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The Inn

Jackie Bayless

    We arrived at the Bavarian Inn at 6:15 p.m. It was dark and cold. I was wearing a grey and white striped blouse made of soft, filmy material with blue jeans and a black wool blazer. Underneath I wore beige lace bikini pants and a lacy beige teddy. I purposely did not wear a bra and the lace of the teddy rubbed against my nipples. That feeling and knowing I would be alone with him all night with no babies awakening made me feel deliciously aroused.
    We checked into the inn and a bosomy girl in a peasant outfit, wearing massive amounts of eye makeup, informed us that dinner was at 7:00 p.m. Our room was a pseudo-chateau overlooking the Potomac River where it curved between the borders of West Virginia and Maryland. The room was one of the loveliest we had ever stayed in. It had a four poster canopy bed with an inviting, plump quilt, an adjoining sitting room with an upholstered love seat that faced a gas burning fireplace, and a balcony with a spectacular river view.
    He and I unpacked the few things we had brought with us and sat down on our love seat. I felt almost shy, a what-do-we-do now feeling. Alone at last, I felt almost compelled to hop right into bed, but actually I was starving.
    He looked at me and I looked at him. “Well,” he said expectantly. He kissed me a little awkwardly and we laughed. “I’m starving,” he said.
    The dining room was large, but the soft lighting from the chandeliers, the roaring fire in the fireplace, and the dark, paneled walls made the room feel cozy. The chandeliers were constructed from deer antlers and a soft-eyed buck stared at me from over the fireplace, but a cocktail enabled me to accept the dead animal decor.
    He had been working very hard on a case and was tired and visibly tense. I felt almost as though he would rather have been at home working out strategy and researching products liability case law. I could see his mind darting back and forth, and every so often he would burst out with a, “You see, honey, if we can prove thus and so...” or “We got ‘em, honey, I really think we got the bastards.”
    Another peasant-clad young woman appeared. This one less bosomy, but no less made up, she suggested the wild boar as an entrée. He took her up on it and I chose wiener schnitzel. As Caesar salads were placed before us, a family with two children approximately the ages of our own arrived. They were adorable. Could I be missing our children on the great getaway so much already?
    I was finally feeling relaxed, the smell of roasting meat in the air, the roaring fire, and no sticky fingers trying to climb into my lap. I could see he was beginning to relax, too. I looked over at the family. Their baby was actually eating her dinner and not throwing spoons across the room; the toddler was quietly coloring in a little book provided by the inn.
    “Oh my god,” he said, rising from his chair. “Look who’s here; how great is this?!”
    I followed his gaze to the desk of the maitre’d and saw the back of a tall woman in a tailored black suit, her blond hair in a perfect chignon. She turned and I saw my husband hurrying over to kiss her on the cheek. She was not a favorite of mine. She apparently thought my husband was very smart and very funny.
    “Judge Rubin, I can’t believe it, what are the chances we’d all be here?” He shook her husband’s hand and invited them to join us.
    “Excuse me? Can you set two more places please?”
    “No, don’t worry,” he assured the Rubins as they noted we had already started eating. “We just began our salad,” he said.
    “I’ve been hearing about your lawsuit in the helicopter crash. Interesting products liability case,” Judge Rubin said, ordering martinis.
    “Yes,” he said. “I should probably be at the office researching, but I owed my wife a break from the kids.”
    “I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure,” Judge Rubin said, glancing at me.
    “Oh, we’ve met before,” I said. “I met you both at the Bar Association dinner last month.” I’d actually met them at another event as well, but clearly they did not remember. Feeling invisible and annoyed, I cut into my twice-baked potato.
    “Oh,” she said, turning away from me and focusing on my husband. Her own husband said not a word, just sat there drinking his martini, quickly followed by another.
    By now, they had ordered, we had eaten, and, as we stood from the table, they suggested they treat us to an after dinner drink in the bar. Really?! Our one night alone was to be spent with this couple ignoring me.
    “Honey,” I said, when we found ourselves alone for a moment. “I’m a little tired and didn’t you want to try out the hot tub?”
    “Sure,” he said. “But I don’t want to insult the Judge. She might be able to give me some insight into the Judge assigned to my case.”
    Feeling like a fifth wheel, I joined the group at a high top table in the bar. Judge Rubin’s husband asked me some questions about what kind of work I did, but when he learned I was a stay-at-home mom of two children under the age of two, he switched his attention to the spirited conversation my husband and his wife were having.
    I was proud of my husband for the work he did. I had gone on hiatus from my job as a sales assistant at a television station when my first baby was born. I loved the work and hoped to become an account executive when I was a little more experienced. But when baby number two arrived fourteen months later, I decided to stay home full time. I loved my children, but mothers don’t always get the kind of rewards their rising star lawyer husbands receive. I was recognized mostly for the things I forgot, not enough diapers or pizza for dinner one too many times. And my husband and our families were so pleased that I was a stay-at-home mother. But I had to admit, intermixed with the joy and the cuddles from my sweet babies were plenty of moments of pure boredom.
    And sex? By the time, he was ready for bed, I was fast asleep. So this weekend was very important to me, that he see me as I used to be, as I still was. And this so superior Judge and her husband who had met me twice and didn’t remember me and had no interest in my thoughts on anything at all were ruining it. The resentment was building, I felt as if I was carrying a hot stone, burning my hands as I held it against my chest.
    “Honey?” my husband said. “Shall we check out our hot tub?”
    The Rubins looked up, clearly disappointed that we were leaving. “Just one more,” they urged.
    “You don’t know how hard this woman has been working for the last two years,” he told them. “It’s give back time ... it’s show my deep appreciation time,” he said. And with that, he took my hand and led me to our room and the hot tub. And we slept very late the next morning.

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