Happily Ever After: A Novel (15 page)

Chapter 27

W
ithout asking, I put a bottle of chilled Chardonnay on the kitchen table between us. The bottle sweats. I pour two glasses and slide one in front of Jason. I hold the shoe box to my chest. Jason smiles.

“Where are your friends?” he asks.

“Upstairs,” I say, nodding toward the ceiling. “Cleaning up after a gritty New York day. It was brutal out there today.” In more ways than one.

“So how exactly do you know them?”

“Oh,” I say. “Family friends from way back. Friends of my parents. The son of some friends of my parents. Younger friends.” How much deeper can I dig this hole and still have any hope of getting out of it, I wonder.

“Well, I’m glad I have you to myself for a minute,” he says. “Can you sit down?”

I realize I’m standing over him, glass of wine in hand. I do not want to sit. Sitting implies a serious conversation. But I do as I’m asked, putting the shoe box down by the wine. Jason takes my hands in his. He lets go. He drinks. His hands shake. He is definitely here to release me from our sexual contract. I’m consumed with sadness, and I haven’t even heard what he has to say yet.

“So?” I say. Outside the window, I see Greta in the rose garden. She wears green gardening gloves and holds a pair of shears. Jason takes a deep breath. He rubs his palms together. He’s nervous.

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about our arrangement,” he says finally.

Here it comes. I’m about to be fired.

“I told myself I would be honest in this relationship,” he says. “I told myself I would not make the same mistakes twice. I’d say what I liked and didn’t like. I’d be more assertive. You know. That stuff.”

I nod. I focus on his face, but I feel worse than I have all day.

“I really like you, Sadie. Actually, it’s more than really liking you. I think about you all the time. I imagine you with me. I see things and wonder what you’d say about them. I hear you laughing. I miss you six days out of seven. I know our arrangement is about sex, but I’m sorry, I can’t help the way I feel. And more importantly, I don’t want to. I don’t even want to try.”

I blush. A rosy, warm glow fills me in a way at once unfamiliar and comforting. I have been here before, haven’t I? Or am I just remembering scenes I jotted down on scraps of paper? I put down my wineglass and take Jason’s hands in mine. They’re soft and able and weathered. They are not unlike mine. I put one to my cheek and hold it there, aware he’s waiting for a response.

Before I answer, I want to take a moment and bask in this feeling. I want to explore its soft edges, its whispers, its racing heart. I want to remember how it can change my face, brighten the darkness behind my eyes. I want to remember it because as soon as I open my mouth, I’m going to blow it all to hell.

“I feel the same way,” I say. And I do. The blush floods into the spaces I maintain between the disparate parts of myself—mother, writer, lover, breadwinner—and I feel myself momentarily whole. Fortunately, it will be so brief that later I will not recall its details or its depth.

Jason looks relieved. He runs his thumb down the curve of my cheek. I lean over the table, bumping the wineglasses, and kiss him. If this were my book, I’d have us go for it right here. Seal our mutual proclamations of “like” with some good old-fashioned fucking on the kitchen table. But this is not a novel. This is real life. And I must confess my sins, such as they are.

“I’m so glad,” he says, pulling away. “So glad, Sadie. And it’s not just sex. I mean, it was at first because that’s why we got together, right? And I don’t want to sound like the sex isn’t good. It’s great. I’ve never been with anyone like you. But I want to take you out and show you off to my friends. I want to meet your daughter. I want to be in your life and not just on Friday mornings. I’m rambling, I know, but I’m just glad, that’s all.”

Well, you might want to hold that thought, Jason.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” I say. For a woman whose stock-in-trade is words, I’m at a loss. How on earth do I explain this situation to a rational human being? A lawyer, no less?

“You can tell me anything, Sadie,” he says. “I want that kind of relationship.”

“Wait here,” I say. “I need to get something.” I run upstairs, grab my laptop, and race back to the kitchen. I shove the wineglasses aside and drop the machine on the table.

“Sadie?”

I flip it open. The manuscript for
Stolen Secrets
is just as I left it, complete with Clarissa and half a chapter I did not write. I’m about to launch into a summation of the whole mess when a thundering noise from above draws our attention. It sounds like bodies hitting the floor.

“What was that?” Jason asks. He’s ready to jump into action and defend my honor from marauding intruders infiltrating from above.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “It’s nothing.” But I’m oddly tickled by his response. It’s nice, romantic. The only time we encountered a mugger in Manhattan, Roger literally hid behind me. I was so busy pulling out wallets and watches and things to give the batshit crazy guy, I did not process Roger’s reaction until later. And then I have to say it didn’t surprise me much.

“It sounds like someone just fell out of bed,” he says, still staring at the ceiling.

That could very well be true. If I had to guess, I would say my guests were having an athletic round of makeup sex, which can always be counted on for at least one good steamy chapter.

Chapter 28

J
ason stares at the ceiling, his eyebrows furrowed.

“You’re sure I shouldn’t go up there and check it out?”

“No,” I say. “Definitely don’t do that. I want to read you something.” He shakes his head, confused. He’s trying to puzzle out how we got from talking about us and this new stage of our relationship to “Read Aloud with Sadie Fuller.” Before he reconsiders his proclamation and runs away, I refill his glass and read him the three chapters of
Stolen Secrets
.

“It’s good,” Jason says when I finish. “Does your friend Aidan know he’s starring in your book? Not that I can blame you exactly. He’s perfect for it.”

I clear my throat. My hands shake. I wait for panic to rear its ugly head, but it stays away.

“He actually came from the book,” I say. “Or out of the book.”

“It’s very realistic,” Jason agrees, missing the point. But perhaps that is because the point is completely absurd.

“No,” I say slowly. “I wrote him and he
appeared
. In Target. And then I rescued him from the hospital. But the whole witch angle is not really my fault. I mean, I wrote Clarissa, but not for this novel, so I don’t understand why she is after Aidan. And I didn’t write the last bit I just read you. That part just appeared . . . somehow . . . on my laptop.”

Jason pushes back from the table, putting space between us. This is the beginning of the end. But maybe he would have confessed to voting Republican and it wouldn’t have worked out anyway. The edges of my heart start to crinkle up like Shrinky Dinks.

“Let me get this straight,” Jason says in a tone I frequently used on Allison when she was a toddler. “You’re telling me the characters from this half-written novel of yours have come to life? Like Frosty the Snowman?”

“Yes,” I say, trying to avoid his incredulous expression. “Except I no longer control the story. Clarissa hijacked it from me. Are you following any of this?”

The silence that comes next is wide and deep, and I think I could actually disappear in it for quite some time. Jason sets his empty glass down. He folds his hands neatly in his lap, narrows his gaze, and watches me.

I go to the wine refrigerator and pull out another bottle, with a screw cap for convenience. I splash some into my glass. I pace the kitchen, my bare feet sticking to the tile. With nothing to lose, I go for broke.

“I have to send them back, Jason,” I say. “And I think a spell will do it. But how does it work? How do
I
make it work? I need help.”

Now if I were Jason, I would politely thank me for the wine and the several months of sex and get the hell out of the house immediately. Once in the car, I would offer up a prayer of thanks to whatever gods intervened on my behalf and allowed for a bloodless escape. I would not go back. Never. Ever. On some level, we all suspect crazy might be contagious.

But Jason is not me. He buys time by refilling his own wineglass, going to the freezer and getting a few ice cubes. He sits back down and sips slowly, like he’s having tea with the queen. His measured movements give no sign of what he’s thinking. I stop pacing. I sit down. I wait.

After a minute he stands up again. I expect now he will run. But he doesn’t head toward the exit. Instead, he strides out of the kitchen and toward the stairs. I scramble out of my seat and rush after him. He takes the steps two at a time and is on the upper landing before I can stop him.

“What are you doing?” I yell after him.

“Interviewing the witness,” he says. The guest room door is locked, but it’s a lazy lock. A push with your shoulder like you mean business and it will let you have your way. Jason slams it hard and fast, and it pops open.

“What the hell?” Aidan cries. This is followed by an indignant scream from Lily. I peer into the room. They are under the covers, and clothes are strewn about the room. So I was right about the makeup sex.

“Are you or are you not part of a fictional universe?” Jason demands. His question perfectly crystallizes how far from sense we’ve strayed, and I’m shocked he can even bear to ask it. Aidan looks to me for guidance. I nod my head. Go ahead. Answer the question.

“Yes,” Aidan says. Lily looks away, eyes squeezed shut.

“And you were sent here by a witch named Clarissa as the manuscript suggests?”

“Yes,” he says, pulling the sheet up to their chins. Without another word, Jason slams the door and stomps back down the stairs. I follow close at his heels. When he reaches the bottom step, he sits down, hard. He props his elbows on his knees and rests his head in his hands.

“I’m a lawyer, Sadie,” he says without looking at me. I place a hand on his shoulder. He shrinks from my touch. I fold my hands back in my lap, feeling those crinkly edges around my heart grow ever more fragile.

“A lawyer’s stock-in-trade is logic and the supporting evidence. You know those movies where an attorney gets up in court and gives a passionate speech on behalf of the wrongly accused defendant?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that only happens in the movies! Mostly, we move contract paragraphs around like puzzle pieces and hope to slip in a few things that the other guy will miss.”

He turns to me. His eyes blaze.

“It’s not exciting, Sadie, but it’s who I am.”

I won’t cry. Crying is not something I do unless I’ve severed a limb. Somehow I know if I start, I will never stop, and I cannot imagine getting through even a single day that way. But the pain welling up in my chest will be hard to keep down.

“Here’s the thing though,” Jason says, shaking his head, “and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but even if you’re crazy, which, based on recent evidence I think you must be, I don’t care. I’m willing to go along with whatever elaborate game you’re playing.”

These words hang between us, turning the air suddenly sweet.

“What?” I say. I’m sure I’ve heard him incorrectly.

“I was married for a long time to a woman who didn’t like me that much,” he says. “When I thought about it, I didn’t like her that much either. I have laughed more with you in the past few months than I did with her in our entire marriage. And it feels good, like I found something I didn’t know was missing. You look at the world in a way that makes me feel lighter. So I don’t care what you’re doing. I can play along if you’ll let me.”

He takes my hands in his and pulls me down to sit beside him. I lean in and kiss him. He smells good, clean, like he took a shower before coming over.

“Sadie,” he whispers into my hair, and I sense he’s smiling.

Joy can be elusive. Sometimes to achieve it, you must step out onto the street, even if you know you might be run over by a bus.

“Take me with you,” he says. “I want to go along.” His words sound like a prayer, a mantra. They sound like something good.