ALL AHEAD OF THEM
by Tobias Wolff
"It’s all a misunderstanding,” he said. “I’m just on my way somewhere. I’ll call you later. O.K.?” His mouth was so dry he could hardly get the words out, and he heard the strain in his brother’s voice as they said their goodbyes.
He closed the phone and laid it on the bedside table. The French doors were open, and he could see a slice of the harbor above the balcony railing. The mattress squeaked as he rocked to his feet. He walked outside and stood at the railing. He wanted a cigarette, but he’d promised to quit after the wedding, and had managed to keep his word so far, despite the half-full pack of Gitanes forgotten by a previous guest in the bottom drawer of the dresser. Late sunlight glittered on the water and brightened the hulls of the boats in the marina. A pair of paisley pajama bottoms hung from a clothesline on the roof across the street, the legs dancing madly in the gusty breeze. He and Arden had laughed at the spectacle barely an hour ago; now he found it unsettling, humanly desperate.
He had understood, even as he used the word “misunderstanding”—always mealy on the tongue, always prelude to an alibi—that there’d been no misunderstanding. Which meant that his wife of six days was a liar and a thief. Well.
Well, well, well.
A vein throbbed in his forehead; his tongue felt gritty. He lowered himself into one of the deck chairs and drank from the glass of water he’d left on his guidebook. The ice had melted, leaving a metallic taste. The cover of the guidebook was damp from the sweating glass. He wiped it on his pant leg and opened to the page he’d been reading. A few moments later, he shut the book; the words were swimming on the page. He lowered the back of the chair and closed his eyes, hoping to calm himself, but instead he saw himself from a distance, striking this easy pose, performing relaxation. For whom? For himself, to demonstrate how little shaken he was? The sense of being ridiculous made him sit forward sullenly, legs on either side of the chair. A Motorino whined in the street below.
Minutes ago, before the call, he had been planning tomorrow’s walk to Vernazza. It was what he and Arden had come here to do, hike the cliff-side trails from village to village, and he had almost lost himself in plotting their route, looking for good beaches, picking likely restaurants. He’d been able to make love that morning for the first time since the wedding, and could just begin to contemplate the week to come without a cramp of dread.
He’d had this trouble with Arden a few times before, but he’d assumed that it would pass once the anxieties of getting married were behind them. Arden was being O.K. about it, “understanding,” even though she didn’t understand—how could she, when he didn’t understand? He knew that she was trying to make it easier for him, but when she told him not to worry, that it happened to men “all the time,” he was not reassured. Her sympathy was withering enough, but all the time? Where did that come from? The wisdom of others, he hoped. But what sort of conversation would invite those others to make such a revelation? Would he himself become fodder for “sharing” over drinks on some girls’ night out, or during one of Arden’s cooking classes? The very thought of it unmanned him. Arden hadn’t given up, but in her attempts to rouse him he had begun to suspect something beyond concern, even beyond impatience: boredom. “It’s O.K., Bud,” she’d said last night, when all had failed. “Let’s get some sleep.”