and I was going to play it cool, but then I started crying when I
started talking – I was doing the awful chick talk-cry:
mwaha-waah-gwwahh-and-waaa-wa – so I had to tell him what happened, and
he told me I should open a bottle of wine and wallow in it for a bit.
Dad is always a proponent of a good indulgent sulk. Still, Nick will be
angry that I told Rand, and of course Rand will do his fatherly thing,
pat Nick on the shoulder and say, "Heard you had some emergency drinking
to do on your anniversary, Nicky." And chuckle. So Nick will know, and
he will be angry with me because he wants my parents to believe he's
perfect – he beams when I tell them stories about what a flawless
son-in-law he is.
Except for tonight. I know, I know, I'm being a girl.
It's five a.m. The sun is coming up, almost as bright as the
streetlights outside that have just blinked off. I always like that
switch, when I'm awake for it. Sometimes, when I can'd sleep, I'll pull
myself out of bed and walk through the streets at dawn, and when the
lights click off, all together, I always feel like I"ve seen something
special. Oh, there go the streetlights! I want to announce. In New York
it's not three or four a.m. that's the quiet time – there are too many
bar stragglers, calling out to each other as they collapse into taxis,
yelping into their cell phones as they frantically smoke that one last
cigarette before bed. Five a.m., that's the best time, when the clicking
of your heels on the sidewalk sounds illicit. All the people have been
put away in their boxes, and you have the whole place to yourself.
Here's what happened: Nick got home just after four, a bulb of beer and
cigarettes and fried-egg odor attached to him, a placenta of stink. I
was still awake, waiting for him, my brain ca-thunking after a marathon
of Law and Order. He sat down on our ottoman and glanced at the present
on the table and said nothing. I stared at him back. He clearly wasn'd
going to even graze against an apology – hey, sorry things got screwy
today. That's all I wanted, just a quick acknowledgment.
"Happy day after anniversary," I start.
He sighs, a deep aggrieved moan. "Amy, I"ve had the crappiest day ever. Please don'd lay a guilt trip on me on top of it."
Nick grew up with a father who never, ever apologised, so when Nick
feels he has screwed up, he goes on offense. I know this, and I can
usually wait it out, usually.
"I was just saying happy anniversary."
"Happy anniversary, my asshole husband who neglected me on my big day."
We sit silent for a minute, my stomach knotting. I don'd want to be the bad guy here. I don'd deserve that. Nick stands up.
"Well, how was it?" I ask dully.
"How was it? It was fucking awful. Sixteen of my friends now have no
jobs. It was miserable. I'll probably be gone too, another few months."
Friends. He doesn'd even like half the guys he was out with, but I say nothing.
"I know it feels dire right now, Nick. But—"
"It's not dire for you, Amy. Not for you, it never will be dire. But for the rest of us? It's very different."
The same old. Nick resents that I"ve never had to worry about money and I
never will. He thinks that makes me softer than everyone else, and I
wouldn'd disagree with him. But I do work. I clock in and clock back
out. Some of my girlfriends have literally never had a job; they discuss
people with jobs in the pitying tones you talk about a fat girl with
"such a nice face." They will lean forward and say, "But of course,
Ellen has to work," like something out of a No?l Coward play. They don'd
count me, because I can always quit my job if I want to. I could build
my days around charity committees and home decoration and gardening and
volunteering, and I don'd think there's anything wrong with building a
life around those things. Most beautiful, good things are done by women
people scorn. But I work.
"Nick, I'm on your side here. We'll be okay no matter what. My money is your money."
"Not according to the prenup."
He is drunk. He only mentions the prenup when he's drunk. Then all the
resentment comes back. I"ve told him hundreds, literally hundreds of
times, I"ve said the words: The prenup is pure business. It's not for
me, it's not even for my parents, it's for my parents" lawyers. It says
nothing about us, not you and me.
