Lunch

The Sauvignon Blanc was losing its chill, and the salad was most likely wilting into a pile of inedible mush. Perhaps he should have brought a Malbec or a Pinot Noir, and a cheese to compliment the wine. Sandra didn’t like most reds, but what did that matter now?

The cop was knitting his brows at him. (Am I not paying enough attention?) Jake tried to focus on what the policeman — Wilkerson, according to his name badge — was saying. He was explaining in a calm tone of voice and excruciating detail that the police did not consider Sandra to be a missing person. She’d told her coworkers that she was leaving town, and left a trail behind her: resigned from her job, sold her car, and cashed out her 401K. Jake stood and listened to Officer Wilkerson telling him that just because Sandra had vanished into thin air didn’t mean she was actually missing.

Jake had shown up at 1:00 on the dot with lunch from Armando’s and a bouquet of pink roses. Red were her favorite, but he’d always thought red roses looked overblown and too intense, like a slatternly woman in a cheap, bright dress. Annie was working at the reception desk. She gave him a look that was reminiscent of a woman glancing down at her shoes, surprised to find she’d stepped in dog poop.

“She’s not here, Jake.”

He noticed she was wearing red lipstick, and her dress was too tight.

“When do you expect her back? Has she gone out to a client meeting or something?” When Annie’s only response was a sour look, he sighed and tried to reason with her. “I know you’re only looking out for her, Annie. You’re a good friend, letting her stay with you, but it’s been almost a month. Sandra is my wife. I agreed to us taking a break, and I’ve left her alone like she wanted, but I thought today would be a good time to — ”

Annie interrupted. “She quit weeks ago. I don’t know where she is, because she didn’t want anybody to know where she was going.” She got up from her chair behind the desk. “If I did know, I wouldn’t tell you. You should leave.”

Things disintegrated quickly after that. Annie called building security. Then he contacted the police from his cell phone. He insisted that they send an officer as soon as possible. Did anyone really expect that he would just take the news that his wife was had been gone for weeks and calmly leave the premises? What kind of husband would do that? Wouldn’t any man who loved his wife be upset under the circumstances?

When the police arrived, Annie told the officer that she had received an email from Sandra the previous week, confirming that she had successfully implemented her plan to leave her husband. She said she didn’t have a phone number for Sandra or know where she was staying, but the next time Sandra contacted her, she would tell her to call the police station. Annie threw a sharp dagger of a glance Jake’s way before explaining to Officer Wilkerson that Sandra was afraid that he (the shrew practically hissed ‘he’ as an epithet) would find out where she was and come after her. Jake couldn’t hear the next thing she said, but it looked as if the cop wasn’t taking too seriously whatever slander she was conveying. Officer Wilkerson had the dull and patient look of a man nodding absently while listening to his wife complain.

It was hard for Jake to listen to the retelling of Sandra’s subterfuge. He imagined her and Annie whispering to each other about what a bastard he was while they ate their salads and drank their diet colas in the lunchroom every day. He’d never liked Annie. God knows what kind of ideas she put in Sandra’s head. (Well, I know some of those ideas now, don’t I?) When Annie had visited Sandra at the house, they always talked huddled together like two schoolgirl whispering secrets. It never occurred to Jake that they were talking about Sandra leaving him. Why would it? He’d given her everything: a beautiful house, jewelry, lavish vacations. It had never been necessary for her to work; she insisted on having a job because she said she couldn’t just sit around all day and wait for him to come home every night and make her life worth living. He’d indulged her idiosyncrasies. (Although I never appreciated her sarcasm or mistook it as wit.)

“Are you listening Mr. Sinclair? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Jake had let his attention wander. “Yes, Officer, I understand.” He let a bit of prickle seep into his next words. (I should be a little rankled at his patronizing tone.) “You’ll excuse me if I’m not familiar with how to handle just discovering my wife has left me and run off.”

“Of course, Mr. Sinclair,” said Wilkerson.

It was apparent to everyone present that Sandra had deserted him and disappeared into the world, untraceable. Since there was nothing anyone at his wife’s former place of employment could or would do about it (especially Annie, that bitch), Jake let Officer Wilkerson escort him from the premises with an I-know-how-hard-it-is story about how the first Mrs. Wilkerson had divorced him after reconnecting with an old flame on Facebook.

After Wilkerson drove away in his patrol car and left him standing alone on the sidewalk, Jake looked down and saw that he was still holding the bag from the restaurant. He moved the bag to his other hand; he’d been clutching the twine handle of the bag so tightly there was a rope impression tattooed across his palm.

The roses had been thrown (with a rather poignant toss, he thought) into the wastebasket next to Annie’s desk. It had seemed an appropriate gesture.

(Sandra, how did it all come to this?)

He decided to visit the park before he went home. The house felt cold and lonely lately and he wasn’t in a hurry to return there. When they were first married, it had seemed odd to have someone living with him. Sandra had sometimes spent the night at his house before they were wed, but to wake up and see her there every day — her clothes in the closet, her cosmetics spread all over the bathroom, her possessions scattered throughout the house like pieces trying to fit into the puzzle of his life — had taken some getting used to. Now he would have to become accustomed to the opposite all over again. (Sometimes a man’s hand is forced by circumstances.)

Near the entrance to the park, there was a blonde woman sitting on a bench, next to a man wearing his hair in a bun and sporting a carefully cultivated, three-day growth of facial hair. The woman was wearing a pair of red stilettos and a blue dress she kept trying to pull down closer to her knees. (Whore.) Every time she reached down to yank on her skirt, the diamond on her heavy gold wedding band flashed in the sun. The man wasn’t wearing a ring. He looked like what Jake’s mother would have called a gigolo, but which Jake believed was now referred to as a ‘player.’ (Obviously the man was unmarried; a wife would insist he cut off that stupid hair affectation.)

The weather was nice, and Jake was feeling good about his interaction with the police, so he attempted to put the thought of the extramarital adulterers sitting on the bench out of his mind. (Although technically the man-bun wearer could just be a fornicator.) Yes, he realized calling them extramarital adulterers was redundant, but it sounded more serious — had more gravitas — then either word singly. If there was anything in life that should be taken seriously, it was the breaking of one’s marriage vows.

Words like fling, playing around, and hanky-panky didn’t properly portray the seriousness of an unacceptable situation. That’s what she’d called it. A fling. She just had a fling. (It was nothing, she said, as if I wasn’t going to picture another man’s hands touching her body every time I looked at her for the rest of her life.) A one-night stand during a girls’ weekend at the beach. She told him it had been building for a while, like a white-hot unsettledness in her brain, and it made her realize she didn’t want to be married anymore. (Wanted to find herself, didn’t want to be with me, she was leaving, the end. Fuck you.)

The red-hot mist had exploded in his brain and he slapped her — hard — so the insufferable words would stop coming out of her mouth. Then he fell on his knees and begged her to stay. She wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. He told her he was sorry. He could change. He would help her to be happy with him again.

She said she would think about things while they took a break. (Liar. You just said that so I would let you leave.) She told him that she still loved him; would always love him. (Liar, liar, liar.) She was going to stay with Annie for a while.

The minute she left he went to his computer. Fifteen minutes later he’d hacked her email password by combining the name of her childhood pet with her birth year. He saw everything, knew everything. A few days later Sandra was gone for good. (Yet she’s still sending the occasional email, isn’t she?)

Halfway through the park, he took a less-traveled path around a copse of trees to a secluded bench nestled between two blossoming ornamental pear trees which now reminded him of Sandra — superficially beautiful but ultimately fruitless and common. He used to meet her here when they first started dating. He would pick up lunch from Armando’s and she’d walk from her office up the street. That was long before she started spending all her lunch hours with Annie, planning her get-away. He unpacked the takeout bag. The salad was ruined, as he expected, but he opened the Sauvignon Blanc. He’d forgotten the glasses, so he drank the tepid wine straight from the bottle.

They’d loved this spot. Once, on a chilly day when the park was deserted, they’d even spread their coats on the ground and made crazy, exhibitionist love here, giggling and looking around to make sure they weren’t come upon unawares. Only at the last moment did they stop laughing and look into each other’s eyes, and feel the wonder that was the two of them together. Looking back now, he could name that moment as the point in time when he realized he was in love with her.

Even though she was gone, in a way they would always be together whenever he was here, reminiscing about what was and what might have been.

He leaned back and reached behind the bench, and let his hand rest on the mound of earth that hadn’t been there a few weeks before. (If only you hadn’t turned out to be such a betraying, deceitful bitch, Sandra.)

He would survive without her. He would carry on, and God willing, maybe someday there would be someone else in life. (Someone better than you, Sandra.) He didn’t think he had to worry. His talk with Officer Wilkerson had gone very well. He was sure that Wilkerson understood Sandra was gone and there was no use in the police — or anyone — trying to figure out where she’d ended up. She’d made her choices and now she was going to have to live with them. (So to speak.)

When he finished drinking half the bottle of wine, he turned and poured the remainder on the freshly turned earth behind the bench. After all, it was Sandra’s favorite.