Sellevision - Augusten Burroughs [30]
“You?” Eliot asked. “You’re the epitome of elegance.”
“You haven’t seen me operate a fork yet.”
He gave her a playfully doubtful look, then affected an air of elitism. “Dry cleaning is my life’s passion,” he told her. He took a sip of the martini before him and added, “Just teasing. It was my father’s business.”
After half a glass of wine, Bebe began to relax. Actually, it probably wasn’t the wine, but Eliot himself. He seemed so easygoing, so quick to smile and laugh. She sensed a real warmth from him. Then, there was that George Clooney thing.
“So, Bebe, have you, ah, met any interesting men from your ad?” It was an awkward question to ask, but he made it sound as casual as possible. Like a weather question.
Bebe swallowed her sip of wine. “Yes, actually, one. One man.”
A small bubble deflated in him. He gave her a smile that showed his teeth, “Yeah, so what was he like?”
Nonchalantly, Bebe looked up to the left, like she was thinking of how to describe him, then looked directly back at Eliot. “Well, so far he seems like a pretty great guy.”
It took him just a fraction of a second to get it.
For a while, they just sat there looking at each other, smiling. A moment later, the maître d’ introduced himself and informed them that their table was ready. The maître d’ had to repeat himself.
L
eigh read what she’d written so far:
Dear Howard,
I’m writing you this letter because I can’t speak to you in person until next Thursday when you’re back from St. Barts. I know I’ve been really demanding in terms of “us.” I haven’t exactly been patient. It’s just difficult, because I love you so much and want to be with you. Of course, then I torture myself by imagining you with your wife on some beautiful beach and I end up making myself completely crazy.
I wish you could hold me right this minute and tell me everything is going to work out wonderfully, that the gap between us will soon be closed. I’ll do my best
Leigh slammed the pen down on the table, crumpled up the note, and threw it into the wicker wastebasket beside her desk. You are so stupid for falling in love with a married man who also happens to be your boss! She stomped into the kitchen and yanked open the refrigerator. Yogurt, skim milk, tomatoes. “Yuck,” she said, closing the door. “Where’s the cheesecake when you really need it?”
She decided that a glass of red wine would have to suffice. She uncorked the nearly full bottle on her counter, took a long-stemmed wineglass from the cupboard, and poured herself half a glass. She looked at the glass and filled it to the top. Then she leaned back against the kitchen counter and took a sip. It tasted dry, but also like flowers and grapes. Like something to be shared with someone else.
A movie played in her head: Howard and his wife walking hand-in-hand at sunset along the beach on St. Barts, their thirteen-year marriage rekindled, passion rediscovered. In the movie, Howard confesses to his wife about Leigh, calls it a brief affair, and swears to end the fling the moment he gets back. Maybe they kiss right there, or maybe she slips her dress over her head and seductively dives into the bathtub-warm water, beckoning him to join her, while a wave . . . “Stop!” Leigh ordered herself.
Bringing her wine into the living room, Leigh decided that she simply could not be trusted with her own thoughts at the present time and chose to park herself on the sofa in front of the TV and pray that Lifetime, Television for Women, had a drama on about teenage pregnancy, codependency, or maybe alcoholism. Or maybe all three in one.
Later, sitting back on her sofa and nursing a second glass of wine, Leigh was utterly consumed by the Valerie Bertinelli thriller. In the movie, Valerie’s sister was beaten to the point of near-death. And Valerie was sure that it was her sister’s husband who was guilty. But he blamed it on robbers, and of course the sister had no memory.
Big-time melodrama, the kind that really sucks you in. And everything was fine until Valerie’s character had a baby. And this dislodged something