Page 22 of Kill Your Darlings

Judy, Wendy’s best friend at work, was moving to D.C. in one week, so they were planning as many lunches as possible in the

remaining time. And since it was a Friday, they were currently on the deck of the Rockaway Hotel. It was an ideal September

day in Massachusetts, the air warm and dry, the tourists relatively sparse. They each ordered the fish tacos, and they were

sharing a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc between them. “It feels like we’re on vacation.” It was something Judy always said whenever

they went to the Rockaway for lunch.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving me.”

“I know. You’ll come to visit, though.”

“Of course I will,” Wendy said, knowing it was a lie. She liked Judy, but she also knew that she was just a work friend, and

they’d keep in touch for a little while but would probably never see each other again after Judy moved. Their food arrived,

the waiter splashing more wine into both of their glasses. As they began to eat, Wendy watched Judy’s eyes go a little big.

She was turned away from the sun, facing the inside portion of the restaurant.

“Who did you just see?” Wendy said, beginning to turn.

“It’s Thom. He’s not alone.”

Annoyed by Judy’s conspiratorial whisper, Wendy fully turned in her chair.

Thom was at the bar with a woman she didn’t know, who had to be at least fifteen years younger than he was.

Thom’s attention was on the menu—probably studying the beer list—and it was clear he hadn’t seen his wife out on the deck.

“Looks like he’s punching above his weight,” Wendy said.

“What do you mean?” Judy said, alarmed, and Wendy remembered that one of the peculiarities of her friend was her inability

to understand metaphors.

“Oh, nothing. Joking. I just meant to say that if he’s hoping for anything to happen between him and that woman, then good

luck to him. She could be his daughter, and she’s gorgeous.”

Judy leaned across the table. “Does Thom cheat?”

Wendy sighed, hoping to give herself enough time to decide what to say. “No, not really. But he’s a vain, middle-aged man,

so I’m sure he entertains fantasies. It’s no big deal. It doesn’t bother me.”

“Entertains what kind of fantasies?” Judy said.

“He probably just wants a woman to look at him without knowing all his flaws. He wants a do-over. Doesn’t everyone?”

“Do you cheat?”

Judy’s questions were being asked with increasing disbelief, and it made Wendy want to shock her a little, so she said, “Nothing

serious, of course. Thom and I are solid, but marriages these days last a long time.”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

“I feel a little shocked right now. I don’t know why, but I just thought that you and Thom were... You’re kind of my couple

ideal. You’re so good together.”

“Maybe because we don’t get hung up on who we go to restaurants with.”

“Oh, I’m not saying...”

“Judy, you’re fine. Let’s not let Thom ruin this lunch.”

They changed the subject, Judy going on a long spiel about the girl they’d hired to replace her in the fundraising department.

She’d already started and Judy was training her.

Wendy listened, and drank wine, and realized that her entire relationship with Judy was based on gossip, both about their coworkers and Judy’s own calamitous love life.

She wondered if in the next week Judy would let the rest of the office know that she and Thom were in some kind of open relationship.

It wasn’t even true. Thom had had a few flings, of course, and many infatuations, and she’d chalked them up to nothing more than a way for him to keep his life interesting, or hopeful.

She knew he dwelled on the past, and that taking out the cute new teaching assistant or whoever it was had helped him to cope.

The only thing she ever really worried about was that he’d truly fall in love with someone else and tell them what he’d done.

What they’d done. As for herself, she’d had one affair, or sexual encounter, with a man she’d met at a conference in St. Louis three years earlier.

He’d been ridiculously handsome, or maybe it was just his English accent.

Either way, she’d decided to see what it was like, because she knew at the time that Thom was up to something, showing up at the house every two weeks or so smelling of cheap perfume and alcohol, like some cliché in a country song.

The man she’d slept with—Jacob Lambert (even his name was attractive)—had confessed to her after their rather brief coupling that he was struggling with a sex addiction that had wrecked his marriage.

It was more than she wanted to hear, and she’d walked away from his hotel room with the knowledge that she would never cheat again.

She already had one thin-skinned, needy man in her life. Why would she want another?

“Oh my God, I’m going to miss it here,” Judy said, looking out toward the ocean.

“Judy,” Wendy said, “can you do me a favor and not mention what I just told you to anyone at work. It’s just—”

“God, no, I would never. It’s just between us.”

“Thank you.”

“And since it’s just between us, who was it? Anyone I know?”

Wendy considered making something up, but in the end told Judy about the Englishman in St.Louis, and how he cried afterward

because of his sex addiction. It was a nice change to their dynamic, actually, since Wendy was usually the one listening to

Judy’s dating horror stories.

“You said he was good-looking, though,” Judy said, then asked if they should order another bottle of wine.

“I should go back to the office, just to show my face. You can do whatever you want because we can’t fire you.”

“Are you going to go say hi to Thom?”

“I don’t think so, unless he’s noticed me. Do you think he has?”

“Definitely not.”

“I think I’ll leave him alone, and see what he tells me this evening about his afternoon.”

“Good plan,” Judy said, again in the conspiratorial whisper. Wendy was suddenly relieved that her coworker would be moving

soon.

When Thom finally arrived home that evening, after eight, he was noticeably very drunk, the raw smell of alcohol seeping out

of his skin, plus the fainter smell of cigarettes. “You’ve had an afternoon,” Wendy said when he joined her on the front porch,

carrying a large water in one hand and some kind of mixed drink in the other.

“Honestly, I’ve only had a few ales,” Thom said in an English accent. He was quoting from Withnail and I , a movie she’d never particularly liked.

“I saw you today at the Rockaway. With your date?”

“You did? When was that?”

“I was there with Judy. She’s insisting on daily going-away lunches. Who was she?”

“Well, at lunchtime my date was the lovely Emma Levieva. She was in that summer dance program that Lorraine is running, but you missed the deluge.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was the welcome-back party for the arts faculty. And kind of a going-away party for some of the summer staff. It was a

scene.”

“Who was there?”

“The usual suspects. Alex made a hideous speech.”

“To whom?”

“To everyone. I mean, not everyone listened, but he made it anyway.”

“What else happened?”

As Thom dug back into his recent memory to tell her about his afternoon, Wendy tried to remember if he’d told her in advance

about the event. She thought he probably had, and maybe she’d been uninterested enough to forget about it. But the more he

talked, the more she realized just how drunk he really was, repeating himself, slurring certain words. She was glad that Jason

was out at the movies with Julia and her parents.

Later that night, together on the couch, watching Thom’s new Criterion edition DVD of The Night of the Hunter , Wendy found herself studying Thom in the flickering glow of the television. He was sipping whiskey, staring at the movie,

occasionally turning to make some comment on what was happening. She felt conflicted, a feeling she’d had for a while now.

On the one hand, she wanted her husband to be stronger, to drink less, to have some control over his life. This current state

he seemed to be in pissed her off. But she also felt some pity for him, and when she felt pity she could visualize him as

the boy she’d first met all those years ago. Thom had only been a few years older than Jason was now. She wondered what would

have happened if he’d never sat down beside her on that school bus. A part of her thought that her life would have been worse,

and his life might have been better. But she wasn’t sure.

Thom turned to her and held out two fists, showing his knuckles, and said, “Look, hate and hate.” He was referencing the film they were watching. Robert Mitchum had tattoos on his knuckles, one that said love and one that said hate.

“That’s not how you see yourself, is it?”

“Sometimes,” Thom said, laughing. “I mean, I am a bad guy.”

A few weeks earlier, another night when Thom had drunk himself into a dark hole, he’d come to bed and woken Wendy up to ask

her if they were going to hell when they died. He’d seemed deranged, laughing at himself, but with what looked like genuine

tears in his eyes. The next day she asked him how he was feeling, and it was clear from his answer that he had no recollection

of that night. She wondered if right now he wasn’t properly forming memories.

“There’s lots of love in you, Thom,” she said.

“No, I know. But other people wouldn’t see it that way. Not if they knew what I’d done.”

She decided not to answer, hoping the topic would go away, but after a moment he said, “Maybe I’ll tattoo ‘love’ on just one

knuckle and ‘hate’ on the others.” He was talking too loudly.

“Shhh,” she said. “Jason will be home soon.”

He pressed a hand to one of his eyes, and she thought for a moment he was going to burst into tears. She slid over to him

and put a hand on either side of his face. “You’re a good man, Thom Graves. No one is defined by one single thing.”

“I know, I know,” he said, his jaw tight, trying not to cry.

“Listen to me. You need to keep it together. Not just for me, but for Jason now. The past is the past.”

“You’ve moved on?” he asked her, his voice cracking.

She could see the reflection of the television in his eyes, and she turned to the screen, the children floating down a river

at night. She took the remote and paused the film.

“I haven’t forgotten,” she said. “But yes, I’ve moved on. We can’t go back and change things. And if I could go back and change things, I’m not sure I would. We have a good life now, don’t we?”

“We do, we do.” He was fully crying now, his teeth clenched, shoulders shaking.

She hugged him closer, feeling his tears on her own cheek, and even though she was dreading hearing the return of Jason, due

any minute, she felt a deep surge of love for her husband. “Shhh,” she said, and pulled him closer.

“We do have a good life,” he said through the tears. “They don’t, but we do.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” she said, but he was crying harder now, and he never answered.

Ten minutes later, when he’d finally stopped crying, Thom got up and went to the bathroom. He came back with a new drink,

his face wet from splashing it with water. “I’m a mess,” he said. “When’s Jason getting back?”

“I thought he’d be back already. Why don’t you go to bed?”

“Okay,” he said, then looked at the whiskey in his hand. He seemed confused.

“Thanks for the drink,” Wendy said, taking the glass from him and having a long sip at it, trying not to shudder. “Let’s take

you up to bed.”

He was asleep by the time she heard the car in the gravel driveway that meant that Connie Alvarez was dropping Jason off.

She went downstairs to meet him. He had lots to say about the Planet of the Apes film he’d seen, but she could tell he was tired and managed to get him into his bedroom with the door closed by eleven. Then

she brushed her teeth and went into the master bedroom. Thom was snoring in the way he did when he’d had too much to drink,

silences punctuated by explosive guttural sounds. She got onto her side of the bed, slid under the single sheet, and cracked

open The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.

She had only a few pages left to go, but she couldn’t concentrate.

Instead, she watched Thom in the oblivion of his sleep.

How would she feel if he never woke up, if his heart suddenly stopped in the middle of the night?

She’d be upset, of course, but also partly something else.

Relieved? Lightened? He was unwell right now, and there was no reason to suspect that he was going to get better.

It was true what she’d told him about her husband, how she had no regrets.

But sometimes she regretted that she hadn’t found a way to do it herself.

She turned off her reading lamp and curled into the position she liked to sleep in. Who’s “they”? she thought to herself,

remembering Thom’s words. Then dismissed it. Tomorrow Thom would be sober. Maybe they could do something as a family. It was

a Saturday, after all, and the weather was supposed to be nice.