“But what about—” she asked.
“My three months are up,” he said, grinning. “I saw Amy today and she talked to my sponsor. He told her that I’ve been clean for the whole summer.”
Emily began to laugh. “Oh my God, Curtis, I got so wrapped up in all this that I guess I thought it was forever.” She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. She felt giddy, lighter than she had in months, since this whole business had started. “So, if you’re having a drink, does that mean you’re not an alcoholic?”
“Yep,” he said. “Just like you said. I’ve done a lot of thinking.”
Emily ran her hands over his long arms,with their fine brown hairs, and wrapped them around her. “Oh my God, Curtis, it’s been so hard. I’ve been trying so hard not to ask you about it, but I feel like there’s nothing else to talk about.” She looked up into his face. “So this means, right, that you’ll get the divorce soon? Right after Labor Day?”
Curtis nodded. “Not right after Labor Day, because of the tour. But right when I get back.”
Say nothing, she counseled herself, but her pulse had already sped up, the words rushing out in venomous spurts. “But you’re not leaving until Thursday. Couldn’t you get started on the paperwork on Tuesday? You know, Meredith Weiss said she’d help.” Curtis sighed and took off his glasses. Without them he looked young, so young that she wanted to grab him and hold him and run her fingers through his hair. She wanted to say, I’m sorry. I hate myself for being this way, but I can’t stop. But her mouth had turned hard. She couldn’t open it to speak.
“We have the show on Wednesday night, at Hammerstein, and Alana”—this was the publicist—“has some interview for us, some NPR thing, and some other stuff. It’s gonna be crazy.”
He sounded, she thought, as tired as she felt. Good, she thought, he deserves it. And suddenly she knew what she wanted: she wanted to punish him. “She won’t do it,” she said. “Why don’t you just tell me the truth?”
Curtis held up his hand to her and gave her a look so sad she knew she was right. She pulled her legs from his and planted them on the floor. “Okay,” he said, nodding. “She just wants to wait a bit. A few months. It’s no big deal.”
“Oh my God.” Emily dropped her head in her hands. She’d expected him to deny this, to say no, no, no, everything was fine. “A few months. No. No. No.” Before he could answer, she’d sprung up from the couch and was shouting, “I am so sick of her shit. If I ever have to hear her name again, I’m going to fucking slit my wrists. She’s a stupid, manipulative, selfish bitch. I just don’t get it. I don’t fucking get it.” She had moved from shouting to screaming, her hands shaking with rage (adrenaline, she thought, from some rational corner of her brain). “What the fuck is wrong with you? Why don’t you see it? She does this shit to you, Curtis, she manipulates you.”At this word, she began to cry, which only made her more angry, for Amy, fucking Amy, didn’t deserve her tears. “Everything goes right for you and she does this stupid shit to cut you down, telling you you’re an alcoholic—it’s fucking ridiculous. And you believed her.” Curtis was staring at her, lips parted, from his perch on the couch, the skin around his eyes white and shiny with fatigue.
“Emily, come on,” he said, in a whisper. “Don’t say these things. This isn’t you.”
A hoarse sob escaped her throat, then turned into a scream. “This is me. I want to get married and have kids and do… do normal things, just like everyone else. Just like fucking Amy, the fucking anarchist, with her fucking apartment in Park fucking Slope, that her fucking parents bought her.” Her breath was coming in big ragged gulps and her eyes burned, but the storm was passing. All she wanted now was for him to leave, to leave her alone. “I’m just like everyone else,” she said, pressing her hands into the sockets of her eyes. “I want the same things. I want a normal life.”
“No, no, you’re not,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “You’re not.” He smoothed her hair back from her hot forehead and she allowed herself to relax, to melt into him for a moment before she remembered what he’d said—there would be no divorce, not now, not ever, she knew. She shook his hand off.
“She manipulates you. She manipulates you,” she whispered into his chest. “Why do you let her? Why, Curtis? Why?” And then, plain as day, she saw the answer to her own question. She pulled away from him and wiped her hand across her nose.
“Hey, hey,” he said softly, and reached out a hand to gather her back into him, but she twisted away.
“You’re going to go back to her. You don’t think you are, but you are. Otherwise, you wouldn’t put up with this.” Curtis’s face went white.
“No,” he said. “Emily, how can you say that? That’s crazy. How many times have I told you that I love you. I want to be with you. You’re my special girl.” For a long moment he looked at her, almost as if he were seeing her for the first time. Then he ran his hand over his face. “Could I have a glass of that wine now?”
Emily nodded, stepped back to the counter, uncorked the bottle, and poured them each a glass. Drinks in hand, they sat side by side on the sofa, in silence. Finally, Curtis drained his glass in one draught and took Emily’s hand in his own. “It’s been hard,” he said. “She’s been a part of my life for so long—a part of my family, too—that I can’t imagine life without her.”
“I know,” said Emily.
“And she just can’t seem to manage on her own.” He looked at her sadly, his brows sliding closer together, and Emily saw that she was right—she hadn’t been sure of it until she said it—that he was going back to Amy. Already, he was looking at Emily like someone he used to love, something he’d sacrificed to the greater good. Amy was wrong about him after all. He wasn’t motivated by selfishness, but by a desire to set the world right that was as strong, stronger, than Amy the Anarchist’s. The thought made her ill—a great gob of something rising sickly in her throat, sweat prickling out all over her back—and she stole her hand back from Curtis.
“Why a few months?” she asked.
“What?” he asked.
“You said before that she wanted you to wait a few months. Why?” Curtis blinked, slowly, behind his glasses.
“Health insurance. I have it through my parents, still. She’s on my plan.” Emily nodded, worrying her lip—the tears were coming back. She hadn’t known that Curtis even had insurance, much less that he was responsible for Amy’s.
“Why,” she asked, “didn’t she bring this up in May?”
“Because,” he said, turning to face her, “in May she wasn’t pregnant.”
“Okay,” said Emily. A calm had come over her, giving her the peculiar feeling that she was watching someone else have this conversation with Curtis, rather than engaging with him herself. “Okay. I get it. I understand.” Curtis slid over and pulled her to him. This time, she didn’t resist.
“It’s not what you think,” he said. “It’s not mine. I never—”
“I don’t care,” she said. “I just don’t care anymore. Please. I don’t want to hear anything about it. I don’t want to know.” The tears, at last, made their slow, itchy march down her face, but they came with something like relief: these were the last tears she would cry over Amy, because it was over. She and Curtis were through. They were breaking up, to use the high school parlance. The thing she’d dreaded was now, finally happening. “Leave me alone,” she said. “Please just leave me alone.” And, to her surprise, he obeyed, pulling his warm arms away from her.