He opens it. "Do we really need French doors?"
She looks over his shoulder; eighteen thousand and some-Elaine has no idea if that's high or low. "You smell," she says, sniffing him.
"Like what?" he asks, nervously.
"Deodorant soap."
"I washed my face in the men's room at work. That's probably what was in the dispenser."
"Hard on sensitive skin," she says.
Paul notices that the hole in the ceiling has been left off the estimate. "You'll have to tell him," he says.
They sit in the kitchen with one light on. Drinking. It is not dark, not day, not night-twilight.
"Just think, last Friday we had people in for dinner, I made lamb, you ate four slices."
"And look at us today," he says. "The dining room table is in pieces at the bottom of the Dumpster."
"Are you starving?" she asks.
"Not yet," he says.
"We don't have any food. There's nothing for me to prepare."
He remembers the Peppermint Patty that he bought for Mrs. Apple at the blind man's stand in Grand Central-it was meant to be a door prize for his tardiness. He forgot to give it to her, and now he hands it over to Elaine. "Get the sensation," he says.
She bites into it.
"I made you a picture," he says, giving her a watercolor of the house, a split view, one scene with the whole family standing in a line out front; the second is the house from the back with the French doors and deck-all fixed.
"Nice," Elaine says. The painting looks like folk art, flattened, unrealistic. She tacks it on the fridge with a magnet.
It is getting darker.
"Are you in the mood to go out?" she asks. "We could go to the supermarket."
"Sure." He is glad to get out of the house. The house was built before either of them was born, and the fact is, they tried to level it, to burn it. He's a little uncomfortable now, home alone-unsupervised. "Let's go."
"I'll drive," she says.
They are on Central Avenue. Elaine passes the Odyssey Diner and says nothing. Who is she: Paul's wife, the boys' mother, Pat's lover? Who is she for herself? What would she like to be doing in a year? Can she talk to Paul about it-can they have a real conversation?
"How was work?"
"I made watercolors all day," Paul says.
"Is that a good thing?" Elaine asks, thinking of the one on the fridge.
"Warburton thought so."
"Good," Elaine says.
"And you?"
"The architect, lunch with Liz, school play-Sammy was great."
"Sammy is great," Paul says.
The supermarket is deserted. It is frigid and bright. Paul squints. Elaine fumbles through her purse for her sunglasses. The long fluorescent tubes blast them with an unearthly white light. Elaine takes a cart, pushing it up and down the rows. The wheels rattle. Paul trails behind. Aisles and aisles, brand names, variations on a theme: Buy me, try me, new and improved, better color, texture, flavor.
Elaine has a long list; she's written down everything they need. Butter, sugar, milk, happiness, comfort, satisfaction.
Milk, OJ, coffee. There is a row for everything. On some aisles she shops well, planning ahead, buying the economy size in anticipation of desire, need to come. On others she takes nothing from the shelves; expiration dates make her anxious, the dairy case upsets her enormously-too much pressure.
She imagines not being married to Paul. Could they live without each other? Without the weight, the pull of one against the other? This is the fabric they are made of-they are a knit, like Siamese twins. What would ending it mean? She can't imagine it over. What is "over"?
"Do you even like me?" she asks Paul in the produce section.
"Oh, Elaine," he says.
"I thought so," she says. "Do you like fruit?" she asks.
He looks at her oddly-Mrs. Apple?
She flashes a few plums in a bag.
"Fine," he says.
The squeaky wheel. The wire basket. She throws things into the cart. What does she want? What does Sammy like? What does Daniel need? What does it take to keep them happy?
Cookies.
Paul goes for the sugar. In aisle 19, the cell phone rings. His pocket rattles like an alarm.
"You're ringing, sir," the stock boy says.
He ignores it.
It rings twice more.
"Ringing," the boy says again, loudly, as if Paul didn't hear him the first time.
Paul hands him the phone. "You answer it."
"Price Slasher, may I help you?" the boy says.
Pause.
"I'm in baked goods, near frozen foods."
Pause.
"No, ma'am, I've never had a Hungry Man Dinner."
Pause.
"Five-seven, blond hair, green eyes, zits. I get off at ten." He hands the phone back to Paul. "Cool, very cool," the kid says, and goes back to pricing angel food cakes.
"Don't mention it."
Elaine is on the other side of the store, searching for spray starch. Pat used it on everything; it kept the fabric stiff.
If the marriage is falling apart, is there anything they can do to stop it? Or should they just let it go, let it completely unravel? Elaine wonders. She wheels past a display of Jell-O letters laid out on Styrofoam boards like chicken parts. An edible alphabet in orange, red, or green. Elaine imagines writing a Jell-O note: Welcome Home. Back at four. Help me. She imagines writing something in Jell-O and wonders how many packs it would take to say something substantial. She throws four into the cart.
"What do you want for dinner?" Elaine asks Paul when he comes back, a pound of sugar in hand.
"Why don't we each have whatever we want, a free-for-all?"
"I'm sick of whole meals," Elaine says. "Let's just have appetizers, all appetizers-gherkins, Stilton, smoked salmon."
"Kippers and cream," Paul says. "A big antipasto. Artichoke hearts. Miniature egg rolls, cheese puffs, pigs in blankets."
"Whatever you want."
"I'm thinking martinis," Paul says.
Elaine puts a jar of jumbo olives into the cart.
"Do we have gin?"
"I hope so," Elaine says.
"I hope Mrs. Hansen didn't drink it all."
"Do you want to run to the liquor store?"
"Maybe." He goes off.
If Elaine and Paul divorce, how will they pay for things? They will be two poor households instead of one. Elaine will have to work-who will hire her? Will she be a saleslady with swollen ankles, folding clothes at Bloomingdale's, or will she become a travel agent and plan other people's exotic adventures, or sell Avon products door-to-door? The career counselor said nothing about working in retail.
She wanders through the bakery department. There are half cakes for sale. There's something depressing about half a cake, the cut frosted over as though no one would notice. A cake isn't something that's supposed to be split; it can be bigger or smaller, but not cut in half.
Paul has her paged. "Elaine. Elaine. Please meet your party at the Customer Courtesy Counter."
She pushes her cart to the front of the store.
"May I help you?" the courtesy lady asks, leaning over the counter as Elaine approaches. "Have you reached your party?"
Paul is there in his raincoat. He has dashed to the liquor store and is holding a paper bag, a bottle of gin and some horrible blue carnations wrapped in cellophane.
"Where were you?" he says. "I went up and down the aisles, I looked for you everywhere. I thought you'd evaporated."
"I'm stuck," Elaine blurts. Neither the courtesy lady nor Paul has any idea what she is saying-is it about the cart, the wheels? "If I don't do something soon, something horrible is going to happen to me." She had no intention of saying any of this here, now, but there it is.
The courtesy lady has politely turned away.
"Me, too," Paul says. "I think that's why I got the tattoo. I thought it would wake me up-like electroshock."
"We're all we have, and we're not enough," she says.