Free Emma's Table by Philip Galanes Page A

had plenty of time before his meeting with Emma, so he couldn’t say that he was running late. He couldn’t tell her that he needed more time to prepare either; he’d already told her he was ready. Still, a museum visit was about the last thing on earth he wanted.
    He wondered if he could tell her about his nervous stomach, roiling like a tumbler of poisonous whiskey.
    She’d probably want him to be honest.
    Then she could go to the Whitney on her own, or they could arrange to visit some other time. But just then, Benjamin noticed that Melora had applied a light coat of pink lipstick in honor of the occasion: dinner with Emma, her boyfriend’s boss. It was so faint he really had to look to find it. Melora never wore makeup, and Benjamin thought his heart might break—at her small gesture of support, and all the outsized forces that worked against it. He wanted to tell her that the pretty lipstick wouldn’t make a jot of difference where they were going—about as useful as tying a bright red bow on a curly lamb that was already on the truck to the slaughterhouse.
    He didn’t say anything of the kind.
    He just nodded his head and agreed to the museum visit—wanting to please her, on the one hand, and feeling resentful, on the other.
    â€œGreat,” she said, sitting a little taller on the subway bench beside him.
    Look at her, Benjamin thought, with annoyance flaring through him, like ancient newspaper taking fire from a match. Sitting tall as a mountain in that stupid winter coat of hers, trying to intimidate me with perfect posture.
    He used to think that she was showing off, sitting ramrod straight like that—the way ballet dancers walked around on the street, with all that phony turnout, their legs swinging high from wide-open hips: look at me, they screamed, look at me. He felt a surge of anger rising up, but he tamped it down fast. He made a quick excuse instead: She is a yoga teacher, after all. He tried to convince himself that her perfectly straight back—her neck and chest lifted high—weren’t meant as any criticism of him, or indifference to him either.
    It’s just the way she sits, he thought.
    Benjamin had so much experience with demanding women. They’d been washed and combed into his head since he was a boy—turning to him briefly and bathing him in light, only to turn away again for much longer stretches, leaving him alone in the dark. He might have been better off, he thought, if they never looked at him in the first place.
    Benjamin gazed down at the floor, focusing on the hem of Melora’s strange winter coat; it came down in front like two toast points. He was sure that Emma would have something to say about that.
    â€œBenny?” she said, a little insistently, the nickname dwarfed by a strict note in her voice.
    Benjamin slumped a little lower on the hard orange bench, like a scarecrow in ratty overalls, no spine at all once it’s taken down from those tall wooden pilings. He leaned into Melora like a child, taking shelter beneath her flaring shoulders and that strong, straight back, unfurled so wide.
    â€œSit up,” she told him, as curt as a mother. “You’ll hurt your back slouching that way.”
    Benjamin recognized the tone; he knew he’d put it there himself.
    Still, he didn’t do what he was told for a change. It wasn’t easy for him either. He had to will himself to keep slumping down, to disregard the command of a determined woman.
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    A LITTLE LATER THAT AFTERNOON, EMMA PADDED into her brand-new kitchen, the kidskin soles of her soft Belgian loafers scarcely whispering against the wide planks of the wooden floor.
    The room was all done up in navy and white: shiny blue appliances with brushed chrome trim, and matte white cupboards with blue porcelain pulls. Emma didn’t begin to notice her pretty view of Central Park, or the winter sun that was fading back. She was much too