“We’re all dying,” I say cheerfully.
The dean of faculty raises his brows. “That’s grim.”
“Not really.”
“Dawn—” Brian’s face flushes.
“Really, it’s okay to discuss it,” I add, warming to the topic. “Talking about sex doesn’t make you pregnant, and talking about death isn’t going to kill you—”
“No one wants to talk about dying at a faculty meet-and-greet,” Brian grits out.
“Why? You talk about dead cats all the time.”
“Why don’t we get you a drink?”
“I have a full glass.”
“Then why don’t we get you another one?” Brian grabs my arm and tugs me toward the door. He turns at the last minute, addressing Horace. “I am so, so sorry.”
I stumble behind him like a child who knows that the worst of the punishment is yet to come. When we are in a hallway somewhere near the bathroom, Brian faces me. He is so upset that for a moment he can’t even speak. “You knew how much tonight meant to me,” he finally says.
“I talked about my job. Would you prefer that I introduced myself as Brian’s wife?”
“Don’t twist my words.”
“I’mtwistingyourwords?” I say. “I came to a cocktail party. You abandoned me.”
It’s saying this out loud that makes me realize that this isn’t about Gita—and maybe never was. She is the symptom, but not the illness. I had always believed that Brian would be there for me. It’s why I fell in love with him—slowly, second by second, depending on him for strength and comfort until I couldn’t remember what it was like to exist without that. But then came the moment when Brianwasn’tthere for me. And if that was possible, then maybe I’d been lying to myself for years. Maybe our entire relationship was on shaky ground.
You abandoned me,I think again, and I wonder if I’m angry at him for that, or angry at myself for taking him for granted.
There’s a flush, and the bathroom door opens. A woman with a thick rope of seed pearls looks from me to Brian and then edges past us, murmuring an apology.
The room is swimming, and I don’t know if it is because of all the wine I’ve drunk, or because I’m crying. Brian reaches for me, but I am faster. I run through the hallway, past the woman who was using the bathroom, into a kitchen, where a hired chef is filling the trays of four bored servers. I nearly crash into a table with stemware on it, and fly out the door like the Devil is at my heels.
Outside, in the cool, quiet patch of a Cambridge backyard, I walk the perimeter of the fence until I find a latched gate. I let myself out and walk down the street, stopping under the glow of a streetlamp at the corner to wipe my eyes and kick off my heels. Two college kids walk by, arguing, too caught up in their own drama to notice mine.
Love isn’t a perfect match, but an imperfect one. You are rocks in a tumbler. At first you bump, you scrape, you snag. But each time that happens, you smooth each other’s edges, until you wear each other down. And if you are lucky, at the end of all that, you fit.
Two weeks after I moved in with Brian, we went out to dinner at an Olive Garden. He was so excited about the doggy bag he took home—a whole second chicken parmigiana that he was going to eat for lunch the next day. At a stoplight was a homeless man who waved, and without saying a word, Brian rolled down his window and gave him the doggy bag. I thought:He’s sogood.I wanted to be like him. I hoped he would rub off on me.
Even now, sitting on the curb with mascara running down my face and a terrible wish to rewind the past twenty minutes, I cannot imagine what my life would have looked like without Brian in it. I don’t know who would roll his eyes with me at the concept of pineapple on pizza. Who would know which song to turn up on the radio, without me having to ask. Who else could possibly know me well enough to wound me.
The car slows as it approaches, its bright yellow eyes blinding. It pulls to a stop; the door slams. Brian sinks down beside me on the curb. His hand rests beside mine, on the concrete.
I cross my pinkie finger over his.
“I don’t mean to be such a bitch,” I say.
“I’m sorry,” Brian murmurs. “I wish I could take it all back.”
My throat tightens. “Me, too.”
It strikes me that we may not be talking about the same thing.
I rest my head on his shoulder. “When you’re department chair,” I say, “we’re serving better wine.”
—
