She rushes in, shaking the deluge from her jacket and her umbrella, quick to be rid of it. The maître d’ takes the umbrella, lowers it with a swift shake, and slips it into a stand, where other, more relaxed umbrellas are already waiting.
“Your coat,” he says.
“Please.” She turns, spinning her coat off in a practiced twist.
“How are we this afternoon?” he asks.
“We are as expected,” she says. “Take a look outside.”
“It’s good to see you again.”
“You’ve become a habit,” she says. “Best be careful—certain habits are often to be gotten rid of. Apologies,” she says as she approaches the table where Genevieve is waiting. “I’m drenched.” She sits and uses her napkin to blot her face.
“It seems like it’s getting worse,” Genevieve says, glancing up from her mobile.
“Of course it is. Would you expect otherwise?”
“One can hope,” Genevieve says, and for a moment she is all thumbs as she finishes a text, hits SEND, and then slips the device into her purse.
“In these times the only way to remain optimistic is to side with the darkness and then be pleasantly surprised,” she says.
“I suppose.”
“Oh, we’re not having one of those ‘woe is me’ lunches, are we? I was looking forward to a good time. I’ve had a week of a juice fast, and I’m desperate for food.”
“Pig’s-bladder chicken?” Genevieve perks up.
“Perfect. I’d make it at home or at least try, but I have no idea where you get a pig’s bladder.”
“Perhaps a butcher?” Genevieve suggests.
“And then how do you get the chicken into the bladder?”
“You just put your lips together and blow.”
“Touché.” Sarah glances at the menu. “You know, I may just have the salad, rocket and parmesan. So tell me everything,” she says. “And quick.”
“The big news: After a thousand nights alone, I’m finally seeing somebody.”
“I know,” she says. “We all know. But no one ever sees you with him.”
“We’re very private.”
“Are you enjoying yourself?”
“I think so.”
“What happened to your idea of going gay?”
“I suspended it.”
“Water?” the waiter asks.
“Yes.”
“Still or with gas?” the waiter wants to know.
“Still,” they say.
“You don’t want to go out? Make the scene? See and be seen? He is, after all, somebody. You’d get points for that.”
“Points for what?”
“Points to use the next time around.”
“As what? The former shag of somebody?”
“So you’re keeping your love a semi-secret.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t call it love.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Not really. He’s much, much older.”
“Yes, I know. You act as if no one knows who he is. There’s an enormous exhibition of his work at the museum.”
“Yes,” she says. “He took me to see it.”
“So if it’s not love, what do you call it?”
“An experience,” Genevieve says.
“Ah,” Sarah says. “And what is the experience like?”
“His hands are exceptionally strong, the hands of a worker—rough, calloused—but the insides are like an avocado—ripe, soft, untouched.”
“How could he be so untouched?”
Genevieve shrugs.
“Do you feel you’re getting to know him? Isn’t that the big complaint? They all had him, but they never knew him?”
“I’m not sure what ‘knowing’ means. Perhaps if you give up needing to know, it becomes less of an issue.”
“Clearly he’s already had an impact,” she says, somewhat snidely.
“He says the other women have wanted more than there is.”
“It’s possible,” she says. “He may be right. We all want more than there is.”
“Bread?” the waiter asks.
“No,” Sarah says.
“Yes,” Genevieve says.
“Yes or no?”
“One yes and one no,” Genevieve says.
Sarah leans forward as though forced intimacy, if only spatial, will squeeze out the truth. “Does he appreciate you?”
“I think so.”
“Is his skin falling off the bones like an old turkey’s?” She pulls back, laughing at her own joke, which isn’t funny. “Do you think he loves you?”
“Do you want me to be honest?”
“It’s friends’ lunch. Yes, be honest.”
“I try not to think about love.”
“And for lunch,” the waiter needs to know.
“We’ll have the bird, the pig’s-bladder chicken, a side of spinach, some mashed, and what else?” Sarah asks Genevieve.
“Glass of wine?” the waiter suggests.
“Yes, a red, something full but nice.”
“The cabernet sauvignon.”
“I’ve been wondering about you,” Sarah says, “about you and him. I’ve been trying to imagine it.”
“Do you know something?” Genevieve says. “Is there something you know? You always know something, so if there’s something you know, why don’t you just go ahead and tell me.”
“I don’t know anything,” Sarah says, and this is true.
The still water is poured. There is something between them that is brittle, tense. It’s been that way since they met, as children, so the tension, the crispness, is familiar, but over time one would have hoped for a certain elasticity, a kind of give that has never emerged.
“You act like you know something. You act like you know all the intimate details, the unsaids of everyone else’s life.”
“I don’t think of myself as acting. And if we’re being honest . . .”
“We are.”
“I know one small thing.” She pauses. “I’m a little jealous.”
“A taste from the kitchen,” the waiter says, setting small plates in front of them. “House-made salami, a pocket of olive juice, and that’s a mustard-ginger foam on the top.”
“What about you? Are things better?”
“Sadly, I’ve never really recovered,” Sarah says.
“It’s been a while,” Genevieve says.
“I’m slow to adjust,” Sarah says.
“Better not to adjust. To adjust means you think it will then remain as it is, it will stay the same.”
Sarah nods. “You’re quite right. Don’t adjust, simply carry on.”
“Push forward,” Genevieve says.
“‘Onward Christian Soldiers,’ ‘Forward Through the Ages,’ and all that.” She sips her wine.
“How long do you maintain a grudge?” Genevieve asks.
“How long do you hold a crush?” Sarah retorts. “Time is irrelevant—what happened to me should never happen to anyone. It was one of those life-changing events. The worst part, I didn’t see it coming, I didn’t have a chance to prepare, to brace myself, to think, ‘Here it comes,’ and watch my life flash before my eyes. It was late afternoon, I was home alone.”
“Having a moment to yourself,” Genevieve says.
“I was having a sit-down, a moment, a cup of tea. I was trying to read a book that I’d been trying to read for months. The phone rang. It was him.”
“Hugo,” Genevieve says.
Sarah nods. “‘Where are you?’ I ask, wondering, ‘Why aren’t you home?’ ‘I’m at a friend’s house,’ he says.”
“Who?” Genevieve says.
“‘You don’t know her,’ he says. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘I’ve got some news for you.’”
“News?” Genevieve says.
“‘I don’t like you,’ he says. He pauses. ‘Actually, it’s worse than that. I loathe you. Our marriage is a sham, an ugly, disgusting excuse of a relationship.’ ‘Are you high?’ I ask.”
“No,” Genevieve says.
“‘Drunk?’” Sarah asks.
“Maybe a little,” Genevieve says.
“‘But that’s not the point. The point is, I don’t love you. And maybe worse, I hate our whole life—your friends, so clever, so self-satisfied, so fucking spoiled.’ I take a deep breath.”
“Hugo, you can’t mean it,” Genevieve says.
“‘I do mean all this, and more,’ he says. ‘Your tits are hard. They’re like rocks.’ ‘But you bought me my tits,’ I say. ‘They were an anniversary gift. It was you who wanted me to have bigger, firmer tits after the children were born. You said you missed my breasts, that mine hung like empty sacks, low and flat on my chest.’ ‘Well, I was wrong. Your old tits were better. Why would a woman get new tits just because her husband said so?’”
“You don’t expect me to answer that,” Genevieve says.
“There are sounds in the background,” Sarah says. “‘Where are you?’”
“I told you, at a friend’s house,” Genevieve says.
“‘And are you sleeping with this friend?’” Sarah says.
“Yes,” Genevieve says.
“‘Since when?’ I ask.”
“Where did you meet her?” Genevieve asks.
“‘In the park.’ ‘Is she there now?’ There is no answer. I raise my voice. “‘Did she tell you to call your wife and tell her you’re leaving? Did she say no tickee, no washee? Did she put you up to this?’ He says nothing. ‘Is she listening to our conversation?’ Still nothing. I get up from my chair. I go to the window. I open it. I think of jumping. I am overwhelmed, sickened. I look out. The streets are wet, the evening rain has just stopped, the city is wet, shining, kind of romantic, and there’s Hugo on the phone telling me how disgusting my tits are and that my ass has gone flat. I remind him that he never had an ass.”
“Men don’t need one,” Genevieve says.
“That’s not true, it’s a misconception. Women like to hold on to something, to give a little squeeze. ‘Where are you, Hugo? Are you in the city? Are you right out there somewhere? Are you on the pay phone at the corner—someone is. Is that you, Hugo?’”
“I told you,” Genevieve says. “I’m at a friend’s house. I’m not where you can see me.”
At the table Sarah’s eyes begin to water. “I am sobbing. I hear myself say, ‘Well, I’ve got some news for you, too. I put up with you for a long time, despite your comments about my tits, despite the fact that whenever you’re supposed to show, you vanish. I got you through. Remember the cokehead episode? Remember when you sold your father’s watch, when you bankrupted us, including the money my grandmother left for the children to be educated? I could have dropped you a thousand times, but did I, Hugo? Did I leave you, or did I get down on my knees, down to where you are, and tell you, “Don’t worry, Bumpy, it’ll be better soon, it won’t happen again. Things like this, they happen once in a lifetime, and it’s over now—all gone.” I held you, Hugo, I talked you down, and this is what you’re doing, this is my thanks?’”
“I’m calling to say it’s over,” Genevieve says.
“‘Hugo, this is low, this is mean, it’s lousy. After twenty-six years of marriage and four children, you call me from some chick’s house to say you’re getting head and our marriage is over. What is she like, Hugo? Is she that good? Does she do it some way I should know about, something special, a little trick in the finish?’”
“‘I’m going now,’ he says,” Genevieve says.
“Yes,” she says.
There is a distraction as their main course is whisked out of the kitchen, the pig’s bladder blown up like a balloon, a thin, fleshy globe. All eyes are on their table as the waiter pops the bladder with a carving knife and reveals the chicken, which appears naked, as if uncooked. “It doesn’t brown in the bladder,” the waiter says. “That’s what keeps it so tender.” He deftly takes the skin off the chicken and carves the bird as the patrons at other tables ask, “What did they order?”
“I was left without words,” Sarah says.
“He called two weeks later,” Genevieve says. “Not exactly contrite.”
“No, more like it was all a misunderstanding. ‘It was a big nothing,’ he said. ‘No big deal. I was taken for a ride.’ ‘She dumped you,’ I said. ‘Yes. But not before she got ten thousand bucks outta me.’ ‘For what? Everything? When we last spoke, it sounded like you were getting something out of it.’”
“Did you tell the kids yet?” Genevieve says.
“‘No.’”
“Why not?”
“‘I didn’t know what to say.’”
“You have to believe me,” Genevieve says.
“‘I do believe you. I believed you for twenty-six years, and I believed you two weeks ago. It’s right now that’s up in the air. What about the sham, the ugly, disgusting, poor excuse for a relationship? What about my hard tits?’”
“I was under the influence. Maybe we could get your tits redone, softened up a bit, put back where they were originally,” Genevieve says.
“‘Maybe these are my tits now and that’s just the way they’re going to be.’”
“Maybe,” Genevieve says.
“‘Come home,’ I say,” Sarah says.
“And what did you tell the children?” Genevieve asks.
“We had to tell them something,” Sarah says.
“What were they thinking? Did they wonder where he’d gone?”
“We sat them down and said that we hadn’t meant to frighten them, we were sorry for the delay, we weren’t intending to keep them in the dark but wanted to wait until there was news, until there was something to say.”
“And what did you say?”
“We said that Daddy had been kidnapped but now was back safe and sound.”
“Kidnapped by who?”
“Whom.”
“‘Terrorists, of course,’ our older boy said. And we just nodded. ‘How awful,’ our daughter said. ‘Yes,’ we said. ‘But there is good news.’”
“What?” Genevieve asks.
“‘Once this has happened, it will never happen again. You don’t get kidnapped by terrorists twice.’”
“And did the children believe you? Did they believe that he was kidnapped by terrorists?”
“Yes,” Sarah says. “And oddly, he believes it, too.” She finishes her wine. “I think it would have been better if he’d been killed. If the terrorists had finished him off, if when I looked out the window and saw someone at the phone booth, it had been him, and then a big truck, a newspaper delivery truck, would have skipped the light, skipped the curb, and flattened him—in midsentence. That would have been good. It would be easier, would make this constant sensation of having been in some kind of accident more logical, or if not logical perhaps more natural. It would have been a more natural end for him to have been killed than for us to simply go on as though nothing has changed.”
“And what for dessert?” the waiter asks. “A sweet? A pudding?”
“Tea,” Sarah says.
“What kind of tea? Black, herbal, green?” the waiter asks.
“What have we come to that one can’t simply order a cup of tea without it turning into Twenty Questions?”
“We’ll have the Chocolate Mousse at Your Discretion.”
“What does that mean, ‘at your discretion’?” Sarah wants to know.
The waiter brings an enormous crockery bowl of chocolate mousse and leaves it on the table.
He brings two smaller bowls and two spoons. “At your discretion,” he says.
“You take as much as you want?” Genevieve asks.
“Or as little,” Sarah says.
“Fantastic,” Genevieve says, serving herself heavily. “This is so good it’s almost chewy.” They take what they like, and then they want more, but their spoons are no longer clean. “Use your butter knife,” Genevieve urges her. “Your butter knife is clean.” The tension is broken; they giggle over bad behavior, gluttony, and a bowl of chocolate mousse.
“After a week of vegetable juices, a life of deprivation, this pudding is a drug. I’m getting high just eating it,” Sarah says. “So what about you? What are your plans for the summer?”
“Off to Corsica. He has a place there.”
“Have you ever been?”
“No. It’s a first for him as well. He’s always gone alone. You?” Genevieve asks.
“Here,” Sarah says. “I’m staying right here.” She gestures to the rain that never stops. “Look at it out there. I can’t go out there.” She pulls the enormous bowl of pudding closer. People can’t help but stare.