Afterwards

by Nia Forrester

  “Yes, but not the kind you’re thinking. I’m not indifferent to him. He was in my life for so long, Chris.”

  “For at least a couple years too long, I’d say.”

  Robyn nodded. “Probably. But I don’t want to punish him. I was at least as much to blame . . .”

  “How the fuck were you to blame?” he erupted. “That he let you congratulate this woman on her pregnancy knowing all the time that he was the father of her kid?” Chris broke off and let his knife and fork fall, clattering to the plate.

  She could tell him everything about her and Curtis, about their hopes for a family, about her belief that she couldn’t give that to him. But if she told him, she would have to tell him she was pregnant now, and that was something she hadn’t even begun to think about just yet, how to deal with the joy, the confusion, and ultimately the fear that a baby would mean she and Chris were over.

  “Jamal says the deal would be a good one,” Robyn said, switching gears. “And that it would be a shame to pass it up. He says he knows you have a . . . thing about Curtis, and he wanted me to run the traps before you . . .”

  “So now you’re running traps for Jamal too.”

  “You’re putting me in this position!” Robyn said. “Not Curtis and not Jamal, but you! If you’d just let everything be, and run it’s natural course, I wouldn’t have to be here begging you to . . .”

  “You never have to beg me for anything!”

  “Then don’t make me.”

  Chris looked at her for a long time, studying her. Robyn knew he was trying to read her motive, wondering whether she was still so much in love with Curtis that she had to intercede on his behalf. Something in his eyes told her that the thought of it was disquieting for him. Wanting to allay that discomfort, Robyn considered once again telling him why she was doing it, but couldn’t make herself say the words.

  “Please, Chris,” she said instead. “I know you think you’re protecting me or something. But I don’t need that. I can take care of myself where Curtis is concerned. I just need you to back off.”

  He picked up his knife and fork, beginning to cut the chicken breast again. Almost a minute elapsed, during which Robyn forced herself to remain silent.

  “Okay,” he said, finally.

  “Okay?”

  “Yeah. Tell Jamal do whatever it was he was going to do. He’ll get no interference from me.”

  Robyn’s shoulders relaxed. “Thank you,” she sighed.

  Getting up she went over to him, expecting that he would turn to hug her; something. But he didn’t. Instead, Chris continued looking studiously down at his meal, cutting the chicken into ever smaller pieces. She wanted to stay with him, but she hadn’t brought a change of clothes and they had work the next day. And more than that, he didn’t look like he wanted her to stay. He looked like he wanted her to disappear.

  ___________________

  Chris had finally fallen asleep when his phone rang. He didn’t know what time it was and didn’t check, but it was very late. He’d worked until he couldn’t think anymore, and had to close his eyes, just to quiet his thoughts. In his bedroom, he hadn’t even bothered pulling back the covers, just removed his shoes and fell across it. Before he drifted off, he remembered thinking that Robyn was right, the colors he’d decorated in were too dark, and made the room depressing.

  She was his last thought before he fell asleep, so her voice on the other end of the line seemed almost expected when he answered the phone.

  “I know I woke you,” she said, her tone apologetic. “But I don’t want this between us the next time we see each other. So I thought I’d explain something. About me and Curtis.”

  “What’s there to explain?” Chris said, his voice hoarse with sleep. “You’re still looking out for him.”

  “I can see why you would think that,” she said.

  Chris sat up, leaning against the headboard. “I don’t see any other way to look at it.”

  Robyn sighed. “Not every man is like you, Chris. Confident and sure of himself. Curtis isn’t. He never has been, though he likes to pretend otherwise.”

  “And so you think of it as your job to make him feel better about himself?”

  “We were barely even in puberty when we met,” Robyn said, ignoring his question. “We were friends before anything else. We were so alike, got along so well, even as kids. We had private jokes that no one else was in on . . . it was like we were the male and female version of each other. But we weren’t exactly the same because . . .” she paused as though finding what came next difficult to get out. “While things came easy for me, like school, grades, friends? It was never that easy for Curtis. I could see he was trying really hard, but he never seemed to get the results he wanted. And it was frustrating for him.

  “In high school, I helped him with that kind of thing, tutored him in the classes where he struggled, explained stuff. And when the time came for college, he said he thought it would be great to apply to the same schools so I did. But I never told him I’d applied to other schools, too. Places where he couldn’t get in.

  “I even got into one of them. Dartmouth. But my mother couldn’t make the parent contribution for tuition so I wound up at the same place as Curtis, and then it didn’t matter. I didn’t need to tell him about Dartmouth because I wasn’t going.”

  Chris could see where the story was going, but he still let her talk, because she seemed to need to tell it. The overachiever became yoked to the underachiever, all the time downplaying her accomplishments, pretending they were on par.

  “Somewhere along the way, I wanted to end it,” Robyn was saying now. “To let him know that we weren’t kids anymore and we had to go our own way, but it was hard. It seemed like he . . . needed me. And I loved him. I just wasn’t . . .” Robyn let out a deep breath. “I guess deep down he resented me. And that every time I did less than I could have, or helped him do more than he was capable of, it made him feel small. That’s what I think now that I’ve had some time to think about it. And so what happened with Natalie, his secretary? I mean, at the end of the day I was shocked, but not surprised, y’know?”

  Chris exhaled. “You weren’t surprised? That your husband knocked up his secretary.”

  “She always sort of idolized him, and bought into the image he liked to put out there, of the high-powered attorney who had everything under control. Natalie worshipped him and that was something he was needing, I think. Something he wasn’t ever going to get from me, from his own wife.”

  For a while there was almost complete silence on the other end of the line. All Chris could hear was the sound of Robyn’s soft breathing. Just as he wondered whether she might have fallen asleep, she spoke again.

  “I’m not taking care of him anymore, Chris. This deal he put together with Jamal, he did completely on his own. I just want to stay out of his way for once. I don’t know that I ever did that. Maybe when I thought I was helping all these years, I was doing the opposite. Maybe every single time I stepped in, I was undercutting his manhood.”

  “But he came to you,” Chris pointed out. “That first deal, he came and asked you to reach out to Jamal.”

  “Old habits are hard to break, I guess,” Robyn said ruefully. “But I haven’t heard from him since. And I don’t expect to. I don’t even want to.”

  And at that, Chris exhaled.

  “That’s all I wanted to tell you,” Robyn said after a few beats. “Because I didn’t want there to be any misunderstandings between us.”

  “Okay.”

  “That’s it? Okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  Robyn sighed. “Okay,” she said. “Go back to sleep.”

  Chris hung up and stared at the ceiling. Robyn’s aversion to drama was unsettling in its unfamiliarity. Right about now was when most women would have pulled something, some crazy shit that gave him a convenient out. But instead Robyn was the woman who said things like, I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings between us.
/>   What the hell was a man like him supposed to do with a woman like that?

  21

  The email message came through as they were driving to the church, Robyn sitting next to Chris, already on edge and feeling slightly queasy; possibly the beginnings of morning sickness, or possibly because this was the first time she and Chris had officially attended anything together. And to top it all off, it wasn’t just anything, it was his son’s mother’s wedding. Robyn hadn’t even met Deuce and definitely hadn’t met his mother, but she knew the woman was gorgeous, and Chris’ son might be downright hostile, for all she knew.

  So while she was mulling that over, and considering whether to make today the day to tell him her news, her cell phone chimed, signaling an incoming message. It was from Frank. Not surprising, since like Chris, he worked at all hours of the day and night, and on weekends as well. If he sent email, he expected a response, even if just an acknowledgment that it had been read, so Robyn had grown accustomed to keeping her phone nearby at all times.

  Reading the message twice—just to make sure she wasn’t misunderstanding something—Robyn looked over at Chris and felt an emotion that was unusual only because it was a feeling so rarely directed at him.

  “When were you going to say something?” she demanded.

  “Say something about what?”

  “Paris.”

  At that, Chris turned to look at her and then glanced down at the cell phone, which she was fidgeting with, turning over in her hands.

  “Frank sent me a message. Telling me to help you prepare. To get everything in order for your trip. Your six-week trip.”

  “You don’t acquire an interest of that size, for that kind of money without spending some time checking it out. And not just for four or five days. C’mon, you know that,” Chris said.

  “But you’re leaving in a week,” she pointed out. “We talk every day. I see you every day. You mean to tell me it never occurred to you to even mention it?”

  Chris was wearing a light grey morning suit with crisp white shirt. Robyn had called from home as she got ready to ask what color his tie was, hoping she had something in her closet that complemented it. So she was in a pink dress with pencil skirt and matching cropped jacket and her nude, peep-toe pumps. They looked good together, dressed up like this. Like a couple.

  “And so the mystery of the Birkin bag is solved,” Robyn said, her voice sarcastic. “You’ve known since then, haven’t you?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re pissed because I have to go to Paris for work.”

  “Don’t play innocent, Chris. You knew I’d be . . .”

  “Be what?”

  Upset. He knew she’d be upset that he was going to be gone so long. And so he bought her a twenty-thousand dollar handbag. Like her feelings could be so easily bought off.

  Robyn turned and looked out the car window biting in her lower lip, willing the tears not to flow. But it was difficult because lately she was just tired, exhausted really, from staving off the inevitability of what she felt for this man. What made it worse was that he probably knew. Of course he did. It was probably spilling out of her with every word, every look, every touch . . . because she was a novice at this kind of thing, and he was a pro. He was used to affairs of the body that omitted the heart. Chris could go on like this forever, probably, and not want any more of her than her pleasant company, and of course her wide open legs.

  Sighing, Robyn swallowed the lump in her throat. Okay. That was enough of that. Time to buck the hell up.

  So he was going to Paris for a few weeks. She was a big girl, and she could handle it. It wasn’t as though he was falling off the edge of the earth, and when he came back, chances were they would pick up right where they left off, provided where they left off wasn’t some messy scene where she got all sappy, clingy and tearful. And provided he didn’t freak out when she told him her news.

  “So after this, I guess I’ll walk you through some of what you’ll be doing with local counsel when you get there,” she said.

  “Oh, so now we’re talking business again?” Chris asked.

  “There’s a lot of stuff for you to familiarize yourself with,” Robyn said not looking at him. “Frank thought you might need to go over it a few times. But he’s probably just remembering how frustrated he was with the French lawyers, and assumes you’ll be the same.”

  Just then they were pulling up at the church, a small, quaint building, set on a hill, behind which brilliant greenery was visible in the horizon. The unseasonably crisp morning air rushed into the car when Chris opened his door. Robyn waited in her seat as he walked around to open hers. He helped her out, and kept a hand at her back as they entered the church, taking a seat near the rear.

  The pews were almost full with well-wishers, dressed in Sunday best, complete with hats and corsages, all atwitter with excitement and anticipation. It was almost ten a.m., the time the ceremony was slated to begin. There would be no time for conversation and that was just as well.

  Looking up to the front, where the groomsmen already stood, Robyn spotted Chris’ son right away. Chris Junior, aka “Deuce” may have been only fifteen, but it was already evident that he was going to be a heartbreaker. Dressed in a dark tuxedo with tails, he bore a strong resemblance to his father, but appeared from where Robyn sat to be almost five-ten already; and he had a fair amount of muscle mass, signaling that he would have a bulkier, thicker physique than Chris. And where Chris was coffee-with-a-tiny-splash-of-cream, Deuce was light ochre in complexion, but there the physical dissimilarities ended. He had the same intensity of expression, eyes and prominent cheekbones, and the same full, almost sensual mouth, that appeared set in a frown.

  But as she watched him, Robyn realized that Deuce was probably far from an habitual frowner like his father. The kid never seemed to stop talking, leaning over and carrying on a conversation with an older man, who looked to be the groom. Maybe he was just excited that his mother was getting married. Having now seen two of Chris’ kids there was no doubt about it, he made pretty babies.

  Or, Robyn thought, when the wedding march began and the bride came into view, he just found pretty women with whom to make those babies.

  Sheryl was stunning. Her gown was fitted around the body, swaths of chiffon that appeared feathery and light, blossoming into a mass of tulle just beneath the knees, so that it appeared as though she was floating down the aisle rather than walking. Flanked by two young women who looked like her sisters, Sheryl smiled radiantly, her eyes fixed on the man waiting for her.

  Unable to help herself, Robyn glanced at Chris out of the corner of her eye as Sheryl passed them, and saw that he was rolling his eyes. He’d told her that Jasmin’s mother was the one he got along with, and Sheryl was the one he preferred to keep at a distance. When she was in front of her husband-to-be and her veil was lifted, Robyn saw just how truly pretty she was. With her hair combed smooth and away from her face, exploding in a mass of softs curls behind the ears, Sheryl seemed angelic. Looks weren’t everything of course, but it was difficult to see her as someone a man would want to leave.

  Except for Chris. He’d left Sheryl, and done so definitively. So much so, that he was even able to attend her wedding to another man and feel nothing except apparent cynicism. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to Robyn that he could just as easily leave her. Leave her? Like they’d ever been truly together. Robyn looked down at her hands, and obeyed when the minister told everyone they could sit.

  The ceremony wore on, and her mind drifted to her own wedding, years ago. She remembered being frightened and unsure, and having a moment, when she looked up and spotted Curtis and was awash with the certainty that she was making a mistake. But then she’d swallowed it, stuffed the feeling deep inside her, straightened her back, brightened her smile and faced the music.

  There had been many moments like that throughout her marriage, when she looked at her husband and knew in her heart that they were poorly-matched. But those moments had alternat
ed with days and weeks and even months when they got along so beautifully, and conducted their lives with such synchronicity, that Robyn was sure he was meant to be her partner in life.

  Now, sitting here in the church, watching two complete strangers being joined in holy matrimony, she knew for sure that what she thought was synchronicity had really just been habit, and her moments of certainty had been denial. Curtis was not and had never been her mate. Most of the time, he had been her friend, and sometimes he felt like her jailer. She knew that now because with the man next to her, she felt freer than she had ever felt before, and if ever there were moments when she was in a prison, it wasn’t a prison of Chris’ creation, but that of her traitorous heart.

  When all the vows were said and hymns sung, Robyn let Chris take her hand and lead her out of the church, filing along behind all the other well-wishers. Had things not been so uncertain—with her pregnancy and his impending trip to Paris—she might have allowed herself to feel some pleasure that he was holding her hand, and not just when they were in private, either. Whatever his motive for not mentioning the Paris trip, he was with her now and didn’t mind who knew it. Surely, that had to mean something? She didn’t pay attention to where he was pulling her until she saw that they were headed in the direction of a large SUV into which the groomsmen were piling.

  “Hey, Deuce!” he called out.

  Robyn’s heart thrummed in her chest as Chris’ son turned his head and climbed out of the truck once again. Spotting his father, he came toward him, smiling and Chris released Robyn’s hand as they embraced.

  “Hey Dad,” he said. He had that funny voice young men got as their voice began to change, falsetto and baritone, competing for attention.

  “I just wanted to holla at you before I jet,” Chris said. “And introduce you to somebody.”

  “You not comin’ to the reception?” Deuce asked.

  “Nah. Got other plans, but tell your Mom congratulations, and that I’ll call her.”