She had slept until noon, then gone downstairs, in her robe, and eaten the remainder of last night's dinner for lunch. She put her dish in the sink and pulled a clean champagne glass down from the shelf and snatched a bottle from the refrigerator. By two in the afternoon she was drunk in bed, and crying. She could not bring herself to call Jean-Pierre as she had promised, could not bring herself to dial the number she had by now committed to memory. She could only cry and doze, cry and doze, all through the afternoon. Once more, when it was dark outside, she ventured downstairs for something to eat. She found lasagna in the freezer, which she reheated in the microwave. Afterwards she washed down three Extra Strength Tylenol with champagne from the second bottle she opened. Retreating once more to her bed, she pulled the shades on her windows and climbed under the covers.
She had slept through most of Sunday night in drunken illness, and except for using the toilet and descending to the kitchen, had been in bed from Saturday night until now, early Monday evening. She wondered if she should get out of bed, or just go through the night again. Marie had knocked cautiously on her bedroom door earlier in the day, asking her if she was feeling ill. She had told her yes, and told her not to make dinner, that she would find something in the freezer.
She felt exhausted from thinking and dreaming and worrying about her predicament, which only seemed to tighten its hold on her heart.
How could she face Jean-Pierre? She wanted him, yes, but she had felt awful after Saturday night, struggling to understand her motivation, her fantasy of having him. Was she only reacting selfishly to Matthew's rejection? Perhaps. But that was what hurt the most, facing the fact that she had lost Matthew.
And every time she thought about this, she thought about her own very personal loss, and the irony of it all. It had been her upper hand, she mused, with which she had originally attracted Matthew, the young marketing manager on the rise among the ranks of International Foods.
After their initial meeting at ICP's Orange Fresh advertising photo shoot, Matthew had asked Greta to dinner, where he excitedly told her there was talk of his promotion. Yet, during dinner, his confidence seemed to weaken. When he told her about some of his ideas, she expressed genuine interest and fascination, to which he brightened. She could plainly see that he was a rising star, yet his mood had vacillated wildly between confidence and insecurity in the span of time between the first course and the dessert. After their first dinner date, a pattern then developed. As often as possible they would dine together, and sometimes he would invite her to spend the night with him. What she never seemed to notice was that he only asked her to stay during periods in his career when he was lacking in confidence about a particular campaign or promotion. It was during their evenings together that he had first introduced her to his unusual sexual tastes. Almost every time she would end up masturbating them at the same time, him with her left hand, and herself with her right. He always complained that he was too tired for intercourse, but if she wanted, they could do it that way, his way. He was a young, busy executive on the fast track, who had spent all of his prime years working hard at his career. Clearly he was going to be very successful, and if this was the price she had to pay, she concluded, then for the time being it was worth it. She wanted him.
A year later they married. She continued to pull him from the emotional fluxes that arose whenever he started to lose his nerve, especially when he was deciding whether or not to go to Wallaby, and then later, when he faced his first confrontation with Peter Jones. In the few of months that had followed Peter's ouster, Matthew had come to her less and less with his dilemmas, suddenly, miraculously confident in all aspects of his work.
As much as she wanted to deny it, she had finally, in the last twenty-four hours, forced herself to admit that the essential separation had happened the day of her accident onboard the yacht when they were celebrating the success of Orange Fresh.
And after last week's introduction of the new Joey thing, she had sensed the last of her power of persuasion slipping from her grasp. This past Friday night was the worst. He had gotten home later than usual, and when she had asked him how his day had gone, hoping for a hint of something special for their anniversary the following day, he had told her all about his meeting with his executive staff, that they had granted their support to work closely with ICP. This was just the beginning, he told her excitedly. How many times had she heard that? When the truth was that their marriage had ended long ago, when, drunk on the very potion that had earned him esteem, she had gone overboard, landing in the lagoon with a bloody splash. Yes, that was when she had lost him, lost them.
And that, she knew, was the real reason why she could not bring herself to call Jean-Pierre. Now, for probably the twentieth time, she picked up the telephone and merely stared morosely at the green digits glowing enticingly before her. She had memorized the phone number, not by digits, but by the pattern of tones that she played over and over with her index finger. Each time she pressed every digit in his phone number except the last, the six-note Touch Tone song deepening her dilemma because it reminded her of one of International Foods' stupid little commercial jingles for soda pop or corn chips. And, of course, the real reason was that when she dialed, she had to look at her hands, which, since the accident, had never been seen or held by another person unless they were gloved, and even then she would only offered the right one. She too had learned how to avoid seeing the left one. By diverting her eyes she only ever caught a flesh-colored flash, nothing more.