A Song in the Daylight. Paullina Simons

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СКАЧАТЬ soap and denim smell of him in my car, twenty, unmarried, childless. When I look at him, I’m not in the middle of my life but at the very beginning, one of the Great Swamp Revue traveling Jersey in search of a stage, a joke, a performance, something real amid the illusion, or is it an illusion amid all things real? The Jersey Footlight Players is what I am part of again, putting on quite a show on that stage that’s the driver seat of my Winter Gold Jag, and that’s the sordid why I haven’t written you since February. I’m afraid that in my shallow words you will hear the profound truth of what’s happening to me. I’m drawing away from you as I’m drawing nearer the black chasm that’s got him in it, slowly realizing, reluctantly admitting that he is the only thing I want.

8

       Auditing Safeguards

      The navigation purchase did not ease its way into Jared’s full comprehension over the next few days, and on Saturday night, when they had gathered with their friends for dinner at the house, Jared brought it up again.

      Maggie immediately exclaimed, “Jared! That’s what I said to her! Explain yourself, Larissa, to your friends and your husband. It makes no sense.”

      “Why do you need a nav system, Lar?” asked Ezra.

      “It. Was. An. Impulse. Buy.” Larissa shot Jared a look that she hoped conveyed that if he wanted a woman tonight it would have to be one other than his wife.

      “I understand,” said Ezra. “But it’s like you listening to someone else’s stage direction. It’s just so out of character.”

      “Perhaps I’m playing a different character.”

      She and Jared had a fight instead of sex that Saturday night. Larissa was upset with him for embarrassing her, and he said, “Embarrassing you? Well, let me ask you, how do you think I feel when Ezra says to me earlier tonight, hey man, can’t believe your wife finally agreed to direct the spring play?”

      “So? You’re embarrassed by that?”

      “Not by that!” he shouted. Jared never shouted. “But you never told me.”

      Why did she look so surprised by this? As if she hadn’t realized she hadn’t told him. “It just happened, Jared. It wasn’t like I was keeping it from you. It happened two days ago. Three.”

      “It happened on Monday, and today is Saturday—night—and this is the first conversation you and I are having about it.”

      “If you can call this a conversation.”

      “It’s more words than we’ve had about it for a week!”

      “A couple of days!”

      “Stop it, Larissa. I know when I’m being bullshitted.”

      “Jared, you were home late on Monday, on Tuesday we had Emily’s cello, on Wednesday, I don’t even know. I wasn’t hiding it.” She stammered a little, then recovered.

      “Did it slip your mind?”

      “Yes. It slipped my mind. What’s the big deal?”

      “Larissa, what’s the big deal? It’s only been the sole topic of conversation between you and Ezra the past two months.”

      “Come on, not the sole topic …”

      “Ezra didn’t tell it to me like it was news,” Jared said. “He mentioned it to me, as in, isn’t it great that Larissa is doing this. Why would you not tell me?”

      “I forgot!”

      “You forgot? Like you forgot to tell me about the nav system?”

      “Oh, cut it out! Just stop it. I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d be upset, okay? We had decided I wouldn’t take the position, and then I did.”

      “So which is it, Larissa? Did it slip your mind, or did you deliberately not tell me? Let’s not mix up the lamest of your excuses.”

      She breathed in and out deeply, like she was training for a scene. “You’re upset.”

      “You’re so observant. Why didn’t you talk to me about it first?”

      “You told me to take the play if I wanted to! Remember? Those were your words. Take it if you want, Lar. Now suddenly I have to call you on Monday morning about it!”

      “You could’ve told me Monday night, no?”

      “No! Leroy was about to cast auditions for Godot! It was an emergency.”

      “What does that have to do with Monday night?”

      “Immediate action was required.”

      “Immediate action, yes. But immediate secrecy?”

      “Oh, for God’s sake! What are you more upset by, Jared? That I agreed to do it, or that I didn’t tell you?”

      “So many things I can’t name them all.”

      “Which one would you like to deal with first?”

      “None of them, Larissa. Not a single fucking one.” And then a second later: “How about this one? Why would you keep these things a secret from me?”

      “How can it be a secret? I was the one who told you!”

      “Not about the play.”

      “No,” she conceded. “But about the nav.”

      “Oh, so now we’re parsing our secrecy, are we?”

      “Oh God!”

      “And you could hardly keep the nav hidden, could you?”

      “I had no intention of keeping it hidden!”

      “Your car,” Jared continued, “was not in the garage when I came home. You had to ’splain that one somehow. And now you’re going to be spending all your time at Pingry. What do you intend to do with our children?”

      “Do not be so melodramatic. I have Sheila, I have Leroy. Fred, Ezra. I have my line reader. We’ll be fine.”

      “Fine and dandy. You’ll know how to get to Pingry. You’ll have your navigation system, won’t you?”

      Without resolution Jared was confounded all Sunday. He felt as if there was a piece of the puzzle he was missing, but he didn’t know what the piece was. He didn’t even know there had been a puzzle! Now suddenly there were missing pieces in it. What was the thing that grated on him, in the scheme of things, in the whole tapestry? He didn’t care if Larissa decided to direct a play. If it worked out, great. And he didn’t really care about the nav СКАЧАТЬ