Free The Last Chance by Rona Jaffe Page B

bought a small color television set for her alcove-bedroom and a white fluffy rug to put in front of the fireplace. The leather couch from Bloomingdale’s was a floor model on sale, so she was doubly lucky, because that meant immediate delivery. She went to Tiffany’s in a spurt of extravagance and bought four place settings of Red Dragon china. Not those awful overdecorated wedding plates she had in the country and never used, service for God knows how many people she didn’t like enough to invite home, and not the chipped, mismatched everyday dishes she’d acquired during the years of her childrens’ growing up—these were her own dishes, for herself and her own carefully chosen friends. Meals would be served on a glass and chrome table that doubled as a desk for the work she brought home from the office. She hadn’t bought sheets in years and was shocked at how expensive they’d become. Her bank account was almost down to zero when she finished her decorating. But it was her bank account, not the one she shared with her husband.
    Robert had never seen her apartment. He remained inflexible. She tried to mention it twice on weekends when they were together, but he turned her off with a look of quiet rage. She told herself he was as entitled to his anger as she had been to hers, but in her heart she was hurt and resentful because of his attitude. He only wants to share when it’s on his terms, she thought. For the first time in all the years they had been married she had no sexual feelings toward him. She knew they had vanished into her anger. While one part of her wanted to be a better wife when she was home, the other part asked her why she felt she had to pacify him all the time. Before, when they had been living together all week, she had felt free to say so when she didn’t feel like having sex. Now she felt she had to do it every time he wanted to, but she couldn’t respond, because it seemed so terribly important that she respond more now.
    He misinterpreted her lack of passion and accused her of having a lover.
    “You’re crazy!” Nikki said.
    “It’s all so obvious,” he said. “You wanted your own place, and now you’re free to do as you like. You don’t need me any more. You have him. You never were able to hide anything from me.”
    “I’m not hiding anything from you, you jackass. If I had a lover, which I don’t, I’d tell you.”
    “You call me crazy and jackass,” Robert said. “Thank you very much. Are you going to call me cuckold next?”
    “You make me so mad I’m going to kill you!” Nikki screamed. Her voice seemed to echo in the room. They both stared at each other. Damn him, damn lawyer, with all his precise words. Damn his literal mind. He was probably imagining the ways she might murder him now—gun or poison? Unaccountably, she wanted to laugh, but she knew it would enrage him, so she cried instead. That always worked.
    “Don’t cry,” he said.
    “I’m so alone … you don’t care about me,” Nikki sobbed. She felt so upset at having to cry to win him over that it made her cry in earnest. She couldn’t stop crying. Robert became genuinely concerned. He took her in his arms.
    “Don’t cry, Nikki. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. Do you want to come home?”
    She shook her head, no. “I don’t have a lover, and now you’re mad at me and mean to me and I don’t have you on my side any more and I’m all alone.”
    “I’m always on your side,” he said, patting her back, stroking her damp hair. He handed her a wad of Kleenex to blow her nose.
    “You won’t even come to see my pretty apartment.”
    “I’m hardly ever in New York,” he said.
    “Aren’t you even curious?”
    “Sure,” he said.
    “I could give you a key.”
    “If you like.”
    “Don’t you want a key?” she asked.
    “It’s your apartment, you’re paying for it. It’s up to you.”
    She had stopped crying and had become coy. “Wouldn’t it make you feel like my