Page 31 - WTP Vol.X #8

“Have you changed your mind?”
“Maybe. Maybe I’m not ready.” Livy cradled her head in her hands. “Remind me why I wanted to do this.”
“Ian. Remember?”
For a moment, neither one spoke. Nini worried about Livy. Down the street, the bells of the Episcopal church began their slow toll and faded away into silence. Finally, Livy raised her eyes. “I’m the only person in the world who really loves him.”
“If you’re not ready, you can tell your father not to come. We’ll do it some other time.”
“AbsoluteIy not. Ian would be furious.”
“Go home and think about it. If you need to cancel at the last moment, we’ll reschedule. You’re allowed to change your mind.”
~
After Livy left, Nini rummaged around in her desk, searching for her Fioricet, grimacing when the front door banged shut. She swallowed a capsule, lay
down on the couch, eased off her ballet flats with
her toes and pulled her cashmere throw over her eyes. God, how she wished the past five months were nothing more than a bad dream, another figment of her imagination. By all rights, Jack should be sitting downstairs in his favorite armchair, listening to the Brandenburg Concertos as he flipped through the Times. Unbidden, a memory arose in her mind: Jack walking down Brattle Street, fifty feet in front of her, wearing the brown-checked Harris tweed jacket she’d bought him in London for his sixtieth birthday. A slim, dark-haired woman Nini had never seen be- fore walked beside him. Something about Jack’s slow, languid grace, a stark contrast to his usual uptight trot, had made Nini step out of sight, feeling sick to her stomach. He was moseying along in the languor- ous way he moved after sex, the only time he ever fully relaxed. As they stood at the corner, waiting for the light to change, the woman had stepped in front of him and straightened his shirt collar, an act of such blatant public intimacy that Nini felt the blood pound in her ears: They were sleeping together. Three days later, dry-eyed and cold as a Vermont winter, Jack sat her down at the dining room table and confessed.
His visible relief once he’d finished hurt even more than his betrayal. At the end of the month, he left
(continued on page 31)
“It took Livy eight months to tell Nini
that he dressed her in form-fitting pants and low-cut dresses when she assisted him, and once made her wear a silver sequined gown slit almost up to her crotch at the Oscars.”
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