Ten Thousand Saints - Eleanor Henderson [116]
But the real reason she asked to sleep alone was to put Johnny out of his misery. She was not certain why he was so reluctant to share a bed with her. First his excuse was that they weren’t married; then it was because of Harriet; then it was because of Teddy. Was that really it, because he wanted to honor Teddy? As though Eliza had been the great love of Teddy’s life?
Maybe he wasn’t as experienced as he’d claimed to be. Maybe he was just nervous; maybe he really was a virgin, like his brother had been. He was so monastic, so chivalrous, almost squeamish in his chastity—it made sense. Straight edge was a convenient front for the sex-scared: reject it before it can reject you. Or maybe, Eliza sometimes thought, he was just gay. He’d always been careful to say it was girls he avoided, not sex per se. “Sounds a little queer to me,” Les had always said about straight edge. And all the clichés applied: he was a neat freak, he dressed with pride, he was a nice guy. He owned a teapot, for God’s sake. Not just a kettle, but a clay teapot he’d bought at the flea market, with matching teacups. Sometimes, in fact, she wished Johnny was gay. Then at least she wouldn’t be at fault.
But no, Johnny was not a virgin, and he was not gay. His distaste for Eliza was more distinct. She hoped that the distinction lay in the fact of her gestation—a condition that would be cured in a matter of weeks. Didn’t men refuse to have sex with their pregnant wives all the time? That she could understand. In fact, the thought of actual intercourse—she felt so big, so unfresh—made her a little nauseated.
Whatever the nature of Johnny’s relief, the look on his face when she made the suggestion was so abjectly grateful that she felt a little choke in her throat. Couldn’t he at least pretend to be disappointed? He kissed her on the forehead and climbed into his own bed, and pretty soon he was snoring softly. For a few minutes she was happy to be sleeping alone. He snored sweetly, and this infuriated her more than the Harley-Davidson snores of the boys next door—deep, rowdy, phlegmy snores, like Les’s, that constituted a white noise she could sleep to. Listening to the teakettle whistle of Johnny’s nostrils required the same maddening alertness as counting Annabel’s hiccups.
At least now she knew where he was. Their last few weeks in Vermont—this was the irrational, crazed, desperate Eliza—she had been convinced that what was keeping him in New York was a girl. She’d imagined him sleeping over at this girl’s place. Showering with her, eating breakfast with her. He was going to stay in New York, or he was going to run away with this girl. He had disappeared. He had left Eliza with a fucking kid to raise.
But there was no other girl. There was no other woman. The preposterousness of this phrase was proof in itself. Here was her husband, a few feet away.
Still, the oily residue of this worry coated her stomach. She rolled onto her back. Just sleep. Sleep!
Eliza swung her legs over the side of the bed. She struggled to stand up, and the mattress emitted a rusty groan. Johnny stirred, smacking his lips, then resumed his snoring. In the dark, Eliza waddled over to the army duffel on the floor, squatted, and slowly, slowly, unzipped it. Johnny continued to snore. She sank her hands into the contents of the bag. His sketch pad, and something heavy, like a glass vase. What she mostly felt were Johnny’s clothes, still slightly muggy from the hot car. She had the queasy feeling she was wrist-deep in the guts of a warm-blooded, barely dead animal. She didn