The One That I Want (14 page)

“Because I saw you,” I snap without thinking.

“Because you what?” She tails behind me.

“What?” I realize my mistake immediately. “No, what? Of course I didn’t
see
you! I mean that I
see
you now, and you’re fine! Ha! Yes, I mean, look at you, you’re great!” I stutter over that last part, and she cocks an eyebrow, but then I plow open Susie’s front door, nearly tripping over Kyle, who is nude but for a Superman cape. Christopher flings open the closet door, in nothing but tighty-whities. He wields a light saber and screams, “Back, you enemies, back or you’re dead meat!”

Luanne and I both shriek out of true surprise, which brings Susanna running into the entryway, her hands matted with flour, her apron covered with what appears to be raw cupcake batter, and Luanne, I think—or hope—forgets about my near giveaway.

“What are you doing here?” she says, then says to the boys, “Take this outside.”

“They’re naked,” I say.

“Have you felt how hot it is?” she answers. “Besides, less laundry.”

Luanne nods like she understands, so I nod too, as if sending naked boys into the backyard to play is a reasonable accommodation for another sweltering day, but given that I have neither a child nor any real clue as to when childhood nudity becomes pervy, I follow Susie into the kitchen and say nothing.

“What’s up?” she says, her back toward us as Luanne pulls out a kitchen chair, its legs scraping on the tile floor, and pours an ungodly amount of syrup into the Styrofoam container with her lukewarm pancakes.

I toss it out, an angry almost-whisper, before I can stop myself. “Are you having an affair?”

“What? What are you talking about?” She spins around, a scraper in her hand, sending tiny smatterings of batter across her cabinets. I see Luanne watching us, her chewing at a standstill.

“I need to know … are you having an affair?”

“Are you
f-u-c-k-i-n-g
crazy?” she says, spelling out the word like moms of young kids do, turning back toward her mixer. “Do I look like someone who has either the time or the energy to have an affair?”

I cast a glance over to Luanne, who raises her forehead as if to say,
Good point
, and then shoves another forkful in her mouth, muttering, “Sorry, starving. The hormones.”

I retrace the vision, retrace what I saw and what I’m certain is true—or is going to be true in October. Something sticks.

“So, what is it?” I ask quietly. “Are you leaving Austin?”

She stops stirring the batter, her shoulders sagging, her breath expanding outside of her.

“I am,” she says, setting down the scraper and shuffling to the table, where she drops next to Luanne, clouds of flour billowing around her lap.

“You can’t leave Austin!” I say.

“Of course I can leave Austin,” she answers. “And besides, how much of a choice did he give me?”

“People get beyond this stuff all the time!” I cry, as if this is my marriage, though part of me feels like it might be.

“Tilly, look, I don’t want to. I don’t want to be in that marriage where I’ve gotten beyond stuff like this. He cheated. I can’t get beyond that.”

I flop next to Luanne at the table. “No, I know. You’re right.” I sigh. “You should have said something, though.”

“I only just decided. This morning.” She shoots me a puzzled look. “How did you know?”

“I’m your best friend,” I hiccup, careful now after Luanne. “I guess I can just sense these things.”

“You’re weird.” She shrugs.

“I know.” I nod, wishing that I could confess more, everything. But I can’t. Not until I’ve figured out what this all adds up to, what the future has planned for me, and most important, how on earth I can possibly slam on the brakes to stop it.

N
olan Green’s truck has barely deposited Tyler back at the house when I find him ensconced in the upstairs closet. Darcy is off rehearsing with Dante for their big debut—an e-mail went out, got forwarded, then reforwarded, and now, it feels like at least half the town will be in attendance next Wednesday—and my dad has actually left the house with Abe Collins, his assistant manager, who swung by to take him out for fifteen-dollar-steak night at Genuine Steaks.

“Just leave your laundry in the bathroom,” I say to Ty, his sinewy arms outstretched for the top shelf. “I’ll do it tomorrow.” I try not to think of my vision of the U-Haul and its implications, but it’s there, stubborn, mocking me.
Screw you, you stupid U-Haul! I am not going down without a friggin’ fight!

He tugs down his duffel bag. “I already threw it in. Thanks, though.” He squeezes by me, tossing the empty bag on our bed, moving to the bureau to take out whatever clean undershirts remain.

“What are you doing?” I stand in the door frame.

“Packing,” he says without glancing toward me. “I told you. Jamie called. Recruiting, they’re flying me in tomorrow.”

“But you just got back!” I exclaim, my pulse throbbing a little too wildly at the idea of
packing
, of all that it conjures up. Even though I have confirmed with Susanna that what I saw, what I am
seeing
, is as real as anything, still, what if I can stop it, what if I can undo what has yet to be written? And besides, I think,
He did not call you! You called him, you little liar! You called him!

He looks at me now and shrugs. “It’s when they needed me. I guess they have a star freshman shortstop who needs some coaching. You know how it goes. I’ll only be gone a week.”

“You know damn well that you’ll be gone longer than a week!” I shout, him surprised at my decibel level, me surprised that I haven’t ripped his face off at his lies.

He sighs and plunks on the bed, reminding me of a flaccid noodle.

“I just … I just want to test it out, see what kind of offer they can make me. That’s all.”

“That’s all? That’s not all. That’s a lot!” I hear myself and wish I didn’t sound so hysterical. The pre–Ashley Simmons Tilly would never have gotten this hysterical! But that fury is inside of me—
Out, damned spot, out
—and it isn’t coming undone. “That’s a huge frigging lot. And we’re not moving, for God’s sake! We had an agreement! We had a pact!”

“Well, I mean, can’t things change?” he says simply, as though asking his wife to abandon the only place she’s ever called home is like swapping in a new pair of snow boots. “I mean, I know that we agreed …”

“I know that you know that we agreed!”

“Can you stop? Please?” he says, tired, worn out, fractured. “I know that this isn’t something we talked about, but he called, and it seemed opportune.”

He didn’t call, you little weasel
. My fingertips shake. My jaw clenches to a lock. I stare at him, and yet he refuses to engage, refuses
to spill the truth. Refuses, most important, to acknowledge that he is breaking our agreement to build this life together here, in Westlake, because this is the life that I need. This is the life that soothed me. That
soothes
me still. Why can’t he see that? Why can’t he understand what he is taking from me? I clench my palms into furious balls.

“What is so opportune about making me move to Seattle?” I think of Austin and those boxes in the rain, and yes, I am sure of it, I am going to stop him from going if it kills me, if I have to fall on my knees and draw blood. His blood, my blood, who the hell knows. Someone’s blood. “Because our life is here! Everything we love is here! We are starting a family, for God’s sake!” I still haven’t told him that I’m not pregnant again this month.

“Your life is here,” he says quietly.

“My life
is
your life,” I cry. But he pales when I say this, the color sliding from his cheeks, his chest visibly tight. He sighs and rubs his hands over his face, then slinks toward the bathroom, the door closing firmly behind him, the lock latch spinning, clicking into place.

Tyler and I never fight anymore. We used to, sure, in our early days, but now it’s so much easier not to. Tyler’s fighting technique back then was the silent treatment, while mine was to glide by our hiccup without even so much as an acknowledgment—
If I pretend not to see it, maybe it won’t exist in the first place
. Or something like that. I thought it added up to something sort of like that. But suddenly, now, it feels like I shifted the rules of our agreement, of our détente, and I stand alone in our room, unsure of what to do now, now that I no longer have that ability to strap on the blinders that ironically helped us navigate our way.

Finally, the door unlatches. Ty emerges, walks silently toward me, and pulls me next to him on the bed.

“Till, here’s the thing,” he says, looking straight into my eyes, resolved. “I’m thirty-two.”

“I know,” I say. “Like I don’t know that you’re thirty-two.”

“I’m thirty-two and I’ve been here nearly all my life … and I cannot wake up another morning and know that this is all there is for me.”

“What are you talking about? We’re trying to have a baby! That’s what there is for you.” My rage is abating like a punctured balloon.

“That’s not it. Listen to me.” He shakes his head. “I was supposed to be something great. I was supposed to set the world on fire. And … and … and now, I sell mountain bikes to people who can’t afford them and who will never use them anyway. That is what I do: sell bathing suits to mothers for their aqua-aerobics. Do you think this is how I wanted things to go? Can’t you see that this isn’t how I wanted things to go? Can’t you give me that?”

“But we have a great life,” I say, pleading now. “I love our life.”

“I know.” He nods. “I know you do.”

“Isn’t that enough?” Nothing is making sense; his words are annihilating everything.
How is that not enough? It is more than enough for me! Why can’t I stop things?
Anger has ceded ground to panic, and the room feels too close, claustrophobic, the air around me shoving its way down my throat.

“The thing is, Till—” He inhales sharply. “The thing is, is that I don’t know who I am without you. Without this town.”

So what?
I think, but instead I say, “Don’t be ridiculous! You’re the same guy I fell in love with at sixteen. The same guy
everyone
here loves.”

“But that’s just it,” he answers, and two real tears roll down from each eye, like sperm swimming free. “I don’t want to be that same guy.” He pauses. “Don’t you ever feel this way? Don’t you ever feel the tiniest bit confined?”

I stare at him.
Who are you?

“No,” I say firmly. “I don’t. What is there to feel confined about? Why would I need to know who I am without you? I know who I am
with
you, and that’s what matters.”

“I think other things matter too. I think it
matters
that we’re able to define ourselves outside of our marriage.” He shrugs. “I … I just can’t do it anymore.”

“Do what? Our marriage?” The anxiety is spinning freely, cascading, a crescendo.
What is happening here? Just what in the hell is going on? I wake up one morning and my father is a drunk and my husband wants us to move and my best friend is making out with a man she’s not married to, and I can suddenly see this without actually seeing it!
Ashley Simmons’ voice replays itself, an echo in my inner ear.
“A gift of clarity, Tilly. It’s what I always thought you needed.” Screw you, Ashley Simmons, screw you and your ridiculous prophecies!

“No, no,
no,”
he says. His eyes rise to mine, then drop all over again. “Well, I don’t know. It’s this, just this. All of this!” He flaps his arms in a wild circle. “This life, this town, this same old shit, different day. We’ve
done
this before, been through all of this before. Your dad turning up drunk, your sister crashing on our couch.” He stops to pull together the thread of his thought. “I need some air, you know.” He looks at me now, fully. “It’s only a week. It’s just a scouting trip. We’ll figure something else out. Something where we’re both happy. Where we both feel satisfied.”

I want to respond. I want to say,
How the hell did I not know you weren’t satisfied? Where is this coming from? What the fuck is wrong with you?
But I find that my words are tucked somewhere inside, frozen in the back of my throat, unable to free themselves to ask what needs to be asked. Back to the old Tilly, who thought if she never confronted anything, maybe she’d never have to fight it in the first place.

We sit in the unnerving silence, and I hear the tick-tick-tick of
the hall grandfather clock, until finally Tyler says, “Tilly, I love you. But do you ever stop to think about whether you’re happy? Not just on the surface, but deep down, are you really,
really
happy? Whether this is really the life that you want?”

“Yes,” I answer quickly, rising to leave before he can see me shatter. “Of course this is the life that I want!”

I rush into the hallway bathroom and plop on the toilet, coiling into myself like a fetus. Because his question stings me in a way I didn’t even realize I was capable of being stung. Because happiness isn’t a goal, isn’t something I strive for. It simply is. My life is happiness; I choose for my life to be happiness, whatever that means, however that is defined. If someone were to ask me if I were happy, I would answer without hesitation,
yes
. That flicker of a moment of consideration is one flicker too many, a frozen beat that doesn’t need to be mulled: why bother?
This is my life. This is happiness
. The two are one and the same. This, since I was sixteen and my mother died, is what I did, how I functioned, how I constructed everything around me; as sure as I breathed, I was happy. This is the life that I want, the one that I want. How is it that my husband doesn’t know that?

I tread water through the auditions on Wednesday.
Yes
, I nod at Susanna,
Wally Lambert was excellent if a little bitchy about Darcy’s piano playing, which he deemed too “three-quarter time, which threw me off the second chorus,”
and
Yes, it goes without saying that CJ will play Sandra Dee
. But Susie seems to be enjoying herself well enough, and for this, I’m glad. I ask her again to reconsider forgiving Austin, but she shakes her head no and yells,
“Next!”
which I know she means for the next auditioner but also uses it as a capper on her life.
Okay
, I nod,
point taken
. I’m too broken to argue.