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“Oh, don’t act all wounded. You know I can’t get that drunk from half a cocktail.”
“Why, that’s just the perfect thing to say, my love. I feel so much better after that bit of reassurance.”
“Sigh...come on in.”
“You know,” Thomas breaks into one of his professorial rants the moment we start walking towards our drinks, “most people don’t say the word sigh. Most people just sigh. It’s a breathing thing—not a talking thing.”
“First question: Do you think I’m five? Second question: Do you not enjoy my quirkiness?”
“Do you not enjoy mine?”
There’s no confusion as to which drink is Thomas?
??s when we get to the bar. He eagerly grabs the glass with six olives—I know how my husband likes it.
“Don’t act like you were just playing along, Thomas.” I add a heavy French accent to his name before finally enjoying the first sip of my shaken cocktail.
“Mon cheri, je n'apprécie pas cette fausse déclaration de mon identité.”
Thomas looks so pleased with himself, tipping the rim of the martini glass to his lips.
“Oh, come off it. We both know you grew up in Gramercy Park.”
His smug look fades a little, but that ghost of a smirk is still on his face as he takes his second sip.
By now, I’m supposed to be well into my martini, and I never let myself forget to dim the lights before I spend time with my perpetually sweater-clad spouse in our front room.
But he got home earlier than expected, and I got distracted by those corridor crazies, and now I’m taking in the full, sober show of my Thomas standing so close to me under the full power of the LEDs.
There’s an abrupt twinge of warmth in my chest, right around my heart, and I’m compelled beyond reason to reach over and clean than little piece of fuzz from my husband’s left shoulder.
“Now, we wouldn’t want your sweet little sweater to get all frizzy, would we?” My voice sounds delicate and tender, at least to my ears.
But, apparently, not to Thomas’s. He takes a horrified step backwards and crosses his arms so fast he almost spills a precious drop of martini on the Brazilian walnut flooring.
“Uh-uh…I mean, what do you think you’re doing?”
Taking a step back myself, I suddenly don’t feel like finishing my cocktail.
We’re still young enough, and so is our marriage.
So how did we ever get to this point?
Two
Thomas
Uh-uh.
It doesn’t matter who I’m speaking to, I owe them a better response than that.
Especially the woman I somehow convinced to be my wife. Those half-formed words just flew out of me, ahead of my thoughts—and the way I recoiled like that.
The martini glass makes a definitive clanking sound as I set it down hard, kind of like a judge banging a gavel to regain order. The idea is to demonstrate that I’m upset with myself for the way I just reacted to my wife’s touch.
But she also recoiled, shortly after I did, and my attempt at making a point may be pointless by now.
A strong moment of tenderness overtakes me. Seeing Margarita’s eyes uncomfortably scanning the floorboards, all I want to do is care for her, to take her dejection and discomfort away.
