Monday Mourning Part 11

9.

MIDWEEK, LATE AFTERNOON IS NOT A GOOD TIME FOR MOTORING in Montreal. Through the Ville-Marie Tunnel and onto the 20, I flew along at a clip that reached thirty-five mph at its peak. At the Turcot Interchange, my progress could be measured in spastic movements of car lengths. in Montreal. Through the Ville-Marie Tunnel and onto the 20, I flew along at a clip that reached thirty-five mph at its peak. At the Turcot Interchange, my progress could be measured in spastic movements of car lengths.

A b.u.mper sticker glimmered in the taillights ahead of me. The beatings will continue until morale improves. The beatings will continue until morale improves. The first reading drew a chuckle. By the tenth, the humor had bled out. Translate: The traffic snarl will continue until impatience subsides. The first reading drew a chuckle. By the tenth, the humor had bled out. Translate: The traffic snarl will continue until impatience subsides.

To ease the boredom, I scanned billboards. Slogans in mangled English and French hawked cell phones and Hondas and sitcoms and hair spray.

With darkness, a hard wind had kicked up. Now and then the car rocked, as though toed at one end by a giant sneaker. A winter city crept by my windshield. Lamp-lit windows in the high hills of Westmount. The blackened rail yards. Suburban bungalows electric with discount store Christmas schlock.

Past Ville St-Pierre, congestion eased, and I gunned it back up to a blistering thirty. My fingers drummed the wheel. The dashboard clock said five-thirty. Anne's flight had probably landed.

A full hour after leaving the lab, I entered the terminal at Dorval Airport. Anne had cleared customs and was standing at the end of a chute of people awaiting arrivals.

I did the windmill thing with my arms. Catching sight of me, Anne grasped the pull-handle of a boxcar-sized suitcase and wheeled it in my direction. A laptop hung from one shoulder, an enormous leather purse from the other.

Sudden flashback. My sister, Harry, surrounded by enough Louis Vuitton for a world tour. She'd come for a week. She'd stayed a month.

Oh boy.

Anne is very tall and very blonde. More eyes than mine followed as she muscled her Pullman through the crowd of greeters. Reaching me, she bent and threw both arms around my neck. The laptop slid forward and gouged my ribs.

"Traffic was a nightmare," I said, relieving Anne of her shoulder gear.

"You're a darlin' to come for me."

"I'm thrilled you're here."

"The pilot claimed it was eighteen below. Can that be true?" Anne's drawl sounded as out of place in the quebecois hubbub as the Rawhide Rawhide theme at a PETA benefit. theme at a PETA benefit.

"That's Celsius." I didn't point out that the reading was only a hair above zero in her worldview.

"I hope there's a blizzard. Snow would be a kick."

"Did you bring warm clothing?"

Anne spread both arms in a check-it-out gesture.

My friend wore a cable-knit sweater, suede jacket, green cords, and pink angora m.u.f.fler with matching hat. I was certain her purse contained fuzzy pink mittens to complete the accessorizing. I knew her thinking. "Winter chic. chic."

Though Anne was born in Alabama and schooled in Mississippi, she had traveled North, and, like many Southerners, gained a theoretical understanding of the concept of cold. But the mind is an overprotective parent. What it doesn't care for, it hides. Like many inhabiting the subtropics, Anne had repressed the reality of subzero mercury.

This was Quebec. Anne was dressed for autumn cool in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Exiting the terminal, I heard Ms. Winter Chic Chic suck in her breath. Smiling, I hurried her toward the car. I really couldn't fault Anne. Though I commute regularly between Charlotte and Montreal, that first winter blast clotheslines even me. suck in her breath. Smiling, I hurried her toward the car. I really couldn't fault Anne. Though I commute regularly between Charlotte and Montreal, that first winter blast clotheslines even me.

Anne talked around topics on the drive to Centre-ville. Her cats, Regis and Kathie Lee. The twins, Josh and Lola. Her youngest son, Stuart, who'd become a spokesman for gay rights. Between bursts, she'd stop, and a moody silence would fill the small s.p.a.ce around us.

Now and then I'd sneak a sideways glance. Anne's face flickered in a mosaic of neon and brake lights. I could take nothing from it. She uttered not a word about the reason for her visit.

OK, old friend. Tell the tale when you will.

An hour and a half later Anne began meandering through an explanation. As she talked, I sensed vacillation, as though she were testing ideas as she spoke them.

We'd stopped at home to deposit Anne's things, and were now in the Trattoria Trestevere on lower Crescent. The waiter had just delivered Caesar salads. I was drinking Perrier. Anne was working on her third chardonnay.

And the chardonnay was working on Anne.

"I'm forty-six years old, Tempe. If I don't search for some meaning now, there's going to be nothing out there for me to find later." She tapped a manicured nail to her breast. "Or in here."

Again, I thought of my sister. Harry had come to Montreal questing for inner peace. She'd hooked up with apocalyptic crazies who were going to take her on a voyage to permanent peace. As in dead. Fortunately, she'd survived. Anne's discourse sounded like flotsom straight down the same self-help psychobabble pipeline.

"So the kids are all right?"

"Peachy."

"Tom didn't do anything to p.i.s.s you off?"

The nail pointed at me. "Tom didn't do do anything. anything. Ever. Ever. Unless you count defending a.s.shole developers who want to rid the world of trees, and spending the rest of the time seeking the grail of a hole in one. Guess it's my own fault marrying someone with a name like Turnip." Unless you count defending a.s.shole developers who want to rid the world of trees, and spending the rest of the time seeking the grail of a hole in one. Guess it's my own fault marrying someone with a name like Turnip."

Tom-Ted's surname had also been a source of much amus.e.m.e.nt over the years.

"The tuber is terminated."

"You've left him?" I couldn't believe it.

"Yes."

"After twenty-four years and three kids?"

"This does not concern the kids."

My fork stopped in midair. Anne and I froze eye to eye.

"You know that's not what I mean," she said. "The kids are grown. Josh and Lola have graduated college. Stuart's off doing whatever it is Stuart does." She jabbed at a lettuce leaf. "They're moving on with their lives and I'm left with selling real estate and cultivating f.u.c.king azaleas."

Upon completion of my doctorate at Northwestern, Pete joined a Charlotte law firm, and I accepted an appointment at UNCC. I was thrilled to leave Chicago and return to my beloved North Carolina. But the move had its downside.

By day, I was surrounded by academics. Dedicated. Compa.s.sionate. Bright. And as socially sophisticated as the Burpee seed catalog. Katy was an infant. My colleagues were childless and clueless concerning the demands of parenthood.

Each evening, I collected my baby at child care and transitioned to a picture perfect ad for country club living. Manicured lawns. Upmarket cars. Stepford wives with stay-at-home mind-sets. Female conversation focused on tennis, golf, and car pools.

I was despairing of ever developing meaningful female friendships when I spotted Anne at a neighborhood charity tea. Or heard her, to be more precise. Steel magnolia meets the drunken sailor.

I zeroed in. Instant connection.

Anne and I have seen each other's kids through broken bones and broken hearts. Our families have shared two decades of camping and ski trips, Thanksgiving dinners, christenings, and funerals. Until the collapse of my marriage, the Turnips and the Petersonses hadn't missed a summer at the ocean. Now Anne and I made the beach trips alone.

"What have you told the kids?"

"Nothing. I haven't actually moved out of the house. I'm on a leave of absence. Traveling."

"But-"

"Let's not talk about me, darlin'. Let's talk about you. What are you working on these days?"

There is no pursuing an issue with Anne when she closes down.

I summarized the pizza bas.e.m.e.nt case, and told her of my frustration with my pal Claudel.

"You'll bring him around. You always have before. Get to the good stuff. Are you seeing anyone?"

"Sort of."

The waiter replaced our salads with entrees. Lasagna for Anne. Veal piccata for me. Anne ordered another wine, then s.n.a.t.c.hed up the grinder and screwed cheese onto her pasta. I decided to try another run at the Tom thing.

"What exactly is the focus of this new personal outreach program?" I tried to keep the cynicism from my voice.

"Fulfillment. Self-esteem. Appreciation." She smacked the grinder onto the tabletop. "And don't even suggest it. I'm not signing up for one more puking course."

We ate in silence for a few moments. When Anne spoke again her tone sounded lighter, but forced, somehow.

"I got more attention from the hunk in 3C than I have from Tom Turnip in the past twelve months. Boy's probably out buying me gardenias right now." Anne knocked back a swig of wine. "h.e.l.l, messages are probably piling up on your answering machine as we speak."

"What boy in 3C?"

"A sweet little stud I met on the plane."

"You gave him my phone number?"

"He's harmless."

"How do you know he's harmless?"

"He was in first cla.s.s."

"So were the nice lads who torpedoed the Trade Center."

My friend looked at me as though I'd suggested she cut off a foot.

"Don't get your panties in a bunch, Tempe. I'm not actually going to see see the guy." the guy."

I wasn't believing this. I use extreme caution in giving out my home number. Anne had blithely shared it with a complete stranger, who might be calling my home looking for her.

"I'd had a couple of Manhattans," she continued, oblivious to the extent of my annoyance. "We talked. He asked where he could reach me. I jotted the stuff on a napkin-"

"Stuff? Meaning address, too?"

Anne gave an Academy Award orbital roll.

"I'm sure the guy tossed it as he exited the Jetway. How's your veal?"

In contrast to the conversation, my meat was perfect.

"Good," I mumbled. So the guy might not call. He could show up on my doorstep.

"Mine is parfait. parfait. See what I mean? Already I'm in a different galaxy from Clover, South Carolina." Anne circled her fork in the air. See what I mean? Already I'm in a different galaxy from Clover, South Carolina." Anne circled her fork in the air. "Quebec! La belle province! C'est magnifique!" "Quebec! La belle province! C'est magnifique!"

I have been accused of speaking Southern French. Anne's accent left me in the Dixie dust.

"This is just a cooling-off period, right? A marital sabbatical?"

When I was married to Pete, Anne and I often joked about the "marital sabbatical." It was our code phrase for "road trip, no men allowed."

"I could be dead a week and Tom Turnip wouldn't notice I was gone." The fork came back up, this time pointed at me. "No. That may be harsh. If Tom ran out of toilet paper he might holler to inquire as to my whereabouts."

Anne gave one of her full, throaty laughs. "There's a pretty picture, darlin'. The great barrister, caught midstep taking a dum-"

"Annie."

"Hon, the boy is history."

For a few moments we ate in silence. When I'd finished, I gave the topic one last shot.

"Annie, this is Tempe. I know you. I know Tom. I've seen you two together for twenty years. Tell me what's really going on."

Anne laid down her fork and began working the paper napkin under her winegla.s.s. A full minute pa.s.sed before she spoke.

"Things were amazing when Tom and I first met. The March of the Toreadors every night. And things stayed great. The books and talk shows tell you that married couples go from towering inferno to not so hot, and that that's normal. But it didn't happen with Tom and me."

Jagged scallops were appearing along the napkin's edge.

"Not until a couple of years ago."

"Are you talking about s.e.x?"

"I'm talking about a major, total downshift. Tom stopped smoldering and began focusing on anything that wasn't me. I began settling for less and less of him. Last week it struck me. Our paths were barely crossing."

"Nothing terrible had happened?"

"That's just it. Nothing Nothing had happened. Nothing had happened. Nothing was was happening. Nothing was happening. Nothing was about to about to happen. I'd begun to feel numb. And I'd begun to think numb wasn't so bad. Numb began to feel normal." happen. I'd begun to feel numb. And I'd begun to think numb wasn't so bad. Numb began to feel normal."

Anne gathered the napkin sc.r.a.ps into a tiny mound.