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“Which I do!”
“But I want to buy that dress.”
“Why do you want to buy me a dress that I probably will never wear?”
“Wear it around the house. Put a movie on, and wear it to watch it. Eat popcorn in it.”
She laughed. “That seems eccentric and foolhardy. What if I got butter on it?”
“That’s what I liked about it. You know what it reminded me of, Jess?”
“No. What?” She held her breath.
“It reminded me of those paintings you used to do, the ones that were all swirling colors and amazing motion.”
“I haven’t thought about those for years,” she said.
“Save the dress and wear it to the unveiling of your first art show.”
She laughed a little nervously. “I’m not having a first art show.”
“But that’s what I’ve always wondered. Where did that part of you go?”
“I paint murals,” she said. “That’s my creative outlet.”
“I don’t think bunnies on walls do justice to your gifts,” he said.
“I don’t care what you think!” she snapped. “Sorry. Let’s not ruin the moment with you telling me how to live my life.”
She was right. This was not any of his business, not anymore. Maybe it never had been.
“Is there any ginger beef left?” he asked wistfully.
“No.”
“How about sizzling rice?”
And then the moment of tension was gone, and she laughed and passed him the container. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to go home to his place together. And then to say good-night with unnatural formality and to go to their separate bedrooms.
The next morning, they both got up. He ordered croissants again. She came out to eat one in the too-large shirt.
“I guess I should have been shopping for pajamas instead of evening dresses,” she said.
What kind of kettle of worms would it open up, he wondered, if he said he liked what she had on—his shirt—way better than pajamas?
“Are you coming back here after you’ve finished work?” he asked her. He was holding his breath waiting for her reply.
“I guess,” she said, and he heard in her voice the very same things he was feeling. What were they reopening, exactly, by living under the same roof? What were they moving toward? Were they putting a framework in place for their future relationship? Was it possible they could be one of those rare amicably divorced couples who were friends?
He hoped things would become clear in the next few days, because he did not like uncertainty. And at the moment, his future seemed murky, like looking into a most uncooperative crystal ball.
MONDAY, AFTER WORK, Jessica returned to Kade’s apartment. She was somewhat ashamed that she had not done a single thing to make new living arrangements for herself. And now here she was, aware she was waiting for the door of the apartment to open.
Why? Kade never came home at regular hours. What was she waiting for? Hadn’t this been part of their whole problem? That she waited, as if her whole life depended on him, and he had a whole life that had nothing to do with her?
Surely she’d come further than this, still waiting for him to come home! It was pathetic, and she was not being pathetic anymore. And so, instead of sitting in the apartment, she went and explored his building.
There was a good-size pool that they were conducting a kayaking class in, and beside that was a climbing wall. She went and sat on a bench and watched people climb the wall.
A good-looking man came over and introduced himself as Dave and asked her if she was going to try it.
She held up her arm. “Already did,” she said, deadpan. He laughed and flirted with her a bit, and she realized whatever had happened when she had put on all those clothes had been good. She was wearing one of her new outfits, and it seemed to fill her with confidence she hadn’t had for some time. Dave went up the wall, obviously showing off, and she was content to let him.
She watched for a while, and decided as soon as her arm got better, she would try climbing. The wall looked really fun.
After doing a thorough tour of the building and the gorgeous gardens outside, which included that impressive waterfall at the front, she wandered back to the apartments.
Kade was there. Did he look pleased when she let herself in using the code he had given her?
“Hey,” he said. “How was your day?”
“Oh, I struggled through.”
“Work late?”
“Oh, no, I’ve been back for a while. I thought I’d check out your building. It’s great. I love the climbing wall.”
“Really? I’ve never been on it. Is that one of the outfits we bought yesterday?”
“Yeah, I’ve had lots of comments on it. A guy named Dave, down at the climbing wall, stopped to talk to me. I don’t think he normally would have mistaken me for his type.”
She felt just the littlest thrill of pleasure that Kade could not hide his annoyance at Dave’s attention.
“Want to order something for dinner? I don’t have much here to cook.” He snapped his fingers. “Unless you want an omelet.”
He’d always made the best omelets.
“Perfect,” she said.
And it was perfect. After dinner they watched the news together, and it felt so utterly easy, as if they were an old married couple.
Which they were, sort of.
Of course, when they’d been a newly married couple, they hadn’t sat around watching television. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Later, when that stage had passed—or when she’d killed it, by bringing out the dreaded chart—they had played cards sometimes in the evening.
She suddenly longed for that.
“You have a deck of cards, Kade?”
“Why? You want to play strip poker?” he asked with such earnest hopefulness she burst out laughing.
“No!”
“How about a strip Scrabble game, then?”
“How about just an ordinary Scrabble game?” she said, trying not to encourage him by laughing.
“Can we use bad words?”
“I suppose that would be okay. Just this once.”
“How about if we use only bad words?”
She gave him a slug on his arm. “That falls into the ‘give him an inch and he’ll take a mile’ category.”
Suddenly, she wanted to play a bad-words Scrabble game with him. She wanted to not be the uptight one, the stick-in-the-mud. “A bad-words Scrabble game it is,” she said.
“I don’t actually have a Scrabble board.”
“That figures.”
“But I bet we can find it on the computer.”
And so that was what they did, sat side by side on his sofa, playing a bad-words Scrabble game on the computer until