The Submission - Amy Waldman [97]
“Tulips,” he said, giggling. “Red tulips.”
“Are you sure you don’t want a bed of lollipops?” She tickled him. “A candy garden?”
“Daddy didn’t like candy,” he said, and something flipped inside her. William’s reminding her of this reinforced the sense that Cal’s absence was alive today. Alive and painful. He had always promised to soften the blow of her fortieth birthday—he was three years younger—and it had become a running joke in the months before his death. His plans had grown epically, comically, more elaborate—scuba diving in the Maldives discarded for a trip to Galápagos, which ceded to a month on a yacht in the Mediterranean, which was deemed insufficient, too, until Cal settled on a round-the-world trip (children, and presumably nanny, in tow) that would have taken Claire all the way to her forty-first birthday, thus making her nostalgic for her fortieth.
Instead the day would unfold drearily in Chappaqua. There would be calls—her mother from California, her sister from Wisconsin, a few friends, Cal’s parents. There would be random, computer-generated e-mails from the spas and clothing boutiques that always “remembered” her special day. At dinner the children would surprise her with the cake they had baked with Margarita; sing to her, probably more than once; and go to bed, after which she would nurse a glass of wine and hurry the night to its end. And always in the background now, today, every day, the insistent whine of the memorial controversy. The encounter with Alyssa Spier was just a few days past, and for all Claire’s resistance, Spier’s insinuations about Khan had slithered inside to coil around Claire’s own doubts. This repulsive, reptilian distrust—it never left her now.
The morning was spent receiving a massage and giving the complaisant gardener imperious commands on the fall planting, for which she had succumbed, once again, to the tyranny of mums. When the delivery van arrived at noon bearing an oversize flower box, Claire’s gratitude for the surprise alone almost overwhelmed her. She held the small envelope containing the card and thought, with almost childlike wishing, please don’t let it be from some smitten fogy (Paul Rubin; the family financial adviser). Let it be from—she didn’t even know the word she was looking for, only the longing inside her, the sudden, acute despair at her isolation. Her ossification.
“Some dates, like some people, are hard to forget,” the card read. “I hope the day brings more pleasures. With fondness, Jack.”
Wish granted—it almost defied believing. Jack Worth, two years ahead of her at Dartmouth, had been her boyfriend, on and off, until she met Cal. Jack had accused her of throwing him over for Cal’s wealth, a misconception that saved her from saying she preferred Cal’s temperament. They hadn’t spoken for years after the breakup, until they ran into each other, with spouses, and enacted an awkward truce. After Cal’s death Jack had sent a note: “I know it’s hard to see yourself as lucky now, but it sounds like you found that rare thing that has eluded most of us—an enduring love.” That was the last she had heard from him, until now.
The gift, less venturesome than the card, was a miniature garden of sorts, herbs and buffalo grass and clover nestled in a beautiful aged-wood planter. Smart, she thought, not to send something overtly romantic when he didn’t know if she was single. Still, he must have softened with age. In college they had argued, more than once, over his disdain for the niceties—he forgot her birthday, the date they met, even her sister’s name. The only flowers he ever gave were in a bouquet picked near his parents’ place in Maine.
The card included his phone number. She called to thank him. He invited her for a birthday dinner, saying her partner was welcome if she had one.
“No, but if you do …”
“No, good, just the two of us.”
The corset of marriage, her mourner’s garb, burst open all at once, leaving her naked with desire. Sex with Jack had been so intense that she would barely be dressed before she was imagining