“I heard the stock market went down again today, more than a hundred points,” he said from behind the paper, his voice sounding as if he weren’t really talking to anyone in particular and didn’t care whether he got a reply.
“Really?” she murmured distractedly.
“Of course, the economists are saying it’s a normal market correction,” he mused. “But one of these days it’s going to plunge again and take us all to the cleaners. Maybe we should be pumping more of my 401K savings into bonds instead of stocks. What do you think?”
When Rachel didn’t reply, he went on, as if talking to himself. “It’s not like things have completely recovered in aerospace. The bottom could fall out again, you know, and where would we be?” He took another drink, then set the can back into the coaster. “They laid off three guys in manufacturing last week, three of them, and I mean they were top guys, right up there. Trouble is, there’s not enough work. We’ve lost out on several big contracts lately. I say management’s to blame. We’ve got clients beating a path to the competition. I tell you, if I were running the show, I’d make some real changes.”
For a moment he became absorbed in an item in the paper. When he spoke again, he picked up the same thread of conversation. “Of course, no one’s asking me what I think. I guess I should just be grateful no one’s taken a hatchet to my job.”
Sitting silently on the sofa, her legs crossed comfortably, listening to David ramble on amiably, Rachel wondered if her mind might be playing tricks on her. This was just like any other night, like every night. David in his chair, having a soda, reading the paper, talking about work and the economy and what was happening to whom. It was all very natural, very right. Only it wasn’t right, not when she forced her mind to remember the afternoon, the crazy, mixed-up afternoon.
Surely she hadn’t seen David today with another woman, some mysterious girl, someone he seemed to know so well, whom she, Rachel, didn’t know at all. Certainly nothing existed except tonight, this moment, everything orderly, quiet and in its place. Should she shatter this peace? Should she force the issue, the issues—David and the girl, the baby, the whole vague, uncertain direction of their lives? Was she really up to all that? She could keep her mouth shut and go to bed. Shut up and sleep and sleep and sleep. But then things would be no different tomorrow.
“David,” she began tentatively. Her face felt strained, her mouth screwed up too tight to speak. “David,” she said again, “how come if things are so bad with the company they have you working overtime so much?”
He set the paper down and gave her a blank look. “What do you mean by that?”
“I just wondered, that’s all.”
“I have a lot to do. They give me work the other guys used to do, the guys they laid off.”
“I see.” Her voice was the size of a pinprick, light, airy.
David gave her a second look, close, scrutinizing. “Is something wrong, Rae?” He called her that sometimes. “Are you all right?”
“Sure. I had a bad day, I guess.” Might as well plunge ahead, might as well. “Something funny happened, David,” she said. “I can’t figure it. I saw you today, David, but you didn’t see me.”
David’s expression stayed the same, his eyes watching her, but something in his face seemed to change, shift. “You did? Where?”
“At the Hamburger House. We—Brian and I—went there for dinner. We took food out. We came home and ate.”
“The Hamburger House?” A light came on in David’s eyes, a dazed brightness, as if his mind were weighing many things at once, so that he could not yet speak. Finally he said, “What were you doing at the Hamburger House?”
Rachel looked at him, surprised. “I just told you; Brian and I—”
“Oh, yes, I know that, but I mean…well, why didn’t you say something if you saw me?”
“You were busy, David. You were with someone.”
As if light had dawned, David broke into an extravagant laugh. “Oh, you mean Kit. You saw me with Kit Kincaid.” He settled back and picked up his paper again, as if by such a gesture he was dismissing a topic too insignificant to pursue. From behind the paper his voice flowed evenly, nonchalant. “Kit is the secretary in our department. Her car wasn’t running so I gave her a ride home. Neither of us had eaten, and it was getting late, so we picked up a sandwich. You should have called us, Rachel. You should have said something.”
She shrugged uncertainly. “You looked so engrossed, so close somehow, I felt like an outsider. I felt—” Rachel was aware of her voice growing quivery all of a sudden. She thought she might cry. Was it relief? What? “I didn’t mean to sound stupid, David, like a suspicious wife or something. It’s just that I had a big dinner planned, and then there you were—”
“I called and said I had to work, baby.”
“I know you did.” She felt suddenly stupid, tongue-tied. “But it seems like you have to work so much lately, and I had this idea about tonight being special.” On impulse, she got up and went over to David, slipping onto the arm of his chair, letting her arm circle his shoulder, resting lightly, carefully. “I guess I couldn’t stand seeing you look so happy with that girl. I mean, you really looked…happy.”
“Rachel, will you stop it! Stop hounding me. I told you what happened. I’m sorry you were upset.”
Rachel eased her body off the chair arm, going down on her knees, sitting like a silly, foolish schoolgirl. She was looking at her husband as if she might be begging, as if she might be screaming for something inside, screaming against the complete silence of her mouth, her lips.
David’s hand, large and manly, came to rest on Rachel’s shoulder, found the back of her neck and rubbed gently, soothingly. “I didn’t mean to shout, Rae. Really, I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t like you going on like this about Kit.”
“Are you…in love with her?” This a whisper, hardly spoken, this from Rachel who could not believe she had asked it.
The directness of the question took David by surprise. He said unthinkingly, “I don’t know.”
The two of them had been sitting in a calm, orderly room surrounded by handsomely elegant, well-placed furniture, with soft light emanating from quiet lamps and everything proper, in its place, where it belonged. This room, one segment of their condo, was fine, and she and David had been fine until this moment, having a serious but comprehensible discussion.
Now nothing was right at all, and nothing Rachel could do would make it right. In a moment, less than a moment, neither the room nor David nor Rachel made any sense at all.
It was bizarre, this conversation. It was idiotic, the whole thing. What was she doing asking David about being in love with another woman?
“Well, you asked me,” David said defensively, seeing the look on her face. “You asked me, so I figured you knew. You asked if I love her, and I told you the truth. I don’t know. You want me to play it straight with you, don’t you, Rae?”
“I didn’t know anything!” she railed, the very breath snatched from her lungs. “I don’t know why I said that, why I asked if you love her. I d-didn’t know—” She was drowning in a welter of confusion and could only stammer that she really didn’t know anything at all.
He stared at her. “You mean,