Wedding Cake for Breakfast Read Free Page B

however, that Bob was beginning to regard me not with increasing affection, but alarm? Love follows its own physics: the harder you try to attract, the stronger you repel. And yet I couldn’t stop.
    Finally, one Sunday morning, we sat together on the couch as we always did—he with his feet on the coffee table, me with my feet on his lap—sipping coffee and reading the
Times
—when I noticed: WE WERE BEING TOTALLY QUIET.
    â€œOkay.” I leapt to my feet. “This isn’t working.”
    â€œWhat’s not working?” said Bob, glancing up from the Week in Review section. “The newspaper?”
    â€œAll this silence,” I cried, gesturing wildly. “We’re just sitting here together on the couch. Reading. Without saying anything.”
    â€œUm, isn’t that sort of how people read?”
    â€œThis isn’t a LIBRARY. It’s a MARRIAGE!” I shouted. “We should be making witty, intelligent conversation. We should be bantering like Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in
Woman of the Year.
We should be engaged in quick, policy-based repartee like the staff on
The West Wing.
We’re smart. We’re funny. Why the hell aren’t we talking like them?”
    â€œWell, for starters,” Bob said slowly, “those characters you mentioned? They’re fictional. And the reason they’re funny and smart is because other people write their lines for them—”
    â€œStop being so goddamn calm and rational,” I said. “Look at us! We’re just SITTING HERE READING THE NEWSPAPER. We’re married now. Shouldn’t we be working at our relationship? Shouldn’t we be having sex all the time? Shouldn’t we at least be baring our souls to each other? I mean, is this what we’re going to do? JUST SPEND THE REST OF OUR LIVES TOGETHER ON THE GODDAMN COUCH?”
    Bob set down his newspaper and stared at me. “Okay, look,” he said softly. He stood up and opened his arms. Reluctantly, I went to him. He drew me close and sighed. For a moment he didn’t say anything.
This is it,
I thought.
He’s going to divorce me.
Then he cleared his throat. His voice was gentle and slow.
    â€œYou know, any two people can have sex,” he said. “And cracking jokes and being witty is great. But it’s also work. And it’s not real intimacy—”
    I pulled back and looked at him. “So then let’s talk with more intimacy,” I said. “Every weekend, let’s sit down, and discuss how our marriage is going, and if we’re happy or not, and what our needs are, and what we think we can improve. We can call it our State of the Union address—”
    â€œSuze.” Bob took me by the shoulders and turned me to face him. “Stop, okay? You’re trying too hard. Please. Don’t try to manage my happiness.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œLook.” He gestured around the living room. “The way I see it, for two people just to snuggle on the couch, and read the Sunday paper together—in a way, that’s more intimate than sex. Being quiet together—comfortably? That’s real intimacy.”
    For a moment I just stared at him. Who the hell is this person? I thought. Is this guy really my HUSBAND? Where I came from, people were quiet only when they were seething or discontent, or when something was wrong and they wanted to punish each other.
    My parents had dated for just two weeks before they’d gotten engaged. They were only twenty-three years old and still living at home with their parents. It had been a different era. In photographs from that time, they look so wondrous and trusting, so innocent. My creamy-skinned mother with her bouffant hair; my father, baby-faced, despite his posturing with a guitar. They’d had no compass, no sage counsel. No sooner did they get engaged than their families started to bicker and fight. Battle lines were drawn. My