Hope was making a feeble attempt at cleaning the house. Spray some cleaner here, run a vacuum there, the basics.
It was Wednesday, the day Ian came home early. And she didn’t want to suffer his wrath tonight.
The landline rang.
“Hope, It’s Ian. Forget about the housework, I’m taking you to dinner tonight. You know, a date night. We can do it every Wednesday.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, get ready, I’ll be home soon.”
Hope hung up the phone.
“Ugh,” thought Hope, “a date night. How moronic. I wonder who gave him that advice.” But she figured that Ian probably got the idea from his relationship therapist, Dr. Aubrey Prentice.
“That psychiatrist doesn’t know how much harder and more depressing she makes my life,” Hope thought as she put on a conservative cocktail dress.
However, when Ian came through the door with flowers, several bottles of wine, and Chinese food from Hope’s favorite takeout, her heart softened a little bit. But not too much.
“I thought we were going out.”
“I decided we could eat in instead. To give us more privacy, you know. To share our true feelings.”
Ian never bought her flowers, and he hated drinking wine almost as much as he hated General Tso’s chicken. But she couldn’t blame a guy for trying. Hope gave him a big kiss and took everything out of his arms.
Was karma shifting in her favor?
“Sit down and relax,” she said. “I’ll get everything ready. It was a wonderful idea to have a date night.”
She would give it a chance to see where it went.
She put the flowers in a chipped vase she found in the musty-smelling cupboards under the sink. She opened one of the bottles and poured Ian a glass. A plastic tumbler, really.
Then, as Hope set out the plates and lit the candles while Ian enjoyed his wine on the couch, she started thinking it would have been a better idea to go out for dinner, where she wouldn’t have to wait on him like a dutiful wife.
“Even on this date night, I am still working to make my husband happy instead of enjoying myself,” she thought.
Yet, it was still better than eating dinner in silence while he streamed his favorite shows before he turned in early. Hope put on some soft music and pretended to fuss over the table while Ian watched; he was enjoying watching Hope act like a housewife.
“I’m still his servant,” she thought, “but at least there’s wine.”
“Dr. Prentice was right,” Ian thought to himself. “What a difference from the usual attitude I get from Hope after I come home from a long day of work.”
He didn’t bother to ask Hope what she was thinking.
Hope poured a tumbler of wine for herself, which she sipped while setting the napkins and placemats on the old Formica table located in the part of the living area that was designated for eating in Ian’s grandfather’s dismal tract house.
It had been a long time since the two of them had sat there together to eat, so the idea of it was somewhat romantic, at least for Hope.
Ian finished his wine and poured himself another tumbler.
As Ian stood watching, Hope spooned the General Tso’s chicken out onto plates. When she was finished, Ian came over to the table and pulled out Hope’s chair. He sat himself next to Hope at the head of the table.
“I propose a toast,” he said as he raised his wine, “to the most beautiful woman in the world.”
It wasn’t very original, but it still made Hope smile.
She clinked tumblers with Ian and took another sip of her wine.
He smiled, and she smiled back.
They ate dinner while making small talk, which was unusual, and even flirted back and forth a bit.
Hope and Ian had a few more tumblers of wine, which really wasn’t like Ian, and it made him appear more charming to Hope; that was all that mattered for the evening.
The wine certainly made Hope more attractive to Ian. He told her it made him feel uninhibited and also made him want to try new things with Hope.
Dr. Prentice was insistent that Ian try new things with Hope to keep the romance alive in their marriage. She had been specific about some things in the bedroom that he ought to perform. It did put him off at first that Dr. Prentice was so interested in his sex life, but now it excited him.
Ian was reluctant to go to a therapist at first, but his parents and grandparents had insisted, mainly because they hoped therapy would bring him to his senses and finally allow him to get rid of that horrible, low-class girl he had met in a strip club and had actually insisted on marrying.
But Dr. Prentice wanted him to do things for Hope, to keep the line of communications open. Now Ian was confused and a little irritated. But he had put the wheels in motion for this evening, and it was working out so far.
But first, Ian had to rehash how he had gotten into this frustrating situation:
It was the grandparents who made him live with her in that awful three-bedroom house. They told Ian that they kept the house in the family for sentimental value. But it was secretly just a dog house to punish immediate family members who didn’t behave according to the family's wishes.
They had even convinced Ian that it was admirable for him to work on the line at the factories. They would try anything to break his spirit and divorce that gold-digging stripper. In secret, they wanted Hope to break first, so she would never get her hands on the family fortune, but any way it happened was fine with them.
They had made a misstep in originally insisting that the two remained married, but they refused to admit it.
In the meantime, they took great satisfaction in the fact that even though Hope was married to a young and handsome billionaire, she would still have to clean her own toilet and live on an allowance that barely paid for anything.
They underestimated Ian, however, who actually believed that he was working for a greater good, and Hope, who understood the family hatred of her, but had nowhere else to go at the moment and was too lazy to look for a new boyfriend with money.
So Hope played housewife and planned to bide her time until something better came along, or until Ian threw her out. So what if she had to go back to stripping until the next big fish came along. Who cared?
Hope opened another bottle of wine.
All things considered, the evening was going well until Hope brought up Dr. Prentice.
“This date night…it’s nice, but I can’t imagine you thought of it.”
The wine had made Hope a little too free with her speech.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Dr. Prentice must have put you up to this. I’m glad she made you do it.”
“She didn’t make me do anything.”
“C’mon. You didn’t do this on your own. It’s okay. I’m not upset or anything.”
“She didn’t make me do anything,” Ian emphasized.
Hope looked into Ian’s eyes with some compassion. “It’s okay, Ian. Really. I’m just saying it’s nice you’re actually listening to her. It’s… new.”
“I’m not doing this because she told me to. I came up with this myself.”
“Okay. Sure.”
Ian banged his tumbler on the table. The charm of the evening was interrupted. “Why do you always assume I can’t do anything right for you? Why does everything have to come back to that damn doctor?”
Hope immediately regretted the comment, but the wine had loosened her tongue too much to stop now. “Because you hate date nights, Ian. You hate restaurants. You hate wine. You hate flowers. You hate anything that makes you look like a softie. So yeah, it’s a little hard to believe that you suddenly woke up wanting to light candles and play footsy under the table.”
“People change.”
“You don’t,” Hope said it before she could stop herself.
Then the music stopped, even though the candles still flickered between them.
Ian took a deep breath to calm himself down. This evening may not work out, but he’d be damned before he was the bad guy again.
“Look. I’m trying, okay? I’m really trying.” He was talking earnestly now. “And you should at least acknowledge that instead of giving credit to someone else.”
Hope took a sip of her wine. “Fine. I acknowledge it. Thank you for trying. Happy?”
His shoulders relaxed a fraction. “Yes. Actually.”
Hope pushed the food on her plate around and forced a smile. “Alright then. Let’s enjoy the night.”
They went back to eating. The small talk resumed. Tentatively at first, then easier as the wine smoothed the edges again. Ian told a story about someone at the factory who’d filled a vending machine with pudding cups instead of chips. Hope laughed in the right places. Ian relaxed.
By the time they opened their fortune cookies, Ian seemed entirely back in his earlier good mood.
He opened his cookie first.
“My fortune is: All your hard work will soon pay off.”
Hope opened hers.
“Mine says: Someone new will come into your life soon.”
“They better not!” Ian was feeling lighthearted.
Hope wasn’t. She was still suspicious of Ian’s motives. The little argument about Dr. Prentice had exposed how put-on this whole performance was.
Still, she played along.
After dinner, Ian insisted on doing the dishes. Hope was surprised that he offered. What was he up to? If he wanted sex, Hope was more than willing to oblige.
Hope sat on the couch, nursing the last of her wine and thinking about Vaughn, about earlier that day, about the way Vaughn had suggested they get a motel room instead of running away.
More lies.
More sneaking around.
Ian hummed while he washed the dishes.
He never hummed.
Hope stared at him from the couch. It was almost absurd. Her husband, apron on, sleeves rolled back, trying to be the helpful spouse. I didn’t suit him. Hope didn’t like it.
He glanced back at her and smiled, hopeful, proud of himself. “See? I can pitch in.”
“Yeah,” she said. “You can.”
But the smile that accompanied the comment was weak.
When Ian finished, he dried his hands and came over, sitting close to her. Closer than he had in months. He placed his arm along the back of the couch behind her shoulders.
“I think,” he said, “we should do this every week. Make it a habit.”
“Every Wednesday,” Hope repeated. Vaughn worked on Wednesday evenings. So Thursday was his new night.
Bad news, good news, all in one day.
“Yeah.” Ian’s eyes softened. “A standing date night.”
Hope nodded mechanically. “Sure. Sounds nice.”
Ian beamed, satisfied. He leaned in to kiss her, and Hope let him, because what else was she supposed to do? She kissed him back, tasting wine and General Tso’s and something faintly desperate.
In her mind, though, she wasn’t kissing Ian.
She was already with Vaughn, somewhere far away from the Formica table and the musty cupboards and the suffocating weight of Ian’s family name.
Ian pulled back, his forehead touching hers, mistaking her glassy eyes for tenderness.
“This is how things should be between us,” he murmured.
“Of course,” she whispered. “Just like this.”
But she knew this wasn’t going to work. Ian just wasn’t this kind of man. Sure, he could do it for one night, but next Wednesday, they would both get tired of pretending and call it quits.
Too much bad karma between them.