The Hazards of Sleeping Alone (26 page)

But it did, she thinks now, staring at the ceiling. She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to stop the memories from coming, but even more than twenty years later the night Joe finally snapped is all too vivid. It was a Saturday, early December, and they'd spent the day Christmas tree shopping. They'd splurged on a full-sized tree, an upgrade from the foot-high shrub that had perched on their radiator the year before, bowing under the weight of the few cheap, flaking ornaments Charlotte bought at the drugstore. Although Charlotte was by far the more money-conscious of the two of them, it was she who had pushed for the big tree. She wanted the house to feel fuller, to contain something besides her husband and herself.

As it turned out, the tree trip rewarded both of their most old-fashioned instincts. Joe was pleased with himself for shoving it through the front door in a manly heave, sawing off just enough trunk so that the top grazed the ceiling. Charlotte felt a wifely satisfaction vacuuming up after him-the swoosh of needles up the vacuum bag giving her a slight rush-and retrieving
the box carefully labeled “Our Ornaments” from the basement. Joe boasted pine sap under his nails, stray needles in his hair. Charlotte gingerly threaded cranberries and strung them in the branches. From the outside, everything appeared as it should.

That night in bed, Joe was feeling confident. He didn't grumble, didn't punch the alarm clock. Instead of unbuttoning Charlotte's nightgown, he lifted it up over her head in one swift motion. He slid her underwear down to her heels. He left the bedside lamp blazing, the covers bunched at the foot of the bed. Charlotte saw her thighs glowing white in the harsh lamplight, the faded pink cotton underwear caught around her left ankle like some kind of sad, stretched garter. She tried to subtly shake it off as she watched Joe move on top of her—lips parted, eyes closed, two pine needles stuck in his hair—when suddenly, he opened his eyes and looked into her face. Abruptly, he stopped moving. He leaped up, wrenching himself out from inside her, jumped off the bed, and stood naked in the dull moonlight, furiously grabbing at his clothes.

“I can't do it,” he muttered, throwing on boxer shorts, sweatpants, a Temple T-shirt inside out. “I can't do this anymore.”

Charlotte grabbed for the covers and pulled them to her chin. Her heart was racing. She hadn't seen this side of Joe before. What could her face have looked like to make him so angry? But he didn't explode, didn't say another word, just stormed out of the room and down the stairs.

For what seemed like hours she sat there, staring out the window at the stars. She replayed over and over the physical shock of what had just happened: his being inside her one moment, leaping out of her the next. His words echoed in her head—
I can't do this anymore.
She couldn't bring herself to speculate about what they might mean. It was the middle of the night that
she moved, tentatively. She felt like she'd been ripped open. When she tiptoed to the landing, she saw Joe slumped in front of the TV downstairs, next to the dark silhouette of the Christmas tree. The next morning, he was back in bed beside her. They never spoke of it again.

But after that night, Charlotte knew she had to take action. She felt like a failure, responsible for ruining their sex life with nothing more than a look on her face. Though the things they talked about were pleasant, ordinary—how his classes went, what they should buy his sisters' kids for Christmas—Charlotte was aware of what was going unsaid. For once, she wished she could play his bedtime game, tapping her finger to his temple and saying, “What's going on in there?” Was he deciding whether or not to leave her? And what would she tell people if he did?

Next time, Charlotte decided, she would fix it. Whatever it took.

It was almost two weeks later, a Sunday, and Charlotte had been awake for hours. Joe was sleeping late, sprawled across the bed with the ropy sheets tangled in his legs. When she crept into the room with a basket of laundry, he rolled over and squinted. “Hey,” he said sleepily. “Whatcha doing over there?”

Charlotte paused. She knew this tone, the hint of playfulness. And yet, there was something more than playful this time. Something distinctly unplayful, in fact, like hard enamel behind a soft smile. Joe was taking this as seriously as she was.

Charlotte put the laundry basket down. She took a step toward the bed. She couldn't have been feeling less sexual—she had the washing machine going, Christmas cookies baking, the oven timer would go off in five minutes, the kitchen would smell, the cookies burn—but she put all that aside. Joe touched her knee lightly, traced a finger up her thigh.

She sat on the edge of the bed, which smelled warm and salty, like oversleeping. Joe cupped her face in both hands. The kiss wasn't pleasant—his breath was sour, his whiskers hurt—but it was important. She could feel it. His tongue roamed her mouth, lips were hard on her face. He was kissing her with determination, as if he too had something to prove.

Closing her eyes, Charlotte summoned her courage and started to make soft, moaning noises. She felt Joe draw back in surprise, then move more quickly. As he undressed her, climbed on top of her, weight bearing down on her, Charlotte kept her eyes closed and moaned louder. When she sensed he was close, she opened her eyes and took in the look on his face—it was hopeful, even happy—and so, she pretended. She'd seen it enough times on soap operas and TV movies to know what to do. She let her voice get higher, culminating in a squeal, then let out a long, breathy sigh.

Joe held her so tightly she thought she might break. He was sticky with sweat, but so happy with her she didn't care. “What changed?” he said, his eyes like plates, drinking her in. “What was different this time?”

“I don't know,” she whispered, though she did, of course. What was different was there was too much at stake. What was different was she couldn't bear feeling broken anymore.

Joe held her closer, chin pressed into her neck. “How did it feel?”

“Good,” she said. “Really good.”

She wasn't lying, exactly. It hadn't felt
bad.
And he hadn't specified the word “orgasm.” It was much like everything in their marriage: they made assumptions about each other. They never verified them, but never asked.

Over the next few weeks, Charlotte's act became a pattern.
They were having sex almost daily, sometimes more than daily. Once Joe came home in between his classes and laid her down on the living room floor, right beside the Christmas tree. He called her things he never had before, “sensual” and “sexy.” For Christmas, he gave her lingerie—her first ever—short red satin with lace around the hem. Charlotte tried to push the guilt into the back rooms of her mind. Because here was the thing, she reasoned to herself, as she kept busy wrapping gifts and baking cookies: the only way she would ever relax was if Joe relaxed, and the only way he would relax was to let him
think
she'd relaxed. So really, she was improving her chances of legitimately having an orgasm by pretending to have one. Or a few.

But as the days passed, Charlotte realized she'd blown any chance at ever having a real one. She'd so perfected her own version of the orgasm that it
became
her orgasm; it wasn't a lie anymore, just her own definition. She actually started to wonder if maybe she wasn't faking after all. Maybe she was having them? Maybe this is what they felt like? And if she was unsure, then she wasn't lying, just confused. Misinformed. But deep down, Charlotte knew that if she wasn't sure she'd had an orgasm, she hadn't.

So this is how it happened that Charlotte Warren, for a few brief weeks in her forty-seven years, had a wild, passionate sex life. Passion that was half pretend, but passion nonetheless. It lasted just under a month; never happened before, never happened again. In early January, unbeknownst to Joe, she sat in a thin paper gown in a doctor's office with snow floating lightly past the tiny window, while a nurse squeezed her hand and said, “Congratulations!” And it was the one thing she regretted most about that month: that Emily was conceived under false pretenses.

Now, alone in her kitchen more than two decades later, Charlotte stares at the blank computer screen. The silence is deafening. She begins tapping at the space bar. When she hears the click of Bea's heels approaching L2, it is in the spirit of denial that she goes leaping from her seat.

She peeks behind the kitchen curtain, confirming that Bill's not there, then hurries to the front door, which yields only an inch before jerking to a stop. She forgot to unhook the chain. “Bea?”

“Yes?” Bea looks alarmed. Charlotte doesn't blame her; she must look maniacal, peering through the crack in the door.

“I'm sorry. Sorry to scare you. Hold on. Just a sec.” Charlotte pushes the door shut, cursing herself, and unhooks the chain. She starts to open it, then stops. “Oh.” In the pale light, she can see that Bea's been crying. “I'm sorry, I just heard you coming in, I thought I'd—”

“It's okay,” Bea says quickly, as Charlotte starts to close the door. “You just took me by surprise, that's all.”

Charlotte pauses. As her eyes adjust, she can see Bea's eyes are very red. Her face is shiny and swollen. Charlotte is seized with worry. Could Bea still be upset about Joe last night? Or—worse—could she have overheard Charlotte this morning, denying their friendship on the patio? Her words come back now, pounding firmly in her ears:
She's not my friend. She's just my neighbor. I hardly know her.
Why did she say those things? And right under Bea's window!

Although, Charlotte thinks, it's true: they're really
not
friends. But her tone didn't imply she wished they were; it said she was glad they weren't. Either way, there was no reason for her to emphasize the point. What if Bea now thought Charlotte didn't want to be associated with her? That she looked down on her short skirts? Her loud sex? Her Victoria's Secret catalogs? That
she was reacting to some sort of difference in class? Or economic background? And what if she was? What if she's the kind of person who
thinks
such things?

“I didn't know you stayed up this late,” Bea says.

Charlotte manages to locate her tongue and move it. “I don't.” She swallows. It's difficult making small talk through the clamor in her head. “Not usually, anyway.”

“I thought I was the night owl in the L block,” Bea says, then smiles her kind, lopsided smile. It is then Charlotte realizes Bea didn't overhear anything. She feels her head relax, the heap of nervous questions dissipate instantly, wasted energy, exhaled and sent swirling down the drain.

“Couldn't sleep?” Bea guesses.

“Actually, no,” Charlotte says, pulling herself together. “I mean, no, I couldn't
not
sleep. I haven't even tried. I was just on the computer.” She thinks of her idle tapping on the space bar and adds, “Typing.”

“Really? Are you a writer?”

Charlotte hesitates. “I keep a journal,” she says. It's shameless. She thinks of the two old journal entries she couldn't retrieve now if she wanted to. “I mean, I used to.”

“Figures,” Bea says. “All the Warrens are so artistic.”

The reference makes Charlotte skip a beat. The last time she used the phrase “the Warrens” was on her humble attempt at Baby's First Christmas cards in 1980.

“Makes sense too,” Bea is saying. “I always thought you seemed really quiet down there. I'd always think, what does she do that's so quiet? But you were probably writing.”

Guilt tugs at the back of Charlotte's brain. “I really don't write that often—”

“You're still doing better than me. I wish I kept a journal.”

Charlotte nods sympathetically, hoping that she drops the subject.

“A few of the girls from work do it,” Bea goes on. “I just don't have the discipline. I get really easily distracted. But I wish I did. They say it helps them get things off their chest.”

Charlotte tugs her bathrobe closer. Now not only has her writing turned into a profession, it's beginning to suggest some sort of emotional health. “I've heard that's true,” she says. “I saw something on it once. On
20/20.
”

Bea smiles politely. She probably has no idea what's on television on Friday nights. Charlotte realizes Bea is still wearing her Friendly's uniform, clutching her keys in one hand, mail in the other. “Well, that's really all I wanted,” Charlotte says. “I should let you get on with your night—”

“There's no night to get on with,” Bea interjects, then offers a trying-to-be-indifferent shrug. Her voice trembles slightly as she says, “Bill's sleeping at his place.”

Charlotte looks at Bea. Bea looks at Charlotte. For a moment, it feels as if they are all alone in the world, caught under the faint, unflattering porchlight of Unit L in a shared kinship of manlessness and loneliness and condo living.

“Well. In that case.” Charlotte speaks briskly. “Would you want to sit out on the patio? Just for a minute?”

“I don't want to intrude, especially if you're writing—”

“You're not intruding. And,” Charlotte says firmly, “I'm not writing.” She takes a breath. “To be honest, I could use the company.” As she admits it, tears well up in her eyes. She blinks quickly, tightening her arms across her chest.

If Bea notices the tears, she doesn't let it show. “Sure,” she says. “Sounds great. Let me just go change and I'll meet you out back in a jif.”

Charlotte nods, keeping her lips pursed to conceal their quivering. It's not until she shuts the door that she feels the tears spill over. This is absurd, she thinks, brushing roughly at her eyes. Before she couldn't cry at anything, now she's crying at everything. She locks the door, double-locks it, yanks on the chain.

In the bathroom, Charlotte blows her nose and splashes her cheeks with cool water. Then she examines her face in the mirror, making sure it doesn't look too messy. She mimes conversation: raising her eyebrows, nodding, smiling. Good enough, she thinks, letting her face go soft. Her eyes are a little red, but it shouldn't be noticeable in the dark.