She grinned. Their lovemaking was almost always terrific. “I thought twice in an hour and a half wasn't too shabby myself. Besides, you'd had a hell of a lot of wine to drink. Don't forget that.”
He looked at the empty wine bottle and the champagne in front of them and grinned at her. “I guess that blows tonight, too, huh?”
“I don't know. Maybe we ought to go home and check it out before you're too far gone.” She was laughing at him, glad they'd gone out to dinner after all. It had relieved some of her tension.
“Thanks a lot. But I want to know what's bothering you first.”
“Absolutely nothing.” And at that precise moment, she was being honest.
“Maybe not now, but a little while ago, something was. You looked like your best friend had died when I came home.”
“No, I didn't.” But she had been feeling some of that. He was her best friend, after all, and if she went back to school, in some ways she would lose him. “Don't be silly, Ol.”
“Don't try to bullshit me. Something's worrying you, or preoccupying you. Is it your writing?” He knew she hadn't written anything in two years, but it didn't matter to him. He just wanted her to be happy.
“Maybe. I'm not getting anywhere with that. Maybe I can't write anymore. Maybe that was just a flash in my youth.” She shrugged and for the first time in two years, it didn't seem to matter.
“I don't believe that, Sarah. You were good. I think it'll come back to you in time. Maybe you just haven't figured out what you want to write about. Maybe you ought to get out in the world more … do something different …” Without knowing it, he was opening the door to her, but she was terrified to walk through it. No matter what she did, or said, or how she said it, once she told him, everything in their lives would be changed forever.
“I've been thinking about that.” She advanced cautiously.
“And?” He waited.
“What do you mean 'and'?” She was scared of him. It was rare for her. But for the first time in her life, she was terrified of her husband.
“You never think about anything without coming to some kind of conclusion, or taking action.”
“You know me too well.” She smiled, suddenly looking sad again, and desperately not wanting to tell him.
“What aren't you telling me, Sarrie? Not knowing what's on your mind is driving me crazy.”
“Nothing is on my mind.” But she wasn't convincing either of them, and she was going around in circles. “Maybe it's just midlife crisis.”
“That again?” He grinned. “You went through that two years ago, and you only get one go around. Next time it's my turn. Come on, baby … what is it?”
“I don't know, Ollie …”
“Is it us?” His eyes looked sad as he asked her.
“Of course not. How could it be us? You're wonderful … it's just me, I guess. Growing pains. Or the lack of them. I feel like I've been stagnant ever since we got married.” He waited, holding his breath, the champagne, and the wine, and the party atmosphere all but forgotten. “I haven't done anything. And you've accomplished so much.”
“Don't be ridiculous. I'm a guy like a million other ad men.”
“The hell you are. Look at you. Look at what you just told me over dinner. In five years, you'll be the head of Hinkley, Burrows, and Dawson, if it takes you that long, which I doubt. You're one of the biggest success stories in the business.”
“That doesn't mean anything, Sarah. You know that. It's transitory. It's nice. But so what? You've raised three great kids. That's a hell of a lot more important.”
“But what difference does that make now? They've grown up, or practically, in a year or two they'll be gone. Mel and Benjamin anyway, and then what? I sit and wait around for Sam to go, too, and then I spend the rest of my life watching soap operas and talking to Agnes?” Her eyes filled with tears at the prospect, and he laughed. He had never known her to watch daytime TV. She was far more likely to bury herself in Baudelaire or Kafka.
“You paint a mighty gloomy picture, my love. Nothing's stopping you from what you want to do.” He meant it, but he had no concept of the scope of her ambitions. He never had. She had buried them all long before, left them behind somewhere in a duffel bag or an old trunk, with her Radcliffe diploma.
“You don't really mean that.”
“Of course I do. You can do volunteer work, get a part-time job, write short stories again. You can do absolutely anything you set your mind to.”
She took a breath. The time was now, whether she was ready or not. She had to tell him. “I want to go back to school.” Her voice was barely audible across the narrow table.
“I think that's a great idea.” He looked relieved. She was not in love with someone else. All she wanted was to take some courses. “You could go to the state university right in Purchase. Hell, if you spread it out over time, you could even get your master's.” But the way he said it suddenly annoyed her. She could go to a local school, and “spread it out over time.” How much time? Ten years? Twenty? She could be one of those grandmothers taking creative-writing courses and producing nothing.
“That isn't what I had in mind.” Her voice was suddenly firm and much stronger. He was the enemy now, the one who had kept her from everything she wanted.
“What were you thinking of?” He looked confused.
She closed her eyes for an instant, and then opened them and looked at him. “I've been accepted for the master's program at Harvard.” There was an endless silence between them as he stared at her and tried to understand what she was saying.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Suddenly he didn't understand anything. What was she saying to him, this woman he thought he knew, who had lain next to him for two decades. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, she had become a stranger. “When did you apply for that?”
“At the end of August.” She spoke very quietly. The determination he remembered from her youth was burning in her eyes again. Right before him, she was becoming another person.
“That's nice. It would have been nice of you to mention it. And what did you intend to do about it if you were accepted?”
“I never thought I would be. I just did it for the hell of it … I guess when Benjamin started talking about applying to Harvard.”
“How touching, a mother-and-son team. And now? Now what are you going to do?” His heart was pounding and he suddenly wished they were at home, so he could pace the room, and not sit stuck in a corner of a restaurant at a table that had instantly become claustrophobic. “What are you telling me? You're not serious about this, are you?”
Her eyes met his like blue ice, as she nodded slowly. “Yes, I am, Ollie.”
“You're going back to Cambridge?” He had lived there for seven years and she for four, but that was lifetimes ago. Never in his life had he ever considered going back there.
“I'm thinking about it.” She was doing more than that, but she couldn't face telling him yet. It was too brutal.
“And what am I supposed to do? Quit my job and come with you?”
“I don't know. I haven't figured that out yet. I don't expect you to do anything. This is my decision.”
“Is it? Is it? And what about us? What do you expect us to do while you play student again? May I remind you that Melissa will be home for another two years, and Sam for nine, or had you forgotten?” He was furious now, and he signaled the waiter for the check with an impatient gesture. She was crazy. That was what she was. Crazy. He would have preferred that she tell him she was having an affair. That would have been easier to deal with, or at least he thought so at the moment.
“I haven't forgotten any of that. I just need to think this out.” She spoke quietly, as he peeled off a wad of bills and left it on the table.
“You need a good shrink, that's what you need. You're acting like a bored, neurotic housewife.” He stood up and she glared at him, the full frustration of the past twenty years boiling up in her until she could no longer contain it.