"If we're worried about telling too many lies, then let's just tell the truth. Let's just tell them that we're relaxing and enjoying ourselves, and that we're staying a few more days."
I tore my eyes away from his gleaming, toned calves. "And if they suggest joining us?"
"We just say 'no.' Tell them that for the first time we are getting some quality time in with the kids on our own and thank them for making this possible."
"That's good," I admitted, "and much better than your earlier idea of saying the parks are locked down with an Asian bird flu quarantine."
He tossed his head back and gave a long, genuine laugh. I wish he had been more merciful…less attractive…horrible in bed…
I rose from my chair and picked up my cell phone. Alan nodded and raised his phone to his head. Without a word I went outside, waiting to hear the door click behind me. This was something I had to do alone, and I really didn't want to hear what he said to his wife. After all, he had come up with the bird flu idea.
"Hey Laura. How is your last day going?" Mike sounded distracted.
"Great. That's kind of what I want to talk to you about…" I began but he cut me off.
"Hold on a sec…" I heard him murmuring to someone. Work, again. Or maybe he was sleeping with another copywriter. Apparently whatever it was, was more important. After a few moments, he returned.
"Sorry about that Laura. So, I'm picking you up tomorrow at what time?"
I took a deep breath and exhaled. "Well, that's why I'm calling. We're really having a great time—me and the kids, and we're thinking of staying a few more days."
"That's great!" That's great? Mike continued, "I have to go to Indiana to meet with Abe tonight, and he has lined up a few client calls. I thought I'd have to cancel, but if you want to stay, then I can do it!"
Wow I'm so glad I was able to help.
"Laura? You still there?" He didn't sound worried. He should at least have been apologetic.
"Yeah, I've got to go. I'll make the arrangements and call you tomorrow with the details of when we're coming home." My stomach felt like it was filled with lead.
"Ok." Mike hung up without waiting for my reply.
I don't know how long I was there, standing at the railing. Long enough for an employee on a Segway to dodge in and out of a dozen rooms, I guess. Anger and sorrow competed for my facial expression. I settled on distant and disturbed instead.
Mike, I'm leaving you. The words rolled around in my head and slid down my tongue. I weighed their heaviness there. Would I soon be speaking these words aloud to Mike? I'm leaving you for another man—who is also leaving his wife.
Sure. That sounds perfectly normal. This place is a huge swingers' mecca! It's just one orgy after another! I set the phone down and buried my face in my hands, as if that would help.
I heard the door open but remained face down in my palms. I figured it was a good look for me. A hand stroked my back, and I felt a chair slide up to mine.
"Was it pretty rough?"
I lifted my face to look at Alan. "No," I replied, "it was easy, so yes, it was pretty rough."
Alan looked away. For two people who just got a free extension on their affair, we didn't look very happy.
"What did she say?" Sweat was beginning to run down the crevice of my cleavage. I wanted to go back inside, where the air conditioning was on.
"She thought it was a great idea. She's going on a joy ride to Boston with her girlfriends. What did he say?"
"He's thrilled, can't wait to get to Indiana for that big sales call." I stood to indicate I wanted to go in. He rose and we dragged the chairs back to the table. Alan sat on one of the beds, his back against the headboard. He looked miserable. I joined him, lying alongside him, my head on his shoulder.
"Wow, for two people who wanted this, we sure aren't acting like it, are we?" There was no irony in his voice.
"It's that old adage, 'be careful for what you wish for…'" I didn't sound any better. "Let's face it; we at least hoped they would put up a fight."
"Yes."
"So, what's wrong with them?"
Alan rubbed my back thoughtfully, "I don't know. It can't be us. We know we are desirable. Right?"
"Right." I buried my face in his chest, wanting desperately to be convinced.
"Do you think they would fight for us if they knew what was going on?" Alan sounded distracted.
"Is that why we are doing this?"
"No," he pulled me tight against him. "I really want you. I'm just sad to think that Susan doesn't care about me and the kids."
I said nothing. It had to hurt. Susan had the opportunity to see her children but would rather go joy-riding with her girlfriends. My situation wasn't any better.
"Well," I sat up to face him, "we've negotiated for more days…"
"And nights," he finished, pulling me on top of him.
"Apparently with afternoons too." Alan's mouth closed on mine.
I pulled back, "Did you mean that…when you said you really want me?"
"Yes." He kissed me again, and I melted on top of him.
His lips were desperate, devouring me as if it would be the last time. I met his kisses feverishly, thrusting my tongue between his lips. Together we rolled back and forth on the bed, his fingers tangled in my hair as I slid my hands under him. Our hands pulled our clothing from our bodies. We'd faced the cold light of our empty marriages and were attempting to smother it with sex.
He made me feel so good that I wanted to make him feel this way every minute of every day.
We collapsed together, bathed in sweat. Together we lay on the bed, , stroking each other silently as our heartbeats slowed. I kissed his lips, his eyelids, his forehead, wanting to cool him down. Alan pushed my hair away from my face and merely gazed into my eyes, smiling. We had more time together. Then the world could come to an end. Until that moment, we needed each other.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
By mid-morning the next day, the kids were exploring Riverboat Island. Alan and I relaxed beneath a shade tree, our hands mingling in the cool grass, out of sight of the kids frolicking on the playground.
"I can't believe it was so easy," he said.
I cast him a look. Apparently he had forgotten how broken hearted he was earlier.
"What?" He looked at me quizzically, but I knew he understood. "Well, regardless, how should we spend our remaining time together?"
"By sorting this mess out?" I ventured, "I don't mean to be a nag, but…"
"I know, I know." Alan shook his head. "But we are both at the same place. Right?"
I turned around to face him. "True, but four days from now I don't want to find that we are begging for four more days just because we don't know what to do."
"Will talking this out even help?"
Why was I getting the impression that he didn't want a resolution?
"Is this just some kind of weird vacation fling for you?" I jabbed him in the ribs. "Maybe you're a serial adulterer—each year a different woman at a different theme park…"
Alan laughed heartily. "No, you are my first." He reached up to brush a curl from my eyes, "We only have two options, but they both have extreme consequences."
I nodded, "Well, on the one hand, we leave our families and hurt a lot of people in an attempt to be together. On the other hand, we only hurt ourselves."
"So it's just a matter of who gets hurt."
"Shouldn't it be a matter of how we feel instead?" Our eyes locked as I spoke. "It isn't just the lesser of two evils, you know?"
Alan looked away. It occurred to me that he hadn't thought of it quite that way. Which was more important? The damage to others or to ourselves? And what about the kids? Granted, they would be happy if we stayed with our spouses. Although they had become close on this trip.
"I have no answer for you, I'm afraid," Alan's voice broke into my thoughts. "I know how I feel about you. And part of me wants so badly to run off with you that it hurts."
His h
and slid into mine and I squeezed. "I just don't know if the consequences are more important to me than my feelings." I shook my head slowly. "I don't want to overanalyze this but I don't know how I feel."
"How could you not know how you feel?" A look of alarm crossed his face. "Don't you know how you feel about me?"
I held up my hands in protest. "It's not that. I want you. But are we just caught up in the romance of the moment and maybe just a little lonely because we were abandoned by them?"
Alan's forehead crinkled.
"I guess I just want to make sure that I love you and not this…" I waved my hand in the air. "This moment."
A butterfly flew between us, circled our heads, then flew away. In the distance, we could hear our children laughing, but for us, time had stood still.
"Alan, why do you think you love me?"
"Jesus, Laura, I wish I knew." He ran his long, sensual fingers through his hair. "All I know is, my heart stops when I see you for the first time each morning. Every moment we aren't talking, I'm thinking about you. And when that goddamned door closes between our rooms each night, I feel completely lost."
Those beautiful green eyes began to water and my heart sank. Had I caused this pain? Either I would hurt him or Mike and Susan. In the end, was that what the decision would come down to?
I didn't think his eyes could get any lovelier than that moment. "My God, Alan. What the hell are we going to do?"
He reached out his hand to touch my hair. "This." With one swift movement he pulled my face to him, very gently kissing me. My heart beat madly realizing that the kids and other people were around us. Had he lost his mind? The soft caresses of his lips were making me dizzy. As he pulled away, my eyes remained closed. That single kiss was a very intimate act, even more intimate than our lovemaking. It was as if a part of his soul slipped from his lips to mine. I was afraid to open my eyes to find it had all been a dream.
"Mommy?" Rory's voice interrupted, "Why are you sitting like that with your eyes closed?"
"She's listening to something, Silly!" Alice laughed.
I opened my eyes to see the kids around us. Alan's expression told me they hadn't seen us kiss. Perspiration trickled down the side of my face. The kids let out a "whoop!" and ran back to the playground.
"You were saying?" I squeezed Alan's knee, and he laughed.
"Don't worry, they didn't see anything."
"Thank God. What were you thinking?"
"I wasn't thinking, just reacting." He began to rise to his feet. "I'll run over to the restaurant and pick up a picnic lunch for us."
Before I could protest, he was gone. Reacting. That's all we have been doing up until this point. Just reacting to shared experiences. I was responding to his eyes and the way they made me shiver. To his warm, soft kisses and the fierce, hungry ones. Animals react. People act, usually with some thought behind it. At least, that's the idea.
Clara and Rory raced around a tree. I looked for signs of their father in their faces but found none. They didn't look like either of us. They looked like each other. Please don't let them be like Mike, taking their families for granted.
Leaning back against the tree trunk, I tried to put this into perspective. I knew I loved Alan. There simply was no question. But did I love my husband? And which was more important?
Logic would dictate that I remain with Mike. Aside from splitting up the family and leaving a wake of devastation, I'd been with him for thirteen years. We knew each other. I knew Alan for two years a long, long time ago. I wasn't entirely sure what kind of man he was now.
My heart, on the other hand, felt differently. Mike and I had been growing apart, our lives and priorities taking us down separate paths. While family was becoming more important to me, his career (and its benefits) was more important to Mike. For the last two years the kids and I had been treated like secondary characters in his life. To me, that was unforgivable.
Alan faced the same dilemma. And yet our decisions could end up being completely different. I didn't want to influence him. The decision had to be his. But what if I decided to leave Mike and he decided to stay with Susan? What then?
Yesterday, I would have given anything to spare him the pain of his wife's dismissal. Did that mean I loved him enough to start a new life with him? But that didn't seem like enough to sway the jury. And they looked mean enough to call for the death penalty.
I'd been so still for so long that a cricket landed on my leg. Within seconds he was gone. I didn't need any more metaphors. I needed help. There wasn't a single person I could call. My family would be horrified. My friends, while understanding that we were having problems, would think I had lost it. My eyes searched the park as they always did—looking for a conspiracy. For one fleeting moment, I thought I saw Terry's face. Right. Like that wouldn't complicate things. I really was paranoid. No. It's up to me. That really sucks.
"Hey, kids! Want lunch?" I heard Alan's voice calling from far away, followed by shouts of glee from the kids. Soon we were all sitting, eating fried chicken, French fries, and biscuits. I looked for clues in my children's eyes but found little. They adored Alan and his kids. That was clear. Mike had been a distant dad for a while now. It was eerie how easily they replaced him with Alan. No, I couldn't rely on them—it wouldn't be fair. I could just see myself ten years from now: "Now kids, it was your fault we moved out of daddy's house and into Alan's house. You liked him too much."
It was only then that I noticed that Alan had been quietly observing me. "We don't have to decide right now, you know," he said.
Four heads perked up. "Decide what?" Rory yelled.
Alan's eyes locked onto mine before he turned away with a smile. "Why, what we are going to do this afternoon, of course! And don't forget, Martha is coming back tonight."
Shit. I forgot we hired the sitter for another date night. The kids ran off, and we began to clean up. "Where are we going tonight?"
Alan paused. "How about just a quiet dinner out?"
"Sounds good, but you're bound to be disappointed." I threw the paper plates into a bin. "They really frown on public groping there."
Alan laughed, and after looking around for a second, planted his lips firmly on mine. As he pulled away I knew I had that drowsy, lust-drunk look on my face. But the tingling came in all the wrong places. My stomach flipped and sank, and the hair on my arms stood on end. It was as if someone was watching us. Looking around I saw the kids unaffected by the scene and realized they hadn't seen us. Had someone seen us?
My heart pounded beneath my ribcage. Something was definitely wrong. I began to feel dizzy, losing my balance. Was I going to faint? The ground raced upward to meet me, and everything went black.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was very dark. In the distance, I could hear a voice calling my name. At first, I couldn't feel anything—like I was floating, weightless. Gradually, sensation returned to my body as the voice grew louder. Where there was nothing before, I could feel something hard beneath me. Pain began to pierce the darkness as my head throbbed.
"Laura!" A man's voice was calling me. Who was it? It didn't sound like Mike.
"Mommy?" came two tearful voices in unison, "Mommy?"
My eyes fluttered open, squinting into the daylight. I was upside down, and everyone was very, very tall.
"Laura? Are you alright?" That man again! His outline was fuzzy. He looked worried.
"Miss?" An elderly man came into focus. "Let me help you."
Suddenly it all rushed back, where I was, who I was with, mercilessly beating me into consciousness.
I rose to a sitting position, cradling my head. "I…I fainted." In junior high and high school I'd had a rash of fainting spells. Always at very unfortunate times, always before lunch. Of course, sex education was before lunch. Try living that one down. The doctors eventually concluded that I was underweight and overly active.
The rest of the school didn't see it that way, however, and I was forever known as the girl who faints when
ever sex is mentioned. In fact, they still remind me of it at the reunions. And if you think something like that sounds funny the first time, try hearing it twenty plus years later.
Alan helped me to my feet, and the kids clustered around me. The elderly man turned out to be park staff. And as a good employee, he sent me back to the hotel and had a doctor come to my room.
Once the doctor left, Alan came in, leaving the kids in his room.
"He wants me to take it easy the rest of the day," I smiled weakly. In all honesty, a long nap sounded wonderful.
"Okay," Alan nodded in agreement, "I'll take the kids to the pool for a few hours and you can rest." His eyes searched mine.
"Relax," I said, taking his hand in mine, "I used to do this all the time, remember?" My fainting spells had followed me to college, and I'd fainted on our first date my sophomore year. Did he remember that?
His smile was strained. "Right. We have been staying up all night lately." He patted my hand then pressed a chaste kiss to my lips. "I'll put the cell phone next to you. Call me if you need anything."
It was an order, not a suggestion, and I took it to heart. Carefully, he closed the door behind him. The last thing I heard before falling asleep was the sound of screaming kids who were beyond overjoyed to go swimming.
* * *
The sounds of a calypso band stirred my sleepy mind before turning into a harsh ringing sound. It was the hotel room phone. Fortunately, it was within reach, and I pulled the receiver to my ear.
"Laura." Now I was awake. It wasn't Alan. It wasn't Mike. It was Terry on the other end. And he didn't sound happy.
"Laura," Terry repeated as horror gripped my throat, "are you alright?" There was no sincerity in his tone. His voice sounded detached. Placid. Like ice.
"Terry? Is that you?" I managed. Why did he ask if I was alright?
There was a pause, followed by an audible sigh. "Yes. Are you okay?"
My mind raced, frantically trying to figure out what he meant. "Of course I am. I'm fine. Why do you ask?" I knew the answer before the last word left my lips. The sound of the motorcycle. Terry's face in the crowd. The feeling of being watched just before I passed out. He had been there. He'd seen everything.
Sex, Lies, & Family Vacations Page 9