turned toward me, beginning to get to his feet, I saw something else in her face.
She was afraid of me as well as angry at me. And although she hadn’t said a single word, I was already furious at her. The expression in her eyes was a dead negative; she might as well have been a CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE sign on her forehead between them. I thought I deserved better. Of course, that may just be a way of saying I'm human.
‘Monsieur,’ the maitre d’ said, pulling out the chair to Diane’s left. I barely heard him, and certainly any thought of his eccentric behaviours and crooked bow tie had left my head. I think that the subject of tobacco had briefly vacated my head for the first time since I’d quit smoking. I could only consider the careful composure of her face and marvel at how I could be angry at her and still want her so much it made me ache to look at her. Absence may or may nor make the heart grow fonder, but it certainly freshens the eye.
I also found time to wonder if I had really seen all I’d surmised. Anger? Yes, that was possible, even likely. If she hadn’t been angry with me to at least some degree, she never would have left in the first place, I supposed. But afraid? Why in God’s name.’ would Diane be afraid of me? I’d never laid a single finger on her. Yes, I suppose I had raised my voice during some of our arguments, but so had she.
‘Enjoy your lunch, monsieur,’ the maitre d’ said from some other universe - the one where service people usually stay, only poking their heads into ours when we call them, either because we need something or to complain.
‘Mr Davis, I’m Bill Humboldt,’ Diane’s companion said. He held out a large hand that looked reddish and chapped. I shook it briefly. The rest of him was as big as his hand, and his broad face wore the sort of flush habitual drinkers often get after the first one of the day. I put him in his mid-forties, about ten years away from the time when his sagging cheeks would turn into jowls.
‘Pleasure,’ I said, not thinking about what I was saying any more than I was thinking about the maitre d’ with the blob on his shirt, only wanting to get the hand-shaking part over so I could turn back to the pretty blonde with the rose and cream complexion, the pale pink lips, and the trim, slim figure. The woman who had, not so long ago, liked to whisper ‘Do me do me do me’ in my ear while she held onto my ass like a saddle with two pommels.
‘We’ll get you a drink,’ Humboldt said, looking around for waiter like a man who did it a lot. Her therapist had all the bells and whistles of the incipient alcoholic. Wonderful.
‘Perrier and lime is good.’
‘For what?’ Humboldt inquired with a big smile. He picked up the half-finished martini in front of him on the table and drained it until the olive with the toothpick in it rested against his lips. He spat it back, then set the glass down and looked at me. ‘WEB, perhaps we’d better get started.’
I paid no attention. I already had gotten started; I’d done it the instant Diane looked up at me. ‘Hi, Diane,’ I said. It was marvelous, really, how she looked smarter and prettier than previous. More desirable than previous, too. As if she had learned things - yes, even after only two weeks of separation, and while living with Ernie and Dee Dee Coslaw in Pound Ridge - that I could never know.
‘How are you, Steve?’ she asked.
‘Fine,’ I said. Then, ‘Not so fine, actually. I’ve missed you.’ Only watchful silence from the lady greeted this. Those big blue-green eyes looking at me, no more. Certainly no return serve, no I've missed you, too.
‘And I quit smoking. That’s also played hell with my peace of mind.’
‘Did you, finally? Good for you.’
I felt another flash of anger, this time a really ugly one, at her politely dismissive tone. As if I might not be telling the truth, but it didn’t really matter if I was. She’d carped at me about the cigarettes every day for two years, it seemed - how they were going to give me cancer, how they were going to give her cancer, how she wouldn’t even consider getting pregnant until I stopped, so I could just save any breath I might have been planning to waste on that subject - and now all at once it didn’t matter anymore, because I didn’t matter anymore.
‘Steve -Mr Davis,’ Humboldt said, ‘I thought we might begin by getting you to look at a list of grievances which Diane has worked out during our sessions - our exhaustive sessions, I might say - over the last couple of weeks. Certainly it can serve as a springboard to our main purpose for being here, which is how to order a period of separation that will allow growth on both of your parts.’
There was a briefcase on the floor beside him. He picked it up with a grunt and set it on the table’s one empty chair. Humboldt began unsnapping the clasps, but I quit paying attention at that point. I wasn’t interested in springboards to separation, whatever that meant. I felt a combination of panic and anger that was, in some ways, the most peculiar emotion I have ever experienced.
I looked at Diane and said, ‘I want to try again. Can we reconcile? Is there any chance of that?’
The look of absolute horror on her face crashed hopes I hadn’t even known I’d been holding onto. Horror was followed by anger.
‘Isn’t that just like you!’ she exclaimed.
‘Diane—‘
‘Where’s the safe deposit box key, Steven? Where did you hide it?’
Humboldt looked alarmed. He reached out and touched her arm. ‘Diane .. I thought we agreed—‘
‘What we agreed is that this son of a bitch will hide everything under the nearest rock and then plead poverty if we let him!’
‘You searched the bedroom for it before you left, didn’t you' I asked quietly. ‘Tossed it like a burglar.’
She flushed at that. I don’t know if it was shame, anger, or both.
‘It’s my box as well as yours! My things as well as yours!’
Humboldt was looking more alarmed than ever. Several diners had glanced around at us. Most of them looked mused, actually. People are surely God’s most bizarre creatures. ‘Please... please, let’s not—‘
‘Where did you hide it, Steven?’
‘I didn’t hide it. I never hid it. I left it up at the cabin by accident, that’s all.’
