Getting to Happy - Rilegato

1
The Deep End

"Are you sure you don't want to come to Vegas with me?" my husband asks for the second time this morning. I don't want to go, for two reasons. First of all, it's not like he's inviting me for a hot and heavy weekend where I'll get to wear something snazzy and we'll see a show and casino-hop and stay up late and make love and sleep in and order room service. Not even close. It's another exciting trade show. Isaac builds decks, fences, gazebos and pergolas, and as of a few months ago, playhouses. He's in love with wood. Can I help it if I don't get worked up hearing about galvanized nails or color-clad chain links and breakthroughs in screws and joists?

I don't bother answering him because he's known for weeks I'm under a deadline for a story I'm doing on the rise in teenage pregnancy in Arizona—Phoenix in particular—which is the other reason I can't go. I've been sitting in front of my laptop in my pajamas for the past forty minutes waiting for him to leave so I'll finally have three and a half days to myself to focus. But he is taking his sweet time.

"I didn't hear you." He's looking for something. I dare not ask what. "You'd have the room all to yourself for most of the day. You could still work."

"You know that's not true, Isaac." I take a sip of my lukewarm coffee. I've been to so many of these conventions, trying to be the supportive wife, but I always get stuck with the wives, most of whom just want to sit around the pool all day reading romance novels or People magazine while they sip on margaritas and eat nachos, or linger in the malls for hours with their husbands' credit cards, trying on resort wear for the cruise they're all going on in the near future. I'm not crazy about cruises. I went on one with Mama and my sister, Sheila, and those long narrow hallways gave me the creeps because I've seen too many horror movies where the killer jumps out of a doorway and pulls you inside. After two or three days of being out in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight until you wake up not knowing what country you might be in front of, by day four I was ready to jump off our balcony and backstroke home.

And then there are those obligatory convention dinners. I'd sit there in one of the hotel ballrooms at a table full of contractors and their now-gussied-up wives, trying to be sociable, but I was basically making small talk since they never discussed anything that might be going on in the world. Call me elitist, but this often made me feel like an alien who'd been dragged to another planet by my husband because he, as well as they, didn't seem to think producing television shows about cultural and social issues was as interesting as all the things they could build out of lumber.

It truly irks Isaac that people don't respect or appreciate the role wood plays in our lives. That we aren't aware of how much we take it for granted—as if it'll always be here—and how much we rely on it yet overlook its value to the point we ignore it and its beauty. It would be nice if he still saw me the same way. For about eight of the past ten years it felt like he did.

As Isaac passes behind me, he smells like green apples and fresh-squeezed lemons. For a split second it reminds me of when we used to linger in the bathtub surrounded by sage and lemongrass candles, my back snug against his chest, his arms wrapped around me and our toes making love. Those were the good old days.

I snap out of it.

Now he's pushing my favorite mustard-colored duffel across these terra-cotta tiles with those size-fourteen boots, leaving black scuff-marks behind him as he simultaneously pulls a white sweatshirt over a white undershirt. It's a V-neck and shows the top of a black forest on his chest. "If I could, you know I would," I say while checking my e-mail. Of course there are back-to-back messages from Robin: a joke I don't bother to read and an attachment about a new motionless exercise she told me and Gloria about last week that almost had us choking from laughter. She believes almost everything she sees on TV.

"You just don't want to go," he says, and starts looking through his pockets to make sure he has everything. He doesn't. I know just about all his patterns. "Why don't you just come out and say it?"

"Because it wouldn't be true." I rarely lie, although I'm not always a hundred percent honest. This is one of those times.

"Then I guess I'll see you on Tuesday. After rush hour." He walks over, presses his palms against my shoulder blades, gives them a little squeeze, bends over and gives me a peck on the cheek. I don't feel a thing except the scratchy new growth on his face.

"You have everything?" I ask.

"What if I don't? Would it matter to you?"

"Of course it would matter to me, Isaac."

Right before he gets to the door leading to the garage, he turns and looks at me as if he doesn't believe me. Isaac knows we're on shaky ground. "I'm seriously beginning to think you might be racist."

He's trying to find a button to push. I'm not falling for it. Part of our problem is he's forgotten how to talk to me. He's forgotten how to ask me a question that doesn't put me on the defensive. All those sessions with the marriage counselor—for some of which he played sick, or was too busy drilling or hammering—aren't saving us. I'm tired of this war, which is why I'm ready to hold up a white flag. "Aren't you supposed to be picking up somebody?"

"So now you're trying to get rid of me, is that it?"

"Yes. How's that for an honest answer?" I feel my body stiffen, using the truth to lie. "Have a good time, Isaac. Wait a second! Did you remember to make the loan payment?" I only ask because he seems to have had a little bout of amnesia off and on the past six or seven months. It's the cause of brand-new friction. I have no idea what he's been doing with his money. It's not gambling, that much I do know. He stays away from the Indian casinos and usually dreads these conventions when they're in Vegas. He thinks gambling is too much of a gamble because most people lose. That's not really it. Isaac is just too cheap.

"Yes, I made it. As a matter of fact, I paid two."

"Thank you. And have a good time," I say, without moving my fingers, which are frozen two or three inches above the keys. I cosigned for this loan to help him start his business. After it took off, he took over the payments. Unfortunately, I've discovered by default that Isaac isn't as proficient managing his finances as he is at building. To this day he refuses to hire a bookkeeper, which is one of the reasons his taxes are always late.

"Good luck on your research," he says, and heads for the garage. He is so disingenuous. He hardly ever watches my shows anymore. For years he pretended he was interested, but over time he couldn't fake it anymore. He thinks my stories show problems that can't be solved, so what's the point?

I finally hear the door shut. I turn around and stare at it. It's red. My bright idea. I'm hoping to hear the garage door go up. There it is. Then the engine roars in his truck. Instead of turning my attention back to the screen, I wait for the handle to turn. Sure enough, in he comes.

"I forgot my cell phone." He dashes down the hallway to our bedroom. To this day Isaac reminds me of a black Paul Bunyan, except he's finally getting a few strands of gray. His mustache and goatee look like they've been sprayed with silver dust. He's still sexy as hell, which is a shame, because it doesn't seem to be serving any purpose. I shouldn't dog him too much. Isaac is a good man. I just think marrying each other wasn't the best thing we could've done for each other.

He stops dead in his tracks, pivots, comes over and kisses me in the exact same spot. This time he lets his lips stay a millisecond longer. I appreciate the gesture. "I'll call when I get checked in."

I make myself some French toast, put a few strips of bacon in the microwave and sit back in front of my laptop. My mind isn't on teen pregnancy, so I bookmark the sites I may want to look at later. I'm thinking about the man who just left. The one I once loved harder than any of the others.

I was a forty-year-old love-starved black woman who'd never been married and didn't think it was still possible. I met Isaac in church. He was tall, dark and handsome. (Aren't they always?) I was sitting near the front and found myself going deaf as the minister delivered yet another guilt-laced sermon about the evils of temptation, because I was slowly being hypnotized by Isaac Hathaway's soft black eyes up there in the third row of the choir. This was a small church. It was as if he'd appeared out of nowhere. I certainly would've noticed him before. Not that I went to church every Sunday. And not that I didn't have faith in God. I did, and still do. I'd been on a whole lot of folks' prayer lists and God had known for years my address was still 111 Unlucky-in-Love Avenue. On this particular Sunday, this man followed me down those church steps to the parking lot and seduced me with my clothes on after he smiled at me, introduced himself and in a slow baritone said, "You are absolutely beautiful." I blushed brick red because he was lying through his teeth. I was not then, nor am I now, even remotely close to beautiful.

Now, I've been known to be attractive on special occasions, and I do my best to project as much beauty as I can muster from deep inside, though I often fail. On this particular day, I was wearing a boring brown dress I thought was perfect for church since it's not a venue for which I dress to draw attention to myself. Back then, I hadn't gotten into the habit of exercising on a regular basis, and my dress didn't conceal enough of my curves for my taste, so Isaac couldn't possibly have been moved by my breasts since they were and still are close to nonexistent. The pearls were noticeably fake, which should've given him a clue I wasn't loaded, although I made out okay. Besides, who under fifty wears real pear...