No Matter What

One

Is now a good time to mention that my husband has been leaving me in increments (first the far side of the bed, then the guest room, and now, apparently, his own apartment) and I’m not taking it well?

Lease start date August 15.

Join me here, in my kitchen, with a glass of wine that’s somehow found its way into my trembling hand, staring at this sheaf of paper I’ve just discovered, that my husband has pinned to the kitchen counter with a twenty-­eight-­ounce can of diced tomatoes.

So.

He’s moving out.

What the f*** do we do with this? If you’re like me, you might be asking yourself this very question.

Well, what the f*** do I do with it?

I set my wine down.

The fact that he’s chosen a twenty-­eight-­ounce can of diced tomatoes to pin that note to the counter suddenly feels a bit like a gauntlet.

Because, when my world is crumbling, I feed people.

Actually, when my world is gorgeous and peachy and shining with the light of a thousand Instagram filters, I feed people.

Can you guess the pattern?

I feed people!

He could have chosen a twelve-­ounce can. He could have left it on the counter with nothing holding it in place.

He could have not left the lease out at all and relayed this information with words and eye contact, but no, who am I kidding, this is Vin we’re talking about here.

Twenty-­eight ounces? Game on.

I take the can and leave the lease. I don my second-­favorite striped apron. The one that makes me feel like Queen Martha Stewart. I’ve never diced onions into neater squares. Never once peeled garlic with such speed. When they hit the hot oil in the pot, they sear with such a satisfying hiss I grin like the devil.

And now. For the fun part. I grab the diced tomatoes off the counter. The note immediately skates a foot to the side in the breeze from our kitchen window. Every crank of the opener feels like cracking open the door to a room I’m not permitted to enter. The can pops open and I feel I’ve done something almost naughty. I’m supposed to be crying over these tomatoes, right?

Surely not simmering them.

I watch until they bubble on the stove.

Holding the immersion blender in one hand, I rev it in the air, yes, like that one murderer with the chain saw in those movies I’ve never actually seen. And then the sauce gets it. I’m turning those tomatoes to velvet in that pot. My hand slips on the immersion blender and tomato sauce paints a zebra stripe across the counter. And the lease.

A splash of red across the death certificate.

I season and simmer and stir. When the scent grows heady and rich and layered, when there’s nothing left to do but clean up the kitchen, when the wine is gone but the tremble in my hand is not, I pick up the lease from the counter and fasten it to the fridge door like all of our to-­do lists. Step one: get a divorce. Step two: buy mushrooms.

There’s the unmistakable scrunch of keys in our apartment door. I reach out and swipe the stripe of sauce off the lease with one finger. It leaves a stain behind.

Vin steps into our apartment. I turn to him, just a normal woman in an apron.

He’s got an intensely determined, did-­she-­see-­it-­yet look on his face. He’s breathing hard. His endlessly green eyes dart from the empty kitchen counter to the fridge door and then to my face.

I lick the sauce off my finger.

“Sauce is on the stove if you’re hungry.”

One hand on the doorknob still, he looks again from the lease to me. I wait, interminably, for him to say anything.

And then he turns, and he walks back out, closing the door behind him, like he’d never even been there.

•

She was pretty.

She had a flower on her sweater. I don’t know what kind. Not a real one. Part of the fabric. Actually it might have just been a shirt. Not a sweater. Why am I so bad at this.

She was pretty. Her smile. Her mouth. But mostly her eyes. When she smiled. Dark eyes. Friendly. That’s what I remember. About the first time I ever saw her.

•

Imagine there’s a world in which you just happen to know the address of the apartment your husband is moving into on August fifteenth. Imagine that address is Nine Five Four East 12th Street, apartment 9J.

And look, you’re you. You’re not me, but I suppose some of you, in your version of this imaginary world, don’t Google Maps that apartment building and imagine him arriving there, after work, with those tired eyes he gets and some of you, probably, would be like, Screw him! and fair, that’s fair, but I might be kind of, sort of, dropping a pin on this location with cold, stiff fingers.

And that’s that! Mystery solved, okay? Now I know where it is and I don’t have to wonder about it anymore.

I am wondering who in God’s name is going to drop my compost off at the drop-­off point on Sunday mornings. Because one of the best parts of forming a partnership with someone is divvying up all the crap you didn’t want to do in the first place.

And now he wants to undivvy? We already divvied! You can’t take back a divvy!

I’m saved from myself—­and this moment, and getting lost in a perpetual loop of trying to make the word divvy sound like an actual word again (do I have bad taste or would that make a really cute baby name? [for someone else’s baby, of course])—­ by a text from my erratic but brilliant custom framing guy.

Frame is ready. Leaving for Montreaux in half an hour. You can get it next week if you can’t make it.

His name is, I kid you not, St. Michel, and he does extremely fine, shockingly cheap work but his shop does not keep regular hours and occasionally he’ll keep your project hostage for a year. And I definitely need this framed portrait now. It’s Vin’s mother’s birthday gift, and her birthday is in two days.

On my way!

I turn off the heat, put a lid on the sauce, and shove my feet into running shoes (because I’ll need them) and jog out the door. I skid from one bus to another and then sprint the last two blocks to the shop. I’m forty feet away when I see him step out onto the sidewalk with a rolly bag.

“St. Michel! I’m here!”

He turns, his silver hair hidden under a beanie even though it’s seventy degrees outside. I make it to his side and sag against the bricks of his building, panting, melting, trying very hard not to puke on his, surely, cobbled shoes.

“Darling,” he says with a frown. “What is this look.”

Look, I’m not high-­fashion, but normally I can throw a silhouette together. I’m on the shorter side, with dark hair I keep in bangs straight down to my eyebrows and a pair of, admittedly, gigantic glasses. I have—­if not style—­a style. And let’s just say it doesn’t normally include bike shorts, knee socks, a sweatshirt, running shoes, and my hair in a pile on my head.

“Well, I didn’t have much warning before I left the house!” I have my hands on my hips and a scowl on my face. St. Michel responds positively to light derision.

“Right, right. Your project. Let’s go.” He keys us into his darkened shop and we walk straight back to the work area. It smells like freshly sawn wood and polyurethane. He doesn’t bother flipping on the lights.

He hands me a brown paper package, eleven by fourteen, and when my fingers close around it, they start to tingle.

“Open, open!” he demands. “I have a flight.”

Normally I’d be peeling back the tape and inspecting his work. The first time I ever did this was to make sure I’d gotten what I’d paid for. Every time since then has simply been to make him preen with compliments because his work is just that good. But now, the weight of the frame in my hands, I’m suddenly remembering which photo he’s framed and I just can’t do it. I can’t look at that right now.

“I don’t want to make you late!” I say instead, and head back out through the shop. “What’s in Montreaux?” I ask as he relocks the shop and drags his bag to the curb, his hand already in the air for a cab.

“Montreaux,” he responds, as if I’m absurd for even asking.

“Just going to sightsee?”

A cab pulls up and St. Michel walks around to the back and pulls open the trunk. He tosses his bag in and turns to look at me, hands on his hips. “What is going on with you?” His eyes are narrowed.

I don’t usually make small talk in knee socks while I wait to wave goodbye to him on the street.