The Never Never Sisters (2 page)

ALTHOUGH IT WAS
only three o’clock in the afternoon when the Jacobys left my office, I was done for
the day. I really wanted Helene and Scott to hire me. I respected their marriage,
yes, but I was also salivating at the thought of an additional Tuesday or Thursday
session.

Dave had had a brutal few months at the office: seven-day workweeks and late nights.
The summer was not unfolding as we’d planned back in February, when we’d optimistically
rented a house in Quogue that we’d seen online. Quogue was not one of the scene-y
Hamptons towns, and the house itself was just what we could afford—modest and far
from the beach, but it looked adorable. Three tiny bedrooms upstairs, a bright yellow
kitchen with big white-knobbed fifties-style appliances and a sweeping tree with a
rope hammock in the front yard. Dave had been too busy with work, so my mom had helped
me narrow down the search. “Charming,” we’d both proclaimed at first sight of the
Quogue cottage. “That’s it!”

Even though my calendar had
Quogue
written across each weekend (as well as the last two weeks in August), we had yet
to see it in person. All our friends were already out there, and Dave had pushed me
to go alone—
someone
should enjoy it, he said—but he hadn’t had a single day off since Memorial Day, and
it would’ve felt disloyal. I didn’t want to resent his work schedule; I wanted to
fill mine, but it was difficult to drum up clients in the summer months on the emptied-out
Upper East Side.

I puzzled over this as I walked the five blocks home from my office, that instead
of using my free time productively, the opposite was happening: the less I worked,
the less I did. I should have been catching up on billing. I should have been focusing
on business development: talks, articles, blogs. By Sixty-eighth Street, I’d resolved
to contact my master’s program administrators to see whether they knew of any volunteer
opportunities. By Seventy-second Street, I realized that I should not be passively
waiting for opportunities; I should create one. How hard could it be to write a grant
proposal? I would single-handedly bring marriage counseling to an underserved neighborhood.
Maybe Mott Haven? By the time I reached my block, Seventy-sixth street, I was imagining
being notified of the award I’d receive for my dedication in having started All Hearts,
which is what I’d name it. Or For All Hearts.

I was picturing myself approaching a podium in that navy sheath I’d seen online when
I pushed open the door to my apartment and was stopped short by the inside chain.
I stepped backward to make sure that I’d gotten off on the right floor, because all
the hallways in my building were identical, but our neighbor Jake Driver’s kindergarten
scrawl,
Welcam
, Scotch-taped on the door across the hall, was confirmation: I had made it home.

“Hello?” I called into the sliver of space between the door and the entryway. I could
only see the wall, but I heard the TV, the sound of it being switched off and, eventually,
the shuffling of feet down the hall and then the pushing closed of the door, a breeze
puffing in my face and the rattling of the chain.

Then the door opened and there, at three twenty in the afternoon—or, as he would call
it on any other day, “lunchtime”—was my husband, Dave, his face streaked with tears.

HE SPOKE FIRST.
“You’re home this early every day?”

I reached out slowly, put my keys on the entry table. “On Tuesdays, yes.”

“Wow. No wonder you have so much time to work out.” He turned and walked away from
me, back into the living room.

I followed him. “Dave?”

He had slumped down on the couch. “What?”

I controlled my stream of questions—why was he home and, more important, acting like
a total asshole?—and sat down next to him. “Did something happen?”

He held up a palm, like a celebrity deflecting paparazzi. “No quack talk, please.”

“No, of course not.”
Quack talk?

“I really don’t want to get into it.”

“Did you get fired?”

“No!”

“You’re crying?”

“I was.”

“Is someone . . . hurt?”

“No.” He slouched down farther. “Not physically. I’m not getting into it.”

I stood up. “Okay.” I could tell that his diffidence was an act; he was watching me,
curious about what I’d do next. If I’d said what I really wanted to say, we would’ve
started fighting, so I worked hard, very hard, to lift my shoulders in a shrug. “Just
tell me when you’re ready to talk.”

What now? I walked back down the entry hall and picked up the bag I’d left in the
corner of the hall. My hands shaking, I unpacked my wallet and sunglasses and placed
them on random shelves in the entry hall closet. How serious could it be if no one
was hurt? Maybe something had happened with one of his clients or there was fallout
from an office power play? Eventually, Dave shuffled back down the hall.

“I was suspended from work,” he said. “For two weeks. They wouldn’t tell me why. I
didn’t do anything wrong, and I don’t want to talk about it yet.”

“Okay.” It may sound callous, but I felt instant relief. Dave’s law firm was a notorious
hotbed of internal politics, and being temporarily ousted for a mysterious nonreason
seemed in line with the other horror stories I’d heard from Duane Covington, like
getting summoned back from your vacation when you were standing in line to board a
plane to Europe, like being bullied into signing over to a more powerful partner the
client you’d worked so hard to land, like pretending you hadn’t billed as much as
you had so that same partner could take credit for your work. A suspension explained
Dave’s reaction (he was a workaholic and would be understandably freaked-out by this)
yet was easily remediable. He didn’t need to stay with Duane Covington; his clients
would follow him anywhere. I waited for Dave to tell me more, but all he did was stand
in the hallway with a spaced-out expression that was disturbingly similar to Scott
Jacoby’s.

“Can we rehash it tomorrow?”

“Of course.” I put down my bag. This was a work issue, separate from us, and the best
I could do was avoid a major fight by stepping back and listening. Everyone craves
being understood. We need it; we work for it; we exhaust our vocabularies to make
sure we’ve properly communicated our viewpoints. But we don’t put in one-eighth of
that effort trying to understand others. I swear it’s physiological, because even
knowing this, I’d felt it myself thirty seconds before—an ember in the pit of my stomach
driving me to push back at Dave’s adolescent sulk.

“I’m sorry for being a dick.”

I waved my hand, magnanimous and a little proud of myself for my measured reactions.
It wasn’t ever easy.

“I’m going to set up an office in the guest room.”

“Yeah?” One of the summer projects on which I was already behind was renovating the
guest room. Ian, our decorator, and I had a big meeting planned for the following
week, and by then I was supposed to have cleared out everything Ian had tagged during
our last meeting. “Creating the canvas,” he’d called it, because Ian was a person
who said such things without irony. “You’re not going to work in the office alcove?”

“That’s not really an office. It’s more like a desk in the kitchen.”

“Oh.”

“I think I’ll need more space.”

“Fair point.” Dave and I were a little out of our league with Ian; we’d have never
been able to command an audience with him if he hadn’t just completed a huge job for
my parents. I was already on thin ice; last month Ian had not at all been happy when
I changed my mind about the window shade fabric. He and I had only just recently reestablished
our delicate rapport—a sensei-protégé dynamic that worked best when Ian spouted wisdom
and rattled off designer names and I listened, wide-eyed, trying to think of good
questions to ask that would prove I’d been paying attention.

I couldn’t imagine how long I’d pay the price if I canceled next week’s meeting. Nor,
I realized, could I explain to Dave that my decorator anxiety meant no home office
for him.

“There’s a lot of crap in here.” Dave had walked to the door of the office. “And what’s
all this tape everywhere?” He ripped off a long piece from a lampshade and held it
up for my inspection.

“It’s for the renovation.” I opened the closet to a solid wall of boxes that we’d
stacked up to the ceiling when we first moved in three years before. Honestly, I’d
forgotten they were there. The mess was apparently the last straw for Dave, who slid
down along the wall until he was sitting in a heap on the floor.

“Don’t worry. I’ll get rid of all of it. I’ll move the boxes to the bedroom and we
can put the renovation piles in here.” Right at my eye level was a box labeled in
my mom’s slanted handwriting:
Paige, Childhood
. Seeing it, I felt a fresh, perhaps overly dramatic, wave of urgency. Like many therapists,
I had a keen awareness of the unhealthy family dynamics that I would not pass down
to the next generation. There would be no secret-filled box for Dave and me.

“Dave,” I said, “we have to air the ugly things.”

He saw me looking at the box and nodded, realizing what I was thinking. “It’s not
like that,” he said. “I’m just tired.”

So I helped him plug in the cords, clear off the desk and shove into the closet anything
that might distract him from his work. After a half hour of item shuffling, we surveyed
the room. “This looks good,” I said, although it didn’t.

“Yeah. Well.” He sat down gingerly, fidgeting around before extending his arms like
a virtuoso pianist. “I should probably get some work done.” And then, before I was
out the door, he started typing, his fingers scrambling in constant motion across
the keyboard as though they were being chased.

WHEN I WOKE
up the next morning, Dave had already gotten out of bed. I found him in the living
room, his posture incongruently rigid for someone watching television on the couch
in boxer shorts. The anchor of the financial news channel—the woman with the last
name that sounded like a Mediterranean island—leaned forward, and Dave did too: “FBI
agents swarmed and arrested thirty-one-year-old Louis Gallent in the parking lot of
his San Francisco hedge fund yesterday on insider trading charges.

“Gallent, who founded the Elmwood Fund last year, is alleged to have received a tip
alerting him to massive imminent layoffs at Lifeblood, Inc. Authorities charge that
he traded on that information to avoid losses of one hundred fifty million dollars.
Gallent, the latest in a string of arrests linked to financier Gerald Rocher, worked
for Rocher until 2012. So far it’s unclear whether authorities have found any direct
link to Rocher, known in some circles as Jellyfish for”—she lowered her eyelids knowingly—“the
toxic reach of his tentacles.”

“One percent scum.” I was trying to be funny. Dave and I frequently growled that expression
when his banker clients got demanding. Because it was morning, though, my voice emerged
in a croak. Dave, startled, pressed the remote and diminished the screen into a small
blip. “So,” I said, clearing my throat, “did he do it?”

Dave’s brow rose high as if he didn’t know whom I was talking about. “Did who do what?”

“What they arrested that guy for—the insider trading thing?”

I hoped Dave would sink against the couch, rub his hands together and provide an impassioned
point/counterpoint analysis on the man’s guilt. Instead, he shrugged and headed for
the other room.

I followed him into the kitchen. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Paige.” He scooped out the coffee beans and put them in a single French
press, not even asking if I wanted any.

“You seem better than yesterday.”

“Sure.” He turned on the kettle, took out the milk and slammed the refrigerator shut.

My eyes narrowed at his back. “So when are you going to fill me in?”

His palm wrapped in a death grip on the refrigerator door, he pivoted toward me. I
braced myself for the fight; by this point I was twitching for it to be honest—mutual
understanding be damned. Then his shoulders sagged. “Now’s fine. Let’s go out.”

“Okay. Bagels and Joe?”

“I’d rather go to the Patty Melt.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” I shrugged. “The Patty Melt.”

The Patty Melt was only three blocks from our apartment, but it was perpetually empty.
The last time we’d eaten there, I’d pulled a hair from my hash browns. Long and red,
it was so obviously from neither of us that we’d both recoiled, pushing our plates
away in silent agreement (I had thought) that convenience aside, we should not let
the restaurant’s perpetual fried onion smell and tasty-sounding name trick us into
even mediocre expectations ever again.

Our waitress, undeterred by the mood of our booth, floated over, her eyes glazed.
Her name tag read
BELIZE
. Ordinarily I would point this out to Dave and he would run with it and I would laugh,
corny as it was.
Ketchup, pelize. When you get a chance, pelize
.

“Can you come back later?” I smiled in a way I hoped transmitted that, as Belize no
doubt sensed, we were going through something here.

Belize ignored me, stopping nibbling on her pen to gaze up at the light fixture.

“Coffee.” Dave pushed his cup forward as though it were the only thing between him
and insanity. “Please.”

I shook my head. “None for me, thanks.”

Belize glided away, hands clasped behind her back like one of Degas’s ballerinas.
Dave concentrated on stacking two forks, intertwining their tines in such a focused
manner that I knew I was going to have to start off the conversation. “What does ‘suspended’
even mean?”

“I get paid; I work. But I can’t go in.”

“Why? What happened?”

“I have no idea.”

“They didn’t give you any explanation at all?”

“Nope.”

Belize twirled over, two coffees in hand, and set them down in front of us. I smiled
at Dave about the extra coffee, but he missed it, focused as he was on stirring milk
into his.

“They said
something
,
right?”

He shrugged listlessly. “Not really. Herb told me that they had to do a little investigation
over the next week and I needed to stay out of the office.”

I frowned at Herb’s name. “That’s who suspended you?”

“I know.” Dave stuck out his lower lip. “It’s bad.”

Dave thought this was bad because Herb was his mentor. I had grimaced, however, because
I was remembering the last time I’d seen Herb. Dave and I had been standing with him
and his wife, Brenda, in a tight little cocktail cluster at Denise Bellavoqua’s retirement
gathering. Egged on by Dave’s many questions, Brenda was providing a detailed report
of the technical difficulties in the Metropolitan Opera’s production of
The Flying Dutchman
.

Dave had appeared genuinely interested in her story. (“Not even remotely,” he’d assured
me in the cab home.) I had been wondering, vaguely, if I could ever be that passionate
about something cultural, when Herb asked how my practice was going, and then the
next thing I knew, we were sectioned off against a wall, his body blocking me from
Brenda’s explanation of how a broken flying wire had resulted in the bass-baritone’s
sprained ankle.

I babbled on nervously about my work, aware of Herb’s glazed eyes locked on my neckline.
In the first pause, he said something gruffly. I didn’t hear what exactly, but it
sounded a lot like
You’re a nice piece
. Or
You got a real nice piece
. Neither phrase seemed particularly appropriate. I hadn’t had the heart to tell Dave
about it.

“Did he seem mad?”

“Not at all. He seemed . . . apologetic. Like he knew it was ridiculous.”

“But you didn’t demand an explanation?”

“Of course I did, but he said it was best not discussed.”

“That’s just weird.”

“I know.”

“Well,” I said, “obviously they want you at the firm. If you leave, so do your clients.
All it takes is one phone call to—”

Dave clutched my arm. “Paige, you cannot tell them about this. Promise me.”

“Why? My parents could fix everything.”

“They’ll make it worse.”

“You have nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“No parents, no friends. No one, Paige.”

“Why?”

“Just promise me.”

“Fine. So then for tonight—”

“What’s tonight?”

I waited for him to remember that my parents, about to leave for Nantucket for the
week, had insisted on a “farewell dinner.”

“Oh god. Dinner.” The farewell dinner was not to be confused with the “welcome back
dinner” and the “bought new socks dinner.” We saw my parents frequently—once every
two weeks or so—but instead of just calling it dinner, my mom liked to imbue the meals
with a greater purpose. She thought it made everything sound more “fun.” Dave didn’t
even smile.

“So don’t go.”

“Then they’ll know.”

“Know what? I can cover for you. I’ll say you don’t feel well.”

He closed his eyes, considering. “Nope.” He shook his head. “Nope. I have to go. I
always go. Don’t I?”

“Yes.”

“I can do this.”

“Dave, it’s not a Navy SEALs mission.”

He dragged his top knuckles over the growth on his cheeks, and I heard the sound of
roughness, like scratching sandpaper. “You go first, meet them there and I’ll come
later. We’ll say . . . We’ll say that I came from the office and was working late.
You think they’ll buy it?”

“I think that only a crazy person wouldn’t.”

This was his cue to say that we were in trouble for sure because my parents were in
fact crazy people, but he didn’t. It should have been a relief, not having to respond
to one of his predictable jokes, but by then I felt a small surge of alarm. Teasing
my parents was low-hanging fruit to Dave, basic nutrition; he should have grabbed
it, swallowed it whole, his eyes scanning for the next crop.

I leaned back in the booth, watching him as he gnawed on his cuticles, one-day-old
stubble spreading over his chin like a rash, and for one horrible, stomach-sinking
moment, I thought,
What if he’s like this forever?

I immediately hated myself. “We could fight it, you know. Get in Herb’s face, demand
an explanation.”

“How?” Based on his drooping eyelids, he didn’t have much enthusiasm for the idea,
but I pressed on.

“Hire a lawyer.”

“That was my first thought too. But then I burn the bridge forever.”

“The bridge to Herb? You still care?”

“I just want it back to normal. To go to my office and have it be like this never
happened.” He pushed his hand across the table toward me and spread his fingers out.
I put my hand on his. “Are you mad?” he asked.

“Mad? Why would I be mad?”

“I don’t know. I wish I had more answers for you.”

“Dave, you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s going to be fine.”

He looked skeptical. “You think?”

“By the end of the summer, this will all probably feel like it happened to someone
else.”

“Thanks.” He swallowed and focused on his empty plate. “I was thinking today. My work
used to be everything and it’s still a big deal, but I now have you. Without that . . .
I’d probably be falling apart.”

Expressing vulnerability made him uncomfortable, I knew, so I just grabbed his hand
tighter. “Hey,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Get back to work.”

“I meant, get
out of here
. Like to Quogue.”

He lowered his eyebrows but didn’t say anything.

“The house?” I palmed my phone. “I’ll cancel my clients if you cancel yours?”

Dave’s mouth yanked up into a forlorn smile, and I knew his answer before he said
anything. “Dave,” I said, trying not to sound accusatory, “you could tell me, no matter
what it was.”

“I know.”

“I mean—” The Patty Melt? The bloodshot, glassy eyes? Both indicated he had something
to hide. “Is this like the last time?”

“I told you.” He met my eyes dead on. “I will never do that again.”

I kept my hand on his back as we walked out of the Patty Melt and stood for a moment
on the sidewalk outside. And then, instead of settling into a hammock with divided-up
newspaper sections and fresh-baked croissants, we went our separate ways—me to work
to wait for my ten fifteen and Dave back to the former guest room to try to convince
his clients that he was calling them from a fifty-floor skyscraper in the middle of
Manhattan.

Dave had lied to me once before.

On a Saturday night a few months before our wedding, we were out with Stan and Irene
Blakesey. Dave and Stan had started together at Duane Covington as first-year associates
and were now the only two left from an original group of twenty-three. They had a
survivors’ bond, Dave had explained to me. It was like being foxhole buddies, you
know, without having actually feared for their lives.

Irene, who read restaurant reviews with a religious zeal, had secured us an eight
o’clock table at some new Italian place with dimmed lights and dark walls and floors.
I could barely see my food, but I didn’t even really care because Irene had us on
our second bottle of something and was starting to dominate the conversation in a
voice already too loud and rising. The four of us went out every few months, so I
knew that by dessert, Irene would be doing a fairly decent impression of Jack Nicholson.

“The gravy’s not right.” Irene was half Italian and called all red sauce “gravy,”
something that had been an initial source of confusion to me. She dipped in the tines
of her fork and held the red sauce up to Dave’s mouth. “See?”

Dave was the least likely of all of us to enjoy being spoon-fed gravy by Irene, but
he opened his mouth gamely, if somewhat stiffly. “Yeah,” he said. “Way off from my
childhood in Tuscany.”