In Medias Res (10 page)

I had hoped Jack’s retelling of our story would prompt a flood of memories like the home videos had the night before. When he finished, I didn’t know anything other than what he’d told me. He felt like a guy I was chatting amiably with while killing time in an airport bar, not the man I’d promised to spend the rest of my life with.

“Did I leave anything out?” he asked.

Plenty. When was the first time we slept together? When was the last? What had happened in the past few days—the past few
weeks
—to make me want to forget who I was? Why couldn’t I remember anything about Jennifer, the woman I’d declared my “best friend for life”? Why couldn’t I remember anything about him or our life together?

“No, I think you covered everything.”

His right hand slid up my thigh. The action reawakened something in me that had stirred to life when I was with Marcy: an overwhelming need for human contact. I wanted to connect with someone. Someone tangible, not frozen in time on a videotape.

I was tired of wandering aimlessly. I wanted my life back. All of it, not just the bits and pieces. I wanted to remember the good times as well as the bad.

Ready to face whatever I was running from, I tried a little shock therapy.

Straddling Jack’s lap, I cupped a hand over his crotch to check the state of his arousal. He groaned, then ground his hips against my palm.

I unzipped his fly and reached inside to free his insistent member. He pulled my shorts and underwear down and guided me onto his shaft. I pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it on the floor. I raked my nails across his back, bit into his shoulder. Clutching at him, I pulled him deeper inside me.

“Come on,” I said. “Make me feel it. Make me remember.”

My hips thrust wildly. He tried to keep pace—to match my rhythm—but I was like a woman possessed.

“Jesus, Syd,” he gasped. “What’s gotten into you? You’re like a different person.”

I was tantalizingly close to the edge, but I couldn’t quite make it to the other side. I couldn’t concentrate with him babbling about my performance.

I covered his mouth with my hand. “Shh,” I said. “Don’t talk.”

He drew one of my fingers into his mouth and I felt a sense of déjà vu. I had been in that situation before. The build-up. The anticipation. The loss of control. I had felt those sensations before—but not with him. Never with him. Or any of my other partners. Only with—

Everything stopped.

Jack came, grunting as if I’d punched him in the gut.

He kissed me as he fought to catch his breath. “You were right,” he said, resting his head on my chest to make the moment last. “Whatever you’re working through
doesn’t
have anything to do with us. That was unbelievable. Definitely worth waiting five months for.”

I looked down at him. “Five
months
? Has it been that long since we were together?”

He combed his mussed hair with his fingers. “We used to go at it like rabbits before we said ‘I do.’ After we got back from our honeymoon, life started getting in the way, and before we knew it we were, for lack of a better term, two ships passing in the night. When I was coming from work, you were heading to it and vice versa. You were too busy trying to make partner to notice, but I certainly did. If we made love once or twice a month, I considered myself lucky. But it’s been months since you let me touch you. Four months, three weeks, and six days, to be exact.”

I climbed off his lap. “Why don’t you give me the minutes and seconds while you’re at it?”

I was irritated with myself for leaving him twisting in the wind for so long and with him for allowing me to get away with it. I was tempted to call him an enabler, but it wasn’t his fault I was too much of a coward to face whatever was bothering me. Instead of owning up to my issues, I had buried them so deeply that I could no longer reach them. Or had that been the point?

“Why is sex such a sore subject for you?” he asked. “You shut down every time I bring it up, but lately, it’s even worse. Ever since the firm assigned you to the Slasher case, you’ve refused to let anyone get too close, me included. The armchair psychiatrist in me is tempted to say you’re identifying too much with one of the principals in the case.”

“Do you think I’m a victim or a defendant?” I didn’t appreciate being compared to either.

He smiled wanly. “You tell me.”

Why would I relate to anyone in a case as gruesome as the Subway Slasher’s? Granted, I didn’t know all the details, but even the name sounded grisly. If I had known I’d been involved in the case, I would have asked the guy on the flight from Chicago if I could have borrowed his copy of the
Tribune
when he was done with it so I could have seen what I was a part of.

Jack held up his hands in surrender. “Babe, I don’t want to fight with you. Let me have my moment. Today is the first time in a long time that you didn’t make me feel like you consented to sex simply as a favor to me. It felt like you were enjoying yourself, not fulfilling a marital obligation.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him otherwise. I had been attempting to fill a need, but not the one he had in mind.

I had hoped sleeping with him would bring us closer together. Instead, it had driven us even further apart, leaving me with more questions than answers. Why was it taking me so long to figure things out? And why had making love with my husband felt like a betrayal? If he was the person I had committed myself to, body and soul, why did I feel like those things belonged to someone else?

Jack called dibs on the shower. While he was gone, I forced myself to perform the task I had been avoiding. It was time for me to face my fears. All of them.

I retrieved the wedding video and slid it into the VCR. “Here goes nothing,” I said and pressed Play.

Shot from a camera mounted in the rear of the church, the video was filmed by a professional. What it made up for in quality, it lacked in charm. The prom night video—filmed by my brother, my father, and my best friend—had captured a slice of my life, shaky images and all. The wedding video, by contrast, was more like a documentary with no point of view. Its only objective was to chronicle, not illuminate.

I watched as guests were ushered in and took their seats. Instead of speaking in reverent whispers, they were nearly as rowdy as a European soccer crowd. The din subsided only when the ushers began escorting first my grandmother, then Jack’s, down the aisle.

The processional music began. Ushers saw my mother, then Jack’s, to their seats. My mother, resplendent in a beaded beige dress, was beaming like it was her wedding day. Jack’s mother, on the other hand, looked like she’d been sucking on an exceptionally sour lemon. Seeing her again reminded me of her disdain for me. I had bent over backwards to please her, but nothing I had done had worked. In her eyes, I would never be good enough for her son.

Maybe she was right.

A side door opened. Reverend William Hughes entered the room, followed by Jack and his best man/younger brother Jimmy. Jack looked nervous. Jimmy looked like he couldn’t wait to find the nearest bar—or had spent too much time in one the night before. The four groomsmen who trailed behind him—my brother included—seemed to be in similarly rough shape.

At the altar, Jimmy fiddled with his bow tie until a sharp look from Jack made him stop. Then everyone turned to watch the bridesmaids enter.

My sister-in-law Kristin began the slow parade. I recognized her right away. The same was true for the four women who followed her: two of my former sorority sisters from college, my workout partner from the gym, and Jennifer’s girlfriend Natalie Zabriskie. Each woman’s hair was styled in similar fashion—upswept and held in place by a spray of baby’s breath. All five were dressed in identical black satin gowns held up by the thinnest of spaghetti straps. Sheer red scarves draped across their shoulders and trailing down their backs provided a dash of color. The scarlet accessory matched the bouquet of roses in their hands.

My nephew Kris was the ring bearer. The flower girl accompanying him down the aisle was a beautiful little redhead from his second grade class. I remembered Kris taking great delight in telling everyone she was his girlfriend. She, on the other hand, hadn’t gotten the memo. She had liked the attention he paid her, but she had shied away every time he had tried to kiss her. “Boys are icky,” she had eloquently explained.

Jennifer, my maid of honor, appeared next on the screen. She had the same dress and hairstyle as the rest of my bridesmaids, but her bouquet was larger, denoting her higher rank in the bridal party.

I moved closer to the TV screen, expecting realization to wash over me like a tidal wave, but Jennifer remained maddeningly out of reach.

She walked with her head up and her shoulders square, as if she were balancing an invisible book on her noggin. She took her place next to Reverend Hughes and turned toward the back of the church. Her smile seemed a little off. It looked brave, not genuine. As if she were pretending to be happy instead of actually enjoying the moment. I had been too nervous to notice it at the time, but hindsight’s twenty-twenty.

The organist pounded out the opening strains of the wedding march. All the guests rose as one and turned to await my grand entrance. Watching the tape, I was filled with as much anticipation as they were—and I was waiting to see myself.

My face hidden by a white lace veil, I walked down the aisle on my father’s arm. He stood next to me at the altar while Jennifer bent to straighten my train.

Reverend Hughes said a few words to welcome everyone and to reiterate the reason we were there. He followed up with a lengthy prayer that left our souls lifted and our necks sore. I could see several guests rubbing theirs after Reverend Hughes said
Amen
.

After the congregation sang “Amazing Grace,” the “official” part of the ceremony began.

Reverend Hughes asked, “Who gives this woman in marriage?”

Dad replied, “Her mother and I do.” Then he kissed me on the cheek, symbolically handed me off to Jack, and joined my mother in the front row.

Jack and I exchanged vows without interruption—no one stood when Reverend Hughes uttered the always dramatic “Speak now or forever hold your peace.” I expected Patrick or Jennifer to do or say something to break the tension, but they remained mute. He was too wobbly from the night before; she was too concerned with doing her job as my maid of honor. I could almost see her counting items off her mental checklist.

“Walk in heels without busting your ass. Check. Slowly turn and smile. Check. Send supportive vibes to best friend while she attempts to duplicate your feat of walking without tripping. Check. Adjust train. Check. Take bouquet. Check. Make Reverend Hughes hurry things along so you can get out of this dress and have a beer. Check.”

The rest of the ceremony was uneventful. Nothing out of the ordinary. I kept waiting for an “aha” moment when everything would suddenly make sense.

When Jack kissed me, his new bride, a little too long, Reverend Hughes cracked, “Save some for the honeymoon, son.” His comment provoked a laugh from the congregation, who burst into applause when Reverend Hughes introduced Jack and me as Dr. and Mrs. John J. Stanton.

As we faced our friends and now-blended families, Jack looked delirious with happiness; I looked, to be honest, relieved. The camera followed Jack and me as we headed out of the church before it panned back to catch the attendants’ departures. Jennifer and Jimmy were the first to leave. Even though she was dressed for a wedding, Jennifer looked like she was attending a funeral. I zoomed in on her grim, unsmiling face and hit the pause button. I pressed my hand against the screen.

Jennifer. My soul mate. The love of my life.

I remembered.

How could I forget?

She told me she was gay when we were in the ninth grade. She had a crush on the most popular girl in school—Rachel Nicholson, the captain of the cheerleading squad—but she told only me. I kept her secret, though that didn’t stop other people from guessing it. Something in her eyes gave her away. Truly the mirrors to her soul, they were unable to hide what she was feeling. They still are.

At the time she came out to me, I was so naïve I barely knew what the word
lesbian
meant, but I envied her. I wanted to be as comfortable in my own skin as she was. To be so young but so certain about who and what I wanted.

Back then, I had been too busy wondering what people thought of me to just be myself. Instead, I had tried on and discarded personas as if I were shopping for jeans at the mall. None of them had been a perfect fit so I had picked the one I thought I could grow into: the type-A overachiever. I had set nearly impossible goals and hadn’t stopped until I reached them. When I did, I had set the bar even higher. All so I wouldn’t have to face the image and esteem issues that had set in when I was fifteen. That was the year I had developed an acne condition so serious it had earned me the odious nickname Pizza Face.

“You’re beautiful,” Jennifer used to tell me even when my forehead looked like a slice of double-stuffed pepperoni. “When you’re older, you’ll look back on all this and laugh. You’ll show up for the class reunion happy and successful and supermodel gorgeous and all those assholes that are being jerks to you now will be eating their hearts out.”