Never Quite at It Seems
A Short Story
Never Quite at It Seems
The lighting was low in the restaurant, the plates silken white. Nothing like the plates they had at home. Even when their plates had been free of chips and cracks, they were never as white as these; they were grey with specks. A cost-saving measure for the young couple. Maybe that had been their problem: not starting out with silken white plates. Always on the table between them was stoneware picked up at a thrift store. Maybe stone got into the food over time.
She watched her husband lift the fork to his mouth. When did he start feeling like he was a stranger to her? They had both lost themselves entirely in the months after the wedding with the quick arrival of their first baby. She’d been so focused on surviving, staying positive, and then the second baby came. Maybe that was it, the upheaval. You don’t tie two ships together in a storm.
The storm had passed; their children were grown, out of college, and as the sun set on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, she watched the refuse of their marriage bob in the seafoam and wondered if there was anything left to salvage. She lifted the glass to her lips.
~
He hated it when she stared at him like that. He continued ignoring her, focusing on his meal, for all the world as if he were sitting alone. Pretending to enjoy was second best to actually enjoying. Might as well savor the taste of veal if he was going to pay this much for it. Did she really think he couldn’t feel the resentment ebbing off her in waves like radioactive fallout? He just didn’t mess with that toxic material anymore. Better to die a slow death by poisoning than the sudden flash bang of an explosion. He’d learned that the hard way.
“What do you mean? Why don’t you understand me? We’ve been married long enough.”
Was it better? The slow death as opposed to a sudden one. He let the fork and knife clack on his plate. Let his head drop as though all the puppet threads had been cut.
“What are we doing?” he asked.
~
“Having dinner?”
Ha ha. So dry. She couldn’t help herself.
“No, us. What are we doing? Twenty-five years of marriage. Are you happy?” he asked.
She felt the blood drain from her face. Her mouth went dry and her head rang. Pulled out of her skin, spluttering in the waves.
“I’m not happy,” he said.
“How can you…”
Her hands grasped for bits of driftwood, but the tablecloth was smooth and white. Nowhere to go, nothing to cling to.
She dabbed her mouth with the napkin, excused herself, and left.
~
He watched her exit the restaurant’s front door. No coat, no purse. His wife was a stickler for details. He had shocked her. Guilt soured in Rick’s stomach.
She was the mother of his children. She’d risked as much as he had when she said yes. But he wasn’t happy, and it had been a long time. There was so much shattered glass between them that he had given up trying to cross the room.
He sighed. If their marriage was over, he owed it to her to see it got a proper burial.
He stepped outside and looked around. She was sitting on the curb, unmoving, goose bumps prickling her arms. Shame licked up his spine and his heart ached. He draped his jacket on her shoulders and sat down next to her. Neither spoke. Pedestrians passed. Ambulance sirens screamed in the distance. She cleared her throat.
“How long have you wanted a divorce?”
“I don’t want a divorce.”
She gave him a look.
“I don’t want to be unhappy anymore,” he said.
She scoffed and shook her head, looking away.
“Say it,” he said. “You want to say it to me, so say it.”
“It’s not all about you,” she snapped. “I’m unhappy too, but I feel like I’m the only one making an effort.”
“The only one making an effort? Margret, listen to yourself.”
“Stop! I know you work hard to provide for us, but… where are you, Rick? It’s like your work is all that matters. I don’t get to enjoy the real you anymore. I don’t remember the last time I did.”
He stewed. Did he bury himself in his work? Of course. There were bills to pay, and it wasn’t exactly like he got to enjoy her either. The girl he fell in love with disappeared behind babies and child-rearing. It was all supposed to be such a grand adventure. The two of them against the world.
“I’m just tired of it all. It’s a slog. What was this supposed to be about?”
“I’m confused, do you resent the kids?” she asked.
“No, it’s not that.” He’d loved having children. In many ways, he was sad those days were over. It was simpler back then. Chaotic, yes, but simple: work hard and survive, because people needed you. And watching them grow up, two people finding their own way in the world, was precious.
“Then what?”
“They don’t need us anymore. Not in the same way, and I just… what’s the point?”
~
She had spent so much of her life trying to make this man happy. She had given her body fully over to that task, lost her shape, her best years. And now to find they were all viewed as trash? At least she had Karissa and Zander, her children. But they were grown now, and she didn’t want to be a husk, discarded by others. She still wanted life.
“You blame me for not being happy.”
“No, it’s not that I –”
“It’s implied, Rick. Don’t play dumb. I feel cheated. I gave you my best years, when I was supposed to be young and go out and explore the world, carefree, no responsibility other than figuring myself out. Instead, I raised children, and tried to make you happy, a man who decided he was comfortable being old before his time.”
They sat in silence. She’d never spoken to him so bluntly before. Always Miss Positive, try to keep the ships upright and together on the strength of the upbeat. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine, how are you, honey? What can I get you? But he had already decided.
Colorful lights glowed down the street lending a dreamlike quality to their surroundings, like a fairytale. Oh, the tragedy. Rick followed her gaze and they watched the couples down the street learning to dance.
“You never dance with me,” she said.
The world itself had come to mock her. A foreign place, no longer her home.
“Why don’t we go back?” he asked.
She sighed, too tired. She braced herself to get up, but he caught her arm.
“No, I don’t mean home. I mean to our youth.”
“Our youth is over.” She said bluntly. You killed it.
“You’re right, we had to grow up fast, but the kids are grown, we’re financially stable, why shouldn’t we have a do-over?” He stood up and offered her his hand.
She didn’t move. This was a sobering conversation, a watershed moment, did she really want to be with this man for another twenty-five years? It was humbling to realize that perhaps she had only wanted to be with him because he had wanted to be with her. What did she want, really?
She saw understanding grow in Rick’s eyes; that she wasn’t sure if she wanted him anymore. Fear flashed through them. In the past, she would have rushed like a mother to quell that fear, but not this time. He couldn’t throw her over and expect her to come running back.
“Give us one night,” he said. Begged.
“Rick, if we don’t know each other after twenty-five years, I don’t know how one night is going to make a difference.”
~
What had he done? His soul lurched, reaching to grasp for the comfort of the familiar, but was that really what was best for either of them? The hurt in her eyes radiated. This wasn’t going to be an easy fix. No pressure from children that they make up quickly. And nor should it be. They were talking about the rest of their lives, after all.
“What if we don’t really know each other?” he asked. She cocked a brow at him. “No, listen, we didn’t know who we were at nineteen when we got married. We thought we did, but we didn’t. And then life happened, and we became who we had to be. Parents, employees, students, homeowners, all at once.”
“Who we are comes out in the process of life, Rick. If you’ve fallen out of love with me, then I don’t think there will be anything left to love.”
“But you were right: we didn’t get the fun part. We survived the hardest parts of life, and maybe we don’t know how to do easy. Fun.”
They stared at each other, and Rick felt as though he might as well be staring into the eyes of a stranger. When was the last time he really looked into her eyes? They were green, with speckles of hazel. The first time he saw her at sixteen, he’d almost had a heart attack. He couldn’t have formed sentences. Now, the beating in his chest stuttered and he forced himself to speak.
“One night. Give me one night.”
She did not take his hand. She got up, gave him his coat, and went back inside.
~
Rick paid the check and Margret went to the bathroom. She slammed the sink. She was breathing too hard, panicking. She splashed cold water on her face and curved her body nearly in half over the marble counter, heart racing, and forced herself to breathe deeply. What had she just done? Was she willing to just throw away her marriage? She’d been married longer than she hadn’t; her entire adult life. Throwing away her marriage was throwing away her life. The kids would be devastated.
There she went again, thinking about the kids. What about her own safety? Her own financial security? But did he even love her anymore? Did she? She felt taken for granted in their marriage. Maybe he felt the same.
Looking in the mirror she found her mascara had run and her meager makeup was half wiped off.
“Damn,” she muttered. Never bet against the house. She was in her forties and she looked pale, tired. Used up and done. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life with me?” she mocked.
She washed her face thoroughly and wiped off the mascara, bringing her skin back down to zero. There was another way to look at this: twenty-five years with Rick and this was where she was left. Maybe he wasn’t the best thing for her. It terrified her to think of it, but would she be happier alone? Freer to be herself, not constantly dragged back to serving another person, worrying about him, confined to the old age Rick had relegated himself to.
It was very easy to blame another person for where her life had ended up, but would she have done better alone? Futility. Chasing after the wind to wonder what could have been. What was she going to do now?
“One night. Give me one night.”
She met her eyes in the mirror and refused to look away. This was the girl who had married at nineteen when her friends went to college. Who had given birth twice before twenty-two, raised a family, held down a job, achieved her degree, managed a household, and maintained a marriage for a quarter of a century. She had proven to herself she could do anything. Was there still, buried deep down, the fierce free independent woman of her twenties and thirties?
She marched out of the bathroom and found Rick standing outside the restaurant, hands in his pocket. She held up her wedding ring.
“Margret—”
“Give me yours.”
“Wait—”
“You said you wanted one night. Tonight, we’re not married. We’re on a date, a first date. We’re testing each other out. You want to know if we would still choose each other? So do I. I want my youth back, Rick. I refused to settle down and fade into the uninteresting night of our domestic lives, bitter at a man who regrets marrying me. This is how we do it,” she said.
She held up her ring to him, looking him dead in the eye. He took his ring off and gave it to her. She zipped it into her purse.
“Right, let’s go.”
“Where are we going?”
“If this is a first date, we’re going to look the part. We’re going shopping.”
“Margret, I don’t need more clothes—”
“Would twenty-something you—would Zander—wear that?” she asked. His pants were business casual but old, creased. His sweater had crumbs in it. Good grief, she was married to a grandpa. Rick looked down, chagrinned.
“Zander has terrible taste.”
“Fine, thirty-something you.”
When they got to the store they went their separate ways. A manikin displayed a shimmering golden dress and she walked past it. Halfway to the clearance rack at the back of the store, she stopped. The bag hooked on her shoulder was cracked and faded, ten years old, and the nicest thing she owned. She’d spent her money on groceries and bills and tuition for her kids. Her knuckles clenched against the worn straps.
She turned and grabbed the shimmering golden dress in her size and didn’t look at the price. When she wasn’t looking for the cheapest items that fit, the shopping process went much faster. She found heels, a purse with shiny leather, a long coat, and put it all on her credit card. Tonight was about saving her marriage; tonight was about fun.
Margret changed in the dressing room, dumping the faded and pilled clothes into her too-big purse. She felt overly exposed, too much skin showing, but then she saw the way the glittering dress flanked her curves, ample from childbearing, and she grinned. This was fun.
She went to the makeup department and found the lone college student on duty. The girl looked bored out of her mind. Margret almost turned around but squared her shoulders and walked up.
“My husband is thinking about leaving me. I want you to make him regret it.”
The girl gawped and then grinned.
The result was… well… Margret had to remind herself to breathe. Too young. But wasn’t that the point? Young? Youth?
“You’ve got great cheekbones,” the attendant said, watching her proudly. “You should show off those eyes more.”
“You don’t think the lips are too much?”
She had used a bright cherry red. Something Margret imagined Karissa would wear for a night out.
“Ohmygoodness, no way. You gotta show off those beauties. You want him to be staring at those lips the whole time.”
She hadn’t gotten plastic surgery; the makeup couldn’t do anything more than show off what was already there. No more hiding. No more making yourself smaller.
She tipped the girl and left.
“Eat his heart out!” the attendant called, beaming from ear to ear.
Margret waited by the entrance, surprised that for once in their marriage she was done dressing first. She distracted herself by looking up good date places on her phone. Call it primal instinct, but something tugged her gaze.
His back was straight, his strides long. He wore a trim charcoal grey suit with a black turtleneck beneath, cutting a striking figure. A thin gold strand rested around his neck. Everything slowed as she stared. Then she recognized the self-satisfied grin, his hand grabbed hers he tugged her out the door.
“I have some options—” she said.
“I know where we’re going next,” he interrupted.
Well then.
~
A half hour later they sat in a dimly lit room with many alcoves and floral wallpaper from the 1800s. The underground speakeasy was draped with heavy velvet curtains and music pulsed through the space furnished with dark wood and leather.
Rick had seen an advertisement for the place by accident. He’d dismissed it at first, knowing it wasn’t his scene, tucking it away to recommend to his children, but why not him and Margret? Ironwork lighting on the walls and ceilings held orbs like a Parisian train station, casting a dim glow on the other patrons. They were well dressed, bespoke, young, but, not too young. Many looked around his age. That gave Rick pause. Was Margret right? Had he settled into being old before it was really his time?
At the bar, he cradled a “1920’s Cocktail.” Margret had ordered a “Harbinger of Fun,” and the drink looked as determined to have a good time as she did. He had a hard time pulling his gaze from her. She was… different. Changed. She watched the other patrons, smiling, her head bobbing to the music. She had never looked this nice before. But it was the same woman. Had he simply stopped seeing her?
“Do you want to dance?” she asked.
“We don’t want to lose our spot at the bar.” The drinks had just arrived and he wanted to enjoy his. He took a sip, sorting out the flavors of rye whiskey, vermouth, and orange bitters, but it was the fig that elevated it. Margret sat with her back to the bar, ignoring her drink, watching the swaying bodies crowing the dance floor.
From out of nowhere, a man appeared before her, hand outheld. He was shorter than Rick, broad, stocky, with wide eyes and a goatee.
“Would you like to dance, signora?”
Rick turned on the man. Who did this bottom feeder think he was?
“Oh, yes!” Margret said. She took off her purse and left it with him.
“Margret, what are you—”
“Young and independent, remember?” she flashed him a cheeky grin and took the man’s hand. Something primal, territorial, surged within him. He wanted to jump up, remove her hand, and yank her back down. But she was beaming, and then the man was pulling her to the dance floor. Rick froze.
She went with him. Why had she gone with him? She belonged to Rick. Not tonight. The empty ring finger attested to that. He turned and faced the bar, forcing himself not to watch, and took another hit of his stupidly overpriced beverage. She had looked… incandescent. So happy. That stunned him more than anything else.
Was it possible he really had been holding her back? Maybe it wasn’t him that would be better off without her, but her that would be better off without him. Panic turned in his stomach. He needed to go out there right now, grab his wife, and drag her back before she figured out what he just had. But then, wouldn’t that confirm what he had read in her eyes: he had killed her youth?
He turned around in his seat and watched her. She danced and swung, and her partner held her expertly, pressing and guiding in a way that set Rick’s teeth grinding. But Margret — she looked so light, free. And, if he was being honest with himself, she was the kind of woman he wouldn’t dare approach. Would he? He didn’t know. He had skipped that part of his twenties, already having found his partner.
~
Though Margret was not a good dancer, her partner was excellent, and she surrendered to his leading. Rick had looked so jealous! Pleasure shot through her. He hadn’t looked at her that way… ever. The high of that, being wanted, was intoxicating.
On the next spin, she chanced a glance back. He was watching! He looked deflated. Irritated.
Come on, babe! Come get me.
Her partner’s hands were nothing like her husband’s. They were smaller but much denser, muscled like he did manual labor. His hand on her back when he spun her felt far too intimate, inappropriate, and normally she would have stepped back, but clearly he knew what he was doing. Instead, she laid it on thick, throwing herself into the movements, spinning, foot tapping, sashaying, wearing confidence like a mask. See? Dancing was fun. They should do this more often.
Fight for me. Don’t leave me hanging.
Would he come? Wouldn’t he? She realized she was holding her breath, waiting for her husband to cut in at any moment, rescue her.
On the next spin, she glanced back. He had turned back to the bar. Someone was talking to him. A thin blond girl who looked to be in her twenties draped next to him, leaning in. The blood surged to her head and Margret moved to go back. Her partner caught her and pulled her into the swing of the dance.
Margret’s fury melted into sadness. He wasn’t coming. This was what Rick had wanted all along. She said it herself: tonight, they were young and independent. She threw herself into the movement and the music, trying to ignore the sensation of falling into an abyss.
It was a bit like a reverse Cinderella; by the end of her night, she would have lost her prince.
~
“Hiya.”
She had to say it twice more and poke him before Rick realized the young woman sitting next to him at the bar was talking to him.
“What’cha drinking?” she asked. She had to be late twenties, if not younger, with skin that smooth. Her smile was a blend of coy and child-like delight.
“History,” he said.
Was he talking about the drink, himself, or his marriage?
She laughed too loud and he figured out she was waiting for the return ask. He put her drink on his tab. Young and independent, remember?
She was out of college, thank goodness, or he’d have walked away right then. He drew the line at chatting up girls who were his daughter’s age. She kept the conversation going, talking about her friends (he would love them), the movies she had seen recently (he hadn’t seen them, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to the movies), and the places she had visited and still wanted to travel to (he had been to none of them). When she expressed dreams of one day being married and starting a family of her own, no time soon of course, he smiled and finished off his second drink.
“What about you? What are you hoping to do in life?” She asked, blinking up at him with big doe-eyes.
He didn’t know what to say. He’d already accomplished his goals: he had raise a family and owned a house. He had advanced in the company, and he was proud of his work, but…
“I think I need some new dreams,” he said.
“What?” she asked leaning in and shouting over the music. She draped her hand on his arm in the interest of hearing him better.
“I recommend the family part. It’s worth it,” he said.
He signaled to the bartender to close this tab.
He wove through the dancers and found Margret. He caught her arm and when she looked at him, a light flickered in her eyes. Was that… victory? The smoldering wick of hope rekindled inside him. Her dance partner kissed her hand, pressed it to his sweaty forehead, and released her.
They did not speak, walking to the car. Did not discuss where they were going next. They drove in silence.
He turned on the CD player, skipping to the right track, and the opening cords from “Dreams” by the Cranberries echoed into the car. It came out when Rick was thirteen but, to him, it was the soundtrack to the summer he met her.
Margret reached up and opened the sunroof. This late in Santa Monica, the streets were empty. Colored lights hung softly from the trees, glowing in the dark. She unbuckled herself, climbed up, and stretched her arms wide.
Rick wrapped his arm around her legs and drove them home.
“The person falling here is me
A different way to be
Aah, la-ah laah, la-la-la.”
~
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