by Jason Starr
‘Hey, how are you guys?’ he said. ‘Great to see you.’
He kissed Maria on the cheek and gave her a big hug, then he shook my hand with his usual dead-fish grip.
After he gave Jonah a high five, he said, ‘Tyler’s psyched to see you. We have a trampoline in the backyard now.’
‘Awesome,’ Jonah said.
We all got in the SUV – Maria sat shotgun next to Steve. They did most of the talking – catching up about the kids, and gossiping about friends from college. Meanwhile, Jonah was engrossed in the game on his Switch, and I was distracted by my nervous, paranoid thoughts.
I’d never really understood why Steve and Maria’s relationship hadn’t worked out. Maria had once told me that it was because ‘we knew we were wrong for each other,’ but they’d always seemed to have a great connection. I’d never had any reason to be jealous, but sometimes I wondered if Steve still pined for Maria and was jealous of me and my marriage. It wasn’t anything he’d ever said or done; it was just a vibe I got from him, or an occasional glance. He liked me, but he also seemed to be perpetually sizing me up, as if trying to figure out if I was worthy.
When Maria and I met, Steve and Kathy were already together. For several years, they’d lived in the city, on the West Side, and we often went out to movies or had dinner at each other’s apartments while the kids played. Steve and I became friendly as well. We had coffee sometimes and occasionally he invited me over, sans Maria, to watch football and basketball. Neither Maria nor I had ever become very friendly with Kathy, though, who’d always seemed cold and standoffish.
When Evan, their oldest son, reached elementary school age, Steve and Kathy moved to Westchester for ‘the schools.’ This logic had never made much sense to me since there were excellent schools in Manhattan, but in their case, Kathy had grown up in Westchester and had never liked the city, so I’d figured that was part of the reason for the move.
We didn’t get together as couples as frequently as we used to. This was partly due to distance and the logistics of coordinating the work schedules and the kids’ schedules.
In South Salem, we turned off the main road on to a narrow, windy road called Savage Lane. They lived in a contemporary four-bedroom house, built in the 1980s, on about an acre, that would probably go for about $600,000. Whenever we visited, it was hard not to feel envious of their space. The living room alone was practically the size of our apartment in the city, and there was a big wraparound deck with a woodsy view. Yeah, I loved the city, and there were things I could never give up, but lack of space had been a problem for Maria and me, maybe our biggest problem. What would things have been like if we’d moved out of the city when Steve and Kathy had? Would we have fought less, stayed closer, continued having sex? Would I have had an emotional affair with a woman on the internet?
If Steve and Kathy were any indication, moving to the suburbs might not have changed much for us. I knew that the move had stretched them financially, and lately they’d been digging into their savings and getting help from Kathy’s family. Kathy came from money – grew up in Greenwich – but it couldn’t have been easy for either of them to be in their early forties and getting support from her parents. All of this had to be putting a strain on their marriage, and maybe if they hadn’t left the city, Steve would’ve stayed in shape and his hair wouldn’t have turned gray quite as fast.
Choosing another path in life doesn’t necessarily solve your problems – sometimes it just leads to a new set of them.
Jonah rushed off with Evan and Tyler, eager to play on the trampoline, and Steve and Kathy invited Maria and me onto the deck for coffee. I got into a conversation with Steve about his accounting job – his company was in the middle of a merger. A few times, I checked my phone for news, but I stayed as focused as possible.
Meanwhile, Kathy and Maria were chatting about their kids. I noticed that the awkwardness between them was worse than usual. There were long silences, and when Kathy asked Maria questions, she’d give one word replies followed by more silence. On the train up here, Maria had seemed quiet and distant, barely talking to me or Jonah. She’d livened up with Steve, but what did that mean? She always liked talking to Steve.
I couldn’t help feeling paranoid. Did Maria suspect that I’d met someone else, but she just hadn’t confronted me about it yet? It was very much like Maria to internalize her feelings, especially her anger.
Later, Steve invited me down to the basement to look at the new renovation. He’d put down new carpeting, bought a ping pong table.
We were playing ping pong, just volleying, when he asked, ‘So is everything okay with you and Maria?’
Shit, was it that obvious?
Trying to stay cool, I said, ‘Yeah, everything’s fine.’ I paused, catching my breath, then asked, ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know, I just noticed some tension between you two.’
While I considered Steve to be one of my good friends, he had known Maria much longer than he’d known me, and I knew his allegiance was to her, not to me. Had Maria asked him to find out what was going on with me, so he could report back to her? It was possible, but either way I definitely didn’t feel comfortable confiding in him.
‘We’re okay,’ I said. ‘Just been going through a little rough patch lately.’
‘Join the club,’ he said. ‘Kathy and I have been in counseling for sixth months.’
So maybe this was why he’d asked me about my marriage – to have an excuse to talk about his.
‘Sorry to hear it,’ I said.
‘Don’t be,’ he said. ‘Actually Kathy’s been unhappier than me lately. As you know, we moved up here because she wanted to move up here, because she’s not a city person. I mean, I would’ve been fine raising the kids in the city. But now she says she’s bored. I want her to go back to work, the kids are old enough now, but she doesn’t want to, so what am I supposed do?’
‘That’s rough,’ I said.
‘Eh, what can you do?’ Steve said. ‘It might work out, it might not, but at least I know we’re doing everything we can. Things were going to come to a head eventually anyway, so it feels good to deal with it.’
He hit a nice backhand shot that made me lunge. I managed to return it, but it set him up for a slam.
As I retrieved the ball, he said, ‘So what about you? Are you guys going to counseling?’
‘Maria’s against it.’
We were volleying again.
‘Yeah, that sounds like Maria,’ Steve said. ‘She’s never been the most introspective person in the world. But what can you do? You can’t force somebody into therapy. I know a guy at my country club, dragged his wife kicking and screaming into therapy and it was a total disaster. You do what you can, and if it doesn’t work out, you get a divorce.’
‘You make it sound so easy,’ I said.
‘I never said it was easy, but what’s the alternative? The last thing you want to do is stay in a bad marriage for the rest of your life.’
Had Maria told him our marriage was bad?
‘I wouldn’t say our marriage is bad,’ I said.
‘Oh, I didn’t mean it like that,’ he said. ‘I mean, a difficult marriage, a marriage with issues. As our therapist told us – a good marriage needs work, but not hard work. But whatever you do, don’t start screwing around.’
I swung at an easy shot and missed.
‘Want to switch paddles?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think it’ll help when I can’t hit the ball,’ I said.
I retrieved the ball from between two boxes, then wiped off the cobwebs on my pants leg, and started playing again. I didn’t want to get paranoid, but it was hard not to. Was I that easy to read? Was I emitting a vibe, walking around with a big A – the Scarlet Letter of adultery – stamped on my forehead? Or had Steve seen the Times or another article today about this and was all of this just s
ome kind of mind fuck?
Trying not to sound too defensive, I said, ‘Why do you think I’d screw around? I mean, I’m just curious.’
‘I’m not saying you would,’ he said. ‘I’m just warning you against it, that’s all.’
‘Have you?’ I asked, trying to shift the conversation away from me.
‘No, and I never would,’ he said. ‘But there was a couple up the road from us. The wife was cheating, having an affair with a teenage boy. Talk about bad decisions. Meanwhile, everybody thought the husband was cheating with this divorced woman who used to live next door to us. Anyway, point is, cheating is never the right decision. When your marriage is in trouble it’s always so much better if you take the high road.’
Where was Steve last week, before I went on Discreet Hookups?
‘Well, I’m not a cheater,’ I said.
‘That’s good to hear,’ Steve said. ‘Maria can be stubborn and opinionated, as we both know, but she’s a great woman. I know if she was my wife, I wouldn’t let her go.’
I hit a ball off the side of my paddle and it ricocheted against the wall.
‘I think that’s enough ping pong,’ Steve said. ‘I need another beer?’
We went upstairs. Kathy was in the kitchen, alone, preparing salad. Through a window, I saw Maria in the backyard, talking on her cell. She had a serious, businesslike expression. Was she talking to her cousin Michael, the divorce lawyer? Maybe, while I was playing ping pong, she’d read about me online, found out I’d been involved with Sophie Ward.
‘You okay, Jack?’
I turned around, startled; I hadn’t heard Steve come up behind me.
‘Yeah, fine,’ I said. ‘Just, um, enjoying the country view.’
When Maria finished her call, I went outside to intercept her before she came in.
‘Hey,’ she said, ‘how was ping pong?’
Normal question, but she seemed distracted.
‘Great,’ I said. ‘Who were you talking to?’
‘Oh, just my boss,’ she said. ‘The system was down this morning, but it sounds like it’s up-and-running again. Let’s go eat, I’m starving.’
The rest of the afternoon, Maria seemed aloof to me, and I wasn’t myself either. I’d be okay for a few minutes, then I’d get paranoid, thinking that Steve and Maria, or even Kathy, were giving me knowing, judgmental looks, or I’d get an image in my head of the red tie wound around Sophie’s neck and her mouth sagging open and feel like I was reliving the horror.
What made things even worse was that I had no way to mourn. I couldn’t start crying, or even tell anyone what I was upset about. Assuming the police made a quick arrest in the case, I’d have to go back into therapy to unburden myself, or I’d have to keep it a secret forever.
After lunch, we all hung out together, making small talk about the kids mostly. No one was talking much, though, and it was hard to keep the conversation going. I asked Steve if he could drop us off at the train station in time to make the 4:31 back to Manhattan. We’d originally planned to leave a couple of hours later, but things were so awkward that neither he nor Kathy seemed particularly upset to see us leave earlier.
‘Okay,’ Steve said, going right to the closet to get his coat, ‘but we better hustle if we want to make the train.’
During the train ride back, Maria still seemed cold and distant. Jonah was absorbed, reading Pokémon manga, so I said to Maria in a hushed tone, ‘Are you angry at me about something?’
‘No, what makes you think I’m angry?’
‘Well, you’ve been acting weird all day so I’m just wondering if you’re actually angry or if I’ve just been misreading you.’
She held my gaze for a few seconds then said, ‘It’s always about you, isn’t it?’ and looked away.
She’d made cryptic, melodramatic comments like this to me before when we were arguing. But this time I didn’t even know what we were arguing about.
‘Did I say something I wasn’t supposed to?’ I said. ‘Did I insult you somehow? If I did, it would help if you let me know so I can apologize.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘If we don’t talk about it how am I supposed to know what’s wrong?’
She was looking away again and with Jonah right there I didn’t want to push it any further.
The rest of the trip we barely spoke. Jonah was getting cranky and acting out, so Maria and I were focused on him most of the time.
At 125th Street we took a cab downtown. Maria still seemed upset, avoiding eye contact. She’d acted almost exactly this way once before, I recalled. It was when my drinking was at its worst and she confronted me and told me that if I didn’t get help she was going to leave me and make sure I never saw Jonah again. Terrified, it had forced me to get my ass into AA. I was afraid that when we got home she was going to hit me with a similar ultimatum – sit me down and accuse me of having an affair and threaten to leave me and take Jonah. If she did confront me in any way, I planned to deny everything. Although I was sick of the deception and wanted to be honest from now on, I couldn’t risk that she’d blow up and start with the divorce threats again.
Entering our building, I should have known something was wrong when Robert, our doorman, looked right at me when I said hi but didn’t say hi back the way he normally did.
Then, in the mirrored wall adjacent to the elevator, I saw why.
11
‘Miss me?’ Detective Barasco asked, smiling.
Terrified, I didn’t answer and I could barely think. My only clear thought was, This is it – the end of my marriage.
‘Aren’t you going to introduce me to the family?’ he asked, oozing cockiness. ‘Eh, I’ll do it myself.’ He extended his hand toward Maria and said, ‘Nick Barasco, NYPD.’
I swear, he was looking in her eyes like he was trying to pick her up.
As he shook her hand he was smiling at Jonah, saying, ‘Hey, and it’s nice to meet you, too. What’s your name?’
Jonah, hiding shyly behind Maria, didn’t answer.
‘Yeah, I know, I’m having that kinda day too,’ Barasco said. Then he said to me, ‘Got a few minutes to chat?’
I needed to give Maria some explanation for why a NYPD detective wanted to talk to me, but I was too flustered to think of one.
While I was hesitating, Maria asked, ‘What’s this all about?’
Barasco started to speak and I interrupted quickly, ‘There was an incident involving a potential client.’
Under pressure, it was the best lie I could come up with.
‘Really?’ Maria asked. ‘What kind of incident?’
‘It’s sort of complicated,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you and Jonah just go and wait upstairs?’
I could tell Barasco, the sadistic son of a bitch, was amused by my desperate attempts to save my marriage. For him this was entertainment.
‘You didn’t tell me anything about this,’ Maria said.
‘I forgot,’ I said. ‘Jonah is tired, just go up.’
‘You’re gonna have to tell her the truth eventually, Mr Harper.’
‘The truth about what?’ Maria asked.
‘It’s nothing,’ I said.
‘There was a homicide last night,’ Barasco said.
‘A homicide?’ Maria sounded shocked.
‘What’s a homicide?’ Jonah asked.
‘I think it would be better if we had this conversation upstairs,’ Barasco said. ‘Besides, I need to use your john.’
In the elevator, Barasco didn’t speak. I was aware of Maria staring at me, but I focused my attention on Jonah, saying, ‘When we get home, I want you to go right into your room and do your homework.’
‘But I’m hungry,’ he said.
‘You’ll have dinner later. First, I want you to do your homework.’
On
our floor, Maria and Jonah got out first and then Barasco held out his hand in the ‘after you’ gesture, and I left the elevator ahead of him. God, I hated this guy. He was like the old school cop from hell – the kind of cop who decides who’s guilty and then starts building a case, instead of the other way around. Meanwhile, I was still trying to figure what I was going to say to Maria, how I could possibly explain this all away.
As we were entering the apartment I glanced at her and I could tell she was already fuming. Her eyes were narrowed to slits, her nostrils flared.
‘Why can’t I have dinner now?’ Jonah asked.
‘Because you can’t, that’s why,’ Maria said, and she took Jonah into his room as he continued to protest.
‘May I?’ Barasco asked, glancing toward the bathroom.
‘Go right ahead,’ I said.
While he was gone I paced, desperately tried to get my thoughts together, to come up with some kind of plan.
After about ten minutes, Barasco exited the bathroom. I caught a whiff of the putrid odor wafting out.
‘Sorry, had Indian for lunch,’ he said.
He didn’t sound sorry; he sounded proud.
In a hushed tone I said to him, ‘Why do we have to do this here with my family home? Why can’t we go back to the precinct?’
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I know you’re worried about your wife finding out you were fucking around –’
‘I wasn’t fucking around.’
‘Sorry, but when you pick up women online and arrange booty calls, that’s fucking around.’
‘What’s going on?’ Maria had just returned to the room.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘What do you mean, nothing?’ Maria turned to Barasco. ‘Why do you want to talk to my husband about a homicide?’
‘A woman was murdered last night,’ Barasco said. ‘Sophie War –’
‘Look, I can explain, okay?’ I said. ‘It’s going to sound bad, but it’s not as bad as it sounds because nothing happened.’