| 17 | SEVEN-YEAR ITCH |
SHE DID NOT JUST HURL the contents of her wineglass in his face, did she? Yes, she did. Kingsley stood there with the wine dripping down his nose, his cheeks, and his chin. He ran his tongue over his lips and tasted the wine with a smile. “You’re right, it is sour,” he said and laughed. Because it was funny and because his wife was right—you couldn’t get a good bottle of wine in the underworld, no matter how hard you tried.
It was just one of the many reasons why she was determined to go.
Mimi stared at him, her face white with shock and rage.
Kingsley tensed, uncertain what she would throw at him now. Her plate? The wineglass itself? Her sword, which she kept, charmingly, as a needle in her bra? How they had fought once, matching each other, steel for steel, the sparks between them as hot as their passion for each other. Where was his weapon, come to think of it? If she took hers out, he would be skewered in seconds, a little Kingsley kebab.
Was she really the only one on the attack these days?
Was he happy with how things were between them now?
Sour?
He thought she was going to scream at him again, but instead, she did the oddest thing. Mimi Martin, Azrael, Angel of Death, burst into tears. Big, sobbing, gulping, ugly tears. She was crying like he had never seen her cry before, as if her heart were breaking, and for the first time that evening—for the first time in their long and fraught and wonderful relationship—he was afraid.
Blood he could handle, and he’d had a parry for every one of her attacks. That had been the beauty of their relationship.
But tears?
Sorrow was a previously unexplored territory, at least between the two of them. Maybe he had pushed her too far. Maybe she meant it this time. “I’m leaving you,” she said. “I’m done. I’m out of here.”
He laughed, and it was not a mocking laugh, but a bitter one. He laughed not because he didn’t believe her—part of him thought she might be telling the truth—but mostly he laughed because he knew Mimi was prone to be dramatic, quick to anger, and had a ferocious temper, but she never meant half of the horrible things she said. They were exactly alike, a pair of hotheads. So he just couldn’t take it seriously.
They said things. They just did. It never mattered. At least, it had never mattered before.
They had been married for seven wonderful years. And it was wonderful to be with one’s beloved. Kingsley loved her, he loved her so much, but sometimes, once you had your beloved, it was natural to pay attention to other things. After all, that was the point, wasn’t it? Of a so-called happy ending? To move on to other concerns? To stop worrying about love? Come to think of it, what was a happy ending after all? It wasn’t as if once the credits rolled and the lights came on or an author wrote, “The end,” you stopped living, because there was so much more of life to live, wasn’t there? Besides, there was no such thing as a happy ending for the likes of them, not the least of which because they were, ahem, immortal.
One could call it a happy never-ending.
Happiness was fleeting; you couldn’t hold on to it, although he liked to think they had had a better run than most.
Hadn’t they?
But Mimi didn’t look so happy right now. Truth be told, she hadn’t seemed happy in quite a while. Sure, she had been happy at first—they both were—although he had to admit, he might have been just a teeny bit happier than she was. He was content with their life, content with settling down, with wanting to plant a garden and to watch something grow. This land had been nothing but ashes, nothing but darkness and death. Now parts of it were green, and he’d built her a proper little home, prettier than any Hamptons cottage. Okay, so the views could use some work, and there weren’t many people to talk to; most of the dead moved on from the underworld, onward to the great beyond, which was past their jurisdiction.
But they had each other, and that was enough, wasn’t it? And wasn’t that all you needed, at least according to the Beatles?
Love?
Obviously not.
“I can’t live here. I can’t live like this,” she was saying, her eyes red and moist. “I want to go home.”
But this is home. Our home. You are my home, he wanted to say, but didn’t. Why didn’t he? Pride? Anger? Because what the hell—wink—was this? She had promised him forever, she had promised him her undying, immortal love, and now, seven years later, just because she couldn’t hack it, just because she couldn’t stomach the sour taste of demon wine, missed going to Art Basel and Paris Fashion Week, had nowhere to go to buy or wear her fancy clothing, she was going to give it all up? Give him up? Give up on them? The idea of them? Mimi and Kingsley 4Ever? But he didn’t say anything; instead he made another joke, and this one went as well as the one about the wine had.
“Who are you supposed to be now… Dorothy?” he asked and mimicked clicking his heels. “I want to go home, Toto.”
Mistake.
“It’s just not funny,” she said in a soft, strangled voice as she mopped up the spill on the table and handed him a napkin to wipe his face. “You don’t take me seriously, and I hate it.”
Kingsley put the cork back into the wine bottle. Unlike Mimi, he thought it tasted all right. Nothing to write home about, but he’d certainly had much worse. The free white wine served at certain cheap Chinese restaurants in the Upper West Side during the nineties came to mind. House white. It had been good enough once. At least it had done the trick at the time.
When had everything gotten so complex?
“Fine, go then,” he said nonchalantly. “Leave this place,” he said, jokingly affecting a deep and portentous tone as if he were banishing her from Paradise itself.
She glanced up at him from clearing the table. “You’ll let me go?”
“Darling, I can’t keep you here if you don’t want to be here,” he said and shrugged.
“Don’t worry about the gates,” he said. “As far as you’re concerned, I am the gates.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll leave tomorrow.”
“Fine.”
Then he’d washed the dishes, because she had cooked and that was the deal, clean or cook—choose one—just as they always did, like a regular night, and that evening, when they went to bed, he kissed her forehead and turned to his side and went to sleep. And sometime in the middle of the night, he reached for her, and she responded, like she always did, and they made love, softly, urgently, just like they always did, and when it was over, he rolled over and went back to sleep and didn’t worry about it anymore. Because fighting was part of their life together, just like the sex, and they had lived like this for years now, and because no matter what they said to each other, no matter how much they fought, he didn’t believe she would ever leave him. Because hadn’t she called his name in the dark, digging her nails into his back just like every other time? His wonderful sexy little wife, with her temper and her rage and her drinking and her beauty.
No, she would never leave him. Not Mimi. Not his Mimi. They belonged together. They would fight and love each other until the very end.
But the next day when he woke up, her bags were packed, two steamer trunks, buckled and locked, and she wasn’t crying anymore; her jaw was set. His stomach began to feel a little queasy, but he ignored it. It was just a bluff, just another of her overdramatic gestures. He loved her, but he was tired of the drama as well. Why couldn’t she just settle down and be happy for once? So he decided to play it out, see how far she would go, how far she would take it this time.
He motioned to her bags. “You have everything then?”
“I do,” she said, without looking him in the eye. Her own were puffy but determined.
“And you’re not worried about what happens when you return? You’ll fare all right?”
“My trusts are airtight. I’m sure there’s a way to get to my accounts. Don’t worry about me.” As if I could stop you, her look seemed to say.
“Okay, good.”
“So, this is a trial separation, then?” she asked hopefully.
“Yes, exactly,” he said, still unconvinced she would actually go through with it. “Let’s call it our Persephone clause,” he said cheerfully, thinking it was a clever line.
Clever, and hopeful. Persephone always came back.
She smiled wanly and put on her hat, because only Mimi would leave the underworld in a blousy white Western-style shirt, tight faded jeans, and a suede cowboy hat. She reached up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek.
He walked her out of their house and carried her trunks. He placed them in the back of the car and looked back at their home. The Dove Cottage. The Love Nest. The Honeymoon Hideaway. The Devil’s Due. They’d called it many nicknames over the years. He still didn’t think she would go through with it, that when they arrived at the station, she would throw her arms around him and tell him she’d made a terrible mistake. But she only sat quietly and looked out the window at the gray, ashen desert. Mimi didn’t say a word; she only looked sad, sadder than she had ever looked before, sad and tired, and then he truly felt ill. He should say something—anything—to make her stop this. Stop this ridiculous farce where you pretend you are leaving me, he wanted to shout. Stop this at once. I love you. Please. Mimi. Look at me. Don’t leave. Don’t leave me. But Kingsley said nothing.
The one thing that could never happen suddenly could.
He was reeling, and he was hurt, and he was silent, because he knew better than anyone that there was no way to keep Mimi from something she wanted.
So he helped her board the train that took souls back up to the surface. It was empty, because no one was ever allowed to leave the underworld, not without his permission.
Except now.
She took a seat by the window, but she didn’t wave.
He watched her leave him.
The train pulled away, one empty car after another, until it was the final one, rattling on the tracks, and Kingsley cursed.
Because damn it, he wasn’t about to let her go.
He couldn’t live without her. He would do better, he would work harder, he would listen, he would change. She had made her point, she had shown him, by golly, that she was serious about this, and he understood now. Good God, he would change. He would do anything to get her back. Anything.
So Kingsley ran as fast as he’d ever run in his life and caught the back handle of the last train car. He jumped on the back of the train, catching his breath. He had promised her, the day they were married: Wherever you are, I will be. And he, for one, was not about to break a promise.