Love in Mid Air (6 page)

But Lynn is also the only divorced woman among us.

She keeps her chin up—she unloaded her dishwasher and got the kids to school on time the very morning that her husband left
her. Rumor has it—at least according to Nancy—that he fucked her one last time for the road and then, while she was pulling
her panties and gown back on to go fix the kids’ breakfast, he cheerfully informed her that he had fallen in love with his
secretary. Lynn did everything you’re supposed to do—she fought for the house, she got full custody of her boys, she lightened
her hair, she went back to school. But she doesn’t come to book club anymore.

At first everyone thought it was because of the money. We used to eat in restaurants. We would get a table in the back and
order wine and talk a little bit about the book, but then Nancy pulled us aside one night and said, “You know, not everyone
in the group has thirty dollars to throw around on ahi tuna.” Referring of course to Lynn, and we all were quick to say yes,
that it would be better if we met in homes, and that was when the competitive brownie making began. Nobody really likes meeting
in homes. Everybody liked eating out and drinking wine a lot better. It’s a little funny that we changed because of Lynn and
now Lynn no longer shows up and yet no one has suggested that we go back to restaurants. Maybe that would make her absence
seem too permanent. That would be admitting that she’s so far outside of the circle that she’s never coming back.

I lean against the counter and watch the others. Nancy and Kelly are talking about how Lynn might be losing her insurance
now that the divorce is finally final, Belinda is gazing at the brownies and smoothing back her hair, which is in one of those
sloppy French braids you can only get away with if you’re very young. I feel a little nervous being around them, as if they
can see—what could they see? I feel as if there is a small high vibration under my skin, running throughout my body, but no
one is treating me any differently, not even Kelly, who would be the one most likely to hear the hum. She knows something
happened in Phoenix, but she thinks I spent too much on clothes or drank too much in a hotel bar. The thought that I might
have kissed a stranger wouldn’t even cross her mind. We are all so thoroughly married. Our idea of being bad is eating cheesecake.

“I would have bet Elyse liked this book,” says Belinda. “It had sex.”

Okay, so maybe I’m wrong.

“Stupid sex,” Nancy mutters. “I almost gagged when I got to the part where he was moving over her like a tiger. Who says that?
What woman says, ‘He moved over me like a tiger’?”

“I just about gagged through the whole thing,” I say. “She didn’t have to just stay there all those years and be long-suffering
and pitiful. She could have done something.”

“Like what?” asks Belinda. I don’t know like what.

“And it’s an old book,” I say, more to Kelly than anyone else. “Why the hell are we doing such an old book?”

“You wanted to do
David Copperfield
,” Nancy points out, in that way that makes it hard to know if she’s teasing or really being dumb. “It’s what, two hundred
years old? Three hundred?”

“That’s a totally different thing and you know it.”

“Y’all want to move into the den?” says Kelly. “There’s no point in just standing around in the kitchen.”

“What’d you mean she could have done something?” Belinda asks. “Because I was reading along thinking that if some perfect
man just showed up at my door one day…”

“She shouldn’t have had the affair in the first place,” Nancy says. “If she wasn’t happy with her lot afterwards she only
had herself to blame.”

“She wasn’t happy with her lot before she had the affair,” I say.

“I really don’t know what I’d do,” Belinda keeps going, “if all of a sudden I heard a knock and I looked out and saw a truck
in the yard so I opened the door and boom, he was there.”

“Really,” I say. “It’s not like she took some fantastic marriage and ruined it.”

“She was content,” Nancy says.

“Oh wow,” I say. “Content.”

“It’s not such a dirty word,” says Nancy.

“We could sit down,” Kelly says.

“Come on,” I say, “you can’t unexperience something.”

“So what do you think she should have done, Elyse? Please tell us, considering how you’re about a thousand times smarter than
everyone else.”

“Of course, when you think about it,” Belinda says, “what are the chances of a perfect man’s truck breaking down in your front
yard?”

“Let’s move to the den,” Kelly says. “Everybody’s standing here in the kitchen like they think I don’t even have chairs.”

“Oh, I agree with you, Nancy, I agree with you completely. She never should have had an affair and risked losing all that
contentment. While her family was gone to the state fair she should have used the free time to faux glaze her walls…”

The minute it’s out of my mouth I regret it. Nancy and I banter, we banter every month and the other women expect it. It’s
probably why they leave their children at home with bleeding gums and travel out at night to discuss books they haven’t read.
But I’ve never been mean to her before. Nancy goes white, her lips thin and motionless. I glance at Kelly but she doesn’t
meet my eyes. I’ve gone too far this time. And then, quickly and calmly, Nancy unzips her purse, pulls out her keys, and walks
out of the kitchen. A few seconds later we hear the crank of her engine.

“Wait a minute,” says Belinda. “I rode with her.”

I’m shocked, even though I’m not totally sure why. We have been meeting for seven years and no one has ever walked out of
book club.

“She doesn’t like me,” I say.

“Why’d you have to say that?” Kelly asks. “That house is her work of art.”

“She’s never liked me.”

“And you make a big deal about having a job.”

“So what, I throw pots. I make like two cents a year.”

“I’m not talking about money. You can be real snotty about things, Elyse. You act like you’re the big intellectual of the
group and you’re going slumming by just hanging around with the rest of us…”

“That isn’t it,” Belinda says. Belinda puts her words together slowly when she talks, as if she’s remembering a dream. “I
mean, you’re right, Nancy doesn’t like Elyse, but it doesn’t have anything to do with making pots or what we read for book
club. Nancy’s mad because Jeff said he wants to climb her.”

A complete silence falls on the kitchen. The word “climb” hangs in the air like a curse. When Kelly slams the pot back into
the coffeemaker we all jump.

“You’re telling us,” Kelly says to Belinda, “that Nancy actually told you that Jeff actually told her he wants to climb Elyse.”

“Yeah, but I’m wondering if Nancy thinks he’s really saying something worse. Like saying climb her means, you know, something
else.”

“Belinda honey, you’ve got to back up,” says Kelly. “You’re not telling this story in a way that makes any sense.”

Belinda stops, sighs, looks out into space for a moment. “About a month ago we’re all at the pool and it’s getting late, it’s
getting a little bit chilly but I can’t get the kids out and dressed, because everybody’s having too much fun. I’m dried off
and sitting on a lounge chair shivering and Nancy comes up to me and says, ‘Don’t you even have a coverup?’ and I say, ‘No,’
because you know how it is, you get all the stuff for the kids and load it in the car and forget to bring anything for yourself.
So I say no, and she takes off her shirt and wraps it around me. She’s like Jesus, you know, she’s so sweet that way, she’s
patient with me even when I can be kind of ditzy, and that night it was cold and she literally gave me the shirt off her back.
It’s something I’ll always remember.”

“Right,” says Kelly. “Right. She’s great about stuff like that.”

“She’s great about a lot of things,” Belinda says. “I don’t think either one of you know how much she volunteers. It’s not
just the Friendship Trays. She does Habitat and Hospice…”

“She’s a saint,” says Kelly. “What does this have to do with Jeff wanting to climb Elyse?”

“Elyse was there, we all were, everybody was there, and Nancy and I were sitting on the lounge chair with her shirt kind of
half over both of our shoulders and we’re looking across the pool area and we see them talking, Elyse and Jeff on a lounge
chair too. I mean, nothing was wrong with it, everybody was there and they were just talking, or maybe it was more like they
were fighting. It looked like they were having an argument.”

I remember that night.

“And Nancy just sits there looking across the pool and she says that Jeff likes to fight with Elyse. He follows her around
at every party or whatever and gets her in a fight because he likes it, and then Nancy’s voice got kind of funny and she said,
‘He told me he wants to climb her,’ which is a weird thing to say, and later I started thinking that must be why Nancy doesn’t
like Elyse. Although that thing about the faux glazing was pretty mean too.”

Kelly looks at me. “Did you know any of this?”

He does follow me around. I’ve noticed that much. He wants to talk politics, he wants to talk religion, he wants to talk books.

I shake my head. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Why?” says Kelly. “He’s a minister, he’s not dead.”

“Among about a million other reasons, Jeff is Phil’s best friend.”

“So what? I’m not suggesting he’d ever really hit on you. We’re talking about what people think about doing, not what people
actually do.”

I shake my head again. “That’s not what he meant by climbing. You know how Jeff is—he just blurts stuff out and he doesn’t
stop to think how it sounds. All he meant is he likes talking to me. Jeff’s really kind of innocent, you know? He acts tough
and he wears that silly zip-up jacket…”

“Oh yeah, he’s the regular James Dean of the pulpit,” Kelly says, sliding the plate of brownies toward us and refilling our
coffee. “You’re saying that’s fake?”

“The night Belinda was talking about, we were arguing about
The Canterbury Tales
…”

“Come off it, Elyse, nobody goes to the swimming pool and argues about
The Canterbury Tales
.”

“It’s just that Jeff used to be a history major all those years ago and he likes debating obscure stuff. It juices him, and
let’s face it, nobody else around here will argue with him. You all stand back from him like, ‘Whoa, he’s the minister so
his opinion has to matter more,’ and sure, there’s a part of him that gets off on that, but there’s another part of him…”

“A part that wants to climb you,” Kelly says, and her mouth twitches a little.

“A part that wants me to tell him when he’s full of shit.”

Belinda looks up from her brownie. “Oh, I see what you’re saying. He thinks you’re smarter than Nancy.”

The door pops open and Nancy walks back in. We’d been so preoccupied I didn’t even hear the car drive back up. “Sorry,” she
says. “Sorry.”

“No,” I say. “I was completely out of line.” We smile at each other.

“It sucks,” she says. “I was halfway down the block and so pissed off that my mouth had gone dry when I started thinking that
the kids are bathed and they’ve done their homework and Jeff got home early to keep them so, come hell or high water, I’m
out for the night.” She throws her car keys on the counter, drops her purse on the kitchen chair. “Okay, Elyse, tell the truth.
What did you think about the book?” Everybody laughs.

“All right,” says Kelly, “whatever. I’m just glad you’re all staying. I thought I was going to have to drive Belinda home
and eat a plate of cream cheese brownies all by myself. I don’t care what we read, I just want everybody to get along. Next
month we’ll do
David Copperhead
.”

“
Copperfield
.” I can’t seem to help myself.

“Is it sad?” Belinda asks. “Because even though I didn’t get to the end of this one, I could tell it was going to be sad.”

“You can’t expect everything to be some old-fashioned romance,” says Kelly, picking up the plate of brownies and walking into
the den. “It’s supposed to be a realistic treatment of an affair.”

“What do you mean?” Belinda asks, following her. “That things have to be sad to be realistic?”

“What she means,” Nancy says patiently, as patient as a saint, “is that in novels women run off with their lovers. In real
life, women stay.”

I
n my dream, he seems to have the power of flight. Or at least of hovering. He is above me, like a hummingbird. He moves from
one part of my body to another and I can feel the rapid flap of wings against my skin. He lowers his head, over and over,
as if to drink.

I can’t seem to move. I don’t want to move. A phone is in my hand. He drops his head to my breast and I see the wings growing
out from his shoulder blades and the strong taut tendons running from his back into the rippling white feathers and then I
am up, off the ground and trembling beneath him, seemingly held by nothing but his mouth.

The phone rings.

No, it’s the alarm. I hear the sound of Phil’s hand slapping the clock, I hear the bed creak as he rises. I wait until he
is in the bathroom and has the shower going before I get up too. Wrap his robe around me and shuffle into the kitchen.