21

PHIL PACKS THE hardback copy of Julia Child, an old birthday present to Linda that she never used, a button-down shirt, nice shoes, a new pair of jeans, and his favorite Italian cologne into his duffle and pulls the zipper closed. He is going to stay with Sarayu for the weekend. He hopes that he can cook for her, or that they will cook together. He has picked green beans, lettuce, and asparagus from his garden and put them into a single-handled cooler. He has not discussed his cooking plan with her, but in the past, she has been open to his suggestions.

The relationship is moving forward and Phil is pleased about it. They rely on texting when she is busy working, with no time to talk, or when Linda is in the house. He admits that this gives this new part of their relationship the same edge of being forbidden that existed in the past. He has explained to Sarayu that it is Linda’s idea to leave the marriage. She knows they are still in the same house. They both acknowledge Linda’s part in bringing them back together.

Linda stands guard at the front door as Phil leaves. He stops at the threshold of the entryway. “What?”

Linda glares at him. She wears her arms folded across her chest. “What about the dog? Who is going to take care of it?”

“She’s the family dog,” he says.

“She is your dog and I don’t want to take care of her.”

Phoenix is not in sight. Phil assumes that she has sought out the back of her crate as she always does when he and Linda raise their voices. “Isabel will take care of her. She knows what to do if you”—he hesitates—“don’t.” Now he is concerned about Phoenix. Isabel is a fairly responsible teenager. She doesn’t get into trouble. And Linda has never shown that she doesn’t like the dog.

He stands at the doorway with his duffle in one hand and the cooler in the other. “What’s the deal, Linda?” he asks. “You want to move out, but you haven’t yet. Do you want me to move out? Because I feel I need a life right now. I can’t continue in this limbo, tripping over all of your stuff, and having you around every corner hissing at me and giving me dirty looks. I definitely can’t have you calling up potential girlfriends and trying to manipulate my life that way.”

Linda moves to the side silently. He slams the door as he leaves. In the car he texts Isabel about the dog. She can handle it. Then he backs his Spider down the driveway.

The drive to Sarayu’s is slow. He tries to put Linda out of his mind because he doesn’t want the distraction, the aggravation. By now, rush hour is on. He calls Sarayu from the car to say that he is running late.

“Phil?”

“I’m sorry. It’s taking some extra time.”

“Is it your wife?”

“No. No,” he says. But he thinks of her standing at the door. He can’t stop her. He wonders who she will email now, Sarayu, even Eleanor. Right now, there is nothing he can do about it. “I don’t know. I don’t know,” he says on the phone to Sarayu.

“She was upset that I was leaving the dog behind.”

“Isn’t it the family dog? You can’t bring a dog here. They’re not allowed in the building.

“No, no. The dog is at home. Linda needs to move out, take her pills, get a massage.” He wonders, is he telling her too much? But he wants to be honest this time around, not leave out details that could get him into trouble later on.

“It’s okay that you are late, Phil. I’m home from work. Just get here when you can.”

“You don’t have mood swings, do you?” he asks, laughing at his own joke.

But her tone is guarded. “No, of course not.”

“I’m just kidding, you know that.”

“Is it going to be this way every time you visit, the arguments with your wife? I don’t see why she even has to know.” She isn’t shrill, or loud, or angry. “Just get here when you can. I’ll be waiting.”

PHIL DRIVES AROUND Sarayu’s block three times before another larger car moves out of a parking space, five buildings away from hers. The Spider fits easily. Phil is becoming more adept at the parking game with each visit. He carries his cargo to her vestibule and presses the button next to her mailbox. “I’m here!” he says loud enough for the entire hallway beyond the glass door to hear him. He senses the vibrations of her footsteps on the carpeted stairs, pausing at the landing before coming down to open the door. The suspense is now over.

She has no expression on her face when he first sees it, as if she needs to register his arrival. Then her lips spread into a smile, and she says softly, “Here you are.”

He reaches over through the open doorway and takes her mouth with his and kisses her.

“What is all of this?” she says pointing to the cooler.

His face burns with embarrassment. “I thought we could cook.”

“But I have things ready for dinner.”

“It’s all right. We’ll do it another time. No worries.” He actively tries not to show his disappointment.

Inside the apartment, they unload. Phil hangs his shirts in Sarayu’s closet, then turns as he feels her present.

“You brought vegetables for an army. I’ll never finish them. You could ask first.”

“I didn’t think you’d mind.” He smiles and takes her shoulders before moving past her to the hall and the kitchen. “Share it with your friends. Share it with Josh.” He opens the refrigerator and sees the six-pack of his favorite beer, which he believes she has bought for him. He looks at her and raises his eyebrows, inquisitively. She nods. “Go ahead,” she says.

“Thank you.”

“Next thing you know you will be logging on to my computer,” she says, smiling.

“I’d tell you if I did that.”

“Before or after?”

“Pull this off,” he says, reaching for her T-shirt and lifting it away from her torso.

She does and he puts the beer down and traces the aureole of her left breast, which is round and wrinkled as she shivers. “Your hand is cold from the beer bottle. Just take what you want, Anderson,” she says, smiling.

He laughs.

PHIL FINISHES THE beer he has left, which is now mildly warm. He wants to shower, but Sarayu is in the bathroom and he does not want to get involved in showering with her right now, so he gets up and puts his clothes on and goes to the kitchen.

In the refrigerator, he notices bowls wrapped in clear plastic and through the film of the wrap he can detect something with pasta and a green lettuce salad, items he hadn’t noticed before when he took the beer out. He pictures her cooking with Josh as she had on a previous visit, when he was the outsider, the way they moved in synchronization, reading minds, maneuvering around each other’s bodies as though they had done it many, many times. It was something he had once seen himself doing with her, the way he used to cook with Linda, a long time ago.

There are two bottles of cold chardonnay resting on their sides, condiments, plain and flavored low-fat yogurts. She must eat like Linda. No meat, though he has seen her eat meat before. They will have to go shopping if he is to stay here. He searches the cabinets until he finds two wine glasses and opens a chardonnay.

Sarayu appears in her robe. “You found the wine.”

“I think I found dinner, too, but I didn’t take it out yet. You hungry?”

She takes a glass of wine as he proffers it and smiles. “Yes. After the exercise. Starved. Are you taking over my kitchen? Can I at least put my clothes on before we eat?” She is smiling.

Phil shakes his head. “No.” He grins. “I mean yes. I’m not taking over your kitchen and you can get dressed.”

She leaves, tracing an imaginary line on the wall with her index finger as she walks, a gesture Phil finds erotic. When she returns, dressed, she takes the two bowls covered in plastic from the refrigerator and brings them to the dining table just off the living room area. The table is already set with woven placemats and white ceramic dishes. “I made Chinese sesame noodles with peppers. Is that all right?”

He forces himself to say that it is and watches her uncover the dishes and put out water glasses and silverware. “As long as I don’t have to eat with chopsticks.”

She smiles. “You have to eat one noodle at a time.”

Phil has them make a toast—awkwardly—to being together, sitting with the corner of the table between them. He eats slowly, appreciatively. At least he thinks he does. Sarayu rolls her noodles on to her fork and shovels them into her mouth. She gulps her wine.

“You’re hungry,” he says.

“I’m happy,” she says. “I’ve been waiting all day. For several things.” She grins shyly, a look of mischief, and watches him grin back. It’s something he forces because he feels he is taking in the situation. “One of them was food,” she says.

“How is Josh?” he asks.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. He’s your friend.”

“He’s been my friend for a long time.”

“Did he know about me before?”

“A little.”

“Hmm.” Phil is not sure he wants to know how much she has told Josh. “I don’t want him to think that I’m a bad guy.”

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she says. “He doesn’t know you. How do you feel about washing the dishes and going for a walk?”

They stand next to each other washing, rinsing, and putting away the dishes. Their elbows brush against each other. Sarayu pauses and puts her head against his upper arm, briefly, as if to tell him that she is there. He likes the feel of her cheek on his arm. It’s a gesture of affection, the kind he isn’t used to right now.

Daylight is long, and, as they walk, Phil takes a while before he moves to hold Sarayu’s hand, putting his palm against her back, just between the shoulder blades, as they stroll, then sliding it to the hand closest to him. She grips it at first, and as they move, she begins to loosen her fingers and relax.

A foursome sits at a table outside a restaurant laughing, drinking. Two men pass them, holding hands. Music spills out of a bar where women younger than Sarayu line up in high heels and tall hair. A panhandler reaches out with his paper Starbucks cup and asks for change. “Will you be blessed?” he says to them. Dusk falls and the neon of a restaurant sign stands out in the fading light. As they walk, they are still holding hands.

POSTCOITAL, THEY ARE lying naked on the bed, the blanket and sheets crumpled around them, and the ceiling fan blowing cool air across their bodies.

“Penny?” Sarayu asks.

“What?” Phil answers as if he has barely heard what she said.

“Penny for your thoughts. Didn’t your mother ever ask you that?”

“Did yours?” Phil puts his hand behind his head and watches the shadows of the moving fan on the ceiling.

“She did.”

“In Indian?”

“What? No, silly. In English. She was born in Toronto. My grandmother is from India. There are hundreds of languages in India.”

“I was thinking of how you met Josh.”

Sarayu turns on her side. “Again? He is just my friend. That’s all. I knew his girlfriend a long time ago, when I was at university. She was my friend. I was young. She was the kind of girl who gets into trouble. I was the one who would try to talk her out of things.”

“Like …”

“Sneaking into the rec center in the middle of the night to swim after we’d been drinking. We knew someone who worked there and had keys. Decorating a statue of Queen Victoria near the university. Things you do when you are drunk and a student. Except that we weren’t always drunk.” She turns onto her back. “I don’t know where she is now. She and Josh broke up. Then later, I moved here and knew he lived here. I wanted a friend, so I looked him up. That was years ago. And he doesn’t have girlfriends anymore.”

“Oh?”

“You couldn’t tell?”

He faces her. “I guess not.”

“Why are you asking me this now? We just made love and you are asking me about another man as though he were someone who I would have a romantic relationship with. Are you suddenly possessive? What if I were to ask you about how many affairs you had during your marriage, before me? And how many you found on the internet?”

“Go ahead.” Phil props himself up on his elbow and looks down at her face.

“Well?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Who did it start with?”

“A woman I worked with. I didn’t find her on the internet. We traveled together, worked together. I was unhappy at home. Linda wouldn’t have sex with me. I had to do something.” He laughs nervously. “You knew about this.”

“You told me about her when I met you.”

“But now you want to know about other women.”

“Why are you laughing?”

“I’m still married.”

“And you were when we met.”

“Now I’m getting a divorce.”

“Come closer. Just lie with me.”

“I am close.”

“Closer.”

He rustles the sheets as he moves the small distance between them and leans in so that their foreheads touch. “That close enough?”

“Yes.” Her eyes are closed. “You can go to sleep now.”

“I didn’t brush my teeth.”

“One night won’t kill you. Go to sleep.”

“I was about to, but you wanted a penny for my thoughts.”

“You really can sleep now. Go on.”

“You are distracting me.”

“Not for long. I’m falling asleep.”

“So am I.”

Phil’s phone sounds. “That’s my daughter’s ring.” He sits up and reaches for his phone.

“You should answer it,” Sarayu says.

“Isabel? Yes? No, I wasn’t asleep. What’s going on?” He listens. “Wait a minute. Slow down, Isabel. Who? Ok. Ok. I’m coming home. There’s nothing you can do now. It’s—no, it isn’t your fault. Ok. Yes. I’m coming home.”

Phil turns to Sarayu. “She let the dog out. She got hit by a car. Phoenix is dead.”

“Who let her out, your daughter?”

“No. Linda. Linda let the dog out and forgot about her. She ran into the street to chase cars. The neighbor didn’t see her in the dark and she got hit. That was Isabel on the phone. She is with the neighbor.”

“I’m so sorry.” Sarayu puts a hand on his arm.

Phil gets up and begins to put on his clothes. “I have to take care of this.”

“I know how much you loved the dog.”

“Not as much as I hate Linda right now.”

“You think she did this on purpose?”

“I do.”

Sarayu gets out of bed and wraps herself in her bathrobe. “Is she that crazy?”

Phil is buttoning his jeans when he stops to meet her eyes. “I have tried to tell you that it is a volatile situation!” His tone is dead serious and he is angry. Sarayu doesn’t like the way he is looking at her, as if, for the moment, he sees Linda in her. It isn’t an experience she has had with Phil. She backs away. “I don’t want to have to explain this again,” he says to her. “You know how it is.”

“I am not sure that I do. I’m not sure I understand your baggage.” She leaves the bedroom and goes into the bathroom to catch her breath. She turns on the water in the sink and cups her hands to toss water on her face, then buries it in a hand towel. She isn’t crying, but she feels as though she has been. When she opens the door, Phil is standing there.

“I’m sorry,” he says. He doesn’t put his arms around her as she expects him to, but passes her on the way to the toilet, closing the door behind him. When he is done, he packs his overnight bag in the bedroom. “I’m sorry,” he says again, and takes out his car keys. He stops to look at her and Sarayu sees that he is all business, a dramatic shift from fifteen minutes ago.

“I’ll call you in the morning after I’ve settled this problem.”

She wonders if she should tell him that he has angered her, or say something to comfort him, but she does nothing because she cannot decide. She follows him to the front door.

“This isn’t the way we were supposed to end the weekend,” he says.

“You are upset about your dog,” she finds herself saying.

“Worried about my daughter. Angry at my wife. I don’t know how I am going to talk Isabel down from all of this. Maybe call her from the car.” He reaches and kisses her on the cheek. “Again, I’m sorry.”

“For talking to me the way you did?”

“What?”

“This isn’t about you.”

Phil puts his duffle on the floor. “Oh—come on!”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m your wife.”

“Ok, ok. We can deal with this later, can’t we? I have to go. My kid is waiting for me to get home.”

She nods. He puts his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t make a big deal, not now, please? I have to get through this with Linda.”

She nods, but inside she isn’t nodding. He leaves. She shuts the door and goes back to bed, but she can’t sleep. She lies awake thinking about how things have not changed. Phil is the same. She is the same. No, maybe she is not the same. Finally, she dozes.

At sunrise, which is near five in the morning, she wakes and gets out of bed. She changes the sheets and takes a shower. When she returns to bed, she falls into a deep sleep.