Like a House on Fire, page 24
“Perfect,” Merit said. She did not let herself think that champagne was the perfect metaphor for how her body felt every time she was with Jane. Instead, she thought of the bubbly she and Cory had drunk in the limo that took them from the church where they got married to their wedding reception on Pensacola beach. They’d finished the whole bottle in ten minutes, cheap champagne in cheap glasses, and kissed sloppily in the parking lot of her parents’ beach club until one of her bridesmaids made them get out.
“To the next forty,” Cory said now, fourteen years later, raising his glass.
He was talking about her life, not their marriage. But Merit could not find her next breath.
His words were obvious, meaningless, profoundly trite. So why did Merit suddenly feel like she had an anvil sitting on her chest? Light-headed, she lifted her drink. The crisp clink of their glasses felt like a gong, or a gavel coming down, or the door of a jail cell slamming shut.
She was being dramatic. She still wanted to be in this marriage. She wasn’t stuck.
She gulped her champagne.
Cory drank half of his then set the glass down and ordered a beer. “Now let’s talk about your present,” he said with a mysterious smile.
“Okay,” she said, signaling to the bartender for more champagne. How many liters would it take to drown the panic out? She focused on Cory’s eyes, the warm brown irises she’d looked into as she pushed both their babies out. The eyes she’d looked at across so many tables, so many rooms, at weddings and funerals and birthday parties. He loved her. She loved him.
“There’s something I haven’t told you,” he began, and for one wild second she thought he was going to tell her he’d been having an affair. But this was her birthday dinner and he was smiling like the cat that ate the canary, so, no, she decided, infidelity probably wasn’t it.
“I got a promotion,” he announced. “To chief technology officer.”
“What! Cory! That’s amazing! Congrats!” She slid forward on her seat to hug him. “I’m so proud of you, babe.”
“Thanks,” he said, smiling even wider now. “I was pretty shocked. I knew there was talk of creating a CTO position, but I figured Greg would bring an outside person in.”
“And you just found out today? How exciting.” The bartender hadn’t refilled her glass yet. She picked up what was left of Cory’s champagne for another toast.
“No, actually,” Cory said casually, “I’ve known for a while.”
She put the glass back down. “How long is ‘a while’?”
“Since right before Christmas.”
It was May sixth.
She blinked.
“You got a promotion before Christmas and you’re just telling me now?” She stared at him. “But why? I don’t understand.”
“I’m getting to that,” Cory said, and Merit understood that there were more revelations to come. She tried to make eye contact with the bartender. She needed that champagne.
“I got a pretty significant salary bump with the promotion,” Cory was saying. “And that gave me the idea for your birthday present. But it meant I couldn’t tell you about the raise.”
“How significant are we talking here?”
“Double my salary.”
“Wow,” she said. At least the last-minute trip to Hawaii now made sense.
“The increase was effective January first. That gave me five months to save up.”
She did the math. Five months of his salary wasn’t an insignificant amount. What could he possibly have bought her? Diamonds? A car? Oh god. A minivan?
“Cory. Enough with the buildup. What did you get?”
He grinned. “Happy birthday! I bought you a house.”
A hammer slammed down on the anvil. Merit felt her smile drop.
“What?”
“It’s a tear-down, so technically it’s a lot for a future house,” Cory said, beaming like a maniac now. “Our future house. You always said you wanted to design our ‘forever home’ and now you can. Putting aside the fact that ‘forever home’ sounds like a euphemism for a mausoleum.” He laughed and pulled out his phone. “Here, you can scroll through the photos. The house is pretty run-down, but check out the lot!”
Merit’s vision was blurred with confusion and fury. Her brain tried to catch up.
Cory got a big promotion that he hadn’t told her about.
Cory had been secretly saving money.
Cory bought a house without consulting her.
And he felt good about this?
She stared blankly at his phone without touching it. She didn’t want to take it. She didn’t want to scroll through photos of a property she already knew she didn’t want.
“I don’t understand,” she said finally. She still hadn’t taken his phone. His screen had gone dark. Her heart was racing. There was a metallic taste in her mouth.
“Which part?” he asked.
“All of it.”
Cory sighed. For a moment Merit felt bad about the fact that the news of his promotion was being overshadowed by her reaction to this. Then she remembered that he’d gotten the promotion five months before and kept it to himself.
“I thought you’d be excited about it,” he said.
“Excited,” she repeated. “About a house I don’t want.”
“How do you know you don’t want it? You haven’t even seen it yet!”
“Where is it?”
Cory rubbed his forehead wearily.
“Cory. Where’s the house?”
“Redwood City.”
She felt like she wanted to throw up. Redwood City was thirty miles south of the city. An hour from Sausalito, at least.
“I need to stand up,” she said, and jerked to her feet. Her elbow knocked her empty champagne flute. The glass broke when it hit the bar. “Sorry,” she mumbled at the bartender. She abruptly sat back down.
“No worries at all,” the bartender said smoothly, quickly wiping up the mess. “You wanted another of the same, right?”
“Yes, please,” Merit said. I’ll take the whole bottle, thanks.
“There are a bunch of contingencies,” Cory said when the bartender finally left them alone again. “Including your approval. If you don’t want it, we can get out of it.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Yeah, I’m picking up on that,” Cory said, his voice tight. “Can you tell me why? You haven’t even looked at the pictures yet. It’s a corner lot.”
“Well, for starters, I don’t want to live in Redwood City. We live in San Francisco. I work in San Francisco. Our kids go to school in San Francisco.”
“Redwood City has great public schools.”
“I don’t want to live in fucking Redwood City!”
Cory’s jaw clenched. “Got it. So I’m just supposed to commute an hour for the rest of my life.”
“Your commute is never an hour, Cory. You leave before traffic and come home after it.”
“I wouldn’t have to do that if we lived in the South Bay,” Cory pointed out. “I’d be able to spend more time with you and the kids.”
“By ‘spend more time’ I assume you mean sit on our couch with your laptop for longer every night?”
“Don’t be a bitch, Merit. It doesn’t become you.”
She wanted to throw her champagne in his face. Instead, she guzzled it then swallowed back a very unbecoming burp. Cory had never used the word “bitch” and her name in the same sentence before this. She was proud of him for saying so clearly what he meant.
His face changed as soon as he said it, and she could tell he felt bad about calling her names. I AM NOT THAT DELICATE! she wanted to shout.
“I’m sorry you don’t want the house,” he said finally. “I thought it’d be a fun surprise. But like I said, we can get out of it. The money isn’t in escrow yet.”
“How could you think that I would want you to buy a house without involving me? Even if it weren’t in an awful suburb where I have no desire to live. Buying a home is something couples are supposed to do together.” How could he not see that what he’d done was actually the exact opposite of what she wanted, the inverse of togetherness, the quintessence of being apart?
“I wanted it to be a surprise,” he said defensively. “And I knew I was getting a tear-down so you could draw the plans for the exact house you want, so I didn’t think it mattered all that much what the house looked like.”
“Do you hear yourself?”
His jaw clenched. “It’s not like we’ve never talked about this, Mer. When you were pregnant we agreed we needed more space.”
“Right. When we thought we were having a third kid.”
“So now that we’re not, you want to rent a two-bedroom apartment for the rest of our lives?”
“I didn’t say that.” She was getting into dangerous territory, the realm of her desires and the future and what she really wanted to do with the years of life she had left. “I don’t want to move to Redwood City,” she said finally. “Let’s just start with that.”
“Yep. Message received.” He reached for his beer. She realized she didn’t want any more of the champagne. She didn’t want to amplify the emotion of this moment, or bring her inhibitions down. She didn’t want to say the things a drunker version of her might say.
She pushed her glass away.
“I think we need to talk about what we want for our future,” she heard herself say.
The next forty years.
Cory gave her a look she couldn’t read. “Meaning?”
“Exactly what I said. I’m not the person I was when you married me. I’m not the person I was five years ago.” Or five months ago.
“Okay, so what does the person you are now want?”
She couldn’t tell if he was being snarky. In a way, it didn’t matter, because her answer was the same. The truth bubbled up like the champagne she’d swallowed down.
“Honestly? She doesn’t know.”
seventeen
YOU SAID YOU wanted him to go big,” Jane said.
It was the night after Merit’s birthday, and they were on Jane’s deck drinking gin lemonade, her latest cocktail concoction, before leaving for their dinner reservation in Mill Valley, which they’d made late on purpose to avoid a crowd. Merit had decided against a dress and instead was wearing a short red romper that probably should’ve come with an age limit on the tag.
“I never said I wanted him to go big,” Merit replied. “Like, ever.”
“But didn’t you sort of want him to?” Jane asked, putting her bare feet up on Merit’s chair. She was wearing white jeans and a blue silk tank. Please let me look that good when I’m almost sixty, Merit thought.
“Did I want him to buy me a tear-down in the suburbs? No.”
“Okay, maybe not that specifically. But haven’t you wanted him to do something grand?”
“Nope. And after nearly twenty years together, he should know me well enough to know that.”
“Cut the man some slack, little bird. You’re not the easiest to decipher.”
“Why are you defending him again?” Merit demanded. “The house is in Redwood City. Do you know how far away that is?”
“I’m not defending him! I’m just offering an alternative point of view. If the point is to Cory-bash, I can get on board. It’s your birthday, honey. Whatever you want.”
“I want you,” Merit said, pulling Jane’s bare foot into her lap. It was taking more effort than she wanted for her to be in this moment and nowhere else. Her mind kept leaping back to Cory’s face at the bar the night before. The misguided good intentions. His warm brown eyes.
“You have me,” Jane said, wriggling her toes. “Look, I painted them just for you.” The polish was a pretty pale pink.
“Is that my birthday present?” Merit brought Jane’s foot to her lips, kissing her arch. Even this made her think of Cory. His feet were covered in calluses from his cycling shoes.
Be here with her. Don’t think about him.
“You told me I wasn’t allowed to get you a present,” Jane said.
“Mm-hmm,” Merit said, moving her lips up to Jane’s ankle, and then her calf. Jane’s eyes fluttered as she flexed her foot. “What time is our reservation?” she murmured against Jane’s leg. Cory’s face was fading from her mind.
“Soon,” Jane said. “We should go before we decide not to go.”
Merit nodded and released Jane’s foot. Part of her would’ve been content not leaving the house, peeling Jane’s clothes off layer by layer, spending the time they had in bed. But she was hungry, and distracted, and something else she couldn’t name. She wanted to go out.
They kissed like teenagers in Jane’s foyer while they waited for the Uber to pick them up. Merit was already feeling the gin.
“Do you want your gift now or after dinner?” Jane asked at some point.
“I thought you didn’t get me one.”
“You know I did.”
“After,” Merit said, putting her hand on the back of Jane’s neck as she kissed her. She wanted to disappear into this, into them. She didn’t want to be a middle-aged woman with a husband who made her feel like the best part of her life had already passed. She opened her mouth hungrily, tugging on Jane’s lips with her teeth. “How much time do we have?” she murmured, unbuttoning Jane’s jeans.
“Not enough,” Jane said, catching her hand.
“Nonsense,” Merit said, and dropped to her knees.
Jane didn’t fight her after that.
At some point, Jane’s phone buzzed. Neither of them noticed.
Eventually, they called another Uber. They held hands as they made their way down the front steps. Merit was giddy with the privilege of this. They’d never been out in the world as a couple, not even in Mexico, where the closest they’d come was dancing together in a seedy bar. Jane opened the car door for her. Their driver was playing Barry Manilow. They made out in the back seat.
The restaurant Jane had chosen was perfect; intimate and inviting, half-filled with no one either of them knew. The hostess took them to a table in the back. Merit had dropped Jane’s hand, instinctively, when they walked in the restaurant, but as they made their way across the restaurant she felt the urge to grab it back. WE ARE TOGETHER! she wanted to shout. She felt exhilarated and reckless. She didn’t care who saw them. She wasn’t afraid of being found out.
They sat beside each other in a corner booth and ordered French fries and mussels as an appetizer. Jane picked out an expensive bottle of red wine. Merit sipped hers slowly. She treasured the feeling of Jane right beside her. She didn’t want the night to end.
“What are we doing?” she asked at some point. They were splitting a filet mignon. Jane was feeding Merit little bites of meat and creamed spinach with a cocktail fork. Briefly, Merit wondered how they appeared to others in the restaurant, these two women with nearly twenty years between them, the older one feeding the younger one steak.
“Other than making a spectacle of ourselves?” Jane’s cheeks were pink from the wine. “We’re enjoying a fabulous meal. The food’s really good, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Merit said.
“But that’s not what you meant.”
“No.”
“We’re taking it as it comes, I guess,” Jane said. She put the fork down and reached for her wine. Merit watched Jane’s hands on the glass. Her lover kept her nails very short now, and dark.
“Am I having a mid-life crisis?”
“Quite possibly,” Jane replied.
Merit sat back and pushed her hands through her hair. She felt hot suddenly. Flushed. “When I think about it, it seems so completely insane—I mean, honestly, what the actual fuck?”
Jane frowned. “Are you having second thoughts?”
“Jane!”
“Merit.”
“How can you even ask me that?”
“Because I know how complicated it is for you,” replied Jane. “I’ve been saying that from the beginning.”
“No.” Merit shook her head. “That’s the whole thing. When we’re together, it doesn’t feel crazy at all. Or complicated. Or wrong, even. It feels . . .” She inhaled with the enormity of it, fumbling for the words she didn’t have.
Jane took her hand. “It feels like everything there is.”
Merit kissed her.
(Could they do this? Could they kiss in a restaurant?)
Jane kissed her back.
“I love us,” Merit murmured against Jane’s lips.
“We’re pretty great.”
Merit closed her eyes and breathed Jane in. “Also? I think kissing you might be my favorite thing ever.”
“You might be a little gay, then,” Jane said in a low voice.
“You think?” Merit kissed her again.
“Let’s go to Denmark,” Jane said.
“Will you kiss me like this in Denmark?”
“Fuck yes.”
“Then let’s go and never come back.”
Jane smiled against her lips. “Can I give you your present now?”
“If you insist.”
Merit settled back into her seat. The restaurant was still half full, but no one was paying any attention to them. She pushed her leg against Jane’s. She felt like some other person. She felt completely like herself.
Jane reached behind her chair and pulled a small box out of her bag.
“I am one hundred percent uncertain about this gift,” she said, setting the box on the table. “So if you don’t like it or won’t wear it, I promise it won’t hurt my feelings.”
Merit saw the bird first. An intricate gold hummingbird with an emerald eye. It was perched on a thin branch that wrapped around three times, forming a layered band with paper thin gold leaves.
It was a ring. A delicate and beautiful and perfect ring.
