Bird in Hand - Christina Baker Kline [79]
Ben had never been especially good at picking up people’s cues—particularly the unhappiness or dissatisfaction of those closest to him. An old girlfriend once speculated that it probably had to do with his mother’s melancholy, his father’s barely contained rage; at the first sign of trouble, Ben was likely to retreat into computer chess or a crossword puzzle—activities that occupied his mind to the extent that he could be physically present and yet emotionally disengaged. For the first week Claire was gone, it had been a relief for Ben to turn his attention to the Boston commission, which would consume as much time and energy as he allowed.
But the Boston project was now well under way; other people were involved, and Ben no longer felt solely responsible. The plans had been approved and finalized, and ground had been broken. His role had become secondary. And just as he’d done when final exams were over, he took a week to simply breathe—to clear the low-priority papers off his desk, return e-mail and phone calls, sleep late, buy himself some new shoes, get a good haircut (not just a quickie from the barber in the basement of his office building). He called his mother, checked in on his brother, took his two prize hires out for a fancy lunch on Drone Coward’s dime, an occasion they used to announce that they were both taking jobs with rival firms. At night he ordered takeout and sat on the couch like any ordinary New Yorker, letting the laugh track from syndicated sitcoms wash over him like warm, sudsy bathwater. He watched SportsCenter. He read the Dining In section of the Times.
One evening, as he was clicking through channels, a wagging finger caught his eye. “Listen to what people tell you about themselves,” a self-help guru was saying. “If they tell you not to trust them, don’t. If they tell you they’re bad news, believe them. It’s human nature to want to think the best of others, but if you listen carefully, people will always tell you who they are.”
Ben turned off the TV and sat there, staring at his shadow reflected in the black screen. On some subterranean level below consciousness, his brain, ostensibly resting, began to generate data, sifting through unconnected moments—conversations, observations, gestures, and expressions he didn’t even know he’d been aware of—to build a hypothesis.
I was just out with a girlfriend. … There were no messages—nothing important—I erased all the calls. … She likes the country-bumpkin type … I’ll just be out for a few hours. … Honey, I picked up your dry cleaning … 210 It’s going to be so tedious. One obscure radio station after another. …
Do you think God is punishing us because we weren’t sure?
And other things: the phone calls with no one there. The silk-corded bag from a pricey lingerie shop Ben had glimpsed in the garbage, with a fleeting thought. Lingerie? When’s the last time she wore fancy lingerie?—he promptly dismissed it, his brain swimming with too many other details.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a memory floated up: the first time Claire had met his father. It had been a bitterly cold January weekend in upstate New York. Ben’s father, along with his current girlfriend, Paula, met Ben and Claire for lunch at a chain restaurant in the parking lot of a strip mall. After an hour and a half of mediocre food and strained conversation, the two men went to get the cars. “You’re in over your head, son,” his father said as he and Ben tramped through the snow. “If I were you I’d get out while you can.”
Though Ben was accustomed to these kinds of pronouncements from his father, this one caught him off guard. He’d thought they were all getting along pretty well, despite his father’s loutish insinuations about Claire’s previous boyfriends and the way he mocked her southern accent. “Why do you say that?” Ben said, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible.
“I just know. She’s a type. Can’t trust her.”
Ben laughed dryly. “That’s rich, coming