People Who Knew Me

by Kim Hooper

  I was leaning against the front wall, sipping the last drops of a vodka tonic through my tiny cocktail straw, when Gabe walked in. He didn’t see me at first. He walked past me to the hostess stand. He looked both the same as I remembered and entirely different. In college, he was not a man; now he was a man. Somewhere along the way, he’d learned how to style his hair—perfectly shellacked. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was a model, coming from a photo shoot for Esquire magazine. His suit was obviously tailored, every seam in the right place. If I worked for his company, it would probably take two or three paychecks to pay for shoes like his. They looked to be authentic alligator skin. Marni had taught me to notice such things.

  He said something to the waitress and she checked the reservation book in front of him and gave him the kind of smile women only give good-looking men.

  “Gabe,” I said, with a small voice at first. Then, louder: “Gabe.”

  He turned around and spotted me, then approached with arms out for a hug.

  “Emily Overton,” he said, using my maiden name, the only name he knew me by. He held me close. In college, he was a thin guy, burning all the calories he consumed on the soccer field. He still had the muscles from those athletic days, but he’d filled out.

  “You look just as I remember you,” he said.

  “Is that a good thing?” I asked, baiting him for a compliment.

  He obliged: “You know I thought you were beautiful.”

  His skin was darker than I remembered, the color of caramel. His crystal-blue eyes betrayed his Latin descent.

  The hostess showed us to our table and we sat.

  “I can’t believe how this place has taken off,” he said. “I used to come here when they first opened—not a person in here.”

  “Must be good,” I said.

  “It is, promise.”

  The waiter came by and engaged Gabe in an in-depth conversation about the wine list. I told Gabe to choose. They settled on a Pinot Noir. Gabe swirled the tester sip in his glass, swallowed it, considered, then said, “This is great, man,” like they were already friends. He could charm anyone.

  As we each had our first glass, we took turns asking each other the usual questions. He said he started at Berringer right out of college, as some kind of junior associate, and worked his way up—with the help of that smile, I was sure.

  “You married?” I said, though I already suspected he wasn’t. There was no ring on his finger.

  “Nope,” he said. “I’m still a bit young for that, I think.”

  I forgot this often. I was still young, a few months from my twenty-ninth birthday. I felt so old sometimes, so tired.

  “What about you?” he said.

  He may have tried to catch a glimpse of my ring finger, but I had slipped my hands under my thighs, like I used to do at the bars with Marni.

  “I am, but I barely see him,” I said, purposefully vague.

  He cocked his head to the side like a dog trying to decipher his owner’s high-pitched baby talk.

  “Remember that night I ditched the date with you because I met someone?”

  He nodded. “You mean the night I lost all will to live?”

  I laughed then said, “I married that guy.”

  His eyes widened. “Wow,” he said. He took a long drink. Then again: “Wow.”

  He seemed genuinely shocked, like he found it unbelievable that I’d chosen someone so early on in life. He’d probably been with fifteen, twenty women in the years I’d been with one man.

  “What if we had gone on that date? You could’ve married me,” he said, humoring himself at the very notion.

  “I get the feeling you’re not the marrying kind.”

  “I’m insulted.” He leaned back in his seat, away from me. His smile was playful. “I just haven’t found the right person.”

  “Maybe there is no ‘right’ person,” I said, putting cynical air quotes around the word “right.”

  He leaned in again, elbows on the table.

  “Some of us choose to stay optimistic,” he said.

  I finished my glass. “Good luck with that.”

  “You’re begging me to ask what’s going on with your husband,” he said.

  He was right. I was begging. I took a deep breath. And then I told him everything—about Drew’s mother, about how we’d decided not to live with each other most of the week, about doubting the ability of true love to surmount all, about work being my only escape besides running.

  After all of it, he sighed heavily, then said, “Well, the job is yours. If you want it. I can at least cross that off your list of worries.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “If you want it.”

  “I don’t know anything about the company,” I said, laughing at the absurdity of accepting a job so blindly.

  “We’re an investment company.”

  I nodded like I knew what that entailed.

  “We have a heavy focus on research. All our investment strategies are very analyst-driven. We specialize in specific sectors. We really know all the companies we recommend to our clients.”

  I continued nodding.

  “I’ll take it,” I said.

  “Are you drunk after one glass?”

  “I might be.”

  He poured another glass for me and one for himself.

  “You don’t even know the salary,” he said.

  “It’s better than zero, which is my current salary.”

  Our entrées came—spaghetti and meatballs for me, lobster ravioli for him. He transported a ravioli across the table from his plate to mine, and I transported a meatball from my plate to his. It felt intimate, this sharing of food. We took our first bites with closed eyes.

  “So,” he said. “Do you love him?” Then: “Your husband?”

  His eyes were glossy, the effects of drinking his second glass too quickly.

  “I don’t know what that means anymore,” I said. I looked down at the table. It was rustic, seemingly made of wood from a ship that had been at sea for a decade. Someone had carved a game of tic-tac-toe in it.

  Gabe waited for me to say more.

  “I care about him,” I said.

  “Do you think about leaving him?” he asked. Questions get braver, more brazen, as bottles are emptied.

  I’d had passing thoughts of what it would be like to get my own studio apartment in the city. I’d fantasized about starting over, on my own. I hadn’t shared those fantasies with anyone—not even Marni or Nancy—which meant either the fantasies weren’t serious or I was afraid they could be.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I think about it the same way people think about moving to the country and owning a vineyard.”

  He was quiet.

  “Meaning it’s not realistic,” I said.

  “I see.” He said it in a way that made me think he didn’t see at all.

  “It’s not like I could leave him, with everything going on,” I explained. “He has a sick mom, no job.”

  Drew and I always said we wanted what our mothers never had—a true, lasting love story. We’d look at elderly people holding hands and say, “That will be us one day.” And maybe that could have been us if circumstances hadn’t intervened. Maybe that could have been us if we had both remained those hopeful, romantic people. Maybe that could have been us if we weren’t changed by what life had in store.

  “I mean, really, what kind of person would I be to leave him?”

  He shrugged. “A fed-up person,” he said simply.

  I bit my tongue, literally, so hard that I tasted sweet blood in my mouth. I took a sip of water. I was angry at him for assuming he knew anything about my marriage and the ease I’d have leaving it. What was his longest relationship anyway? A month?

  “Sorry,” Gabe said. “I think I’ve overstepped my bounds.”

  I put down my fork. My appetite had gone, though three meatballs remained, tangled up in a pile of noodles.

 
“Maybe you did, but I asked you to.”

  He took a last bite of his ravioli and asked for the check. I took out my wallet and, predictably, he told me to put it away.

  “Do you need a ride home?” he asked.

  “I can take the subway.”

  “Let me drive you,” he said, starting to stand. “It’s no fun to be drunk on the subway.”

  He offered his hand as I stood, in that gentlemanly way. His car was parked right out front, something I’d never experienced in the city. Most people didn’t own cars. It was a black BMW, shiny from a recent wash-and-wax. The interior was tan leather. There was nothing in it—not an empty soda can in the cup holder or a wrapper on the floor. There was no just-in-case rain jacket or umbrella, no old parking payment stubs by the windshield.

  “Is it new?” I asked.

  “Few years,” he said.

  “And you don’t have a woman in your life mandating this cleanliness? You do it on your own, by choice?”

  “I don’t like messes,” he said, which made me wonder how he could possibly consider leaving a marriage no big deal.

  The drive was fast, about a half hour. All the people who congested the roads during the week were tucked away in various suburbs.

  “I think the job might bore you,” he said as he turned right on Flushing, almost home.

  “A job is a job, right?” I said. My mom always said that. She hadn’t taught me to be discriminating when it came to paychecks.

  “Well, come in on Monday and we’ll talk about it more. Ten o’clock? I’ll have my assistant put something on my calendar.”

  “You have an assistant,” I said. “Fancy.”

  “That’s what you would be—someone’s assistant.”

  “As long as it keeps me busy,” I said. I meant that. I didn’t care if it was a pay cut. What I had been getting paid at Mathers and James hadn’t been enough to cover the expense of having an unemployed husband with an ailing mother. I thought, maybe, if Drew and I fell even deeper into debt, he would take some action to get us out.

  I pointed out my building and Gabe pulled in front.

  “It was really great to see you,” he said as I opened the car door.

  “You, too. See you Monday?”

  “Monday,” he confirmed.

  * * *

  Drew came home with his mom for our one night together. After we put her to bed, we lay in our own bed and I told him about the job. He was happy for me, or for the income. I waited for him to ask about the salary, but he didn’t. He never asked about our debt, either. He was in as much denial about our financial distress as he was about his mother’s situation and what had become of our marriage.

  “I miss you when I’m not here,” he said.

  “Then come back home.”

  “I thought you didn’t want her here.” There was some hope, some anticipation, in his voice.

  “I don’t,” I said, letting him down.

  I could have asked what his plan was, but I knew he didn’t have one.

  He rolled onto me, his face so close to mine that our noses grazed. I knew we would kiss. I knew we would have sex that would last two minutes, the result of his built-up frustration over the week. It felt like a conjugal visit. I just wasn’t sure who was in prison—me or him.

  When I closed my eyes and let the predictable happen, I thought of Gabe—his wide smile, the silkiness of his skin, the way his body filled his suit. And the two minutes it took for Drew to go from desiring to exhausted were enough for me, too.

  “You finished?” he asked, pleasantly surprised and a little too proud of himself.

  “I did,” I said. I kept my eyes closed so I could continue deluding myself. I imagined what it would be like to be in Gabe’s arms, to feel his bicep cradling my head.

  “Things will get better, Em,” Drew said, rolling back to his side of the bed. When he was away during the week, I’d dared to occupy his side—first with an ambitious, wandering leg, then with my whole body. On more than one occasion, I woke up in the middle of the night not sure where I was.

  “I know they will,” I said, though I didn’t know this at all.

  I watched him fall asleep and thought about what to wear on Monday.

  * * *

  I got to the World Trade Center just before ten. It was bustling with people: women in dresses and skirts and heels, men in suits with ties that had already been loosened due to early morning stress. I took the elevator in the north tower to the 101st floor, to the Berringer offices. Gabe was at the receptionist’s desk and said, “There she is!” The receptionist, Cassie, scanned me up and down, assessing my worthiness, as all women do in the presence of a handsome man.

  He showed me to his office. It was a corner office, with a cherrywood desk, two tall filing cabinets, and two studded leather chairs. Expansive windows looked down—far down—onto the traffic on West Street.

  “Have a seat,” he said. I did.

  “This is an amazing office,” I said. The walls were mostly bare, except for his framed college diploma and a large framed painting of a ship in stormy ocean waters.

  “Thanks,” he said. He leaned back in his chair; it creaked. “So, you still want to work here?”

  “If you’ll have me,” I said, my cheeks reddening as I said it.

  “I think you’d be a great fit. I mean, selfishly, I want you around.”

  I tucked my chin slightly so he couldn’t see the little smile that crept up on my face.

  “Doug Miller will be your boss—vice president of international sales. He’s great. And he knows you’ll want to move up in the company. He won’t keep you as an assistant forever,” he said. “Of course, I’ll help you move up, too, but we’ll have to play it cool. People will know we went to college together, I’m sure. I don’t want them to think I’m playing favorites.”

  “Right,” I said, feeling like we were already conspiring. “Of course.”

  “Okay, then, well, can you start tomorrow?”

  “Sure can.”

  When he stood, I stood. As he approached me, I thought he was going to shake my hand in a congratulatory way, but he hugged me instead, pulled me close to him. I felt his inhale. Was he smelling my perfume? When he released me, our eyes met for a quick, but telling, second. It was like we had already been together, I had already cheated on Drew. And it was bound to happen again.

  NINETEEN

  It took three months for something to happen—three months of after-work drinks and casual dinners and a façade of innocent friendship. Then there was the day the façade cracked.

  Janine, Gabe’s assistant, had just left on maternity leave and I was tasked with continuing to do my administrative duties in international sales and also take over for Janine. “You’re just that good,” Gabe said. My new role meant I was in and out of Gabe’s office throughout the day. Manila folders passed between our hands. Sometimes our fingers touched—meaningfully, in my mind.

  “You better not be next,” he said as we chatted about Janine and her coming child.

  “A baby? Not me,” I said. “Unless it’s immaculate conception.”

  He waited for me to elaborate.

  “Drew and I haven’t had sex since June.”

  I knew when I said it that it was something I shouldn’t say. Not to Gabe, at least. Confessions like these lead to affairs. Somehow I didn’t care. I wanted to test the theory, prove it wrong. Or maybe I wanted to prove it right.

  The last time I’d had sex with Drew was when I imagined he was Gabe. Drew tried, his male needs overpowering the obviousness of my disinterest. I pushed him away, said I wasn’t “in the mood”—a cliché excuse played out on every sitcom that ever aired. Eventually, he stopped trying. We didn’t talk about it.

  One Saturday night, I woke up to the sheets rustling. He was turned from me. I knew by the force and repetitiveness of his motions that he was masturbating. I pretended to sleep. I was embarrassed for him. The next morning, I snuggled up to him—out of pity or g
uilt or something else that closely resembled affection.

  “Remember when we first met, how thrilling it was to just touch each other?” I said to him. I had some hope that we could just admit we’d changed, that it wasn’t the same, that it wasn’t good anymore.

  But he said, “It’s still thrilling to touch you.”

  I kissed him on the mouth, but felt nothing. I remembered that first night, in his dorm room, talking for hours. I remembered staring at his hands, imagining them touching me. I didn’t even need to be naked; just his hand on my skirt sent a jolt through my body.

  Then there were Gabe’s hands—soft, like he moisturized them, but also tough, like those of a farmer who labors in the fields from sunrise to sunset. During the workday, I dreamed about them reaching up under my skirt to caress my thigh. My panties got wet enough that I had to go to the restroom and pat them dry with toilet paper. I hadn’t lost the ability to desire; I’d just lost the ability to desire my husband.

  The realist in me knew that if Gabe and I had a “beginning” and then went well past it—years past it—I wouldn’t desire him, either. But that’s the thing about lust—it silences the realist. It deceives you. It convinces you that what you’re feeling will last forever.

  After my sexless marriage confession, Gabe said, “Not since June?”

  His shock made me think he’d never gone more than a week without sex. I shrugged.

  “That’s sad, Em,” he said. I liked when he called me Em. Everyone who knew me well—and only those people—called me Em.

  “It is what it is,” I said.

  His eyes diverted to his computer screen, in response to the ding of a new email. He scanned it, then looked back at me.

  “It’s been a long week,” he said. “Drinks after work?”

  * * *

  We went to this Mexican place a few blocks from the office. One of the regional associates suggested it, touted its margaritas as the best in the city. The chances of us seeing him—or someone from Berringer who also took his recommendation—were reasonably high. We weren’t doing anything wrong, though. If we were, we would have chosen somewhere farther away. Wouldn’t everyone assume that? As it was, we were just friends. We’d made that clear from the day I started. In fact, that’s how Gabe introduced me to the staff—“This is my old college friend, Emily.” We waved off the imagined suspicions of others who warned us with their raised eyebrows of the complications, the risks involved with attempting a friendship with the opposite sex. There was a common understanding: if both parties are single, the claimed friendship is simply a preface to something more; if one or both parties are married, the claimed friendship is simply a preface to something disastrous.