“I didn’t expect this,” he said. “Frankly, I never expected you to want to see me again.”
The waiter brought menus and they ordered gravlax and cervelle. Scottie ordered a bottle of Gavi de Gavi white wine.
She couldn’t help but be aware that he was noticing the other tables, watching the diners who were pretending not to be sneaking glances their way.
“Are you sorry you came to lunch?” she asked. “Sorry you’re here, alone with your ex?”
His brows gathered together. “Why should I be sorry? You’re the one who’s taking a chance.”
“Am I? Are you going to kill me over gravlax?”
“Not funny, Babe.”
There was a silence. When finally the food came, Scottie raised his glass in an unspoken toast and then asked her if she didn’t think the wine’s flinty taste perfectly complemented the gravlax.
“Did you?” Babe asked. “Did you try to kill me?”
“Is that what we’re here to discuss?”
“I don’t know what we’re here to discuss. I miss you, Scottie.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you miss me? At all?”
She would have liked him to say that he missed her horribly, but all he said was that after seven years he had gotten used to most of the changes in his life.
She told him it hadn’t been seven years for her. She’d gone to sleep with a life and a family and a husband and she’d woken up the next day to find it all whisked away.
“You’ll adjust,” he said. The look on his face was determined and cold.
The waiter brought the second course, cervelle bubbling in beurre noir with capers and beautiful lemons that looked as though they’d been carefully halved with pinking shears.
The waiter refilled their wineglasses, and when he was out of earshot Babe said, “You couldn’t have wanted to kill me. I couldn’t have misjudged you that badly.”
“Do you really want to discuss this over lunch?” he said.
“When else are we ever going to have a chance?”
“You do realize the attempted murder charge was reduced,” he said.
“Mama says your lawyer used a technicality to get you off.”
“Your mother has never made a secret of her feelings about me. I pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment and nothing else.”
“I don’t understand why you pleaded guilty to anything at all.”
“I couldn’t face another trial. My lawyer said a deal was the best way out of it.”
“I spoke to the detective who investigated. Vincent Cardozo. He’s positive you tried to kill me.”
“Babe, you’re going to meet a great many people and every one of them will have an opinion. I could tell you yes, I tried to kill you, or no, I didn’t, and knowing you you wouldn’t believe me whichever I said. Either you accept the court’s finding, or you decide for yourself. Nothing I can say is going to help you make up your mind. And as far as I’m concerned, the case is closed.”
“It’s not closed for me. I have to know.”
“It’s history now, Babe.”
“It’s my history. My life that went down the tubes. My marriage.”
“You still have your life.”
“Do you love Doria Forbes-Steinman?”
His eyes had a sad, overcast look. “Why are you asking these questions? What’s done is done.”
“Have you stopped loving me?”
“Babe, it’s useless. I stopped loving you long ago, long before the coma.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“You’ve never believed things you didn’t want to hear. Two years before that night I’d stopped wanting you, stopped wanting to sleep with you or even be with you. You must have sensed that.”
“Were you sleeping with other women?”
“Only Doria.”
She was afraid that if she moved the hurt and frustration inside her would explode. “Why did you stop wanting me?”
“It built up over the years. One day I realized I had to have something of my own, something that wasn’t your career or your celebrity or your money.”
“You had me.”
“Hardly. Nothing was going to get you away from that office of yours—and the interviews, and the photography sessions, the showings—the whole nonstop emergency. It was like being married to a surgeon. You were always on call for other people.”
To hear him tell it, the marriage had been years of living in her shadow, of wiping his own desires out of existence. As she listened, she felt a great dull void forming between them. Her voice grew low and weary.
“Were you jealous?” she asked.
“Not even jealous. I felt worthless.”
She realized that she knew nothing about him. Suddenly there was an emptiness inside her so deep that she could almost feel wind blowing through her. “I never knew that. Never had the slightest idea. Do you feel worthless now?”
“No.”
“Doria’s done that for you?”
“I’ve done it for myself.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were unhappy?”
The muscles of his face tensed into a furrowed, faraway look. “I did—and you never heard.”
It made her angry that the blame was being heaped on her, and she felt argument edging into her voice. “I’m not a mind reader. If you’d told me my work was hurting our marriage, I’d have changed.”
“Babe, this isn’t the nineteenth century. Women have careers.”
“They still want marriages.”
“It’s a little late for our marriage.”
She looked at him and wondered if she would ever, ever stop missing him.
“You don’t want me, Babe. You didn’t want me then and you don’t want me now. You’re just upset at losing something that you thought was yours. Believe me, you’ll get used to it and you’ll be glad not to have me moping around.”
“I never accused you of moping.”
“You’re blind. We went into marriage wanting two different things. It was bound to come apart.”
“What was it you wanted?”
“I wanted it to go on the way it was in the beginning. When we were courting—funny word, isn’t it—you adored me. We made love every minute we were alone. And when we were apart we were on the phone ten or twelve times a day. Once you phoned to tell me to look out the window because there was a beautiful storm in the north. In those days I was the center of your life. Everything you did, you wanted to share with me. You can’t imagine how lucky I felt, how important, how loving and how loved. And then, when we married and you had me, the rules of the game changed. We made love on weekends—period—unless we were houseguests, and then we didn’t because the sound might carry through the walls.”
“That was only once, at Cybilla deClairville’s, and you know how old-fashioned she is.”
“It was more than once.”
“Scottie, if it was my fault, I’m sorry.”
“You’re a remarkable woman, Babe. You can go years without seeing there’s a problem, and then when it’s finally pointed out to you, you don’t just try to solve it, you take responsibility for causing it. You’re very much like your mother in that respect. Neither of you seems to recognize that there are some facts in this world that you didn’t create. And a great many you can’t control.”
“Someone caused our problems. They didn’t just happen. Maybe I was too busy and too blind. But if I seemed to take you for granted, I never took you for granted in my heart.”
He sat hunched, staring into space. She felt she was pleading with him, pleading ignobly.
“I loved our time together,” she said. “I loved our conversations over breakfast and the walks in the country and sailboating and traveling. I loved all those meals in our favorite little restaurants. I loved the times we were alone and I miss them.”
“I loved them too.” He was silent. “But I don’t miss them.”
Emptiness swirled around her, and she was sure she would drown in it. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “You’re changing things, you’re rewriting the past. You were happy with me. You do miss me.”