drizzle seeped down from the sky. The tops of the skyscrapers evanesced into gray haze and the streets and avenues were covered with iridescent smears where the headlights and traffic lights reflected off the black top. Thomas sat under the copious awning of the Boathouse, set next to the Central Park Lake, whose surface shimmered under the falling rain. The Boathouse had been an old favorite of theirs; he had reserved a table here in the hopes that old memories might ameliorate the current problems. Looking out over the rain-sheeted lake, he sighed. No such luck.
A week had passed since he had returned to New York. Upon arriving he had gone straight to the office and worked late into Sunday night. Jormusch had been absent, but tension had hung in the air like the scent of some dangerous animal's passing. Buck had brought him up to speed on recent developments on their client's file. Things had taken a turn for the worse, and it was past four in the morning when he had finally dragged himself home, inured by exhaustion to the gelid silence of the apartment to collapse in their bed and sleep for a few hours.
The rest of the week had passed in a blur. It had been too easy to spend every waking hour toiling at the office, a sacrifice he made willingly in lieu of spending idle hours contemplating his imploding marriage. Buck had dragged him to his favorite sports bar and forced him to recount his experiences in Buffalo. His guffaws over Eric's madness had proved reassuring; later that night, however, looking out over the city, alone in his apartment and in the dark, all of his misgivings had come stealing back and robbed him of his certainty.
And Michelle. The aching void in his life. Though his routine remained mostly unchanged, her continued absence had changed the tenor and tone of his days, each passing night making it harder for him to pretend that she was only taking an extended vacation.
She had awaited his attempt at reconciliation. When it hadn't come, her fury had flared. A cutting message on the answering machine on Tuesday. A cold, restrained conversation on Wednesday. An encounter set for Thursday afternoon, on neutral ground, a time for them to meet as emissaries from their personal armies of grievances. Michelle. His wife. Thomas repeated those words over and over in his mind, but the surreal air they had acquired did not abate.
Leaning back in his chair, a bottle of beer between his listless fingers, he watched the rain fall, listened to the scrape and clack of chairs and tables being drawn in under the awning by the waiters, tracked the occasional passage of a determined jogger as they circled the curvature of the lake.
Michelle rounded the gentle rising curve of the path and strode into view. Thomas straightened in his seat. She was wearing a black raincoat, belted tight about her waist, a burgundy umbrella protecting her from the rain. Tension entered his shoulders, the dull base beat of blood in his temples. She had her hair pulled back into a ponytail, her square chin raised, a flush of color spread unevenly across her pale cheeks. Again as always that sense of double vision, attraction and repulsion, mild panic at the sight of her. She reached the awning and lowered her umbrella, collapsing it expertly and holding it down and to the side like a sword as she sighted him and approached.
She wasn't beautiful, but he had always been attracted to her, to the strength of personality and fierce intelligence that had set her apart from the first moment he had met her. Over the past few years laugh lines had appeared like perfect parentheses around the corners of her generous mouth, had begun to give her eyes an expressive cast that she hadn't had when he had met her, years and years before. Hers was a face capable of such warmth, such depth of feeling and emotion. But it was as if a pane of glass stood between them, preventing him from reaching out and connecting with her. Holding him back. He'd never seen her
A week had passed since he had returned to New York. Upon arriving he had gone straight to the office and worked late into Sunday night. Jormusch had been absent, but tension had hung in the air like the scent of some dangerous animal's passing. Buck had brought him up to speed on recent developments on their client's file. Things had taken a turn for the worse, and it was past four in the morning when he had finally dragged himself home, inured by exhaustion to the gelid silence of the apartment to collapse in their bed and sleep for a few hours.
The rest of the week had passed in a blur. It had been too easy to spend every waking hour toiling at the office, a sacrifice he made willingly in lieu of spending idle hours contemplating his imploding marriage. Buck had dragged him to his favorite sports bar and forced him to recount his experiences in Buffalo. His guffaws over Eric's madness had proved reassuring; later that night, however, looking out over the city, alone in his apartment and in the dark, all of his misgivings had come stealing back and robbed him of his certainty.
And Michelle. The aching void in his life. Though his routine remained mostly unchanged, her continued absence had changed the tenor and tone of his days, each passing night making it harder for him to pretend that she was only taking an extended vacation.
She had awaited his attempt at reconciliation. When it hadn't come, her fury had flared. A cutting message on the answering machine on Tuesday. A cold, restrained conversation on Wednesday. An encounter set for Thursday afternoon, on neutral ground, a time for them to meet as emissaries from their personal armies of grievances. Michelle. His wife. Thomas repeated those words over and over in his mind, but the surreal air they had acquired did not abate.
Leaning back in his chair, a bottle of beer between his listless fingers, he watched the rain fall, listened to the scrape and clack of chairs and tables being drawn in under the awning by the waiters, tracked the occasional passage of a determined jogger as they circled the curvature of the lake.
Michelle rounded the gentle rising curve of the path and strode into view. Thomas straightened in his seat. She was wearing a black raincoat, belted tight about her waist, a burgundy umbrella protecting her from the rain. Tension entered his shoulders, the dull base beat of blood in his temples. She had her hair pulled back into a ponytail, her square chin raised, a flush of color spread unevenly across her pale cheeks. Again as always that sense of double vision, attraction and repulsion, mild panic at the sight of her. She reached the awning and lowered her umbrella, collapsing it expertly and holding it down and to the side like a sword as she sighted him and approached.
She wasn't beautiful, but he had always been attracted to her, to the strength of personality and fierce intelligence that had set her apart from the first moment he had met her. Over the past few years laugh lines had appeared like perfect parentheses around the corners of her generous mouth, had begun to give her eyes an expressive cast that she hadn't had when he had met her, years and years before. Hers was a face capable of such warmth, such depth of feeling and emotion. But it was as if a pane of glass stood between them, preventing him from reaching out and connecting with her. Holding him back. He'd never seen her
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