Melanie Gideon - Wife 22

“I’m telling you I didn’t order it.”

“Your wife did,” whispers the waiter, pointing to me.

William looks across the room at me and I give him a little wave. Dozens of micro-expressions flit across his face. I try and catalog them: bewilderment, vulnerability, shock, shame, anger, and then something else, something I’m entirely unprepared for. Relief.

He nods. He nods again, then he takes a sip of the piña colada. “That’s good. Surprisingly good,” he says into the mike and then promptly spills the glass all over his white shirtfront. Bunny and Caroline leap to their feet, their napkins in hand, and begin dabbing at William’s shirt.

“Soda water, please!” yells Bunny. “Quick, before the stain sets.”

I dart into the bathroom hallway. Thirty seconds later, William finds me.

“You know ?” he whispers, pressing me up against the wall.

I glare at his wet, stained shirt. “Obviously.”

He saws his jaw back and forth. “ ‘Real life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be’?”

“You toyed with me. For months. Why shouldn’t I toy with you? Just a little.”

He takes a deep breath. “William had a very bad year. William is not trying to make excuses for himself. William should have told his wife about his bad year.”

“Why are you talking about yourself in the third person?”

“I’m trying to speak your language. Facebooking you. To your face. Say something.”

“Give me your phone.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you want to know how I found out?”

William hands me his phone.

“Every time you take a photo, your longitude and latitude is tagged. Your last profile photo-the one of your hand-it was taken at our house. You left me a trail that led right back to you.”

I turn off the location services setting on his phone’s camera. “There. Now nobody can track you.”

“What if I want to be tracked?”

“In that case you should seek professional help.”

“How long have you known?”

“Since this afternoon.”

William runs his hand through his hair. “Jesus, Alice. Why didn’t you say something? Does Bunny know?”

I nod.

“Nedra, too?”

“Yes.”

He grimaces.

“Don’t be embarrassed. They adore you. They thought it was the most romantic thing they had ever heard of.”

“Is that what you thought?”

“Why, William? Why did you do it?”

He sighs. “Because I saw your Google search. The night of the FiG launch? You didn’t clear history. I saw it all. From ‘Alice Buckle’ to ‘Happy Marriage.’ You were miserable. I made you miserable. I made that stupid comment about you having a small life. I had to do something.”

“And the Netherfield Center? That was an invention? Its connection to UCSF?”

“I knew you wouldn’t take part in the survey unless it was properly credentialed. Setting up the website wasn’t hard. What was hard was when it took on a life of its own. I was planning to confess. The night we were supposed to meet at Tea & Circumstances? Then Bunny and Jack came. I never intended to stand you up. I begged you not to go, remember? I didn’t think it would end like this.”

“But why did you have to sneak around? You could have just asked me the questions to my face. You didn’t even try.”

“What do you mean? I stalked you. I solicited you. I opened a fake Facebook account. I pinged you, alerted you, and notified you. I read the goddamn Chronicles of Narnia and Catch-22. ”

“Is this on? Is this working?” We hear Nedra testing the mike. “William? Are you out there? It’s terribly bad form to not finish a toast. To be a toast dangler. At least in the UK, it is.”

“Oh, Jesus,” groans William, uncharacteristically flustered. “Save me.”

“Fine,” I say. “I’ll give the damn toast.”

As I make my way across the room, I try and clear my head. I should say something about love, obviously. Something about marriage. Something funny. Something sweet. But my mind is swimming with thoughts of William. The lengths to which he went to reach me.

When I get to the table, Zoe hands the microphone to me. “Go, Mom,” she whispers.

I bring the microphone slowly up to my lips. “Do you know how you know you know?” I sputter.

I did not just say that. My knees are shaking. I stare out into the crowd nervously and clutch at my throat.

“Head high,” Bunny says under her breath.

“When things are right.”

“People don’t talk that way in real life,” Bunny whispers.

“There’s just no stopping lovers from being together.”

“From the heart, Alice. From the heart,” she urges me.

“I’m sorry. Hold on.” I search for William but I don’t see him anywhere. “Let me try this again. Nedra. Kate. My sweetest, dearest friends.” A hush settles over the restaurant. I look out at the room.

“My God, look at all those phones. Do you realize there are phones on everybody’s table? Is there anybody here without a device? Raise your hand. No, I didn’t think so. You know, it’s crazy. It’s really crazy. We live in such connected times. It’s so easy to become addicted to having access to everything and everybody in a split second, but I’m not so sure that’s a good thing.”

I pause, take a sip of my water, and stall, hoping clarity will come to me. Where the hell did William go?

“Someone once told me waiting was a dying art. He worried that we had traded speed and constant access for the deeper pleasures of leaving and returning. I wasn’t sure I agreed with him. Who doesn’t want what they want when they want it? That’s the world we live in. To pretend otherwise is ridiculous. But I’m starting to think he was right. Nedra and Kate, you are a perfect example of what waiting brings you. Your partnership inspires me. It makes me want to be better. You have one of the strongest, most stalwart, loving, and tender relationships I’ve ever seen, and it will be my privilege to bear witness to your marriage tomorrow.”

I try and unobtrusively wipe my sweaty palms on my skirt.

“Now, I know I’m supposed to give you some advice now. Sage advice coming from somebody who’s been married for two decades. I’m not sure what wisdom I can offer, but I can say this. Marriage isn’t neutral. Sometimes we’d like to think it is, but listen, hiding out in the infirmary waiting for the war to end is no way to live.”

I look out at a sea of confused faces. Uh-oh.

“What I’m trying to say is don’t have a Sweden of a marriage. Or a Costa Rica of a marriage, either. Not that I don’t like Sweden or Costa Rica; they are perfectly lovely places to live and visit and I appreciate their neutrality, politically anyway. But my advice is-have the courage to let your marriage be some fiery country in the throes of revolution where each of you speaks a different dialect and sometimes you can barely understand each other but it doesn’t matter because, well, each of you is fighting. Fighting for each other.”

People start to whisper. A pair of women get up from their table and make their way to the bar. I’m losing them. What was I thinking? I am the least equipped person in the world to be giving advice about marriage. I’m a fake, I should sit down, I should shut up, and just when I’m getting ready to bolt from the room, my phone chimes. I ignore it. It chimes again.

“This is embarrassing, I’m so sorry. It might be an emergency. My father-you see. Let me just take a peek.”

I put the microphone down and pick up my phone. I have a message from John Yossarian.

18. What did you used to do that you don’t do now?

I look up, and in the corner of the room I see William smiling at me. You son of a bitch, I think. You sweet, dear, son of a bitch.