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Robert watched Sarah when she was married to Harry, and their playful banter always seemed -- playful.
Once he moved in with Sarah, though, he discovered that he didn't enjoy being on the receiving end of those innocuous observations of hers.
"Drinking again, Robert? It's not even dinnertime yet."
He ignores her and pours another two fingers of Scotch. Sarah keeps a perfect house, and he hadn't quite expected that. Dinner is in the oven when he gets home. All the flat surfaces in the house are always dusted.
When Harry found out about their affair, Robert expected him to be angry, but Harry just looked at him with pity. "You know, Robert, I don't think you have the least idea how to be in a relationship with someone."
The oven timer dings. "Dinner's ready," Sarah says. When he reaches the table, she presents him with a plate. Pot roast, baked potato, and steamed broccoli.
"Looks good," he says.
"I figured you'd need something in your stomach to counteract all the alcohol." He can't tell if her smile is genuine, or if it ever was.
He picks up his fork and fires his own salvo. "Have you gained some weight?"
"Are you married?" It's a classic party question, right after "What do you do?" and before "Any kids?" Bobby's got a few different ways of deflecting. He laughs it off, he pretends to misunderstand, he goes into a digression about the meaning of marriage. It's a lot easier than explaining his situation.
No, he's not married. None of them are. How could he explain that Peter and Susan used to be married, but now they're happily divorced, with Bobby in the middle?
When he gets tired of Susan, or Peter gets too demanding, he can back off for a few days and let them deal with each other. When he comes back, it's great, sunshine and roses and lots of sex.
"I'm glad you're with us, Bobby." Susan stretches languidly, and her feet nudge his legs. On his other side, Peter drowsily gropes for the sheet and pulls it up over them, then rolls up against Bobby's side.
"I leave tomorrow on that business trip, remember? You'll have to do without me for a little while."
Susan stretches past him to caress Peter. "Oh, we'll manage somehow."
And they will. As far as Bobby's concerned, three is the perfect number.
Amy never stops talking. As she piles the dishes in the sink, she keeps up an endless prattle about a dress she had to return to Macy's and the terrible lines and how difficult it is to get an appointment with her shrink now that he's so popular, and sometimes Bobby wishes she would just shut the hell up. Their apartment is small, and having it constantly filled with the sound of her voice only makes it smaller.
Still, he doesn't regret his impulsive marriage proposal. It's not the most typical way to start a relationship, proposing to someone on her wedding day, but it's the only way it ever would have worked. It's not like you can get Amy to stand still and think about anything.
He'd tried, once, interrupting her in the middle of a debate she was having with herself. "Amy, what do you think about having kids?"
She caught her breath in the middle of a sentence, then said, "Oh, Bobby, I don't know. It's such a scary world, isn't it? I was reading this article about crime statistics--" And she didn't look at him.
Now he just lets her talk, and doesn't say anything.
After David leaves her, Jenny spends six months crying in her apartment. Bobby knows this, because she calls him an average of twice a week, sobbing so hard she can barely speak. He goes over there with Chinese takeout and listens to her wonder why she couldn't make David stay.
She throws herself at him one of those nights, and he doesn't have the heart to say no to her. Besides, he's always liked blondes.
Almost without him noticing, it becomes a regular thing. All of their friends start referring to them as a couple, leaving messages on his answering machine that start with "Hi, Robert and Jenny..."
A year later, they get married. It's not the agonizing decision he thought it would be, just the natural outcome of the relationship. They met, they became friends, they started having sex, they moved in together, they got married. Bobby wonders why everyone made such a big deal about it. It's just marriage.
He pays the bills. She goes back to school. They have a couple of children. They spend the holidays with her family. They get a dog.
The bedtime stories he tells their children always end with 'happily ever after.'
Joanne takes perfect care of him, just like she promised. For their honeymoon, they spend a month on the French Riviera. She's demanding in bed, caustic and cruel when she's drunk, and he thinks he might be in love with her. Not that it matters. He's definitely in love with the Porsche she buys him.
Her lovers get younger and younger, but she never promised him fidelity, and her affairs give him time to conduct his own.
"Do you want to go out tonight, Robby?" Joanne drifts by in a cloud of perfume and vodka. "A new club's opened on 54th."
"Whatever you want, darling."
She gives him cash when he asks for it, and so far, it's enough to pay for his coke habit. He doesn't even lie to her about it. She doesn't care what his drug of choice is, as long as she's kept well supplied with hers.
He figures her liver will give out in five years or so, unless she gets herself killed driving drunk. If they divorce, the prenup kicks in, but she hasn't made a will. He checked.
If he'd known marriage was like this, he would have taken the plunge years ago.