Emma Straub - Modern Lovers

“Come on, Lizzy,” Andrew said, but even he didn’t sound convinced.

“You know what, honey?” Elizabeth tried to speak in her mother’s voice — even and cool—“Why don’t you go on over to your yoga teacher’s house tonight? They have beds over there, don’t they?” She laughed. “Of course they do, what am I saying! With girls in them! Go and sleep over there tonight, will you? Because I don’t want to look at your face.” The coolness had evaporated quickly, leaving behind red cheeks and eyes filled with tears. She spun around and knocked on the window, startling Darcey. “And you!” Elizabeth said, through the glass. “Out!”

Darcey put a demure hand to her chest: Moi? Elizabeth yowled, and then Darcey quickly scrambled to the door. “Can I have the diary back?” she asked on her way out. Elizabeth gave her a look. “It’s really important to my process.”

“Have Naomi come get it later,” Elizabeth said. “Now, out, all of you.” She swiped some hair off her forehead, where it had begun to stick in stringy bits, and tucked it behind her ear. “I’m going to take a shower. When I’m done, I want all of you gone.” She could still hear Naomi’s throaty laugh echoing down the sidewalk. “Her, too,” Elizabeth said. She went inside and slammed the door, nearly catching Iggy’s tail. She wanted to call someone, but couldn’t think of who to call, and so she went straight upstairs and into the bathroom. The bathtub was a mess — it looked as if Harry had used every towel on the rack and then strewn them everywhere, as if he were trying to mop up blood at a crime scene, but Elizabeth didn’t care. She climbed over the damp mountain of towels, turned on the cold water, and then got in with her clothes on.

Having sex again was better than going to Barneys and trying on expensive dresses. It was better than getting a facial by her favorite Eastern European sadist. It was better than fresh ricotta on toast. Zoe felt like she was twenty-five. Maybe thirty-five. Either way, she felt young and flushed with blood. Sweaty Brooklyn August didn’t bother her the way it usually did, but on a whim, she booked two nights at an Airbnb in Montauk. She left forty bucks on the kitchen counter for Ruby to order dinner. It was a Wednesday. The restaurant had weeks more work, at least, and she and Jane had been there every day, supervising. A little break sounded good. Zoe tucked a few vibrators in the bottom of her bag, and then they were driving down the LIE, holding hands.

The rental was a shacky little house just off Ditch Plains, where the cute surfers and their admirers hung out. All the kids had bare feet and sandy blond highlights in their hair, and Zoe wanted to swallow them whole. She’d loved growing up near the beach, and always felt sad that even though New York was on the coast, it just wasn’t the same. Ruby and her friends never cut school to go surfing or have bonfires on the sand. Zoe held Jane’s hand, and they walked up and down the beach, stooping over to pick up pretty little shells, tossing them back into the ocean when they were cracked.

“How’s your homework going?” Zoe asked. She hadn’t been keeping the diary for Dr. Amelia, not on paper. It seemed antithetical to their kind of marriage, which had always been about passion and taste. Zoe had never liked busywork, and that’s what this felt like — in reality, all she and Jane had to do was resolve their shit. Yes or no! In or out! How on earth was a shopping list of their problems supposed to help answer that question?

“I kind of like it,” Jane said. Sweet Jane. Before Zoe knew for sure that she was a lesbian, when she was still just a kid fumbling around with other kids’ bodies in their teenage bedrooms, several of the boys she’d romanced had looked more or less like Jane — tall, with fair hair and skin tan from the sunshine. Indoors, at night, their sweet little fish bellies would bump together in the dark. It had been such a relief when she slept with her first girl and suddenly all those little bumps were moving in the right direction. It wasn’t that way for everyone, of course — Zoe knew lots of women who were truly bi, but she just wasn’t. She loved bodies, and beauty, but just because she thought Brad Pitt had a lovely face, that didn’t mean she wanted to sit on it.

Zoe’s phone began to trill. “Hang on,” she said, and pulled it out of her pocket. Elizabeth. She pushed IGNORE and put it back in her pocket, but the phone began to ring again immediately. “She probably hit it again by mistake,” Zoe said, but the phone rang again, and Jane shrugged, so Zoe answered. “What’s up?” she said, plugging her finger in her other ear to block out the sound of the waves. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what’s going on? Are you okay? Slow down, I can barely hear you.” Jane waved her up the beach, where she could hear better, and then turned and walked down to the edge of the water. She slipped off her shoes and let the tiny waves slosh over her feet.

“Start again, I can hear better,” Zoe said.

On the other end, Elizabeth took a big gulp of air and then launched into Darcey and Naomi and Lydia and Andrew and fake Lydia peeking through the window at her while she yelled at her husband. Elizabeth sobbed through it, taking little breaks to blow her nose. Zoe wanted to say, I KNEW IT. Just in general, as a rule, she had known that something was happening between Andrew and Lydia and also that Andrew was kind of an asshole, but that wouldn’t have helped. “Oh, honey,” she said instead. It had been a long time since Elizabeth had called her like this, in a panic that had nothing to do with a weird rash on Harry’s butt or how to register for summer camp. Then again, it had been a long time since anything had seemed so urgent at all. Urgency was for younger people, for teenagers and dramatic twenty-somethings, for young hypochondriac parents. When you got older, urgency was for hearing that your parents had fallen ill, and you needed to book a flight as quickly as possible without maxing out your credit card. In between, things were sort of calm, running on autopilot. The kids were in school. The marriage was what it was. Everything was more or less fine.

Jane was facing the water. Her body bowed out slightly over the tops of her pants, as if in a sigh. Exercise was not something Jane had ever been interested in — no running, no team sports, no yoga. It all bored her. She’d probably have a heart attack when she was sixty, but Zoe could imagine even that as something of a joke, the two of them in a hospital room, and Jane telling Zoe all about which nurses were in love with her. They’d hold hands under the starched sheets and the paper gowns and look out the window at the city.

Elizabeth was still talking. Her voice was herky-jerky, and it sounded like she was banging around in her kitchen — there was the noise of doors opening and closing. At one point Zoe heard the toilet flush.

“Are you okay? Where is Andrew now?” Zoe waved to Jane, snapping her fingers to try to get her attention. The wind carried the tiny sound away.

It wasn’t clear if Elizabeth was slurring her words, or if it was just all the snot.

“Are you drinking?” It was just past noon. The sobs turned into whimpers, which Zoe took as a yes. It was like trying to have a telephone conversation with a Chihuahua. “Listen,” she said, “Jane is probably going to kill me for saying this, but why don’t you come out here? Just get on the train, we’ll pick you up at the station. You’ll be here by dinner. We’ll eat mussels and talk about what the fuck we’re going to do to your husband, okay? Come out. I’ll text you the info, okay? Okay?” Elizabeth agreed quietly, and after she hung up the phone, Zoe looked up to see that Jane had walked several yards farther down the beach. She didn’t have her shoes, or a wallet, or keys — everything was in Zoe’s purse. Marriage was about trust, and kindness. She and Jane were in a funny spot, or maybe they were just coming out of one, and wounds were still tender, but Elizabeth’s voice had made clear that things were worse next door. People didn’t take turns having difficult moments; they came all together, like rainstorms and puddles. Zoe could invite Elizabeth — could explain this all to Jane — because she knew that the sky over their heads was clearing up, and the clouds were still heavy and dark over her friend.