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"What do you envy about me?"
"You and Taye. Taye really."
"Why’s that, Sandra?"
"You two seem so happy together. I mean, you guys just took a romantic trip to Puerto Rico."
I smiled, thinking, If you only knew the truth of how our relationship was going, you wouldn’t say that. "I love my baby. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me," I lied.
"Me and Ike don’t do anything together."
"Y’all don’t watch television together?"
"When we watch TV, yeah, we’re in the same room, but we’re not together. He sits in his chair, I sit on the couch, and that’s that. It’s like we’re strangers sometimes."
"You don’t think he’s fooling around on you, do you?"
"No. Well, at least I don’t think so. I mean, when would he have time? I could set a clock by him. He leaves the house the same time every morning, gets home the same time every night. He never goes anywhere. He doesn’t have anybody he hangs out with. No one ever calls him, except his family from Texas. I try to get him to go out after work with the guys he works with, but he won’t go."
"Y’all don’t go anywhere together? Have a drink, catch a flick, nothing? Go to a restaurant; nothing like that?"
"If I don’t cook, we don’t eat."
"Damn, that’s whack."
"Fucked up is what it is," Sandra said, slumping lower in her chair.
I never knew it was like that. I felt bad for her. Sandra was one of the nicest people I knew. Everybody liked her. She was always so alive and friendly. I never would have thought that she was that unhappy. Or was she? "How does that make you feel?" I asked like a psychologist.
"You want me to go lay down on the couch?" Sandra said, as she started to get up.
"Sit down, girl; it ain’t that type a party."
"I was about to say . . . since you’re trying to psychoanalyze me." We both laughed. Then Sandra got up and walked toward the window. "I tried talking to him about it. But he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong. He says, ‘It ain’t like we argue.’ And he’s right. We don’t argue. But sometimes I wish we did. Maybe then he’d show me some passion."
"Hey," I said, pointing a cautioning finger. "Be careful what you wish for."
"You’re right. I sure don’t wanna go there. But a little emotion would be nice. A little emotion directed at me would be better. Just a little bit of passion, maybe. What am I saying?—A whole lot of passion. I don’t think that’s a whole lot for a wife to ask of her husband."
"No, it’s not," I agreed, thinking that it wouldn’t be a whole lot for a husband to ask of his wife.
"See, passion ain’t no problem for y’all, is it?"
"Nope. I think we got that part covered," I lied again. But I was thinking about lying on my back and opening my eyes to the site of Avonte riding me.
"So when you get home, you’re gonna wake Taye up and go for it. Ain’t you?"
"Yes," I lied again, and wondered why I was keeping up this front.
There would be nothing going on in our bedroom that night, or any other night. But it wasn’t always like that. I remembered when we first got together. It was like we felt each other sometimes. One minute we’ll be talking and we’ll just look at each other. The next thing you know, we’re naked and into it. And it didn’t matter where we were or what was going on around us. We’d do it anywhere.
But it wasn’t just our sex life. It was much more than that. We shared everything. We’d talk all the time. We used to talk to each other at least ten times a day, mostly about nothing. I’d think about her and I’d just call, or something would happen to her at work, and she’d just have to tell me all about it.
"I called Ike when you said we had to work late. You know what he said?" Sandra said, snapping me back to reality.
"I’m afraid to ask."
"Did you cook? That’s all he had to say. Not what time will you be home? Not I’ll miss you. Not I’ll wait up for you. Just wanted to know about some fuckin’ food. Like it didn’t matter whether I was there or not. You’re going home to a woman who loves you, and to get fucked. But me, NOT! No; not me. I might as well sleep on the couch. We barely have sex anymore, and when we do—after I beg, I should say—it’s so mechanical."
