Bleeding Hearts(128)
Christopher stopped in the living room door and watched. Lida could feel him watching. She still couldn’t make herself stop.
“I don’t know why you’re crying,” he said. “You’re the one who’s throwing me out. I don’t want to go anywhere.”
In the old days, women used to carry handkerchiefs in their pockets or their pocketbooks. Why had they ever stopped? There was a box of tissues in one of those fancy-colored cardboard boxes on the fireplace mantel. Lida couldn’t think of how it had gotten there. She got up and got a tissue and blew her nose. She always looked so terrible when she cried.
“I know you don’t want to go anywhere,” she said.
“Can you at least tell me why you want me to go somewhere? You don’t seem very happy about the decision.”
“I’m not.”
“Then what?”
Lida shook her head. “I can’t help it. It’s all wrong, that’s all. It just doesn’t fit.”
“What doesn’t fit?”
“Us.”
“Why?”
Lida shook her head again. “Christopher, be reasonable. I’m fifty-eight years old. You’re—You’re—”
“Less than forty.”
“Yes.”
“Lida, for God’s sake, so what? I don’t care. Why do you? We get along together. In bed and out. We more than get along together, for Christ’s sake. What difference does it make how old we both are?”
Lida looked away. “I live here, Christopher. I live on Cavanaugh Street. Maybe what we’re doing would look unexceptional in San Francisco or New York, but on Cavanaugh Street it will be laughable.”
“Everybody knows already. No one is laughing.”
“Christopher, why can’t you be reasonable? I can’t—face people anymore. I can’t stand being so conspicuous. And I am being conspicuous, Christopher, we both are. A hundred roses. A hundred balloons at least—”
“A hundred and forty-four. It was easier to order a gross.”
“Whatever.”
“I’m sorry if they were the wrong thing to do,” Christopher said. “I was only trying to make you happy.”
“You did make me happy,” Lida told him. “You do. I wish I could straighten it all out in my own mind. I have liked having you here.”
“I’ve liked being here.”
“Sometimes I think I haven’t slept in months and months and months,” Lida said, “but it hasn’t been that long. I’m just so disoriented.”
“If you’re really going to make me go, I’d better go.”
Lida got up and went to look out the big window that fronted Cavanaugh Street. It was warmer today than it had been for a while. Donna Moradanyan was up on her own roof, doing something with what looked like a complicated mirror. Bennis Hannaford was walking back from the Ararat alone, dressed in jeans and turtleneck and sweater and no coat. What was it about the Hannafords that they never could stand to wear coats? Lida thought Gregor must still be at the Ararat with Father Tibor or old George. Lida thought she was lying to herself. It wasn’t what people on Cavanaugh Street would think that bothered her. This might look like the old neighborhood, but it really wasn’t anymore. The people had changed. The world had changed. The problem was that she hadn’t changed, at least not enough.
Years ago, she had been married. Married happily, she had thought. Had she been lying to herself then too? Just three weeks ago she had thought she was happy where she was, as she was. Now she knew that wasn’t true. What was happening to her? And why was it happening to her now?
“Lida?”
“Christopher,” she said. “Listen to me. Are you going to take that new job?”
“The job? Yes, I’m going to take it. I thought we already agreed on that.”
“If you take the job, you will have more time off in a week or two, won’t you?”
“I’ll have a couple of weeks off at the beginning of March. Is this supposed to be going someplace?”
“Yes,” Lida said. “I think so. Did you know I have a house in Boca Raton, in Florida?”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“Well, I do. I do. I have this house and I go there every year at the beginning of March. Usually I invite someone to go with me, Donna Moradanyan or Hannah or someone. So far this year I have invited no one.”
“Are you inviting me?”
Lida turned around to look at him. She loved looking at him. That was the truth. She loved the long lankiness of him, the casual lines, the intelligence in his face. She wrapped her arms around her body and sighed.