s completely warped your memory. First dates are dreadful. Or maybe it’s just me. I think I’m missing the romance gene.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve been married.”
“What does that prove? Dating, love, romance, whatever you want to call it, might just be one of those things that some people are good at, and some people aren’t. Besides, when was the last time you went on a first date?”
Fran tried to remember. Her last first date had been with Will. “I was twenty-one,” she said.
“There you go. Trust me, a first date with a forty-year-old is completely different,” Audrey said. “First, you have to hear all about his career—how great he is at what he does, how everyone he has to deal with at work is an a*shole, his future plans for being even more wildly successful than he already is. This takes up a good ninety percent of the evening. Then, maybe, if you’re very lucky, your date will stop talking about himself long enough to ask you a question or two about what you do for a living. And then, after about five minutes of barely listening to you, he’ll wrench the conversation back to himself, usually at this point introducing the subject of past relationships. If he’s the angry, bitter sort, he’ll start complaining about what a bitch his ex is. If he’s not, he’ll go on and on about how his ex is a beautiful person who changed his life for the better, but they just reached a point where they realized they’d be better off without each other, but don’t worry, they are still the best of friends. Which always makes me wonder if the guy is really just auditioning to be my future ex-boyfriend. Like I should be all reassured that someday he’ll be telling some other woman he’s on a first date with that I have a beautiful soul. And then he picks up the check—”
“Wait,” Fran interrupted. “I thought men always wanted to split checks these days.”
“No, never. In fact, I think that’s a lie circulated by men, so that women will be so grateful that they’re not being asked to pony up for the bill, they won’t mind that they just spent the last ninety minutes listening to how grueling it is to run an optometry practice,” Audrey said. “Anyway, then once dinner is over, there’s the whole good-night-kiss debacle.”
“See, that’s where you lose me. First kisses are amazing,” Fran said.
“With someone you like, maybe. Someone you’re attracted to. But those are few and far between. News flash: Good kissers are few and far between. Most grown men are terrible at it,” Audrey said. “I think it’s laziness. Or lack of practice. Mostly I try to get out with a handshake. Maybe a cheek peck.”
“This is so depressing. I have such fond pre-marriage memories of spending hours and hours kissing boyfriends. Of being in a haze of lust and losing all track of time,” Fran said dreamily, cuddling the ugly purple pillow closer.
“Get a grip. It’s nothing like that at our age,” Audrey said. “Which is why I have no interest in dating anyone at the moment. So please stop trying to set me up.”
“I told you, I really wasn’t trying to set you up with Coop.”
“How about this? No more trying to set me up, and no more telling me that the men you don’t want to set me up with are gay,” Audrey said. “Is that specific enough?”
“That’s pretty specific,” Fran said.
“Good,” Audrey said.
“Are you still coming to next month’s dinner party club?” Fran asked hopefully. “It’s going to be at our house.”
“Didn’t you just host last month?”
“That wasn’t an official Table for Seven dinner party. Tell me you’re coming.”
Audrey hesitated.
“Audrey?”
“I’ll be there,” Audrey said with a sigh.
Fran couldn’t be sure, but she thought it sounded like Audrey was smiling.