Results May Vary (9 page)

It was a lot to ask for, but it was also the simplest thing. And it was at the core of everything I had promised, ten years before: Don't give up without a fight. The fact that Adam had broken some of his own promises didn't let me off the hook for mine. Including, for example, that same promise not to fool around with someone else, even out of pure emotional desperation. I wasn't blameless myself.

This couldn't be the end.

I closed my eyes and imagined hugging my husband, the lean structure of his precious body clasped tight in my arms, and I knew the answer then. I was going to have to find a way past this devastation, because I quite simply didn't think I wanted to live without him.

“Okay,” I said, the word drifting away on a rush of pure relief.

“Yes?”

“Yes,” I said. “I will try.”

“Caro,” he said, voice impossibly tender. “Thank holy god. I can't wait to come home and see your face.”

It was like hearing a note played out of tune in a beloved song. “Wait, hang on a second. I'm not ready for you to come home quite yet. I am
really fucking
upset,
Adam. This is not going to get better quickly.”

“Of course it's not. I know that. But why don't we meet? Just for a little while, so you can see I'm still the same person. I'm the person who's always loved you and always will.”

“I'm not coming down there to see you. And I'm not ready to have you here yet.”

“Then meet me in the middle somewhere. I'll figure out a place for us to go. I think it will be good for us.”

The truth was, I knew my refusal to see him had been punishment as much as self-defense. It was time to let it go. “Okay. We'll meet in the middle. And I want to find us a marriage counselor, too. I think having someone to help us talk to each other is important.”

“Whatever you want, sweetheart. You're my girl. We're going to be together forever. We belong to each other. Nothing can change that.”

A fist of anger punched through my goodwill. “Adam. For this to work, you need to understand that what you did
did
change that. You say you belong to me, but you gave yourself to someone else. And it easily could have ended everything, forever. Your words are not aligning with the significance of what you did.”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “You're right.”

As I set the phone on the table a moment later, I sighed. In contrast to his other only-child traits, Adam was not especially attached to being right; he had a tendency to agree with me quite readily during our arguments, just to get me over being upset. But that wasn't good enough this time. Along with everything else we had to recover from, it was clearly going to be an undertaking just to get him to
get it.
It was dawning on me, more clearly than it ever had before: Adam relied so much on the power of his words that sometimes he could use them to glide right between the sticky spider threads of what they truly meant. Another thing to discuss with the counselor, once we found one.

When I stepped out of the office, Ruby was in her spot at the kitchen island. Her beer can froze halfway to her mouth when she saw me. “Caroline, what's that smile about?”

“I just talked to Adam. We're going to work through it.”

Slowly, she lowered the beer. “What about the whole thing with Patrick being in love with him?”

“Adam doesn't love him. I can tell.”

“As long as you're sure,” she said, nudging the beer can along the counter with two fingertips. “I guess that means he's coming home, huh?”

“Not right away,” I said. I looked across the room at the copy of
East of Eden
Adam had left on the side table mid-reread, and I could feel the smile spreading up my face like rising river water. “But yeah. He'll be home before too long.”

You have entered into the most meaningful relationship there is in all human life. It can be whatever you decide to make it.

—Ronald Reagan to his son Michael on the eve of Michael's marriage, June 1971

“Brace yourself. You are going to have a lot to say about this one,” I said.

“Sounds like you're the one who needs bracing,” my friend Farren said, jabbing her plastic ice cream spoon toward me.

We were parked at a table on the broad wooden porch of Williamstown's legendary ice cream shop, Lickety-Split, which I have been known to tell people is the sole reason I moved back to my college town. It was the kind of summer evening with which Massachusetts makes up for February: slanting caramel sunlight and air so rich it was practically a cocktail. Wind purred in the trees behind the building. Farren was up to her tonsils in a swiftly melting mountain of Purple Cow (black raspberry ice cream with white and dark chocolate chips), which she had requested be bedecked with every variety of topping, one after another, until the young clerk looked at her in concern and said, “Ma'am, I don't think there's room for any more.”

“I probably do need bracing,” I said, and mimed buckling my seatbelt.

“All right, dollface, let 'er rip.”

I snorted. Farren was sixty-six years old and talked like a hybrid of a pompadoured Rat Packer and a nineties surfer. I'd met her a few years ago at a small gallery show she'd done in Northampton, and I'd been lobbying ever since to have her exploratory high-texture printmaking artwork featured at the museum. And although I'd been unsuccessful—so far—she still liked hanging out with me. Her rigorously enforced no-bullshit policy made her one of my very favorite people; it was what I needed right now.

“Okay. So, Adam and I have been having some trouble.”

She dragged an empty chair closer and propped her small feet in their paint-spattered Crocs on it, unconcerned by the disapproving stare of the woman whose table she stole it from. The look Farren herself gave me could only be described as side-eye. “Thought you said this was going to surprise me.”

“Farren!”

“You're married,” she said, swirling the spoon with a flourish. “Married people have trouble. It's not exactly groundbreaking, doll.”

“I guess not,” I said, taken aback. Admittedly, I had expected a little more in the way of surprise. “But we're working on things. I wondered if you could give me the name of that marriage counselor in Pittsfield that Mike and Teri were seeing last year—it seemed like it was helpful.”

“Not so much,” muttered Farren. “He moved out a few weeks ago.”

“What? No!” I yelped, with perhaps a little too much agitation, considering I'd met Farren's son all of once in my life. But he and his wife were a couple I knew who'd gone through problems and come out the other side. “What happened? I thought things had gotten better.”

“She's an alcoholic,” said Farren grimly. “Counseling won't do shit for that if there's no rehab. Might as well treat cancer with cold meds.”

“Ugh, damn,” I said. “That totally sucks. What's Mike going to do?”

“He moved to Northampton and got a better job,” said Farren, with a satisfied lick on her spoon. “And Tommy's in a better school. Mike's already working on me about moving down there with them, and who knows. Maybe I will. Sure can't afford the old house up here for too much longer.”

“Oh no, really?”

“Yesiree, Bobbie. Unless my bank account is hiding something from me.”

I felt a reflexive pinch of fear. Funny how it never quite went away. “They never do hide anything good,” I said. “Well, would you still give me the counselor's info, though? I'm hoping she'll be able to help. We've got no substance problems with this one. Just garden-variety communication problems.”
And a not-so-garden-variety affair.

“Of course, doll. You have the right idea. Divorce is hell. You've got to hang in there till there's nothing left to hang from.”

I blinked away the image of myself dangling stretch-armed from a sagging branch like the ubiquitous “hang in there” kitten meme. “I have to tell you, that's not quite what I expected you to say.”

“Because my ex is a cheating sack of shit?”

The woman with the stolen chair huffed audibly and scooted closer to her twelve-years-old-looking son, who she seemed to sincerely believe was unfamiliar with that sort of language. This is one of the hilarious things about Farren: Because she looks essentially like a human Muppet—dewy pink skin, halo of fluffy gray curls, and a beaming smile packed with teeth—her sweet-old-lady appearance lets her skate under people's radars until she gets caught being naughty.

“Yes, and because when he left, you got together with the love of your life.”

“Did your Adam fool around on you?” said Farren more quietly, excavating a large chunk of chocolate from her ice cream.

“He did,” I said, and Farren shook her head.

“You can get over that,” she said, mouth full of chocolate. “Lots of folks do. Frankly if there's even a chance you can, you should.”

“I'm trying to. But I was prepared for you to tell me to kick the son of a bitch in the ass so hard his balls would bounce. That's why I buckled up,” I said, miming the seatbelt again.

“Nah. The high road is a lonely place, girl. Unless your man is one of those mean ones that like to put their woman down and make her feel small—”

“He isn't,” I said.

“No, he never struck me that way. But unless somebody's dealing with an ugly, hurtful kind of marriage like that, I wouldn't wish a divorce on my meanest enemy. It flips you upside down, rips you apart, and pulls out all your innards. You're lucky to come out of it feeling half the person you were before.”

“So after all that, do you wish you'd stayed?”

“Nope,” she said. “Worst year of my life, but it was worth it. Especially 'cause Aaron finally found his cojones and hit on me. But Bill and I, we were just plain donkey poo together.”

“Donkey poo?” I laughed.

She shrugged, grinning. “I don't know. Seemed kind of small and messy. So is that the end of your big news? Pretty boring stuff, sweet cheeks. Thought you were going to tell me something exciting about that fine redheaded piece of tail you keep around. Unless that's part of the trouble?” she added, perking up.

“Oh my
god,
Farren.” I blushed hot and hoped she would write it off to the missishness she liked to tease me for. “You can't call yourself a feminist and then turn around and objectify a man like that.”

“Honey, that boy was born to be objectified. I promise you he likes it. He's lucky I didn't objectify his ass last time I saw him,” she said, pinching her fingers like crab claws. “But let's back up a sec, because
you
just dodged my question.”

“Um,” I mumbled, cheeks flaming.

“Oh sweet baby Jesus, just tell me,” said Farren. “I'm dying here.”

“I may have kissed him a little bit,” I muttered, and shoved Purple Cow Mountain toward her as an attempted distraction. “Eat your ice cream.”

“A little bit?”
she shouted. “That's not a man you kiss a little bit, that's a man you climb! And then you plant your goddamn flag, missy, you
plant your flag
!”

“Farren,” I groaned, sinking lower in my chair as if it could render me invisible. “It was stupid. It was messed up, and it was a mistake. I know,” I continued, after a glance at her mutinous expression. “I know it's basically a yellow card against the entire female species, but I didn't have the right to kiss him in the first place. My husband cheating on me doesn't give me a free pass to cheat back. It was an awful thing to do. And Jonathan stopped it first, anyway.”

“Principles,” said Farren serenely. “I like that in a man.”

Principles, and plain old common sense: two things I had briefly abandoned on that warm, noisy rooftop with Jonathan. “So, are you happy now?”

“Very,” she purred. “A little less interested in your future with what's-his-nuts, though. I need some vicarious excitement.”

“Who says it has to be vicarious?” I said, spooning a mouthful of my own neglected ice cream. “Jonathan's single and looking. I bet he'd appreciate a mature woman with a creative soul and a good head on her shoulders.”

“Don't tempt me,” she said, and crab-pinched her fingers.

Firmly shoving my marriage drama onto the back burner, I resolved to tackle Diana Ramirez before Neil from Development's friendly smiles began showing signs of impatience. The problem was, I'd lived on the same hall of my freshman dorm as Diana, but I'd somehow stumbled onto her nerves during our First Days orientation, and couldn't seem to step off them the rest of the year. I was never able to identify what I'd done wrong; my entire existence simply seemed to disappoint her. Not in the kind of way whose cruelty warrants a “What the hell is your problem?” conversation; it was merely a coolness that refused to melt around the edges—even under the potentially warming effect of brushing our teeth side by side while our hallmate, a strapping pink-cheeked dude from a corn farm in Nebraska, belted ABBA's “Take a Chance on Me” in the shower. Every time I saw her, she met my eyes with this expression of faintly disgusted surprise: “Oh, that's right,
you
still live here.” It's not like I was some gorgeous and obnoxiously popular chick, either; I was a smart, quiet girl who hung out in the art history building, while she was a smart, quiet girl who hung out in the computer science building. I had wanted to like her. But she hadn't wanted it back.

So, needless to say, I didn't have her contact info. But someone I knew had to know her and be willing to give me her email. She wasn't a head of state, for god's sake.

I started with Jonathan. “Didn't you sleep with her roommate?”

“I think you think I've slept with a lot more people than I actually have.”

“Nope, I think I've got a pretty accurate idea.”

“Well even if I had, why would I have Diana's email address? It was fifteen years ago.”

“So you did sleep with the roommate.”

He paused for an instant. “I—well, yeah.”

“You're useless to me, Blaster.”

“Try Ajay Shah. That guy knows everyone.”

It was true. Ajay had sealed his fate as class president for infinity by spending his first two days on campus standing in the middle of the freshman quad, introducing himself to literally everyone he saw.

“Hey, what are you doing for Labor Day, by the way?” said Jonathan.

Strangely, I hadn't even thought about it. Almost three weeks of separation from Adam had been more than enough to bring home the fact that, aside from Farren, all the friends I had in Williamstown were
our
friends—other married or cohabiting couples we had met through my work or the theater festival. I hadn't confided in any of them about the state of matters in the Hammond household; the thought of being the object of other people's pity made me want to vomit.

“I don't know. Adam wants to come up, but I'm not ready yet. Maybe Ruby and I'll get our act together and try to grill something.” Which, I realized as soon as I said it, was both metaphorically
and
literally serving up a big juicy hunk of meat as bait.

“Well, if you want your grilling done respectably, I can come up. My boss gave me the Saturday and Sunday off—most of the city's in the Hamptons.”

I felt a rush of pure pleasure at the prospect of Jonathan's company. “Oh—yeah! Come up!”

“Will do,” he said, sounding as happy as I felt.

“By the way,” I said, “I guess it has to be said….You won't have to bar your bedroom door. No more shenanigans from me. Adam and I are making progress. I'm seeing him this weekend to talk. And we have an appointment with a counselor in the middle of September.”

“I'm so happy to hear that, darlin',” he said. “What you guys have is worth keeping. And it will be nice to cook in your kitchen one last time before he finds out I kissed you and bans me from a ten-mile radius of the place.”

“I'm so sorry about that. The shenanigans. I feel awful, I—”

“Care. Honey. Don't sweat it. It's not as if I didn't enjoy it, you know?”

I did know, actually. It was exactly the fact that both of us had enjoyed it that set this confused discomfort prickling across my skin.

Though I was anticipating a struggle, class president Ajay Shah coughed up Diana's email address without so much as a squeak. Pretending I had no reason to suspect she disliked me, I wrote a warm, professional message to Diana, reintroducing myself and briefly outlining why I wanted to speak with her. Neil had said to try to create a personal connection: What was the most personal thing she and I had in common?

P.S.,
I wrote,
it would be great to hear from you. Don't think we've spoken since the days when Jason Bratton's dirty Huskers jersey used to stink up the bathroom.

Two days later, she wrote me back.
Pretty sure that jersey got dirty enough to stand up under its own weight. Nice to hear from you. Let's chat tomorrow if that works.

Holy crap! She sounded friendly. And far from resenting my intrusion on her time, she actually seemed…interested. Maybe this wasn't going to be the fool's errand I'd been convinced it would be.

I sauntered into Neil's office the next morning and sat down with elaborate decorousness in one of his guest chairs, smoothing my skirt neatly over my thighs. I clasped my palms around one knee and waited for him to finish his call.

After a moment, he tucked the phone receiver against his jaw and rotated to face me. “What's up?” he mouthed.