Danielle Steel - The House

After breakfast, he went off to do his errands, while Sarah made her bed. He had said something about staying there that night, so she changed the sheets, and put fresh towels up in the bathroom. She did the breakfast dishes, then went out to pick up her own dry cleaning. She never had time to do that either during the week. Single working people never did. Her only day to do errands was Saturday, which was why Phil was doing his. She would just have liked to do them together. He laughed at her when she said that, made light of it, and then reminded her that that was what married people did, single people didn't. And they weren't married. They were single, he always said loud and clear. They did laundry separately, errands separately, had separate lives, apartments, and beds. They came together a couple of days a week to have fun, not to join their two lives into one. He said it to her often. She understood the difference. She just didn't like it. He did. A lot.

Sarah came back to the apartment to put her dry cleaning away, and after that she went to the photography exhibit at the museum, and found it beautiful and interesting. She would have liked to share it with Phil, but she knew he wasn't crazy about museums. She went for a walk on the Marina Green after that, to get some exercise and air, and she was back at her apartment at six o'clock, after stopping at Safeway to buy some groceries. She had decided to cook Phil dinner, and maybe after that they could rent a video or go to a movie. They didn't have much of a social life these days. Most of her friends were married and had children, and Phil found them incredibly boring. He liked her friends, but no longer liked their lifestyles. The people they had met together in the beginning of their relationship were now all married. And he said he found it depressing to try and have an intelligent conversation, while listening to their toddler and brand-new baby screaming either for their dinner or from earaches. He said he had done all that years before. His own friends now were mostly men his age or younger who had never been married, or who had been divorced for years, liked it that way, and were bitter about their ex-wives, or their kids who had supposedly been corrupted by their despicable ex-wives, and the men hated the spousal support they were paying, which they always insisted was too much. They were unanimous in the belief that they had gotten screwed, and were emphatic about not letting it happen again. He found her friends too domestic these days, although he had liked them in the beginning, and she found his superficial and bitter, which limited their social life a lot. She noticed that most of the men Phil's age were now dating seriously younger women. When they went to dinner with them, she found herself trying to have conversations with young women who were barely more than half her age, and she had nothing in common with them. So lately she and Phil had been keeping to themselves, and for the moment that worked well, although it isolated them. They saw fewer and fewer friends now.

He saw his own friends during the week, either at the gym, or before or after for a drink, which was another reason he had no time to see Sarah during the week, and objected to her trying to take his weekday independence from him. He was very open with her about the fact that he needed to see his friends, whether she liked them or not, or approved of who they dated. So weekday nights were his.

Phil didn't call her on her cell phone all day Saturday, and she assumed he was busy, so she didn't call him, either. She knew he'd turn up at her apartment when he was finished doing what he had to do. He finally walked in at seven-thirty, in blue jeans and a black turtleneck that made him look sexier than ever. She almost had dinner ready for him, and handed him a glass of wine the minute he walked in. He smiled, kissed her, and thanked her.

“My, how you spoil me…it smells delicious…. What's for dinner?”

“Baked potatoes, Caesar salad, steak, and cheesecake.” His favorites, but it sounded good to her, too. And she had bought a nice bottle of French Bordeaux. She liked it better than Napa Valley.

“Sounds fantastic!” He took a sip of the wine and made a yummy sound, and ten minutes later they sat down to dinner at her battered dining table. He never objected to the grim furnishings of her apartment, and seemed not to see them whenever he hung out there. He complimented her lavishly on the dinner. She had made the steak exactly the way he liked it, just rare enough but not too rare. He heaped sour cream and chives that she had chopped into his baked potato. Sometimes she really enjoyed being domestic, and even the Caesar salad was delicious. “Wow! What a meal!” He loved it, and she was pleased. He was always generous with kind words and praise, and she loved that about him. Her mother had been critical of her all her life, and her father had been too out of it to know she existed. It meant a lot to her to have someone acknowledge the nice things she did. Most of the time, Phil did.

“So what did you do today?” she asked happily, as she served him a slice of the cheesecake. She preferred chocolate herself but always bought cheesecake for him. She knew he loved it. “Did you get the tires and all the other stuff done?” She assumed he had, since they had been apart for nine hours. He should have been able to get everything done by the time he got back to her apartment just in time for dinner.

“You won't believe it, you'll never believe how lazy I was. I got back to my place, got all organized, and wound up watching some stupid old gladiator movie on TV. It wasn't Spartacus , but a poor man's version of it. I sat there for three hours, and by then I was really lazy. I took a nap. I called a couple of people. I went to pick up my dry cleaning, and ran into Dave Mackerson, I hadn't seen him in years, so I went out to lunch with him, then I went to his place and played video games. He just moved into a fantastic house in the marina, with a view of the whole bay. We polished off a bottle of wine, and by the time we did, I came back here. I'll pick up the tires next week. It was just one of those days when I didn't accomplish a damned thing, but it felt good. It was great to see Dave again. I didn't realize he got divorced last year. He has a mighty cute girlfriend.” He laughed easily then, as Sarah tried not to stare at him. “She's about the same age as his oldest kid. In fact, I think she's a year younger. He gave Charlene the house in Tiburon, but I like his new place a lot better. More style, more modern, and Charlene was always a bitch.” Sarah sat listening to Phil, feeling breathless. She said nothing. She had left him alone all day, so he could do his errands, and because she didn't want to crowd him, while he had watched TV at his place, had lunch with a friend, and played video games all afternoon. He could have spent the afternoon with her, if he wanted to do that. But the painful reality was that he didn't want to. He would rather have spent the afternoon with his buddy, talking about what a bitch his ex-wife was, and admiring his twelve-year-old girlfriend. Sarah nearly cried as she listened, but did everything in her power not to. It was always so hurtful and disappointing when he did things like that. And Phil had absolutely no idea that she was upset, or why she would be. That was the core of the problem. Everything he had done that day seemed fine to him, including leaving Sarah out of his life, in spite of the fact that this was the weekend. But in his mind, it was his life. Not “their” life: only his. She had accepted it for four years, but now it infuriated her. His priorities were so insulting and hurt her feelings. And saying it to him, as she had tried to on occasion, made her sound like a bitch to him, or so he said. More than anything, he hated complaints, and wanted total freedom about how he spent his time.