Reunion: A Novel Read Free Page A

girls would grow up without cousins. I said, “Cousins? We didn’t have cousins. Who needs cousins?” He said, “You don’t get it. And you won’t. You can’t. Because you don’t have kids.”
    Peter and I stopped having sex.
    Strike that: I started going to bed earlier than Peter.
    Yes, it was deliberate. And yes, it was that simple. At first I claimed headaches. I’d go out of my way to pop an aspirin or two while he was watching. But it was too sad, how obvious I was being. And so I stopped claiming headaches and joined the gym. I got up at five and was outside the gym by five thirty, just as they were unlocking the doors. At night, after class, I’d look at Peter and say, “I’m beat.” And I was. My body was proof. The new muscles and drawn face were evidence.
    So we stopped having sex, and the fact of the matter is that it was a relief. I liked falling asleep—though it would only be for an hour or two—without him. I liked not having to worry and wait and see if tonight was one of the nights when he’d want to be quote-unquote intimate, which would always begin with a slow dance of familiar limbs that never tried anything new and end with me in the bathroom alone, wiping between my legs and putting on a fresh pair of underwear.
    The thing about cheating—the thing Elliot and Nell may or may not understand, and this has nothing to do with my father, this is just a fact—is that it’s easy. It’s the easiest thing in the world. My sister says she has a hard time meeting men; she says San Francisco just doesn’t cut it for straight women. But she’s wrong. All you have to do is put yourself out there. All you have to do is take off your ring and make the decision that you want to have sex. It’s a vibe. It’s a smell. It’s an animal instinct. I never told Peter. But a month ago he found out. Husbands are always finding out.
    What Peter said was, “Billy? His name is Billy? You picked a man named Billy?” I didn’t say anything. I had already thought the same thing. I had already thought all the same things and worse. The truth, though, is that it felt good to be found out. In fact, it felt great to be found out. That’s the other thing no one tells you about cheating: getting caught doesn’t have to feel bad. Getting caught can even feel good! Because in that moment, being confronted by Peter like that, I wanted nothing more than to have sex with him. I felt turned on! Maybe I did still love my husband, and maybe I even wanted to help him raise a baby! I believed I wanted to make it work and that I wanted to be an adult, or at least try to be an adult and figure out how other adults live. I would tell him everything. All the secrets I tell myself every day, I would tell to him. I had just needed to know he cared. That moment—I swear to God—felt like the beginning of my life. Like the beginning of my life as a grown-up.
    “I want a divorce,” he said. “You’re a fucking liar.”

3
arriving in Chicago
    I ’m one of the last ones off the plane. People have all these rules about where they sit on planes—where they’re willing to sit. Like Nell’s always upgrading to first class, which is a complete waste of money. She says there are fewer germs up there. I love that. Seriously. The idea that wealthy people carry fewer germs or that the germs from economy class know to stay in their place. Then there are people like Elliot and Rita. They’re all about bulkhead—“First on, first off,” says Elliot. I hear people trying to con the flight attendants all the time: “If I don’t get an aisle, I’ll get sick. Really. It’s bad.” I like a good con as much as the next person, but I hate a weak con. I hate a last-minute, poorly thought-out con.
    So I’m one of the last ones off the plane, because seating placement isn’t something I really care about. If the plane goes down, we’re all going down together. Frank from Wisconsin doesn’t look at me; it’s as if we never talked.