Listen to the Marriage by John Jay Osborn

Author:John Jay Osborn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

17.

“I’m confused about what went on last weekend,” Gretchen said. “Apparently you took the kids on a huge hike in the hills that lasted all day? And you met up with Gabrielle?”

“No,” Steve said. “What happened is, I took the kids on a walk in Golden Gate Park, but we walked the entire way to the ocean, and then back again, more than six miles. We had lunch at the Beach Chalet. So to them it felt like a huge hike, but we never left the city. It was an urban adventure. I was proud of them. It was a long walk, but they didn’t complain, although I had to put Liz on my shoulders the last mile.

“As for Gabrielle, she wasn’t on the hike. She was running in the park, which she does every day, and she saw us and stopped to say hello. I introduced her to the kids. They had never met her before.”

“Gabrielle had never met the kids?” Gretchen said.

“Nope,” Steve said.

“Why don’t you include her?” Gretchen asked.

“Why would I do that?” Steve said. “I don’t want them to get the wrong idea.”

“What wrong idea?” Gretchen said.

Steve looked uncomfortable. He shrugged.

“You know, like I have a girlfriend,” Steve said.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Gretchen asked.

“Am I going out with Gabrielle?” Steve said. “Yes, I’ve gone out with Gabrielle, but I wouldn’t call her a girlfriend. She’s a friend.”

“It’s a little more than that, isn’t it?” Gretchen said.

“I’m not asking you about who you’re going out with,” Steve said.

“Ask anything you want,” Gretchen said. “I still talk to Bill, but I haven’t seen him in a while, as you know, it’s a complicated relationship. As I told you, I went out with a colleague a couple of times. He teaches in the drama department? Would you like to know anything about that? I slept with him.”

Sandy could see several thoughts flash in Steve’s face, just below the surface. But he took a second to think it over and then let them all sink down into the fiery pit at the back of his brain where his bad thoughts screamed and twisted and tried to climb out.

“You, on the other hand, don’t seem to want to talk about Gabrielle,” Gretchen said. “How many times have you been away for the weekend with her?”

“I haven’t been away for the weekend with her and I don’t see what this is about,” Steve said. “Why do we have to define my relationship with Gabrielle? What does it matter?”

Gretchen leaned forward.

“Don’t you think it matters to Gabrielle?” Gretchen said.

“I have no idea,” Steve said.

Sandy saw that Gretchen was shoveling coal into the boiler of this locomotive, and it was slowly picking up steam. Once it got going, it was going to be hard to stop.

“Don’t you think she deserves to know how you think about her? What you think about the relationship?” Gretchen said evenly.

“Sandy has made me highly suspect about what people deserve,” Steve said. “But Gabrielle certainly expects me to be honest with her, and I’m trying to be.

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