Table for Two: Fictions

Peggy suspects that John, her second husband, is having an affair. Peggy’s first husband Harry had an affair when Peggy’s daughters Nell and Susie were teenagers, which has ruined Peggy’s outlook on life. Peggy tells Nell that the club where John plays squash every Saturday has been closed for six months, but John still claims to go to the club each Saturday. Peggy asks Nell to follow John next Saturday with a camera. Nell reluctantly agrees, though she thinks John is playing squash at a different club.

Nell tells her husband Jeremy about the plan, and Jeremy suggests that Nell stay out of the situation. Nell is infuriated, noting her history of work as a women’s advocate. Jeremy helps Nell prepare, giving her a hat, jacket, and camera. However, before Nell leaves to follow John, Peggy calls and tells Nell not to go. Nell decides to follow John anyway.

Tracking John through Manhattan, Nell loses sight of him at a public restroom. Then, Nell finds John dressed in roller-skate gear, skating with a large group of people to disco music. Another skater, Car Wash, tells Nell that John goes by “Gloria” and is the best old-style skater in the city. Nell initially assumes that John might be gay, but Car Wash clarifies that the skaters use nicknames that identify their favorite songs—Gloria is a reference to the song “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor. Just then, “I Will Survive” starts to play.

Later, Nell plays Peggy a video she recorded of John skating. John enters the room, and Peggy slaps him.

For months after this, Nell cannot get a hold of John. One day, Jeremy and Nell go to Peggy’s house in Southampton. When they discover Peggy alone, Nell asks about John, but Peggy avoids her questions, becoming frustrated. Nell emails John, but his response is brief.

Early in Jeremy and Nell’s relationship, John invited Jeremy to dinner, and their annual dinner became a tradition. Despite the issues between John, Nell, and Peggy, John asks Jeremy to come to dinner. John explains that Peggy asked him not to reach out to Nell or Susie. John grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, and ice-skating has always been a major part of his life. At Harvard, he played hockey on the college team, but he quit when he realized he loved skating, not hockey. After college, he got married, had children, became a partner at his firm, and cared for his wife as she died of cancer. At 60, he discovered the Circle and joined his skating group, but he hid his skating to avoid embarrassment, recalling how his father shamed him for quitting hockey.

Jeremy returns home alone and watches the video of John skating. Jeremy can see John’s pure joy, and he immediately understands that Peggy’s feeling of betrayal is linked to John’s happiness—he hid this love from Peggy like he would an affair.

Nell becomes involved in Planned Parenthood’s lawsuits against laws designed to limit reproductive rights, growing more absorbed with work as Peggy and John’s marriage dissolves. Nell criticizes Peggy and John for avoiding discussion or counseling. Jeremy notes that when Nell asks friends and family to confirm that she did not cause Peggy and John’s divorce, they all lie to Nell, assuring her that she did nothing wrong.