I am interested. Go on, I say.
Once upon a time there were six people. Four adults and two children. Two married couples. One couple, older by about a decade, childless. The younger couple had a girl and a boy. The girl was very small, maybe two. The boy seven. Although not close in age, the two couples are close in friendship. He stops and thinks. What shall I tell you about them? No generalities. But one specific event. And he continues.
One day they decide to go to the beach. They pack some ham sandwiches, some hard-boiled eggs, apples, pears, and bottles of wine for good measure.
They decide to drive out of the city. Far north. To a state park on the lake that features large sand dunes that are mostly deserted on beautiful summer Sundays like this one.
There is a reason for this, of course. A huge nuclear power plant looms over the sand dunes, spills its excesses into the shallow water. It casts a pall on the scenery for anyone faint of heart. Which the adult members of these two families definitely are not. They joke about the relative warmth of the lake water, about mutant fish and the oversized shorebirds.
The two-year-old, relieved of all her clothes except her diaper, is taken to the edge of the water by her mother to wet her toes. The boy takes his shovel and bucket and begins digging random holes in the sand. The older woman and the two men settle themselves on beach chairs and talk. All is calm. An uneventful day at the lakeside. When they start feeling hungry, they break out the food, eat a few sandy mouthfuls, wash it down with red wine. An idyllic afternoon at the beach among dear friends. Everything is perfect. More perfect than it will ever be again. He stops, apparently in a reverie.
The blond woman is writing furiously. What a lovely gift, this story, she says. Jennifer will enjoy reading about it later. But I am getting a glimmer. More than a glimmer, a Technicolor movie. It comes in bursts of images. Invoking all the senses. I speak quickly before it dissipates.
Yes. The sandy ham that crunches between our teeth. The acidic wine. The power plant looming overhead. The grown-ups perhaps drinking a little too much. Voices are raised. Laughter comes easier. The older man abstains: He is the driver but continues pouring. The other three drink past the point of pleasure. Past the point of honesty. To somewhere more primal.
That’s right, says the man. He opens his mouth as if to continue, but I push on, following the movie in my mind. I can feel the heat of the noonday sun on my bare arms. The sand against my thighs. Hear the cries of the mutant birds.
The older woman starts it. She asks the younger man if he has noticed anything different about his wife.
Different how? the younger man asks.
Her hair. Her clothes. A general glow.
I can’t say that I have. She always looks terrific. And he gives his wife an affectionate smile, gestures to the older man to top off her glass of wine.
The younger woman is startled. Something is happening that she has not expected.
You didn’t think, for example, that perhaps she has reason to celebrate? asks the older woman. That something has happened that she considers a good thing? Perhaps not news that every woman would welcome. But she isn’t an ordinary woman.
The younger man doesn’t miss a beat. He is a lawyer with a growing reputation. This is what he is like in the courtroom, in the boardroom. There is no curveball he cannot catch, no supposed revelation that he does not appear to have intimate knowledge of beforehand.
My wife is no fool, he says.
But you might be, the older woman says. She takes a sip of wine but doesn’t take her eyes off him.
I don’t follow.
Power is a strange thing.
It is. But what does that have to do with this conversation?
They say knowledge is power, says the older woman.
And that ignorance is bliss, says the younger man, derisively.
Does that mean you want this conversation to end?
The younger man considers. No, he says. I want to see where you are going.
The younger woman speaks up: Me too, actually.
The older man is the only one not getting it. The other three are facing off . The kids are squabbling over sand toys.
The younger man is the first to break the silence. So she knows. I haven’t exactly been discreet. If she’d asked I would have told her. It’s not important. Nothing can touch what we have.
The younger woman relaxes. She is relieved by his reply, and the tension dissipates from her shoulders. She shrugs indifferently. There was nothing I wanted to ask. Nothing that was worth the bother of asking. I did a little checking on my own. Found out what I needed to know. A trivial liaison, soon to end. That was the end of it.
The younger man smiles, an odd, almost proud, smile. Yes, our marriage isn’t so fragile.
It most certainly is not.
Ah, says the older woman. But this is not about the trivial. Not in the
