“What club?”
“The Island Club. You know, Sylvia and Walter’s club; they talked about it at dinner, remember?”
“You said you’d like to take a tour.”
“Well, I took a tour and I signed us up. We’re members now.”
“Milly, how much…” He glanced at the children and stopped himself, forcing a smile. “We should have spoken about it first.”
Milly cut a piece of steak. “How could we”—she smiled right back at him—“if you’re never here?” There was a burning silence between them. No one looked up from their plate. Even Jack seemed to know to keep his focus on smooshing his peas on his fork in front of him. “Anyway, I was thinking we could get back into tennis.”
“We barely ever played tennis,” he said.
“We used to love watching it; maybe we could actually play this time. There’s a young girl who watches the children while the parents are indisposed.” She waited but he said nothing. “Or we could swim.”
“I want to swim,” Debbie chimed in.
Lloyd finished his meal, gulped down his gin, then stood, pulling at the tie around his neck. “I’m going to get changed.”
Later that night after the kids were in bed and Milly had washed the dishes, wiped down the countertops, and finished the last of their cocktails, Lloyd joined her at the kitchen table.
“I wish you hadn’t done that,” he said.
“It’s too late, I’m all done,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron, untying it, and throwing it in the laundry hamper.
“I’m not talking about cleaning up,” he said. “I’m talking about joining that tennis club. I wish you’d asked me first.”
“Lloyd,” she said as calmly as possible, “I shouldn’t have to ask your permission for every little thing I do. I have to make decisions about our household, especially in your absence,” she said, even though she’d asked his permission throughout their entire marriage. He didn’t seem angry—it was disappointment she could hear in his voice, and that was almost worse.
“If you had spoken to me first, I would have told you to wait; I would have told you that we just bought a house and that I just put a deposit down on an apartment near my office.”
“You did what?”
“I’m going to need somewhere to stay on those long days followed by business dinners. They won’t go away just because we don’t live in Hollywood anymore.”
“What’s wrong with a hotel? You didn’t seem to have a problem with staying in a hotel the past several nights.”
“It’s not a long-term solution.”
Milly took the gin from the counter and poured a shot onto the melting ice cubes in her glass.
“Are you saying you want to live apart?”
“No,” he said, then hesitated. She could have sworn she saw a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “Do you?”
“Of course I don’t. But I don’t want to live with someone who’s got one foot out the door either.” She glared at him, waiting for him to tell her she was wrong about this, that he was committed to her, committed to their family, that of course he didn’t have one foot out the door, that he would change, that he would make more of an effort to be home in time for dinner, to be home at all. But instead, he sat down at the table, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples. He looked exhausted, beaten down. He didn’t even have the energy to argue.
“Look,” he said weakly. “Maybe it makes sense if I stay up in Hollywood during the week and come here on the weekends, to spend time with the kids.”
It stung to hear him say that, no mention of her, just a visit for the sake of the kids. Milly felt her chest tighten. It was happening, exactly as she’d feared. Her master plan to tie them back together on this impossibly happy little island was going to be the thing that would tear them apart.
“Maybe, I don’t know, maybe it’s best.” Lloyd looked up at her as if he might begin to cry. He reached for her hand, but she pulled it away sharply and took two steps back, as if she might catch this thing that had infected him, this thing that was going to ruin them if she allowed it to take hold and spread. “I’m not… It’s not that…” He sighed. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“Oh, I do,” Milly said, suddenly very sure of what he was proposing. “I know exactly what you’re saying.” He’d gone and bought himself a love nest away from her, she thought, away from his children and his wife, so he could carry on up there without her. With that gorgeous young actress from his show. She felt sick. “So you think you can just waltz in here on the weekends like a hero and take them to the beach and buildsandcastles and leave me to deal with the upbringing of our children and the cooking and the cleaning and the maintaining of this house and the appeasing of neighbors the rest of the week.” Her lips curled in what she knew must be a hideous expression, but she didn’t care. “Well, I won’t stand for it, Lloyd. I won’t live that kind of life. I can’t.”
The words felt so good hurtling out of her mouth at him with such force, and yet as soon as they left her lips, she regretted it. She’d wanted to lure him back to her, not push him away.
He looked confused, as if he himself hadn’t been the one to bring this all about, as if she were the one who was springing this on him, unraveling their lives single-handedly.
