Page 31 of Woman on the Verge

“I have the husband and the kids. No picket fence.”

“Ah well, you know what they say—can’t have it all.”

She didn’t ask me anything about Kyle or the girls, and I was fine with that. We chatted about various friends from high school, and when we finished our drinks, she asked if I wanted to stay for another.

“I have to get going,” I said. “My stepmom wants me there for dinner.”

The words had already left my mouth before I realized how embarrassingly juvenile they sounded.

I tapped my phone to check the time—just before seven—and sure enough, there was a text from Merry saying she was making halibut.

I stood, but Prisha didn’t. She was staying for that second drink. Her night was still young.

“Keep me posted on things with your dad,” she said as she beckoned the bartender. “If you’re up here again, text me.”

“I will, thanks.”

I left feeling sad, not just about my dad but also about Prisha’s carefree life and my lack of one. I wanted to have an “It’s not fair” tantrum as wildly irrational as the ones Grace and Liv had. But instead, I walked calmly to my car, and then I drove to Dad and Merry’s house to eat halibut. Before I went to bed, though, after failing to restrain myself from texting Kyle a reminder about the teeth brushing, I went on Amazon and bought myself a thirty-dollar bottle of Vera Wang perfume.

Chapter 6

Katrina

In the movies, people wake up in the bed of someone they barely know after a one-night stand and express shock:What have I done?Katrina does not do this. First of all, she doesn’twake up. She’s been awake all night, contemplating the strangeness of being in bed with this man. She is also not appalled. What she feels is bemused pride.

A smile comes to his face before he even opens his eyes. It’s as if he has become conscious of her presence before visually confirming it, and this consciousness brings him joy. It feels good to be the source of someone’s joy.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he says as he opens his eyes.

She watches him watching her come into focus. His smile gets wider. He evidently has no regrets about their night together. Either he has one-night stands all the time, or he doesn’t think this is a one-night stand.

“Good morning, handsome,” she says.

He really is so handsome. She wonders if here, in this bed, with the morning light streaming in across her face (likely highlighting the wrinkles that seem to multiply by the day), he will realize that she is not on par with him, attractiveness-wise.

He reaches over, puts his hand on her bare stomach, seemingly oblivious to its folds and flaws. Are they going to have sexagain? She wasn’t anticipating that, was thinking they would say their awkward goodbyes and go back to their regular lives.

“How did you sleep?” he asks.

He’s sweet. In another life, she would have heart eyes while imagining their future together. But she has this life, and her future is spoken for. The heart-eyes days are behind her.

“I slept fine,” she tells him. May as well keep the lies going.

“That’s good,” he says, sliding closer to her in bed. He kisses her forehead, then her nose, then her lips. She wants to giggle at the preposterousness of this. She wishes there was someone filming the whole thing so she could have evidence of it happening.

He rolls on top of her, takes her hands in his, and holds them up above her head. As sweet as he is, he also knows how to take charge. It surprised her last night, the way hehandledher. She wonders how many women he’s slept with. Judging by his skill, she guesses dozens.

“You are so hot,” he says, kissing her neck, a spot that triggers full-body goose bumps.

His lips travel down her body until they are at her inner thighs, and then his tongue is inside her and she writhes around. When she moans, she wonders for a split second who is making those sounds. She is both embarrassed and impressed upon realizing it’s her. She didn’t know she had it in her. With her husband, any moaning is manufactured, produced in attempts to hurry things along. She didn’t know that moans could occur naturally, involuntarily.

Their sex is slow, with less urgency than the night before. He is both gentle and direct. After this, she doesn’t know how she can go back to the old kind of sex, the rushed and forced and unfeeling kind. It’s possible he has ruined her. Or resurrected her. Is there a difference?

He doesn’t leap out of bed after they are done. He lies next to her, catching his breath, his skin hot and sticky against hers. He strokes her face with one of his fingers.

“You want to go to breakfast?” he asks.

Breakfast?What thirty-year-old man wants to take his one-night stand to breakfast?