The Carlton Club by Katherine Stone

bad habit. Kathleen wondered how Janet had felt about it, assuming it wasn’t all simply because of Janet.
    “So what should I do?”
    “Pay attention. I don’t need to know what’s bothering you, unless you want to tell me. I just need to know it’s not me.”
    “It’s not you, never you,” he said, kissing her.
    “Then do I have permission to point it out when you’re doing it? In case you don’t know?” So you’ll learn, she thought.
    “Yes! Kathleen. I don’t want to shut you out.”
    “And you won’t snarl?” she asked, kissing him back.
    “I don’t snarl,” he said softly.
    “Oh yes, you do.”
    The next week was better. Mark’s need to retreat into a book or lose himself in dark troublesome thoughts was not less, but he good-humoredly announced his moods and his intentions. Kathleen respected his privacy and struggled with Ulysses as she waited for the mood to pass. It always did. It was always gone before they went to bed.
    “You probably understand Ulysses , don’t you?” she teased one night as she lay beside him. “I didn’t really get it when we studied it at Vassar, although I think I got an A on the paper I wrote about it! I still don’t get it.”
    “It’s one of my favorites. A masterpiece.”
    “Can we pick our way through it sometime? Word by word?”
    “Sure. But not now,” he said, nuzzling her soft round breast.
    “No,” she sighed, “not now.”
    By the third week in February, Kathleen realized that despite the new ground rules, which allowed her not to take his moodiness personally, Mark had too much on his mind. Too many things to resolve: Janet, his failed marriage, whatever it was with his father.
    Mark couldn’t build a new relationship until the residual feelings and emotions about his marriage were resolved. That would take time. And privacy.
    Kathleen couldn’t help him. He wasn’t that kind of man, and she wasn’t that kind of woman.
    They could solve their problems—Mark and Kathleen problems—together, but she didn’t want to help him with old problems. She didn’t want the burden of Mark and Janet problems.
    By the end of February Kathleen made her decision.
    “Betsey and I have decided to take a trip.”
    “Without Jeff? Without the groom-to-be?”
    “He’ll survive.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “Hawaii. The Mauna Kea Hotel on the big island. It’s a favorite. Betsey and I go there every six or eight months—just the two of us—to talk, take stock of our lives and lie in the sun. We’ve been doing it for years.”
    “When do you leave?”
    “Day after tomorrow.”
    “When do you return?”
    “Betsey will be back in a week,” Kathleen said. She hesitated a moment before saying. “And I’ll be back in four months.”
    “Four months!”
    “You’re snarling.”
    “This is not a snarl. We’ve gone beyond snarl. What the hell are you doing, Kathleen?”
    “I’m giving you, in the jargon of the day, space.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you need it.”
    “Really? You know what I need and I don’t?”
    “Don’t get angry, Mark,” Kathleen pleaded. “You’re right. I don’t know what you need. I know what I need and what I think you need.”
    “Which is?”
    “I think you need time to resolve your feelings about your marriage.”
    “The marriage is over. Resolved,” Mark said flatly. He looked into her eyes and repeated gently, “It’s over, Kathleen.”
    “You don’t think about it? About what went wrong?”
    “Yes, of course. But mostly in the context of not making, trying not to make, the same mistakes with you. With us.”
    Oh, Mark, Kathleen thought, I’ll stay.
    But her decision was firm.
    “Besides,” she said lightly, “you need to sow some wild oats.”
    “Sow some wild oats? You make me sound like a sixteen year old—”
    “Cornhusk er .”
    “Kathleen, I’m twenty-seven, chronically tired, completely, deliriously happy to be with you.” Mark paused, then asked. “Do you really want me to sleep