“An a-hole?” Jimmy smirked at her. “Watch your language! Someone here might hear you.”
And then Ash turned and walked out of the restaurant, leaving me and Jimmy alone at the table. What were the people around us thinking? We were at an Applebee’s in Texas that I’d (God willing) never go to again, and still I was humiliated at the scene we’d caused.
“What the fuck was that?” Jimmy asked, laughing loudly, and it was only then that I noticed how drunk he was. He’d been drinking faster than the rest of us at dinner, ordering whiskey on the rocks, but until that moment I hadn’t really noticed. His movements were slow and his voice was thick and he didn’t seem particularly upset about getting yelled at by Matt and Ash. He turned to me, calmly. “So, should we go to the bar?”
“Sure,” I said. I wasn’t in any hurry to get back to Matt, and it wasn’t like he was going to notice or care.
“Might as well, right? Since those two couldn’t handle it.”
The bar was at the front of the restaurant, and except for one very large man at the other end, we were the only ones there. Jimmy motioned to the bartender and ordered another whiskey, and I got a vodka soda. His arm brushed up against mine and the feeling of skin on skin gave me goose bumps. “Cold?” he asked, looking down, and I nodded and finally pulled on the sweater that I’d gotten from the room.
When the bartender brought us our drinks, Jimmy and I clinked them together, out of habit, obviously, since there was nothing about our night worth celebrating. I drank my vodka quickly, wanting something to make me feel less awful. Jimmy watched as I finished it, laughed, and then said approvingly, “Nice,” as he raised his hand to the bartender to bring me another one.
“You know,” he said, once I had my new drink. “Your husband thinks he’s smarter than me.” He was staring at the bar, and for a second I thought he was embarrassed, but then he looked up and I saw that he was angry — angry in a way I’d never seen him before — and it was disorienting. Even when he and Matt were fighting, he could crack a joke a minute later, lighten things up. It always seemed like nothing bothered him for too long. Now his eyes looked dark.
“He doesn’t think that,” I said, knowing that I didn’t sound convincing. “He just gets like that sometimes, you know that. He’s a know-it-all. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.”
“The reason it pisses me off so much,” Jimmy continued as if I hadn’t spoken, “is because it’s true. He is smarter than me. I mean, he went to Harvard, after all.” Jimmy made his voice high and snotty sounding when he said “Harvard,” then loudly crunched an ice cube between his teeth. “And he knows he’s smarter, and he knows that I know it, too.
“He thinks it should be reversed, that I should be the one working for his campaign, that I don’t deserve to run for office. Of course, he probably wouldn’t hire me anyway.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t think that,” I said.
“Of course he does, Beth. Of course he does.”
“Is Ash okay?” I asked. “She seemed so angry.”
“She’s fine. We had a fight earlier and she’s still mad. She just needs to calm the fuck down.”
“What was the fight about?”
Jimmy sighed. “She told me that the campaign was interfering with her career. Her career. Like selling that shit jewelry is going to get her somewhere.”
“She’s been really successful,” I said, trying to be diplomatic, and Jimmy snorted.
“Whatever,” he said, dismissing the idea that Ash deserved any credit.
“Also, I’m sure she’s just tired.” I felt a compulsive need to defend Ash. “The campaign’s been hard on her.”
“You know what?” Jimmy said. “I don’t really care if it’s been hard on her. It’s my name on the ballot. I’m the one that’s going to lose — not Matt, not Ash. Me. That’s all people are going to remember. My name and how I failed.”
“I don’t think anyone thinks about it like that,” I said, putting my hand on his forearm. “I promise.”
We were quiet for a minute, and Jimmy raised his hand to order more drinks. I felt the vodka hit me then, my stomach full of liquid, my head fuzzy, and I wondered if the bartender would refuse to serve us, if we’d end this night by getting cut off at the Applebee’s bar, which would be a new low. But he brought fresh drinks right over to us, and I noticed that the fat man at the end of the bar had his eyes closed like he was taking a nap, so maybe Jimmy and I weren’t the drunkest customers of the night.
“Matt’s been a real dick lately, hasn’t he?” Jimmy said, turning to me. “I think that might be partly my fault. It’s probably sucked for you.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “It’s just how he’s acting.” Jimmy didn’t respond, and then I said, “It’s like he doesn’t even really like me anymore. And he wants to have a baby, apparently.” I was bumbling, but I regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth, feeling like I’d betrayed Matt somehow.
Jimmy just nodded, but didn’t look surprised, and I wondered if he and Matt had ever discussed this. “And you don’t?” he asked, his tone neutral.
“No, I do,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to. It’s just now doesn’t seem like the right time, you know? How can we have a baby if he doesn’t even want to talk to me? It’s like borrowing trouble or whatever.” I could hear how drunk I sounded.
“Yeah, I get that,” Jimmy said. “And I mean, you should be sure, because it’s hard. It changes things.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m not scared of things changing, not like that. I’m just — I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”
“I get it,” he said, which couldn’t have possibly been true because I was making little to no sense. “You know, since we’ve had Viv, Ash never touches me, never wants me to touch her. Ever. And I don’t mean to sound like some crazy husband, but I mean, never. If we’re in public, she’ll pretend. But by ourselves? Nothing.”
“Well,” I said, feeling clumsy. “I’m sure that’s normal, right? Just like an adjustment period? I’m sure it is. I mean, I don’t know personally, but I think that happens to a lot of people.”
“You know that Viv is a year and a half old, right?” Jimmy asked.
“I do,” I said. The bartender brought over two more drinks then, without us even asking. Jimmy and I had shared more intimate information in the past ten minutes than in all the time we’d known each other. We’d never talked like this — if we ever bad-mouthed our spouses it was always in the winking and joking manner of happy couples who are free to complain about dishes in the sink and unmade beds because they’re so clearly in love. But because we’d gone this far, I said, “I mean, it really feels sometimes like Matt can’t stand me. Like he doesn’t care about me at all. He never thinks about me. I’m an afterthought, always.” I took a deep breath. “Sometimes I feel like we aren’t going to make it, I really do.”
The words sounded too dramatic, but there was no taking them back, so I just stopped talking.
“I know what you mean,” Jimmy said. “I really do.”
“No, you don’t,” I said.
“I do. And you know what, Beth?” He put his hand on my arm, and I turned to look at him. “You deserve someone who thinks about you. All the time. You’re so amazing. You deserve the best.”
We kept looking at each other, past the point where it felt comfortable. And somewhere in my head, I was aware that his hand was still on my arm. That was the only part of us that was touching, but we kept staring into each other’s eyes, and it felt like more, like we were doing something inappropriate, crossing a line. Jimmy reached up and brushed my hair off my shoulder, and finally I broke my eyes away from him, stared up at the TV in the corner of the bar.