Better Than This (12 page)

“Linda? I thought she moved away.” I was sure I remembered Sally saying her husband got a transfer to somewhere out west. Phoenix I thought. At the time I was vaguely relieved because Linda’s pregnancy and the birth of her daughter had made Sally broody.

“It was someone else. You don’t know her. Liz Herman. She was in accounts.”

I didn’t recognize the name and I was struck by something off-key in Sally’s tone. She poured herself a glass of water and drank it down, then put the glass on the bench.

“So how was she?”

“Fine.”

“What’d she have?”

“A girl.”

That’s great.”

“Yes. It is.”

“What’s her name?”

“Her name? Anna.”

“Nice name.” I took a sip of my drink.

“Yes it is,” Sally agreed. “Well, I’m tired. I think I’ll go upstairs,” she said.

“Okay. I’ll be up soon.”

I stood at the bench drinking my scotch, wondering about our conversation. Something hadn’t seemed right. Sally had seemed nervous or jumpy or something and she’d been reluctant to meet my eye. Anna was a name I remembered she had once said she would like to call our own child if we had a daughter. Was that coincidence or was it the first thing that came into her head? Her purse was on the bench. After a while I opened it and found her address book, but when I turned to the page with entries beginning L, I couldn’t find a Liz. Neither was there a Herman. I told myself it didn’t mean anything.

A few minutes later I went up to our room and sat on the bed pretending to watch TV while Sally sat in front of the mirror to remove her make-up. Her blouse was undone and I could see the swell of her breasts beneath the white lace of her bra. The contrast of lightly tanned flesh against the pure whiteness of lace was sensual, given some added dimension by the careless manner in which it was exposed. She put a band in her hair to hold it back from her face while she used cotton wool and a cleanser to take off her eye shadow and lipstick. When she was done she used her fingers to massage in moisturizing lotion. She began to brush her hair, and appeared absorbed in the task, taking long slow strokes. Our eyes collided in the mirror and she faltered, surprised to find me watching her. Some quick shadow of expression passed over her eyes.

“You’re not working tonight,” she commented.

“No.” I thought about telling her about my meeting at Spectrum, but then I remembered Dexter and I decided not to.

She resumed brushing her hair. I’d forgotten how much I liked watching her at times like this. I’d always found Sally at her loveliest when she was engaged in some everyday routine and was unaware of my interest, utterly unselfconscious. I used to watch her sometimes when she read a novel and I could always tell if she was enjoying the story. Small lines of concentration appeared on her brow and her lips might twitch in a smile at something she read, or clamp tightly shut if some terrible fate were about to befall the protagonist. If on the other hand she was bored her eyes would dart restlessly over the text and as she turned a page she would frown. But mostly I liked to watch her as she got herself ready for bed. The ritual of cleaning her skin and brushing her hair provoked all kinds of feelings in me. She could be unintentionally erotic just by leaning to one side so her hair fell away from her neck as she brushed from the base of her scalp outwards. A glimpse of bare flesh, the ridge of her spine could make me desire her more than when she was being deliberately sexy. It was partly because she drifted, without being aware of it, into a world of her own. Her expression became dreamlike as she pampered herself, and she became unaware of her surroundings. While some part of her conscious brain controlled her actions, another, the emotive part, swept her thoughts elsewhere like windblown leaves in the fall. I once asked her what she was thinking about, and she smiled and said she was thinking of us.

Now, though she was as lovely as ever, I was reminded of how long it had been since I had watched her this way. I couldn’t help thinking there was something troubled in her expression.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked her.

She snapped from her reverie. “Nothing.”

Abruptly as if uncomfortable at being caught in an unguarded moment she went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. When she reappeared she was ready for bed. She tossed her underwear in the laundry basket and went to the door.

“Are you going downstairs again?” she asked.

I shook my head and she went to turn out the lights and check the doors were locked. After a moment I got up and went to the laundry hamper to retrieve her underwear. Her panties were white lace, to match the bra, in a G-string style with a delicate transparent see through panel at the front. I couldn’t remember seeing them before, though I was sure I would have remembered. The brand was some French sounding name and when I looked in the waste bin I found the snipped off labels. I didn’t know why I should be bothered that my wife had bought new underwear, but I was.

When Sally came back I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and when I came out she was already in bed, reading a book. She looked up. “My parents are coming this weekend,” she reminded me.

“That’s right. I forgot.” Terrific, I thought sourly, contemplating a weekend with Sally’s mother, though outwardly my expression remained neutral. “I should book a restaurant. Maybe Marios.”

A little while later Sally turned out the light. I lay there in the dark listening to the sound of her breathing. I thought about those baby magazines downstairs, the phone call earlier and Sally saying she’d been to see Liz Herman who I’d never heard her mention before. Then Dexter popped into my mind, and I kept seeing him as he went into the restaurant with Jerry Parker, that mocking secret smile. Two hours later I was still awake.

I had until the twenty-third to work on my final presentation to Spectrum, and I resolved to use every moment of that time to make sure I left nothing to chance. At my insistence everything else at the agency took second place, this had total priority, which didn’t sit well with Marcus.

“This isn’t our only account, dammit!” he argued in his office. “In fact it isn’t an account at all. We can’t just shove everything else aside. We have deadlines to meet, not to mention people to pay. Or had you forgotten about that?”

“The bank are covering us, Marcus,” I pointed out. This is it. Less than two weeks.”

He stared at me, knowing it was pointless to argue. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

So did I, though I didn’t say as much. I had been over everything a thousand times. I couldn’t shift the sense of unease that had lodged in my gut after meeting Dexter, but Sam Mendez had all but promised me the contract. One thing I was certain of, there was no going back now. The bank had us on a very tight leash, and our cash flow continued to fall. It was all or nothing.

I worked late every night and left the house early in the morning, snatching sandwiches when I could, drinking coffee and scotch to keep me going, hardly even seeing Sally. One day I called her at work just to say hi, but the woman I spoke to came back on the line and said she was at lunch.

“Was it important?” she asked. “I can take a message.”

“No that’s fine,” I told her, and was getting ready to hang up when she asked if I was sure nobody else could help. I hesitated, then I said, “Well, actually I guess Liz Herman could, but she doesn’t work there any more does she?”

“Liz Herman? I never heard of anyone by that name. She worked here you say? What department was that?”

“Accounts.”

There was a pause while she checked then she said, “No, definitely nobody by that name.”

I thanked her and told her it didn’t matter. For some time I pondered what this meant, but in the end I told myself there could be a hundred explanations. Maybe I heard the name wrong or I misunderstood, or the woman I spoke to was mistaken. I wasn’t convinced by any of this of course, not really, but I chose to put it aside because I didn’t know what I should do about it. Whatever ‘it’ was.

I barely spoke to Sally all week. We came and went and occupied the same space but not much beyond that. I was completely absorbed with preparing for my presentation. I knew that my marriage was drifting like a boat with nobody at the helm. On Wednesday we snatched some moments over coffee and I tried to tell Sally that once I had Spectrum in the bag I would slow down and we would spend more time together. It was kind of a holding action, my way of trying to make sure things didn’t get any worse but she didn’t want to hear about it.

“Have you ever considered that you might not get the account?”

“You sound like Marcus. Doesn’t anybody have any faith in me?”

She looked at her watch and avoided answering me. “I have to go. I’ll be late.”

On Friday we caught a few minutes at breakfast. “You look exhausted,” Sally commented.

“I’m fine,” I said, but I saw her eye drift to the empty scotch bottle I’d left by the trash bin. I was surprised myself when I finished it the night before, it seemed like just the other day when I’d bought it.

“You need to slow down.”

I shook my head and gulped my coffee. “Can’t. I’ve only got another week.”

“Are you working tonight?”

“Sorry.”

“You know my parents arrive this morning.”

“I know.” I would have worked over the weekend too if it hadn’t been for her parents’ visit but I compromised by promising I’d leave the rest of the weekend free. In fact I thought it was probably a good thing. I could use a break, and maybe a couple of days together would do us good, even with her parents tagging along. “I booked a table at Marios for tomorrow night,” I said. This was a favourite restaurant of ours situated in the hills above Half Moon Bay where we used to go regularly. I knew Sally liked it and I thought she’d get a kick out of taking her parents there. She made no comment, however.

I went around to kiss her goodbye. “Say hi to your folks, and don’t wait up if I’m late.”

She didn’t say anything. I left her staring into her coffee.

I didn’t get home until midnight. The house was silent, though Sally had left a light on for me in the hall. I went through to the kitchen where an unfamiliar bag which I assumed belonged to Ellen sat on the bench. There was an empty wine bottle on the counter and the debris from a meal which I guessed Sally had left until morning to clear up. I decided to do her a favour, and so I loaded the dishwasher and wiped the pots and pans and left them to drain. When I was finished I went to the cupboard and fetched a new bottle of scotch which I opened. I was tired, my eyes were sore and I needed to go to sleep. Just a small one I thought, and dropped some ice into a glass. I took a sip, not really enjoying the taste but the burn of the liquor seemed to ease some of the tension from my neck. Distractedly I reached around and kneaded my spine. I let my eyes close and for a second I was almost asleep on my feet.

The harsh jangle of the phone disturbed me and I snapped to and snatched it off the hook before the whole house woke up.

“Yes?” I glanced at my watch wondering who the hell was calling at this time of night.

There was no reply.

“Who is this?” I demanded. Again, silence.

I got angry. “Listen, I don’t know who you are but I want you to stop calling here. Can you hear me?” I could feel someone on the other end of the line. I knew this had something to do with Sally. I’d been trying to think if she was seeing somebody, who it could be. A guy at work? She’d never mentioned anybody and I’d met a few of them at Christmas parties. I didn’t think any of them were her type. A neighbour? Again I couldn’t think of anyone.

“Who are you? Don’t you have the balls to say something?” It was frustrating talking into space, to some insubstantial entity. “Fuck you!” I said. “Stay the hell away from my wife!”

I slammed down the phone. I still felt stupid. There was probably no guy. More likely it was kids playing a prank or a wrong number or whatever. Probably.

In the morning I woke early from habit, feeling lousy. Sally was still sleeping and the rest of the house was quiet so I slipped out of bed and crept downstairs. I needed to clear my head, make myself human again, so I got my things together and drove to the Peninsula Club on the way to San Mateo which has a gym and pool. That early on a Saturday there were only a handful of other swimmers, mostly the older contingent who always seemed to be there ploughing back and forth in the slow lanes with their steady unchanging rhythm, looking for all the world as if they could go on for ever. I chose a medium pace lane which I had to myself, and after I’d done some stretches I slid into the water and did a couple of warm-up lengths. My body creaked and protested, and my head throbbed, but after a couple of lengths I wasn’t aware of the effort any more. The flow of water around me eased the tension in my muscles. I felt the build up of toxins in my body from too much booze and bad food rise to the surface where I sloughed it off the way a snake sheds its skin. Even so I couldn’t manage more than twenty lengths, after which I sat on the side with a towel wrapped around me watching the old people in the slow lanes chugging along at the same steady, inexorable pace.

When I arrived home again it was mid-morning and Frank told me that Sally and her mother had gone to Palo Alto to go shopping. I found him in the garden where it was warm, the sun already high in a clear sky, but the light softened by a whitish haze in the air. In the hills the shades of green blurred in soft focus. We shook hands.

“Good to see you again, Frank.”

“You too.”

“How was your flight?”

“It was fine. Sorry we missed you last night. We would’ve waited up but Sally said you might be late.”

“I was, and I should be the one apologizing. Things have been kind of busy lately.”

He nodded. “Sally said something about that.” He looked around the garden, and for a moment I thought I’d lost him. He seemed to have switched off, as was his habit. But after a while he said thoughtfully, “Needs a little work out here.”

True enough, I thought. I hadn’t taken the time to notice lately but the yard was a tangle of bushes and plants. I’d never had green fingers, it was as much as I could do to keep the grass mown, but I hadn’t noticed how bad it had gotten out there. To my untrained eye it was hard to tell where the woods ended and our garden began. My eye wandered out over the view. There was a large white house on a hillside half a mile away which had been built a year or so earlier. It was secluded in the woods, high up with panoramic views. The guy who owned it, I heard, had started a dot. com company three years ago and when it had gone public he had made three hundred million dollars. Three hundred million! He was thirty-one.