The Numbers Game

by Danielle Steel

  “I didn’t do it on purpose…I guess I overdid it…I’m so sad…I didn’t want to lose it.” She felt guilty as well as devastated.

  “I know, baby, I know,” her mother said as she held her, but it was a simpler solution to a problem which could have ruined her life and Tim’s, even if it could have given them much joy. It felt like a tragedy to Pennie, knowing that a tiny life had been lost. It was the death of a hope, and the symbol of their young love, even if the circumstances had been wrong. But now there would be no painful decisions to make. Fate had decided for them.

  She stayed in the hospital for three days until she was stronger, and Eileen stayed with her. Pennie had to rest for the next three weeks at home. After a discreet meeting with the director at the camp, they agreed to say that Pennie had suffered a burst appendix, and had to go home to recover. It was an event which had happened at camp before, and although the girls would be disappointed, it would cause no further comment. The only person other than the director who knew what happened was the counselor who had driven her to the hospital and saved her life by doing so. She had agreed with the director and Eileen to keep the matter entirely confidential.

  Eileen picked Pennie’s things up at camp before picking Pennie up from the hospital. The girls in her cabin had made her a big sign with daisies on it, wishing her a speedy recovery. They had given her a copy of Madeline from the camp library, the story of a little girl in Paris, in a convent boarding school, whose appendix had burst too. The girls in her cabin had all written messages in it to her.

  Pennie was quiet and depressed when they left. She had managed to text Tim in China and tell him what had happened. He was in Shanghai by then, and it was easier to reach him. He called her in the hospital, and they had both cried, but fate had decided their destiny and the baby’s and spared them difficult decisions. He promised to see her in August when he got back. And now they could both move forward with their futures as they had planned them. He was off to college and she had to finish high school. She burst into tears when she saw her father, and he told her how sorry he was that she had to go through the ordeal she had, but he was grateful she had survived. She had a month to recuperate before her brothers came home from camp.

  She didn’t call her friends, and didn’t want to see them. No one knew about the baby except Tim and his parents. He had let them know, and they didn’t communicate with Pennie or her parents. They were just relieved that the problem had been solved. They wanted no further contact with any of the Jacksons, and felt as though their son had been spared from his own noble motives, and a marriage they were convinced would have been disastrous. Pennie was just as happy not to hear from them. Tim sent her several texts while she rested at home.

  He only had two days in Greenwich when he got back, but he went for a long quiet walk with Pennie and they cried together for the dreams they had lost. The page had turned, and the next chapters of their lives remained to be written. Pennie had a busy year ahead of her, while applying to college.

  It was an older and wiser Pennie who began her senior year of high school in September. She was quieter and more mature. It had been a summer of coming of age. She knew she would never be quite the same again. But growing up was like that. Her parents treated her as an adult now, and she knew she could never be a child again. She was a woman, with all the joy and sorrow that entailed.

  * * *

  —

  The summer hadn’t been an easy one for Paul and Eileen either. They’d had endless discussions and arguments over what they thought Pennie should do about the pregnancy. And more than she’d ever realized before, it had shown Eileen how bitter Paul still was about the sacrifices he had made when he married her because she was pregnant. In a way, through what happened to Pennie, they had relived it. And the revelations had shown Eileen the fissures and scars in their marriage. Although Paul loved her and their children, she saw now that he had never fully forgiven her for the circumstances which forced him into marriage, yet he had wanted Tim to do the same thing, and perhaps ruin his life too. He wanted Tim to suffer the same life sentence he had. And when Pennie lost the baby, they were left with the things that had been said, and the anger in Paul that had been smoldering for years, like a forest fire that had been contained, but never fully extinguished.

  In September, Paul started meeting with more clients for dinner again, and he didn’t include Eileen. The angry words of the summer had not been forgotten yet. She was busy anyway. Seth broke his arm during recess in the first week of school, when an older boy pushed him and he tripped and fell on the playground. And Mark, seeing what had happened to his brother, punched the eighth-grader in the face, broke his two front teeth, and got suspended for two weeks. Paul and Eileen had to go to school and listen to a lecture from the headmaster. They put Mark on restriction at home. They disapproved of the act of violence, but Paul thought it was noble of him to defend his brother, which Eileen didn’t entirely agree with, so more arguments ensued between them. Since Seth had broken his right arm, and was right-handed, Eileen had to do everything for him.

  In the first month of school, Pennie’s grades had slipped, after what she’d been through, and Eileen had to prod her constantly to fill out her college applications. Pennie had to keep up her grades, scores, and volunteer work in order to get into the caliber of college she wanted. Eileen felt as though she was running from one child to the other with never a moment’s rest in between, and she was worried about Pennie. In some ways, it was easier having Paul busier than before with his clients, which gave her more time with the children. But in another sense, he was never around when she needed him to subdue the boys or even drive them around on weekends, when she was trying to encourage Pennie to fill out her college applications and work on them with her. September was so insanely busy she hadn’t had time to talk to her friend Jane in weeks either. She felt like she never sat down or had a free minute.

  Pennie hadn’t heard from Tim since he’d started school, and Eileen thought it was for the best. They needed to get on with their lives, and Tim was busy doing that, keeping up with his classes and making new friends. For now at least, his time with Pennie was over. Who knew if, years down the road, they might start things up again. But at least they hadn’t been forced to get married and become parents in their teens.

  * * *

  —

  Pennie still hadn’t restarted her social life after the rigors of the summer, and Eileen noticed that she went to bed early, usually watching a movie or a TV series on her computer before she went to sleep. She had become solitary without Tim. The twins always went to bed early.

  The house was quiet, while Eileen was reading in bed one night, waiting for Paul to get home. It was his third client dinner that week. She hardly saw him now, except on weekends, and then he often played golf or tennis with friends. And she was too busy to object.

  He got home just after eleven that night, and when he came in, she could tell that he’d been drinking. He often ordered good French wines at client dinners, and enjoyed them as much as the clients did. He was in high spirits when he came in and saw her tucked in but still awake with the book in her hands. It was a book one of the mothers at school had given her about making the best of turning forty. So far, she wasn’t convinced.

  “You’re still up?” He looked surprised.

  “I was waiting for you.” She smiled at him.

  “Why? Checking up on me?” he said with an edge in his voice.

  “No. Should I be? Did you have a nice time tonight?” she asked innocently, happy to see him.

  “Very. New clients. From Australia. Those guys know how to have a good time,” he said blithely. He bent down to kiss her then, on his way to get undressed, and she got a whiff of a distinctive woman’s perfume, and looked up at him, surprised.

  “Did your Australian clients have a woman with them?”

  “What ma
kes you ask?” He narrowed his eyes at her.

  “I could smell a woman’s perfume when you bent down to kiss me.”

  “For chrissake, Eileen. What is this? The Inquisition? Yes, they had a woman with them. One guy brought his wife. Is there anything else you want to know? Fingerprints? Shoe sizes? Blood types?” He was instantly nasty about it. Sometimes, when he drank too much, it gave him an edge, or he could even be quite mean and not remember it the next day. She rarely questioned him about where he went and who he saw. She didn’t think she had to. Even if their marriage wasn’t perfect, she trusted him and had no reason not to. She’d never been concerned about him, and didn’t have a jealous nature. He never flirted with other women when they went out, although he was entertaining when he wanted to be, along with his natural good looks, and women were often attracted to him. But Eileen was sure he never pursued any of them.

  He stormed off to the bathroom then and slammed the door. He was back five minutes later in his pajamas, slid into bed beside her, and she could still smell the perfume on him. She leaned over to kiss him, and got a strong whiff of it on his neck. It wasn’t just on the clothes he’d worn to dinner, it was on his skin. She backed away and looked at him then, as though seeing him for the first time, and she felt like there was a stranger in bed with her.

  “Should I be worried?” she asked him with an open, sincere look.

  “Of course not. I sold myself into slavery eighteen years ago, didn’t I?” He had a nasty look in his eyes when he said it, and the comment hurt. She wasn’t sure if he’d intended it to, or if “in wine, there was truth.”

  “That’s not a nice thing to say.” Pennie’s dilemma that summer had brought it all back to him in vivid color and all the feelings he’d had for years about being cheated of the right career, even though the one he had had served them well.

  “We all make decisions in our lives, and then we have to live with them. That’s what we did, isn’t it?” he said to her. “We both gave up a lot when we got married,” he said quietly, acknowledging her sacrifices too.

  “Are you sorry?” She was brave enough to ask, and wondered if she was treading on a minefield, not sure what he’d say.

  “Sometimes,” he answered honestly. “Aren’t you? Don’t you wish sometimes that you hadn’t gotten pregnant, had had the chance to prove yourself at work for a few years, and then fallen madly in love with someone who didn’t have to marry you?” She had never asked herself those questions, but apparently, he had. She wondered if they were a recurring theme to him.

  “Actually, I don’t. We loved each other or we wouldn’t have gotten married, pregnant or not. And as far as I know, we still do. I have no regrets, and I hope you don’t either.” She never let herself think about it. She loved their children, and the life he had given her.

  “Oh, it’s nice to fantasize sometimes,” he said casually, “but that’s all it is. It’s what men do.”

  “Do you fantasize about your career or women?” she asked him bluntly, curious about it now. It was the first time he had admitted it to her. And his discontent had surfaced with Pennie’s pregnancy.

  “Maybe both. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like not to be so married. We are the poster children of suburban couples. You spend your life driving car pool and chasing kids. I spend my life commuting. There’s not much room for us in all that.” He sounded regretful as he said it, and looked wistfully at her. He would have liked to erase their past and didn’t know how.

  “Maybe we should make more time,” she said thoughtfully, but the children kept her so busy, as his work did for him. “We could have a date night every week, and make more effort when we go out.” Most of the time, she ran a comb through her long hair like her daughter’s, wound it in a knot, put a sweater on with her jeans, and sometimes even wore running shoes when they went out to dinner, because they were so comfortable, and she knew he didn’t care. He did the same. She hadn’t bothered to dress up for him in years, maybe since the twins. Having three children, two of them boys the same age, ate up all her spare time. She didn’t have a minute for herself anymore, and maybe not enough for him.

  “I think we’re fine the way we are,” he said with a yawn, lay down with his back to her, and turned off the light as she stared at him. She could still smell the perfume. For the very first time, she wondered if he was cheating on her. She had never considered it seriously before. And what if he was? What if he fell in love with someone else? Would she care? It was a strange question to ask herself. She would care if he cheated on her. If he did, would she leave him or pretend she didn’t know, as some women did? She turned off the light on her own side of the bed, and slid down onto her pillow with an uneasy feeling. A woman’s perfume had opened the door to doubt tonight, and to questions she had never faced before. She lay awake for a long time in the silent house, wondering what he was up to, and if she really knew her husband. He suddenly felt like a stranger to her, and she could hear him snoring softly next to her. She finally closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, imagining what it would be like to sleep alone in her bed. They were still lovers, theoretically, although they didn’t make love often. Or had they become just two people growing old together at the same address?

  Eileen was quiet at breakfast the next morning. She and Paul rarely spoke to each other during breakfast. They both read the papers, he said goodbye and left to catch his train, and then she went to wake Pennie and the boys. Pennie usually got up on her own, to have enough time to wash her hair before school.

  Paul had mumbled something about staying in the city that night, another client dinner that would probably go late. She hadn’t commented and he left. As soon as the kids had left for school, in their respective car pools, Eileen called Jane.

  “I know this sounds crazy and it’s out of the blue, but I’m worried. I have this sick feeling that Paul may be having an affair.” She felt stupid saying it, but she couldn’t get the idea out of her head since the night before.

  “What makes you think so? A red lace thong in his coat pocket?” Jane was the authority on all things marital among their friends. She had lots of experience, and an uncanny sense about what things meant in the relations between men and women.

  “Nothing as drastic as that. I smelled perfume on him last night. On his skin, on his neck, to be precise. That’s never happened before.”

  “It probably doesn’t mean anything,” Jane dismissed it.

  “And he’s having dinner in the city supposedly with clients, almost every night.”

  “Anyone specific you suspect?” Jane asked her.

  “I don’t even know who his clients are anymore, I’m so tied up out here with the kids. He’s had a new secretary for the past year I’ve never even met.”

  “Maybe you need to ‘untie’ yourself a little, and have dinner with him in the city too.”

  “He hates having dinner with me in New York. We only go out to dinner here, so we don’t have to get dressed.” She realized that she had become the comfortable old shoe in his life, which had been convenient for her too, but maybe not so good for their marriage. “I think I’ve become lazy and boring, the classic suburban wife.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Jane said and laughed. “You’re a beautiful woman. Maybe you need to remind him of that, and make an effort to seduce him. Put some spice back in your marriage.” Jane had said it before, but Eileen had never paid attention to her. Now she was.

  “How do I do that?”

  “Sexy dress, sexy underwear, perfume, candlelit dinner at a nice restaurant, and no Uggs or running shoes please. Seduce him. Treat him like a date.”

  “He’ll think I’ve lost my mind. That’s not how we are together.”

  “It’s better than losing him, if he’s the one you want.” Jane had never found him appealing despite his looks, although she had seen him turn on the charm when he want
ed. But Eileen had history with him, and kids, which counted a lot for her.

  “He’s the one I have,” she said succinctly.

  “Don’t take anything for granted. A man can turn on a dime if the right woman goes after him. He’s at a vulnerable age, so are you. Forty is traumatic for guys too. If some hot girl makes him feel young again, it could turn his head.”

  “Maybe I’m just imagining it.” Eileen felt foolish at the idea of trying to seduce her own husband. He’d think she was an idiot.

  “You probably aren’t,” Jane said seriously. “When women suspect that their husbands are cheating on them, they usually are. We come with a built-in radar system for that. Some women just turn it off. I keep mine on and finely tuned. And it can’t hurt to dress up for him once in a while to let him know you care enough to try. It might bring out the Casanova in him too. Why not? Putting the romance back in your marriage at forty isn’t a dumb idea. It’s like putting a good solid lock on your front door. If you want to keep him, I’d suggest you put some effort into it.”

  Eileen smiled off and on all day, thinking of Jane’s advice, and wondering if she was right. She called Paul at the office on Thursday afternoon, and suggested they have a date night on Friday.

  “You called to tell me that? Are you feeling okay?” Paul said, sounding startled and amused.

  “Of course. I just thought it would be nice to go out.”

  “I think this is the first time you’ve called me in ten years that wasn’t to tell me that one of the kids had broken his arm, or was about to get kicked out of school, and we have an appointment with the headmaster at eight A.M. tomorrow. Sure, why not? Where do you want to go?” He named the usual places, and she suggested a fancier one, where they hadn’t been in at least five years, and then only because someone else had invited them. They never ate at elegant restaurants anymore. “I’ll make the reservation,” he said, still sounding amused. “Did you crash the car or run over a pedestrian and you want to break the news to me gently?”