by J. P. Smith
A woman whose name completely escaped her called out, “How’s Nina doing?”
“She’s fine, thanks,” said Amelie.
“What brings you back?”
“Just doing someone a favor,” she said.
“Dougie’s at Dartmouth, you know,” and Amelie just smiled, because she didn’t know who Dougie was. “And Sarah’s at Exeter.”
“Wow,” said Amelie, more at the amount of tuition the woman must be paying than the quality of institution.
“Gotta go,” the woman said.
The news was on and Amelie turned up the radio: the newsreader said that only 171 people were killed in the plane crash, as one lucky person, in fact a woman of ninety-two, had decided at the last minute not to board. A whole new lease on life, the old girl said in an interview, and Amelie realized that someone was lurking by her window. It was Laura, whose daughter rode the horse named Popeye.
“I got your book,” she said. “I bought it yesterday.”
“Thank you,” an amazed Amelie said brightly. “I hope you enjoy it.”
“Will you inscribe it for me?”
“I’d be happy to, Laura.”
“We’re thinking about doing it for our reading group.”
“That’s wonderful,” she said.
“Would you be interested in meeting with the group on the evening we discuss it?”
“Where do you do it?”
“Usually at Jane Baron’s house.”
“I don’t think I’ve actually met her,” said Amelie, remembering that a few years earlier she had been asked by her friend Peggy to work with the Baron woman at the auction, and had to beg off as she was touring a book. Beyond Laura’s shoulder she saw Andrew in his baseball cap, lugging his backpack and dragging his lacrosse stick across the freshly mown lawn.
Laura turned and extended her arm: “She’s just over there. In the silver Mercedes.”
All Amelie could make out was a face and blond hair and a pair of sunglasses. The woman waved a little, and Amelie smiled and agitated the air with her fingers. Laura said loudly, “Janey, this is Amelie Ferrar,” and Jane Baron said, “Ohh.” When Andrew got into the car she said, “Is there a kid in your class named Baron?”
“Yeah. Lindsey Baron. She sucks.”
She pulled out of the line and turned onto the road. She said, “I hear you went to California. Did you have a good time?”
“It was okay.”
When they got to a red light Amelie turned to look at him. “You look just like your dad,” she said.
He twisted his mouth in disgust. “Everybody says that.”
She wondered if Janet resented that, if somehow she felt left out of the gene pool because there was nothing of her in Andrew. Perhaps she looked more like Rachel, in which case there was some consolation.
“It’s not such a bad thing, is it?”
He shrugged.
“How’s your mom?” Amelie said.
“Okay.”
“Just okay?”
“She’s fine.”
“Good.”
He said nothing. He didn’t even look at her, though she occasionally stole a glance at him. The thought again occurred to her that this is what Ben must have looked like when he was Andrew’s age.
“She’s at a business meeting,” he said.
“Your mom.”
“Yeah.”
She glanced in the rearview to see the same car that had followed her a few days earlier, the one that had turned out to be an unmarked police cruiser. The driver had on the same aviator sunglasses as before. Clearly, she had become a person of interest to the authorities. She waited for the blue lights to come on, and they’d have to go through it all over again. Except this time she was in a different neighborhood with a child who belonged to someone else; as though it were the beginning of a movie that would not end well for anyone in an abandoned cabin deep in the woods.
“You have to make a right here,” Andrew said, pointing at the window.
She clicked on her directional and made an overcautious, utterly lawful turn, and saw the other car drive on, though she detected a slight pause. Had he watched where she was going? Now she felt like a fugitive, clinging to the shadows, shunning the lamplight. She had nothing to feel guilty about, really; shreds of innocence clung to her in all its threadbare misery.
She turned the corner and waited at the light. She thought of offering to buy him an ice cream, and then looking at her watch realized he would be late for his piano lesson. “How’s school?” she asked.
“It’s okay.”
“Lots of friends?”
“Some.”
“Piano fun?”
“No.”
“Why do you take lessons?”
“My mom wants me to.”
Amelie smiled. Already there were signs of rebellion against his mother. He would be glad to see the back of her.
“What would you like to be doing?”
He shrugged again and it gave her a tiny frisson, as though she were catching an echo of her lover in this small boy. “I like video games. I like to play chess.”
“Really. You play with your dad?”
“Sometimes.” She imagined the two of them rubbing their chins over the little horses and castles and bishops, each plotting out a checkmate. “It’s just over here,” he said, and he pointed at a white colonial and began to gather his things together. Before he opened the door he looked directly at her and smiled. “Thanks,” he said, and she stopped herself before leaning over to kiss him goodbye.
40
The email from Janet arrived the next morning, the same day Ben was leaving for Illinois, asking if possibly she and Amelie might meet for dinner on Sunday at the Coach & Four at seven. Which gave her an excuse to bow out of the dinner party in Boston. It was just as well, as she was in no mood to make small talk. She remembered what Janet had told Amelie: There’s something I’d like to discuss with you. And now the disquiet had returned, only doubly so.
Her cell phone chimed, her screen displaying Private Caller. “Yes?”
“It’s Janet. Just wanted to see if I had the right number.”
“Hi, Janet. Actually, you called me once before.” And then she remembered: that had been on her landline. Then how did she get Amelie’s cell number, something Amelie shared only with Nina, Richard, a few close friends, her agent, her editor, her publicist…? Oh, and Ben.
“I know I just sent you an email, but I thought it would be more personal if I called.”
“I’d be happy to have dinner with you, Janet,” Amelie said, trying to hide her trepidation.
“By the way,” Ben’s wife said, her voice brightening, “I saw your latest book at the airport in LA. It’s just so funny that I kind of know you, and then I see the book, and I think—you have this whole other life.”
You can say that again.
“So, anyway,” she said. “I’ll see you on Sunday?”
“Absolutely.”
“Wonderful. I’ll make reservations.”
Sunday was completely squandered for her. After a quick perusal of the New York Times, and anticipating the unknown for that night, Amelie couldn’t write a single sentence. She walked out to the backyard and half-heartedly yanked weeds from the garden, something she had always wanted to do, but she could never muster much enthusiasm for what seemed to her a thankless activity. You pull out a weed and another pops up in the same place. The whole exercise seemed without merit.
After ten minutes of this she changed into her yoga pants and a T-shirt and went for a brisk walk as she listened to music. She thought of Ben flying to Illinois. She thought of Ben flying out of Illinois, and then of Ben driving to her house the next Friday, she, by then, having already dined with his wife. The whole idea of it was both delicious to the w
riter she was and dreadful to her as a person. She needed to find that perfect point of balance between the two of them, and by the time she’d dressed to meet Janet, she felt as if finally she might have achieved it.
She put on a pair of earrings, examined herself in the mirror, found herself wanting in certain undefined ways, then said Fuck it before turning off the light.
When she walked into the restaurant she nearly lost whatever composure she’d been able to muster, because sitting alone at the bar was the same guy she’d seen before, reading a book. Again, he held the book up and smiled, because it was still her latest. The bartender glanced up and saw Amelie, and then went to serve a customer. It seemed to her like the prelude to a stalking, and there was nothing she could do about it at this stage. Except, of course, worry that he might find out her address and make himself part of her life.
She said to the young woman at the front of the house, “I believe my friend made a reservation,” and she said Janet’s name.
The woman checked her book and nodded, and took two faux-leather-bound menus with their predictably gold-embossed coach and four, a little too much tallyho for her tastes, leading Amelie to a table for two with a view of the bar. Amelie checked her watch: ten minutes early. Most of the other tables were occupied, and she recognized a few people there from the community, waving a little when they acknowledged her.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“I think I’ll wait for my friend.”
When she looked up, the guy at the bar was pointedly staring at her. She looked away, and when she looked back he was looking at someone just entering, with a very different kind of smile. Which is when her phone vibrated. This time she didn’t bother checking the screen.
“Hello?”
“Hi.” It was Ben. He sounded rushed, harried, confused.
Into her cupped hand she said, “Where are you?”
“Just landed in Boston. I have to go to the office and finish some paperwork, otherwise I’d… Hang on, I’m getting a call.”
She waited. She looked up at the bar and saw Janet, having just stepped in, her phone to her ear, smiling and nodding, possibly at the guy at the bar. Then she turned, looked around, and waved when she spotted Amelie.
Ben suddenly said, “Sorry, that was—” and Amelie clicked off as Janet approached her.
“Good to see you again, Janet,” Amelie bubbled, and Janet put her phone in her bag and gave her a quick hug.
“That was Ben calling to say he’s still on the ground in Illinois. Seems his flight is delayed two hours.”
Amelie wondered if she looked as absolutely blindsided as she felt. He’d landed… He hadn’t left yet…? What kind of limbo was this man in right now? And why was she being excluded from it? She wondered for half a moment if the two of them, Ben and Janet, were in on this. As if all along Amelie had been set up for a fall.
“Oh, is your husband traveling?”
“Business, yes. He was in Carbondale. So I don’t know when he’ll be home, probably one or two in the morning. The lower school’s closed tomorrow for faculty workshops, so Andrew’s spending tonight at a friend’s house.” She smiled. “So for a change the evening is all my own.”
She took a seat across from Amelie. The guy reading at the bar had vanished. “Ben is hoping to do something with the university there,” Janet said. “Did you know that he’s an architect?”
“Someone told me that, yes. Must be a very interesting career.” Words came out of her like spew instead of the gourmet meals she thought most of her sentences usually resembled.
“He never brings his work home—or only rarely. And then he doesn’t say much about it. It’s just the way he is,” and she shrugged.
The waitress came over and they ordered drinks.
“Would you like to hear the specials for this evening? We have—”
“I think we’ll wait,” Janet said. “We just want to chat for a little while.”
The young woman smiled. “Let me know if you need anything.”
And then Janet’s smile fell. “I asked to meet you because, well, I’m not sure how to say this, because it’s not really the kind of thing I’m comfortable talking about…”
Amelie tried to find a way out of this, and though several different excuses came to mind, none seemed of any use in the moment. The waitress delivered their drinks.
“But you being a writer, I’m thinking that maybe you’d have some, I don’t know, insight into this problem?”
“Problem?” Amelie sipped her martini, and the speared olives did a single fouetté around the glass.
“It’s Ben. And me. I know from what you said the last time we talked that you’d gone through some…difficult times with your husband. That it ended up in a divorce—which is the absolute last resort for us.”
“I see.”
“But I think my husband—and this is so hard for me to say…” She looked away and composed herself: “But I think Ben may be having an affair.”
Amelie nodded and said nothing.
“He’s been so…distant lately. And sometimes I see him standing in our yard or in the driveway on the phone. When he comes in and I ask who it was, he always says it was no one. As if he were talking to dead air. But I know he’s talking to someone. It’s happened a few times. More than a few, actually.”
“That must very hard for you,” Amelie said.
“It’s like…the world suddenly isn’t the one you thought you knew.” A bitter, brittle laugh filled Janet’s mouth, revealing a harder edge to her that Amelie hadn’t seen before. “I know that sounds melodramatic, but it’s… I don’t know, I’m just so confused.”
Amelie sat back and realized that she’d already downed her entire drink. “Have you…said anything to B—your husband?”
“I asked him if everything was all right, and he ended up sounding like Andrew—‘Yes, everything’s fine’—like I was bothering him.” She smiled. “What’s that line about the child being the father to the man, something like that?”
“That’s more or less it,” Amelie said, recalling Wordsworth from her college days.
“I have to admit I also checked the calls on his cell phone when he was in the shower…” She reddened and laughed at what she perceived of as her folly. “I mean, wouldn’t you do that if you were in my position?”
Here we go. Amelie imagined Janet would invite her outside to slug it out, two middle-aged women smearing each other’s lipstick with their fists.
“And I went through his contact list, and they were all the”—she laughed again as she made air quotes—“‘usual suspects.’ His work contacts, our friends, you know. Relatives. No one I didn’t know.” She took a deep breath. “And suddenly, after we got back from California, he just seemed to lose all interest in…being intimate with me. I tried to show how willing I was, you know, but he just says he’s tired.” She looked at Amelie: “Am I saying too much?”
Seeing tears in her eyes, Amelie reached for her hand. “I’m so sorry, Janet.”
“I have to make a confession. Ben’s the only man I’ve ever known. I mean, you know, intimately. I’d dated a few guys in high school and in college, but Ben was it. He was the one. And maybe when that’s the case it’s all the harder to know you’re being betrayed. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I think I do. It’s just…that I’m really not qualified to offer advice about this kind of thing. I’m a writer. I make things up. I’m not a psychologist or a marriage counselor. And obviously in the role of wife I wasn’t all that successful,” and they both laughed a little.
Now Amelie felt her eyes beginning to mist up, not for herself, but for the woman sitting across from her. Now her life had grown even more complicated; her sympathies had begun to shift and scatter, and what had been the main story, her affair with Ben, had begun to grow subplots
that threatened to take it all down.
“But you write so well about relationships,” Janet said. “This subject, especially. And I seem to remember one of your characters—is it Lucy?—was some kind of therapist.”
Lucy Hoffert, marriage counselor in her third book, whose lover comes in one day with his unsuspecting wife to seek comfort and advice. A difficult situation resolvable only in the most extreme way possible short of homicide.
When the waitress came to their table, Amelie was already holding up her empty glass. They both ordered a second drink.
“Would you like to hear the specials?”
“Not now,” Janet snapped, and the waitress looked as if she’d just taken a bullet to her left shoulder.
Amelie quietly said, “We just want to talk for a bit. We’ll let you know when we’re ready to order.”
When they were alone, Amelie said, “Do you have any suspicion of who it might be?”
Janet said, “What? Who what?”
“The…other person.”
Janet closed her eyes for a moment. “I think I do.”
Amelie also took a moment. “Really. How did you work this out?”
“I know my husband, I know his tastes, I remember how things were when we first met, what attracted him to me.” She shook her head. “Now I think it’s happening all over again. And I also suspect it’s gone on for a very long time. At least for a year. Maybe even two.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “You know, you look back and you start to see all the little things you missed. Things that took him out of himself. Sexual things, sometimes affectionate things he never normally did with me. I mean, the strange thing is that his first wife looked so much like me.”
His first wife?
“Amelie?”
“Yes?”
“You okay?”
“Sorry, I went blank for a moment,” and she laughed it off and sucked up some more martini.