The Nakeds by Lisa Glatt

Author:Lisa Glatt [Glatt, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Retail
ISBN: 9781941393055
Google: j7V0BgAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1941393055
Publisher: Regan Arts.
Published: 2015-06-02T04:00:00+00:00

8

WHILE HANNAH waited on the porch and rang the doorbell and banged on the screen, Nina scolded Azeem inside the car. “You can’t just tell Hannah that you want me to open my marriage. What were you thinking?”

He agreed that perhaps he’d said too much, but even while admitting he was wrong, his voice rose, louder and louder in that very quiet neighborhood, so Nina said, Just go, just go, and he sped away before Hannah’s father even made it to the door.

After they’d gotten back on the road, Nina corrected Azeem that it wasn’t just her marriage, it was theirs.

“All your talk about opening my marriage,” she said, turning, looking at him. “It’s not my marriage, Azeem. It’s ours.”

“Of course,” he said.

“You’ve been calling it mine and I’ve been letting you do so. You’ve been calling it mine for a month. You’ve been asking me to open my marriage and I haven’t said a thing.”

“If you spoke Arabic, you’d make mistakes too,” he said.

She nodded, giving him that. “I feel like it’s just mine, though,” she said. “The marriage—I’m in it alone.” She was looking out the window, feeling guilty for not insisting he wait until Asher answered the door. She thought about asking him to take her home. She felt a headache coming on. She could send him up to the nudist camp by himself and they could talk about things tonight. But she liked The Elysium and always felt rejuvenated after a day in the sun.

He stopped at a 7-Eleven and went inside while Nina waited in the car. He brought back bottled water, a bag of cashews, and aspirin for Nina’s headache, which she hadn’t mentioned but which he somehow knew she had. He was good about things like that, knowing when her body hurt, knowing what she needed. “Thanks,” she said, taking the bottle from him.

“I don’t want to fight,” he said. “I just want you to read the book and then tell me what you think. Just talk to me about it. I’m not going to do anything with anyone. We have a contract, like you said, and we haven’t rewritten it—and maybe we never will. That’s OK. I’ll live with it.”

“Marriage isn’t a disease,” she said.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

She opened the pills and shook a couple into her palm.

“Let’s think about something else for now. Let’s try to have a good day together.” He closed the car door and put on his seat belt.

When she popped the aspirin into her mouth, he reached into the bag and pulled out his bottled water. He hurried the cap off and offered it to her.

“Let’s start the day over. It’s sunny. It’s beautiful,” he said, gesturing toward the sky. He started the car and pulled out of the parking lot, making his way to the 405 freeway. Nina leaned back in the seat and rested her head on the headrest and waited for the aspirin to kick in. Once Azeem had merged safely into the freeway’s fast lane, he ripped open the bag of nuts with his teeth and poured some into his mouth.

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