but it’s not like I’m that employable. I mean, I kind of sucked as a lawyer . . . well, I didn’t suck but . . . I brought it up to Cathy a few weeks ago . . .” He shakes his head. “ That went well.”
Lindy’s brow creases into tiny chopsticks, like she’s worried that Owen is about to start crying.
“Oh God, please don’t start crying!”
Owen lifts his head and rolls his eyes up at the night sky. He can’t recollect the last time he was this drunk. Or drunk at all. Catherine isn’t home often enough for them to build a proper social life in Highland Park, and Owen’s not the type to go to dinner parties alone. Sure, he has a few guy friends—husbands of the women he knows from around school (his “work friends” fell by the wayside after a few texts about plans that never materialized)—but these aren’t toss-five-back-and-pour-your-heart-out friendships. They talk about the Cubs and the White Sox and the Bears, and sometimes, when conversation is really waning, the Blackhawks. If the Bulls are on a streak, them too. You don’t have to have three pitchers of Budweiser (and that’s just your own portion) to talk about the Bulls. Also, they all have careers, work talk, client horror stories. Owen just sits there and nods, his shame quietly boiling in his gut, rising up, rearing its head until recently. Now he can no longer ignore it.
“My wife hates me.” He sighs.
“No,” Lindy says.
“She’s such a fucking genius. I mean, the choice was obvious: her or me. Of course it was her. Have you seen her company? She, like, rules the world.”
“I don’t know. You’re smart.” It comes out like a question.
“No,” he slurs. “She’s perfect. Always was. Remember?”
Owen loses himself for a sliver of a minute to that time: how they shared a full-size bed with no complaints of toes poking the other; how they would sneak away during finals week in the library stacks and make out where no one could see them; how, while everyone was planning boozy spring breaks to Mexico or Florida, they went home to her parents’ house, where they did things like look through her elementary-school photo albums and help her dad move his tools around his garage. They were perfect.
He wishes he knew when they took such a strident detour from their happiness. It’s impossible, though, and not just because he’s wasted right now. Rather, because it’s not like there’s one event that imploded them—no infidelity, no betrayal, no awful abuse that he could point to and say, “That’s when we began to sour.” No, their contentment just trickled away, bit by bit, as each of them drifted out on their own separate waves, the water lapping beneath their feet, and they each, separately, pretended not to notice the current pulling them apart.
Lindy takes pity on him.
“Remember how Bea used to say that if you were miserable, you were the only who could change it?”
Owen is surprised to remember this, and from Lindy’s wide-eyed expression, she’s surprised that it came to her too.
“That’s weird,” he says.
“What?”
“You being insightful.”
“I can be insightful!”
“In your music,” he says. “Not in your life.”
“Shut up.”
“Well, anyway, I’m not miserable.”
“And I’m not always a bitch.”
“I’m just drunk,” he rambles over her words. “Really. Catherine basically rules the world. We’re happy. We’re perfect. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
9
ANNIE
Annie lies in bed, her hair fanning across the pillow like a crown, and keeps checking the time on her phone, wondering when Colin is going to get home. Wondering too why he had to chase Lindy down the street rather than stay and reminisce with her . Someone was always chasing Lindy down one street or another, but not Annie. She’d rather lie here like a bug in a rug than dash after Lindy, thank you very much.
Annie wonders what it would take to make Colin chase her down the street. Probably
Lindy’s brow creases into tiny chopsticks, like she’s worried that Owen is about to start crying.
“Oh God, please don’t start crying!”
Owen lifts his head and rolls his eyes up at the night sky. He can’t recollect the last time he was this drunk. Or drunk at all. Catherine isn’t home often enough for them to build a proper social life in Highland Park, and Owen’s not the type to go to dinner parties alone. Sure, he has a few guy friends—husbands of the women he knows from around school (his “work friends” fell by the wayside after a few texts about plans that never materialized)—but these aren’t toss-five-back-and-pour-your-heart-out friendships. They talk about the Cubs and the White Sox and the Bears, and sometimes, when conversation is really waning, the Blackhawks. If the Bulls are on a streak, them too. You don’t have to have three pitchers of Budweiser (and that’s just your own portion) to talk about the Bulls. Also, they all have careers, work talk, client horror stories. Owen just sits there and nods, his shame quietly boiling in his gut, rising up, rearing its head until recently. Now he can no longer ignore it.
“My wife hates me.” He sighs.
“No,” Lindy says.
“She’s such a fucking genius. I mean, the choice was obvious: her or me. Of course it was her. Have you seen her company? She, like, rules the world.”
“I don’t know. You’re smart.” It comes out like a question.
“No,” he slurs. “She’s perfect. Always was. Remember?”
Owen loses himself for a sliver of a minute to that time: how they shared a full-size bed with no complaints of toes poking the other; how they would sneak away during finals week in the library stacks and make out where no one could see them; how, while everyone was planning boozy spring breaks to Mexico or Florida, they went home to her parents’ house, where they did things like look through her elementary-school photo albums and help her dad move his tools around his garage. They were perfect.
He wishes he knew when they took such a strident detour from their happiness. It’s impossible, though, and not just because he’s wasted right now. Rather, because it’s not like there’s one event that imploded them—no infidelity, no betrayal, no awful abuse that he could point to and say, “That’s when we began to sour.” No, their contentment just trickled away, bit by bit, as each of them drifted out on their own separate waves, the water lapping beneath their feet, and they each, separately, pretended not to notice the current pulling them apart.
Lindy takes pity on him.
“Remember how Bea used to say that if you were miserable, you were the only who could change it?”
Owen is surprised to remember this, and from Lindy’s wide-eyed expression, she’s surprised that it came to her too.
“That’s weird,” he says.
“What?”
“You being insightful.”
“I can be insightful!”
“In your music,” he says. “Not in your life.”
“Shut up.”
“Well, anyway, I’m not miserable.”
“And I’m not always a bitch.”
“I’m just drunk,” he rambles over her words. “Really. Catherine basically rules the world. We’re happy. We’re perfect. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
9
ANNIE
Annie lies in bed, her hair fanning across the pillow like a crown, and keeps checking the time on her phone, wondering when Colin is going to get home. Wondering too why he had to chase Lindy down the street rather than stay and reminisce with her . Someone was always chasing Lindy down one street or another, but not Annie. She’d rather lie here like a bug in a rug than dash after Lindy, thank you very much.
Annie wonders what it would take to make Colin chase her down the street. Probably
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