Afterwards

by Nia Forrester

  “Dinner is served,” her mother announced at the same time.

  When Chris saw that they were having risotto, he did the honors of opening the white, which was crisp and delicious, a perfect accompaniment to the meal. And it had the benefit of loosening everyone’s lips a little. Her mother shamelessly plied him with questions about some of her favorite R&B singers, and the backstories of gossip she’d heard on Entertainment Tonight and TMZ. If Chris didn’t seem to be enjoying it so much, Robyn would have been embarrassed by her mother’s prying.

  When they had all cleaned their plates and it was time for dessert, and Robyn left them alone to go fetch the red velvet cheesecake she’d picked up on her way out of the city from work earlier. As she did, she glanced at her phone again, as the console was lit up, indicating recent activity. Picking it up, she saw that there were four missed calls.

  Curtis. Every single time.

  And as she pondered what might be so urgent, the phone rang again, vibrating in her hand. In the other room, she could hear her mother’s laughter at something Chris was saying. For the moment at least, they weren’t missing her. She hit the ‘Answer’ button and put the phone to her ear.

  “You’re fucking him, aren’t you?”

  Robyn looked at the phone, checking to make sure it was indeed her ex-husband. His voice was tight, with barely-contained anger, positively quavering with rage. But his tone was one thing, the words were quite another. Curtis didn’t speak this way. Not usually.

  Well, clearly, he wasn’t calling to thank her again for getting him the call back from Jamal Turner. It had taken her weeks to get around to it, but her bitterness toward him had all but receded, so she thought, ‘what the hell?’ Do him a solid and get on with her life. So this was far from what she might have expected from a call from him.

  “What’re you . . ? Him, who?”

  “Chris Scaife,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’ll hand it to you. You definitely traded up.”

  “I wasn’t the one doing the trading,” Robyn said reflexively. “In case you forget.”

  “Yeah, okay. I’ll give you that. But you know what? I shouldn’t even be surprised. You always were the ambitious one, the smart one, between the two of us. So I guess you put those smarts to work.”

  “Curtis, I don’t know what you think you know, but . . .”

  “I got in touch with Jamal Turner. And we were working on a deal. Got pretty far along as a matter of fact. And then out of the blue this afternoon he called to let me know everything was off. When I asked him why, he said he was ‘not at liberty’ to say. But he did imply that he got some interference from his higher-ups. From the highest of the higher-ups.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “Really? Well I’m not sure who else has that kind of sway, Robyn. The kind of sway where Doug called me in and said he got a call that the deal could go forward. Just as long as I was no part of it.”

  Robyn blanched. “I’m sure that . . .”

  “Only Chris Scaife could make that kind of condition, Robyn. So why? That’s what I want to know. Did you just think it would be more fun to let me think you were going to help and then pull the rug out from under me?”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with it!”

  In the next room, there was silence. Her raised voice had alerted her mother and Chris to the fact that something was amiss.

  “Yes you did. Even if not directly. He must have heard something and decided to avenge you or some crap like that. Because I’ve never done anything to the man. So maybe he heard that something was done to you. And the only reason he’d care is if you’re fucking him.”

  “Curtis . . .”

  “So thanks a lot, Robyn. Thanks for messing this up for me. I guess you got me back good. I hope it makes you feel better.”

  And then the line went dead.

  Standing there for a moment, Robyn tried to think. Not too many people knew what happened between her and Curtis. People at Doug’s firm, of course. But none of them would spread that around, it only made the firm look tawdry. So who . . ?

  “Robyn, everything okay in there?”

  Robyn replaced the phone on the kitchen counter and went out to the dining area, standing with her arms folded, looking at Chris who was just putting his glass of wine back on the table before him.

  “What did you do?” she demanded.

  “What?”

  “Don’t ‘what’ me! With Curtis. What did you do? Did you tell Jamal not to do business with him? Did you call Doug?”

  She waited for him to deny it. But somehow she knew he wouldn’t.

  “Yes. I did.”

  Her mother’s eyes opened wide and she looked back and forth between them.

  “Take it back,” Robyn demanded. “Call Doug and tell him you were being rash, and that you want to take it back.”

  “No.”

  “You have to!” Robyn was all but screaming now. “What kind of Machiavellian bullshit is that?”

  “Robyn!”

  Her mother stood and came toward her, putting an arm about her shoulder trying to calm her down. Robyn shrugged her off, her focus solely on Chris’ face, with its irritating calm.

  “Call him, and tell him . . .”

  “I’m not doing that,” Chris said. “So you may as well stop asking.”

  “You could ruin his chances at that firm, Chris. His reputation . . .”

  “Is not that great to begin with. From what I hear, you carried him for years. Made him look good at your own expense.”

  “You don’t know anything about him!”

  “I make it my business to find out what I don’t know.” Chris stood and emptied his wineglass, putting his napkin on the table.

  “If you don’t call Doug . . .”

  “Then what?” Chris demanded, raising his voice for the first time. “You’ll quit your job? Go back to working for the shitty little insurance outfit? Or maybe move back to Doug’s so you can help Curtis along with his career again?”

  “You fucking asshole,” Robyn said quietly. “He was my husband.”

  “Yeah,” Chris said. “Was. And how’d that work out for you?”

  He turned to her mother and gave an apologetic smile. “Carolyn. I’m sorry. Thank you for dinner.”

  And then he walked by Robyn, kissed her mother briefly on the check and was gone.

  Robyn stood there, her face hot, with rage, with shame, her shoulders rising and falling as she struggled to regain her composure. After a moment, she went over to the dining table and picked up her glass of wine with a trembling hand, emptying it in one long gulp.

  “Robyn . . .”

  “I don’t want to hear it right now, Mom.”

  “I know you don’t. But you’re going to hear it,” her mother said, her voice uncharacteristically stubborn.

  Robyn turned to look at her.

  She had her arms folded, and her feet planted. “Looking out for Curtis is not your damn job anymore, Robyn. You’re his ex-wife. Ex. Get that through your skull and start looking out for you.”

  13

  “You don’t think it was kind of a romantic thing to do?”

  Tracy was in one of the Adirondack rocking chairs near Riley and Shawn’s pool, baby Layla on her shoulder, asleep with her little pink rosebud of a mouth open, drooling on her mother’s shoulder. The baby was beautiful, and Tracy was more so since becoming a mother, her face and figure fuller, her overall aura calmer.

  Riley and Robyn looked at her, both of them laughing.

  “What?” Tracy said. “I think it’s romantic.”

  “That he tried to ruin a man’s career?” Riley said.

  “The same man who tried to ruin Robyn’s life,” Tracy pointed out. “I don’t care what you guys say. I think it was romantic. I mean, Chris had absolutely no motive here except to look out for you, Robyn. If that’s not romance, I don’t know what is.”

  “Well, we don’t have a ‘romance’ that
’s for sure,” Robyn mumbled. She was still struggling with how to feel about what Chris had done. And with how to understand it.

  Tracy and Riley exchanged a little smile that she pretended not to see. They didn’t understand, although they should, given how well they both knew him, that Chris was hardly the kind of man with whom women had romances. At best, he had ‘affairs’.

  “Some of the best sex Brendan and I ever had was after he threatened to beat some guy up for telling me I have nice tits,” Tracy said, lowering her voice.

  “All that proves is that you’re crazy,” Riley said shaking her head.

  “Oh please,” Tracy said. “Shawn actually did kick some guy’s ass for Riley one time and she acted like it was an insult instead of the compliment it so clearly was.”

  Robyn laughed. “So what Chris did is the equivalent of kicking a guy’s ass for me?”

  “Yes.” Tracy nodded. “The rich man’s equivalent of a beat-down.”

  Then all three of them were laughing.

  Summer was just coming into her own and Shawn and Riley were having one of their weekend cook-outs to welcome her in with her promise of long, lazy days and sultry nights. That morning, Robyn called Jon as soon as she woke up, to let him know she wasn’t going to make it for her motorcycle riding lesson because she had a thing to go to at a friend’s house. And it was just as well, since she’d neither seen nor heard from Chris since their argument at her mother’s house.

  She’d spent most of the day in the pool with Riley and Tracy, in the shallow end playing with their babies, holding them in the water letting them splash and play. Robyn hadn’t given much thought to the fact that Chris would likely show for the cookout as well.

  Okay, so she had given it some thought.

  Feeling a little melancholy since his departure that evening, she’d hoped coming here among friends would lift her mood, but it hadn’t. It wasn’t just the argument with Chris. She couldn’t get Curtis’ call out of her head. And not just because of how angry he’d been.

  Later, when her mother left her alone, she thought about what she said, about looking out for him, and about what Chris said about her helping Curtis at her own expense. It made her remember something—when she’d first given Curtis an update on her conversation with Jamal Turner, he’d been excited to hear it. Then, in the background Robyn heard sounds of his household, sounds of his new life; and he’d thanked her and rushed off the phone. Having gotten what he needed, he had no more time for her. Not even a moment to spare to ask how she had been, what she had been up to.

  Robyn felt a little foolish, and more than a little empty once he hung up. As though she’d presented him with an exquisitely wrapped gift, all decked out with ribbons and tinsel, only to have him toss it into a corner after a fleeting smile and cursory glance. It shouldn’t have mattered. After all, she had an amazing new job and was saving at a decent rate that—along with her new salary—would probably enable her to buy her own home in less than a year. But every time she thought about it, buying a house, moving into a house . . . she couldn’t help but remember how different she thought that milestone would be for her.

  Her husband, her mate-for-life was to have been at her side, and they would have picked out furniture together, decided on a decorating style, done all the things that couples do. Instead, she was going to become one of those women she’d always both envied and pitied—with the high-powered career, abundance of material things, but no partner. The kind of woman Tracy had been before she settled down with Brendan.

  Robyn used to think Tracy was so hard, had so many sharp edges. And she’d secretly believed that regardless of her beauty, Tracy would wind up bitter and alone. And nothing was wrong with being single, if that was the vision you had for your life, but Robyn wanted it all—career, but a husband and babies too. But now Tracy—the woman she’d written off as a possibly hopeless case—was the one who was happily domesticated, and playing with her baby daughter on a mild summer afternoon under the watchful gaze of a strong and loving man.

  Meanwhile she, Robyn, was the one alone. Despite trying to be the perfect wife, letting her man be the man by never minimizing him, or surpassing him. She was alone and yet she’d still gone out of her way to pander to the man who had left her alone. Then to top it off, she’d wound up yelling expletives at someone who did what she should have been doing for herself—looking out for her interests.

  Whether or not it was romantic she couldn’t say. Chris had never seemed interested in a “romance” with her as far as she could tell. But he was so good to her; so, so good for her. And whenever she thought of him, she felt . . . something she couldn’t name. Even now, though she was angry with him, it was tempered by this other feeling that was just beginning to flower inside her try though she might to suppress it.

  “I can’t apologize to you enough, Robyn,” Riley said. “When I told him what happened between you and Curtis, I didn’t think for a second he would act on it. And I didn’t know there was anything to act on.”

  “No need to apologize,” Robyn said. “He could have heard about it anywhere, I suppose. Even if not from you.”

  “But he did hear it from me, and so I’m sorry. When he gets here, I’m really going to let him have it for what he did.”

  “God, what’s the matter with you two?” Tracy demanded. “Someone should give the man a medal as far as I’m concerned. After what . . ?”

  “Let’s not rehash what Curtis did,” Robyn said dryly. “It’s all I can do to live with it every day.”

  “All the more reason you should be thrilled he got his. It’s a shame he didn’t get fired too,” Tracy said.

  “Who you tryin’ to get fired, sweetheart?”

  Brendan wandered over, his mouth half full of hamburger and leaned in to kiss his sleeping daughter, leaving a smudge of ketchup on her forehead.

  “Brendan, no one’s talking to you,” Tracy said, pretending to be annoyed. She wiped the smudge of ketchup from Layla’s forehead then tilted her head back so Brendan could plant a greasy kiss on her lips as well.

  “I’ll take her inside,” he said, indicating Layla. “And leave you women to finish plotting some poor guy’s destruction.”

  Tracy lifted Layla over her head and handed her over to her father who deftly placed her over his shoulder with one large hand. Tracy watched as he walked away and shook her head.

  “He holds her like she’s a sack of potatoes he’s carrying over his shoulder, doesn’t he?”

  Riley laughed. “At least he’s not like Shawn. He was super-careful carrying Cass, all stiff . . . different than he was with Cullen. Like he thought she might break or something. Brendan’s comfortable with Layla. Some men are just born to be fathers.”

  “He’s asking for another one,” Tracy said shaking her head. “I told him he had an uphill battle with that. After the delivery I had?”

  “You have to, Tracy. He’s so sweet with her,” Riley said.

  “Oh, I’ll give him as many as he wants,” Tracy said shaking her head. “I just can’t let him know that. Or I’d be pregnant every year till menopause.”

  Robyn smiled politely because that was what was expected of her. She had nothing to contribute to baby talk.

  “I’m going to get something to drink,” she said, standing. “Either of you want anything?”

  “Water,” Tracy said. “Breastfeeding makes me thirsty.”

  Robyn was behind the bar, crouched by the small refrigerator, reaching to the rear for Tracy’s water when she heard his voice.

  “You know that’s not a dress, right?”

  Standing, she found herself facing Chris, who was on the opposite side of the bar.

  “Don’t tell me you’re still sulking,” he said when she didn’t respond.

  “I know it’s not a dress,” she said finally. “It’s a cover-up.”

  “I saw you walking over here. It doesn’t cover much up.”

  Despite herself, Robyn almost cracked a smile. It
almost felt like he was . . . flirting with her. But that couldn’t be. Right?

  “You still tryin’ to be all funky with me about whatshisname?”

  “Curtis,” she said. “And I’m . . . considering how to feel about it.”

  “What’s there to consider? He did you wrong. And he had wrong done to him.”

  “So you admit that what you did was wrong.”

  “No, I don’t,” Chris said, shaking his head. “I just wanted to use terms you would relate to. I know you think it was wrong.”

  “Why’d you do it?”

  Chris shrugged.

  “For me?” she asked, searching his eyes.

  If he said he did it for her, she would let it go. Because Tracy was right—there were worse things than having a man trying to get back at someone who’d hurt you. If he said he’d done it for her, she would have to think about what that meant, and how it might change things between them. There was part of her that hoped he would say it, because there was something there, and though she wasn’t sure what it was, Robyn knew that admission would make them cross over into entirely new territory. But it felt like she was the only one who wanted to go there.

  Chris opened his mouth to respond but before he could say a word, Shawn had walked up and clapped a hand on Chris’ shoulder.

  “I need you to settle an argument for me,” he said. “I got a bet goin’ over here . . .”

  As Shawn pulled him away, Robyn watched him go, frustrated that she wouldn’t know what he’d been about to say. But maybe it was for the best, because he might ask questions. He would still want to know what it was that made her react the way she had when she learned he’d done something to get back at Curtis, and the explanation was not something he’d understand.

  Chris was an incredibly smart man but Robyn had no doubt that one concept he would not grasp was the vagaries of the human heart. She could tell him everything—that she was pretty sure she wasn’t in love with her ex-husband anymore, and that she had even graduated to sometimes wishing him well; but that sometimes, deep in her soul the wound reopened, and that when that happened, it was a pain unlike any she had ever felt before. She could tell him, but she was certain he wouldn’t understand that she had been with Curtis since she was a teenager and often, it felt as though part of her was with him still.