The Bachman Books

'Lunch is coming.'

The temperature between them cooled a little as the waiter set their Andyburgers and French fries before them, added minuscule dishes of green peas and baby onions, then retired. They ate without speaking for a while, both concentrating on not drooling down their chins or in their laps. I wonder how many marriages the Andyburger has saved? he wondered. Simply by its one providential attribute-when you're eating one you have to shut up.

She put hers down half-eaten, blotted her mouth with her napkin, and said, 'They're as good as I remember. Bart, do you have any sensible idea at all about what to do?'

'Of course I do,' he said, stung. But he didn't know what his idea was. If he'd gotten in another double, he might have.

'Do you want a divorce?'

'No,' he said. Something positive seemed to be called for.

'Do you want me to come back?'

'Do you want to?'

'I don't know,' she said. 'Shall I tell you something, Bart? I'm worried about myself for the first time in twenty years. I'm fending for myself.' She started to take a bite of her Andyburger, then set it down again. 'Did you know I almost didn't marry you? Had that thought ever crossed your mind?'

The surprise on his face seemed to satisfy her.

'I didn't think it had. I was pregnant, so of course I wanted to marry you. But part of me didn't. Something kept whispering that it would be the worst mistake of my life. So I roasted myself over a slow fire for three days, throwing up every morning when I woke up, hating you for that, thinking this, that, and the other. Run away. Get an abortion. Have the baby and put it up for adoption. Have the baby and keep it. But I finally decided to do the sensible thing. The sensible thing. ' She laughed. 'And then lost the baby anyway.'

'Yes, you did,' he muttered, wishing the conversation would turn from this. It was too much like opening a closet and stepping into puke.

'But I was happy with you, Bart.'

'Were you?' he asked automatically. He found he wanted to get away. This wasn't working. Not for him anyway.

'Yes. But something happens to a woman in marriage that doesn't happen to a man. Do you remember when you were a child how you never worried about your parents? You just expected them to be there and they were, same as the food and the heat and the clothes.'

'I guess so. Sure.'

'And I went and got my silly self pregnant. And for three days a whole new world opened up around me.' She was leaning forward, her eyes glowing and anxious, and he realized with dawning shock that this recitation was important to her, that it was more than getting together with her childless friends or deciding which pair of slacks to buy in Banberry's or guessing which celebrities Merv would be chatting with at four-thirty. This was important to her, and had she really gone through twenty years of marriage with only this one important thought? Had she? She had almost said as much. Twenty years, my God. He felt suddenly sick to his stomach. He liked the image of her picking up the empty bottle and waving it at him gleefully from her side of the road so much better.

'I saw myself as an independent person,' she was saying. 'An independent person with no one to explain myself to or subordinate myself to. No one around to try and change me, because I knew I could be changed. I was always weak that way. But also no one to fall back on when I was sick or scared or maybe broke. So I did the sensible thing. Like my mother and her mother. Like my friends. I was tired of being a'8ridesmaid and trying to catch the bouquet. So I said yes, which was what you expected and things went on. There were no worries, and when the baby died and when Charlie died there was you. And you were always good to me. I know that, I appreciate that. But it was a sealed environment. I stopped thinking. I thought I was thinking, but I wasn't. And now it hurts to think. It hues. ' She looked at him with bright resentment for a minute, and then it faded. 'So I'm asking you to think for me, Bart. What do we do now?'

'I'm going to get a job,' he lied.

'A job.'

'And see a psychiatrist. Mary, things are going to be fine. Honest. I was a little off the beam, but I'm going to get back on. I'm-'

'Do you want me to come home?'

'In a couple of weeks, sure. I just have to get things together a little and-'

'Home? What am I talking about? They're going to tear it down. What am I talking about, home? Jesus,' she groaned, 'what a mess. Why did you have to drag me into such a shitty mess?'

He couldn't stand her this way. She wasn't like Mary, not at all. 'Maybe they won't,' he said, taking her hand across the table. ' Maybe they won't tear it down, Mary, they might change their minds, if I go and talk to them, explain the situation, they might just-'

She jerked her hand away. She was looking at him, horrified.

'Bart,' she whispered.

'What-' He broke off, uncertain. What had he been saying? What could he possibly have been saying to make her look so awful?

'You know they're going to tear it down. You knew it a long time ago. And we're sitting here, going around and around-'

'No, we're not,' he said. 'We're not. Really. We're not. We . . . we . . . But what were they doing? He felt unreal.