Элисон Скотч - The Theory of Opposites

A long pause.

“Um. Okay. No, no, that’s fine. I mean, I have to talk to Willa.” He falls silent.

I can feel my nerve ebbing out of me. I can’t talk to Shawn about Grape! now. That might undo everything – set something in motion that I’m not ready to face. And besides, now, he has something to talk to me about. My thoughts turn to static. I try to catch my breath — breathe in and out, like Oliver showed me — and not totally come undone with the notion of what Shawn needs to talk to me about — affairs, divorce, one-night stands — and to whom he’s saying all this. Please, universe, do not betray me. Please do not make Shawn be like that Goldman guy who slept with Izzy’s friend, Candice.

Shawn says to his phone: “We’ll figure it out. Sure, sure. No, I get it. I’m sure that Willa will be fine with it.”

I allow myself a little more air because he must know that taking a call from some floozy whom he met at Grape! or at golf or whatever is not something I’d be fine with. I look at him sideways now, but he’s focused on the long view out the window. Who knows what he sees out there in the distance. But it’s not me.

“He’s still sleeping,” Shawn says. “I’ll have him call you when he’s up.”

Another pause.

“Okay. Be safe. No, I understand.”

He presses the off button and stares at the floor for a moment, then seems to remember that I’m sitting there with my runny eggs, that we were in the middle of something, that there were things to be said.

“That was Amanda.” He rises slowly, like he threw out his back while talking.

“Okay.”

“She needs us to watch Nicky for a while longer.” He doesn’t make eye contact and instead reaches for his coffee.

“Well, that’s fine, I guess. How long?”

“Um, most of the summer.”

“Most of the summer?”

“She was up for this position in Tanzania, and she got it. Which is great, by the way. I mean, she’s out there making a difference.”

“No one said she’s not.” I can’t help but wonder if he doesn’t mean that coming up with sexy ad campaigns for Adult Diapers is not exactly out there making a difference. Hello! I’m well aware that it might be the dumbest thing on the planet. Why do you think I was texting Vanessa in the meeting in the first place? You try to make an incontinent Indiana Jones sexy!

“Well, you know,” Shawn says. “Where she’s going to be isn’t safe for Nicky right now, and this job is pretty much all she has other than him, and it’s only until August.”

“That’s our whole summer, Shawn! I thought we were, like, trying for a baby!”

“We can try for a baby with Nicky here, Will. Come on.”

“You know what? Let’s not try for a baby right now,” I glower, raising my voice a little too loudly. “I don’t think I want to.”

A wild overreaction to be sure. But also, a wee relief. As soon as I say it, I feel it in my guts, deep on my insides: a weight lifting, a release from the burden that has been pressing me so very far down. Maybe @nurseellen at BabyCenter was right. Maybe I owe her an apology. Maybe some of us just aren’t cut out for offspring, and if that’s what God’s plan is telling us, then maybe we should lean in and listen.

“What?” Shawn reacts. “Now we’re not having a kid?”

“You heard me! The kid is off the table! I mean, we can’t even have one anyway, even when we’re actively trying! I’m not pregnant again, and maybe it’s just a goddamn sign!”

“Where’s this coming from? Because Nicky will be sleeping in our spare room?”

“No!” I shout even louder. I breathe in, breathe out through my nasal passage, just like Oliver showed me. (“This is called pranayama breathing,” he said. “I know master yogis who can orgasm from it.”) I feel my pulse slow, then say hesitantly, more quietly:

“It’s coming from…golf…and the Yankees…and…”

I try to say it, I try to actually be forthright and confront what needs to be confronted, but I can’t. My dad would say it’s because my conscious mind is too scared to set something in motion that I don’t want to set off, but he’d also tell me that it wouldn’t matter: if disaster is impending, it’s a-coming anyway. But I’d say that it’s probably something simpler: that I don’t want to say Grape! because of the simple truth that I’m a coward who never wants to rock the status quo.

“What the hell, Willa?” Shawn snaps, still a decibel too high. “You don’t want to have a kid because I’m taking up golfing? What does that even mean? We’re supposed to have a kid now. We agreed that we were having a kid now! It’s part of our plan!”

“Well, now that you put it that way, let’s definitely have a kid! Let’s have twins!” The pranayama breathing is of no use. (Orgasm? Really? From breathing? Not buying what you’re selling, Dalai Lama.)

The guest bedroom door opens and Nicky wanders out, his hair a bird’s nest from behind, his skinny legs gawky in his boxers.

“What the fuck, you guys?”

“Don’t say fuck, Nicky,” I say back.

He shrugs.

“These for me?” He spies the spare plate of eggs on the counter. Shawn nods yes, so he scrambles up on the stool, unwraps the plate, and digs in.

Shawn sees his opportunity to deflect.

“So your mom called…we should talk, dude.”

I consider if this is the first time Shawn has ever called anyone “dude,” and if he realizes what an idiot he sounds like. And then I hate that I’ve even thought this. I want to scrub the notion from my mind: that my husband sounds like an idiot, that I’m the type of wife who would ever see him as such a moron.

“Whatever,” Nicky says.

“Whatever,” I say.

“Whatever,” Shawn replies in return, which is not the white flag I was hoping for.

I grab my purse and turn into the foyer, then out the front door. The door slams behind me, and then the latch clicks, and as I wait for the elevator to come and take me away from this mess, I try to muster the courage to go back in and apologize. I count to twenty in my head.

If the elevator dings before I reach twenty, I’ll get in and go meet Vanessa. If it doesn’t, I’ll go back.

I don’t even get to eleven.

The door opens, and I step forward. The universe gave me a sign. I’m just listening.

The taxi drops me right at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, from which an enormous banner hangs. DARE YOURSELF TO A BETTER LIFE! It’s red and bold and unavoidable, and all around me, pedestrians stop to gape and wonder, perhaps, if they can indeed dare themselves to a better life. Maybe it’s that easy, the girl to my left considers — dare yourself! — and she can finally meet a guy who calls her after sex. Maybe that’s the answer, the chubby guy next to the girl thinks — dare yourself ! — and he can finally stop inhaling éclairs at midnight and lose the twenty pounds he’s convinced are keeping his life, his entire life, in a rut.

I peer toward the bridge, right in time to see Vanessa catch air. She hesitates just before jumping, and I know it’s to swallow down her fear, but then she closes her eyes, counts to three, and throws herself forward. I can hear her shriek all the way from where I am on the sidewalk, but then I also hear her scream, “Holy shit! This is amazing!” And I watch her fly, soar, float through the air on her way down. The gathered crowd erupts in spontaneous applause, and Vanessa pumps her fist in reply. She bounces twice at the bottom, and then starts to hyena-laugh at what she has done.

I stand there watching, my heart in my throat, my breath quick and measured, and I start to weep. For her bravery, for her leap. For something that I could never do.