His Wife Leaves Him

Post, since it was the afternoon. Only one customer in the store, in the greeting-card section, reading a card she was holding. On his way out to wait for her on the sidewalk, he said to the counterman — the counter went right up to the door—“Looking for someone. She’s not here yet. I was actually supposed to meet her outside if it wasn’t too cold. We’ll be back,” and the man said “That’s all right,” or something like that. Eight to ten stools, he thinks, and he also thinks the leather of the one he sat on, or fake leather, had a slit in it. “Maybe it is too hot with a coat on,” she said, and took it off, folded it in two and got up, put it on her stool and sat on it. “No, this is uncomfortable,” she said about a minute later, and put the coat back on. “I’ll hold it for you, if you want,” he said, and she said “Thanks, but this way is better, and I don’t want to go through getting off the stool and taking it off again.” During that time — when she was taking her coat off, folding it up and getting it on the stool and putting it back on her — he had several chances to look at her chest without her seeing him. It seems full, he thought. Not the most important thing, but he was curious. When they met for a beer on their next date and while she was hanging up her coat on the hook near their table before she sat down opposite him, he looked at her chest again and also caught a glimpse of it later: when she closed her eyes and sipped her beer and smiled. Her chest didn’t seem as full as it did in the drugstore, maybe because she was wearing a dark-green loose-fitting Shetland sweater in the bar, while only a long-sleeved T-shirt, he’ll call it, or maybe “polo shirt” because of the three buttons at the top, in the drugstore. When she turned to the right for something on the counter in the drugstore, he also got a good look at her nose. It wasn’t large, so why’d he think it was? Even if it was, what of it? That alone would keep him from being interested in her? She’s very pretty, he thought in the drugstore. Beautiful, he could say, and such a spiritual and intelligent face. Beautiful neck too; graceful. And that lovely soft voice. He could listen to it and listen to it and listen to it. He’d love to hear that voice in the dark in bed. A beautiful smile. Not one fake or unflattering expression. Beautiful lips and cheeks and teeth. And her hair: shiny and tidy and clean-looking, and sort of a reddish blond. He’d never seen eyes like hers. What color are they? he thought in the drugstore. Not entirely green, for they have yellow and blue in them, but a healthy yellow, if that makes any sense, and he thinks he saw gray. He thought of asking her in the drugstore what color would she say her eyes were, but too soon to ask and it might not be a question she’d like. He did ask her at the bar or more likely in the restaurant they went to after or even more likely on the sofa in her apartment after one of their first kisses and her face was still close to his but far enough away for him to stare at her eyes and the room was well lit. She said “First of all, please stop staring at me,” and he did. “As to an answer, I’m going to be irritatingly capricious and vague. They’re multi-changeable-colored. I’ve rarely seen this, but people tell me. They change with whatever light they’re in. Daylight, sunlight, full-moon light, artificial light, fireplace light, flashlight, but they never turn red, except when I break a blood vessel there, and but they don’t glow in the dark. As you can see, I don’t like talking about them.” “I’m sorry,” and she said “Don’t be; I didn’t mean it as a rebuke. I just don’t like talking about myself, if you understand me,” and he said “Oh, I do. As for me, my eyes are an ordinary brown, no flecks of anything in them, not even hazel. You know, I’m not sure what color hazel actually is. Light brown?” and she said “That or yellowish brown, like the nut.” “So it is like me. Only kidding. Anything for a laugh at my own expense, though honestly, I don’t dislike myself.” At the drugstore her hair was done up, if that’s the expression, in a ponytail. At the bar it was parted in the middle and hung over the sides of her face and dropped a little on her shoulders. At the restaurant — she must have changed it in the ladies’ room there or the one in the bar — it hung freely down her back. At the party her hair was bunched or knotted up in back but above her neck. He seems to remember a long white stick like an ivory chopstick through the bunched- or knotted-up clump, but maybe not. Probably, which she usually used when she had her hair like that, just a clip. At the drugstore she wore dark kneesocks that were pulled up under her skirt to her thighs. At the bar she wore pants. At the party she wore a skirt that came halfway down her calves and in her apartment the second time she wore the same pants, so he never got to look at any part of her legs uncovered, even when she crossed them for a short time on the stool, till they were in bed. They’d been necking in the living room awhile, went to the bedroom, sat on the bed and he said, holding her hands, “Funny question, but do you want to be undressed or should we both take off our own clothes? And she said “Undressed.” He took off her slippers and socks and then her blouse and bra. They kissed during all this, little ones, big ones, and after he had her bra off he kissed her breasts and then started unfastening or unbuttoning or unzipping or whatever he did to start taking off her pants. “I’ll do the rest,” she said, and went into the bathroom, which was in the little hall between the bedroom and living room. He thinks he was in bed but without the covers over him when she got back, and she took off her bathrobe and that was the first time he saw her legs. Or he waited for her with all his clothes on except his shoes and socks, which he stuffed into his shoes, till she came back, and then put his shoes under the bed, went into the bathroom, took off the rest of his clothes, washed up and came out nude carrying his folded-up clothes and put them somewhere in the bedroom. The lamps on both sides of the bed were on. She was in bed under the covers, no top on, he could see, so he supposed no bottom on either or just underpants. She pulled the covers back to invite him in and that was when he first saw her legs. They were chunky and sturdy and strapping and strong, and the thighs looked soft. He loved legs like this, he might have thought. He sat beside her on the bed, leaned over her and closed his eyes and kissed the top of her thighs and then the inside of one, and she said “Not yet,” and held her arms out for him. He lay beside her and she pulled the covers up over them. It was late, probably past twelve, and there was little heat on in the apartment and the room was cold. Anyway, one of those, he thinks the second, when he first saw her legs. Till they made love again when they awoke the next morning, he still hadn’t seen her backside. They’d slept on their backs or with her pressed into him from behind. He’d felt it in the dark, though, his hand twisted around her or squeezed underneath her, and from those feels he knew it was full. Also, from what he’d earlier made out from quick looks at it under her coat and skirt and pants and bathrobe, he knew it had some shape to it, wasn’t flat or small, which he was glad of. He liked a backside that bulged and he could clutch. She also seemed to be as gentle as any woman he’d gone with, he thought at one of those places: drugstore, bar, restaurant, first two times in her apartment, even while walking with her outside on those dates. A few years ago — before her first stroke — he said to her — she was at the dining-room table correcting papers while eating a lunch she’d made, he’d come into the room from their bedroom where he was working then—“Look what I found I wrote about you on the inside of my thesaurus book cover,” and he read to her — he’s memorized it since, he’s read it so many times, coming upon it accidentally or opening the book on purpose: “‘May 6th, 1999. I didn’t choose you for your beauty and sexuality, but more for your intelligence, kindness and gentility.’” The rest of the conversation went something like this: “Did you mean to say ‘gentleness’ instead of ‘gentility’?” and he said “I wrote it as ‘gentility,’ but I meant both.” “Very nice,” she said, “but how do you know it’s about me? Does it say so?” “No, but who else could it be? Nineteen ninety-nine. Twenty years after we met, and she said “You could have been thinking of one of your old flames. You’ve told me they were all intelligent and sexy and pretty and a couple of them were quite beautiful and sweet.” And he said “Sweet, I don’t know. They were intelligent, in varying degrees, but none as intelligent and learned as you. And sexy, some more than others, but again, nothing compared to you, and I’m not just saying that. But they were all, for the most part, or turned out to be, awful, or just to me. You’re the only one who’s unfailingly been gentle and kind, and for all our years together, I want to tell you, so for sure since May, 1999. I know you can’t say the same about me of the men you’ve known, in gentleness, intelligence, refinement, maybe sexiness, and the rest of it, but that’s okay so long as I take the lead in artistry. We’ll pass the last off as a joke, though there’s a little seriousness to it. What’s more, you’re the only women I’ve loved and hankered for and everything else like that since I met you, or a week or two after. And by far and more than that the one I’ve loved the most of all the women I’ve known, and you don’t have to respond to that with some fanciful something about my own desirability and so on,” and she said “Okay, I won’t. What you said, of course, is very nice to hear, and I believe you,” and indicated with her finger and then pointing to her lips that he should come closer because she wanted to kiss him, and he lowered his head to hers and they kissed. Then she said “I made enough chicken salad for both of us, if you want some,” and he said “Yeah, I’d love to sit down with you, if I won’t be disturbing your work.” “Want something else to eat?” he asked at the drugstore, when the counterman took their knife and plate, and she said “Little I ate, I’m full.” “Then like to walk it off a little? It’s not bad out, though I’ll have to find a men’s room first,” and she said “That’d be nice. We could head uptown, and then I’ll catch a bus home along the way.” She took the check, he just now remembers, when the counterman held it out to him. He said “No, please, let me,” and reached for the check in her hand, and she said “I’d like to take care of it. It isn’t often a check for two is so small that I can afford to pick it up.” “Fine, if you let me pay for dinner out sometime, if we ever have one,” and she said “We’ll see.” She paid up, he went to the men’s room, they went outside. She left a generous tip on the counter, he noticed, much more than he would have. Did he mention that the opening in his coffee mug handle was so small that he could barely fit the tip of his forefinger through it? For some reason this intrigued him, or he thought it might make for funny conversation, so he brought it up with her just after the counterman poured him a refill. “Why didn’t they make the opening larger? We can’t blame everything on the Chinese. It was probably made there but the design for it could have been done here. Your finger could fit through it but mine almost got stuck. How would it look, my walking around with a coffee mug I couldn’t get off my finger? Seriously, though, it’d also seem the mug would be easier to spill, with so little handle to hold on to. That could result in the drinker burning himself, especially when you get it hot and black, like I do,” and she said “I haven’t a clue.” Outside, she said “Should we head up Broadway, Riverside Drive or the park? Not West End. It’s the dullest avenue in New York. All bricks and stunted trees and awnings with pigeon droppings on them and sixteen-story apartment buildings on both sides of the street.” He said “Any of the ones you said would do. Though the park might be a bit dangerous this time of the year. Fewer pedestrians, and it’ll be getting dark soon,” and she said “It’s safe till the low nineties, but okay. Riverside Drive, on the park side. It has the prettiest views and I can get a number five bus on it, which stops in front of my building.” “That’s right,” he said, “you live on the Drive. Do you see the river from your apartment, or have I asked that?” and she said “Most of it, like now, when the trees aren’t leafy.” “So you probably see stars and sunsets and barges and all sorts of lights on the river,” and she said “All that plus enormous apartment buildings on the Palisades that make the ones on West End look small, and the sunrise reflections off their windows. What do you see from your place?” and he said “Oh, I have a huge terrace in the rear, so I get to see lots of other terraces and backyards and the backs of buildings, especially the one at the corner of Columbus and 75th — La Rochelle, it’s called, though nobody calls it anything but its number, fifty-seven. Also, some sunsets, though not so far when the sun sinks into New Jersey and drowns, like it probably does from your window. Mine, I just see disappearing behind La Rochelle, and maybe twenty minutes later some nice colors in the sky.” He pictures her looking pleased, talking to him as they walked. He’s never been able to describe that look. Tried, verbally and on paper. But he knew by it when she really liked something. Maybe “pleased” or “satisfied” or “self-satisfied” is all it is. He would love to hold her as they walked, he thought. Hold her hand, he meant. Then to put his arm around her shoulders and draw her to him. Then stop to kiss. Nobody was around. Even if someone was. What would she do if he tried to kiss her? he thought as they walked. Don’t try. Whatever you do, he thought, don’t. But if he did try and she complied? And he’s talking about a deep kiss, or something like it: eyes closed, lips pressed. That would be it. He’d be so happy. “Kiss me,” he says in bed, in the dark, on his back, covers up to his neck, and shuts his eyes and puts his lips out for her. He actually once imagined — it wasn’t too long ago — he felt something wet and soft on his lips when he did it. He knows it’s crazy but at the moment he believed it and has tried the same thing a couple of times since. Anyway, he was really getting to like this gal, he thought as they walked. Or maybe he thought all that when he walked her to her building from the restaurant on their second date. Or maybe he didn’t think it there, either, and is only thinking it now in bed. He doesn’t think so but it’s a possibility. He remembers, he forgets, he thinks something happened that didn’t, he gets things mixed up. It was so long ago. Twenty-oh-six, end of seventy-eight. She mentioned her age — something about how it took her a few years longer to get her Ph.D. than it does most candidates in her field, and gave the reasons for it — marriage, travel, working as a guide in a USIA exhibit in Belgium and France for six months, divorce, getting over it — and he got concerned about their eleven-year age difference, though for eleven days a year, he later learned, it was ten. Again: they talked about the woman who gave the p