“I don’t smoke,” I said. “I agree, it is nauseating.”
Beatrice looked at me funny, a quick glance over her shoulder, and then she walked away. Asher shrugged at me and followed after her.
Maybe I should leave now, I thought. They wouldn’t notice me missing for a few seconds yet. If I slipped away, dashed down a hallway, went somewhere else, what would they do? Nothing, most likely. Or, Beatrice wouldn’t, anyways. Asher might come after me, find me, ask me why? Why did I leave? Where was I going?
I almost wanted to do it just to hear him say those things, but I didn’t. I followed them to the smoking room.
The smoking room looked like something directly transported from an old-fashioned English house. Granted, I’d never been in an old-fashioned English house, let alone another smoking room, but I imagined they looked like this. Cushioned benches like exceptionally long couches lined most of the walls save for an empty nook by a bay window overlooking the gardens and the short wall with its blazing hearth. A fire crackled lightly in the fireplace, shining shimmery light throughout the room. One lamp on a side table provided the remainder of the light and a few rolling tables lay in the middle of the room, currently unused and alone.
Asher slid one of the tables towards a corner spot and sat on the wall bench. Beatrice sat far away from him on another bench entirely. I looked between them at the corner spot, but I didn’t want to sit there. I definitely didn’t want to sit next to Beatrice, but was it presumptuous to sit next to Asher? Would it bother his wife, too? I really didn’t know.
Asher patted the seat beside him. “Come now, it’s just a bench.”
To him, yes. And to me… somewhat yes. But sometimes a bench wasn’t just a bench. Situations and people and the atmosphere, one small thing could transform the innocuous into so much more. I sat next to Asher—not too close—and smiled.
“Well,” Beatrice said. “Now that the formality of meeting is over, and we’ve traded idle chit chat, I feel like it is in all of our best interests to get down to the matter at hand.”
Asher sighed. “Yes, of course.”
I folded my hands in my lap and nodded. “I hope I can provide answers to your questions.”
“You hope?” she asked, staring down her nose at me. “Hope is the bastion of the weak, Jessika. We must never hope for anything. We must do and be. We must know.”
What a fun time this was already, I thought. “I am positive I can provide answers to all your questions,” I said.#p#分页标题#e#
“Good. Better, at least. Now, I want to know about your family history, going back at least three generations. That’s your great grandfather and great grandmother, if you need help figuring that out. What were they like? I don’t need touching tales or fabricated stories, please. Did they have any major illnesses? Were they immigrants? Military service? Number of siblings and children on either side? Successful marriages or did they end in divorce?”
I answered everything she asked me as best I could, but I didn’t know why she asked half of what she did. I could understand her apprehension towards illness and disease, since something like that was often hereditary, but what did military service matter? And the number of siblings my great grandfather had?
When it came to discussing marriage, I wanted to add in a snarky line. I so desperately wanted to say something, to make her see that her marriage wasn’t the happiest. Except, no, I couldn’t. Who was I to judge her? I was biased, I knew it, and I needed to stop. My infatuation with Asher was simply that, a silly bout of interest that would pass. I told myself this, but I didn’t really believe it.
Also, I was scared that if I mentioned anything to her, said something about her and Asher not being the closest couple, even insinuated it, I’d start a chain reaction. Like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, if Beatrice fully realized how she acted and what her marriage was like to an outsider, she might completely change. She’d become the perfect wife, transform into a loving spouse and darling woman.
Probably not, but I decided not to risk it. Some selfish part of me wondered about it, theorized what might happen if Asher and Beatrice separated. Could I console him? Would he need someone? The whole idea was silly and absurd and I felt idiotic for wishing for their divorce, but I couldn’t help it.
And, anyways, that’s how people are, right? We all think of things that we never actually want to happen. Thoughts are fine when kept hidden and locked away, never shared with anyone. Right? Maybe, but maybe not.
The night droned on and Beatrice asked question after question. She started to delve deeper, seeking answers to the most obscure questions I’d ever heard. Did my grandparents graduate college, and if so what were their exact grade point averages? I reluctantly admitted that I didn’t know.