“Whatcha looking for?” he inquired, whisking the toweling aside to catch stray droplets of water that coursed down his legs.
“Hairbrush and some mascara,” she lied, straightening, the slender dark tube clutched in one hand. He snorted at her and passed her the hairbrush. She plaited her hair expertly, fastening it into a flattering soft bun, and applied her mascara as he watched. Seemingly satisfied, he turned away: she sighed as she stopped studying his face in the mirror. There was no reason at all for her to worry about last night, and no reason to let him know about the temporary weakness in their safeguards. They’d done this before: run out of condoms and she knew she’d forgotten pills. Despite the hormonal haze of their newlywed year, she’d never caught pregnant. She’d heard somewhere that stress made women infertile, and if that was true, she sometimes doubted she’d ever conceive, even should they start trying.
They dressed in a companionable silence, he in slacks and a pullover sweater of heather cashmere that she’d bought at the men’s department of Neiman Marcus years before, and she in a smart black jogging suit, its collar casually raked up, framing her round and angelic features. After she locked the door, they strode, steps matching in an even cadence, to the elevator. “I was planning on checking out today,” she admitted, sliding her free hand into her pocket. He considered that as they waited for the elevator. “I hear I know a girl with a swanky pad right here in the city,” he whispered, conspiratorily, a roguish smile on his lips.
“No bed,” she laughed. “More importantly, no coffeemaker!”
“Easily remedied,” he said, waving a hand in the air. “Let’s find some breakfast and then pack you up. That way, when I...” He stopped, but her mind filled the information in. When he left.
“Can’t go if you don’t even have a bed,” he said, striving for the lighthearted camaraderie that fell flat as they considered the distance between the East and West Coasts.
“Maybe I shouldn’t ever buy one, then.”
“I would still have to go, Wynn. The Maianbrenner account...”
“I know!” she shouted, drawing eyes their way as she shrugged off his arm and hand. “I know! It’s the chance of a lifetime. And I understand, but I don’t have to like this.”
“There’s not much to like about it, that’s for sure,” he said, subdued, leading her into the cafe. They ignored the sign instructing them to wait for seats and chose two together in a booth. The waitress appeared as she flipped his cup up for coffee, and filled it while leveling a stern glare at them. Her name-tag read “Hey Miss,” which made Wynn’s smile reappear. Selecting two creamers from the dish at the edge of the table, she pushed them toward Evan as the waitress nudged their menus down over the plastic table protector.
Would it ever be like this with someone else, she wondered, amazed at the small intimacies they shared as they picked and then ordered their breakfasts – he remembered she liked her toast white, she remembered to order his eggs over-easy. Could she learn another person this well? What if she couldn’t? What if all those love songs about just one love in a lifetime were real? Pursing her lips as her mind obediently spat up a chunk of lyrics about love being better the second time around, she sighed. The world was crazy, that was all there was to it, and their idyll could not last forever. If she spent every minute of it dreading the time when he had to leave, she’d have nothing left for the time he was gone.
But it was difficult pushing the knowledge away: swallowing the pill of his return to New York City left the taste of ashes in her mouth, rather than the sweet tang of cantaloupe. She pushed her breakfast away, summoned a false but cheery smile.
“Cheer up,” he said, softly. “Hey, you get to take me shopping.” Obediently, she managed a wan smile, and he grabbed her wrist, maneuvering her into a small corner, occupied by a single pay phone nestled between two narrow arms of faux wood. “You know I don’t know what we can do,” he said, his voice pitched low – his lecturing voice, the one she hated. “But we have until Sunday night. I don’t want to remember you sad when I have to go back to the office. And I know,” he said, cupping her arm in his conciliating way, “that you’ll be thinking of me. So let’s pretend we know what’s coming next, and get your apartment settled.”
“But what is next?” Wynn asked, hating the plea in her voice.
“Next? Hell if I know,” Evan said, shoving his hands into his pockets, his shoulders hunched. “If I hadn’t put so many hours into Maianbrenner Terrace, I’d call and quit. Right now. But they’ve bought my plans and I need to oversee them. You were right, it is the chance of a career. After it’s done, I might be able to find a place in a Seattle firm.” He shot her a defiant glance, shrugged. “There are some pretty areas around Seattle, aren’t there? And it doesn’t snow here, apparently.”
“I don’t want to give up my job,” Wynn said, feeling two inches tall. “I want to make this program work. I can’t let them down if I want to get ahead. I can’t back down. And Evan,” she said, with reluctance, “I don’t want to back down.”
“Do you want this job more than me, Wynn? Is that what you keep trying to say?” That guarded look was back in his eyes, the soft whimsy of his playful mood evaporated, like the October morning fog that had vanished while they lingered over breakfast. She couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze: couldn’t stand the twin torrents of agony and ambition that warred in her heart.
“I still love you,” she whispered. “But I love what I do. And you know, this is not fair for you. I don’t think this was part of the deal, Evan. You wanted a wife, someone who’d settle down and have kids, someone who could blindly just follow you, and she’s just not me, Evan! Why can’t what I am be what you could be happy with?” Wynn whispered, pain thickening her voice to breathiness.
“Sweetheart,” Evan said, wrapping his arm around her. “Sweetheart, it is you I love. And maybe we could...just give this a chance? Until my project has broken ground and the contractors are doing well?” He put his fingers under her chin, lifting her downturned lips to his own. She threw herself into his kiss, savoring it with a feral glee, a primal desire that staggered him back against the flimsy phonebooth.
“Wynn, if we don’t get in that car and drive down to IKEA, we aren’t going to make it out of this cafe before I ravish you right here in the lobby,” he murmured, and she grinned up at him, wicked, wanton, and unrepentant.
“And if there isn’t a bed in that apartment by the time I get you back there, I swear I will go to REI and ravish you in your very own sleeping bag,” she returned, a hint of her spirit and her smile resurfacing from the gloom.
“Milady has a challenge for her brave knight,” Evan quipped. “And I think yonder steed awaits – at least until we find a U-Haul depot.”
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