The Last Chance

by Rona Jaffe

  She went to the office and he went home to work. Alone for the first time, she was overwhelmed by guilt toward Robert. How could she have done such a thing to him? Cheating on your husband was so castrating, it meant you had excluded him from something that used to be just his province. It was keeping secrets. It was lying. It was making him second choice. It was making fun of him; even though you weren’t, he would think you were. It was hurting him. It was cruel. She hadn’t called him last night, and ordinarily she would have called him this morning from the office, but she was afraid he would sense the guilt in her voice, and so she couldn’t call. She hoped he wouldn’t call her. No, Robert was so busy in his office, he would wait till tonight to call. Maybe by tonight she would have collected herself enough to deceive him. Deceive. What an ugly word. Oh, poor Robert, suspecting her and blaming her—and now she had done it, so caught up in the moment that she had thought about him only in the abstract, like a past lover.

  She tried not to think about John Griffin, but even while she was feeling guilty toward Robert she was wondering if John would call, hoping he would. If he didn’t call her they could both pretend it hadn’t happened. But it wasn’t something you just ignored as if it happened all the time and was nothing. It was something to her. She would never tell him how important it was to her because she had too much pride, but if he didn’t call she knew it would cause her great pain.

  When she came back to the office after lunch her phone was ringing. Be John. Please be John and don’t be Robert. I’ll be good.

  It was John. “Are you free for dinner tonight?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Nikki said.

  “I’ll pick you up at seven at your apartment.”

  On the way home from the office she bought some wine and vodka. She ought to call Robert, otherwise he would call when John was there, and she didn’t know how she would be able to handle that. She put the wine into the refrigerator, the vodka in the liquor cabinet, and sat down next to the phone. She picked up the receiver and then put it down. Let Robert call her. If she sounded odd she could say she had just jumped out of the bathtub.

  Bathing and dressing, putting on fresh makeup, she felt as excited as she had been over twenty years ago dressing up to go out on a date. It wasn’t as if all the years in between hadn’t happened, but they were pushed into the background. Everything was new again. When she opened the door for John she was surprised at how handsome he looked, as if her prince would have turned into a frog just because he spent the night with her.

  They had a few drinks and then they went to Orsini’s for dinner. He didn’t seem worried about what her husband would think, and Nikki wasn’t either as long as they were out in public. She had to get a good book out of him, everyone knew movie stars needed a lot of personal attention, so it was not abnormal for them to be seen together so frequently. She asked him what he’d written that day, he told her, he seemed enthusiastic, and she felt vindicated. Then they talked about other things. They never talked about the fact that they had gone to bed together the night before. Maybe people didn’t discuss it—how would she know?

  The restaurant was very dark and romantic, with little lamps on the tables. They did not hold hands, although they could have for all anyone would have cared. After dinner he took her home and came upstairs without even a questioning look. She turned off the bell on the phone.

  It was the same as the night before. She thought they would probably both die if they didn’t get a good night’s sleep, but at the moment she wasn’t tired. It just seemed so unreal. Was this what Ellen did with her lovers, what Margot did? But not every night? She wondered if John found her irresistibly sexy, or if he was oversexed, or if this sort of thing just went on when an affair was doomed to end. She didn’t for one moment imagine that she could ever be the wife of a movie star. She couldn’t stand the strain, and besides, why would be pick her?

  The next day was Friday. John had asked her for dinner. Nikki knew she had to call Robert to tell him she wasn’t coming home, but she couldn’t face it. She wished she could be the sort of woman who could just tell him: “I have to have dinner with an author tonight, there are problems with his book.” How easy it would be if she didn’t feel that Robert knew her too well. All this time she had been angry because she felt that Robert didn’t understand her; now she was suddenly thinking of him as perceptive, a mind reader. What powers her guilt was giving to the same husband she’d known for all these years! She left the office early, washed her hair, and when John came to pick her up she rushed him out of the house after only one drink, saying she was starving. He said he was glad she was starving because he had made reservations at the Côte Basque.

  Nikki had never been there, the only thing she knew was that it was the formidable restaurant that didn’t allow women in if they were wearing pants suits. She was glad she had gotten very dressed up. The front room had a bar, banquettes, and a display trolley of incredible desserts. The main room had charming murals of the Basque country and fresh flowers on the tables. They were seated in the front, which was apparently the place to be seen. If you were going to cheat on your husband in secret you should really try not to do it with a movie star.

  After they had dinner he took her back to her apartment and kept her up all night. Saturday they slept all day. Nikki was relieved to find he was human after all. When they woke up she turned on the phone bell, and then they went out to buy some food for supper and for Sunday brunch.

  The people in her supermarket did double takes when they saw him, and as soon as one woman asked for his autograph it seemed as if everyone in the store wanted one. He signed good-naturedly. When they escaped to her apartment he said he had to get a few things and would be back.

  She was cooking cheerfully when he appeared with a flight bag in his hand. He had brought toilet articles and a robe, underwear, socks, jeans, and some shirts. It was certainly more than he would need for Sunday.

  “Which drawer can I have?” he asked, just like a roommate.

  “Take the bottom one.”

  “You get a drawer in my apartment in exchange,” he said.

  “Good. I believe in equality. Do you wash dishes too?”

  “I do if you cook. If I cook, you wash. And I’m a great cook.”

  My friends would never believe this, she thought. I don’t even believe it. She was opening the wine when the phone rang. She jumped.

  It was Robert. He sounded annoyed. “I take it you’re not coming up?”

  Robert’s dry voice seemed even more unreal than this man neatly putting his underwear into her dresser drawer. She willed Robert to be a total stranger, it was the only way she could handle it.

  “No—oh, no, I’m sorry. I tried to call and you were out,” she lied.

  “It was I who called and you who were out,” Robert said.

  “I’ve been working.”

  “They take advantage of you,” Robert said.

  “I know.”

  “You’re coming next weekend?”

  “Of course,” Nikki said, guilty despite her best efforts.

  “It’s Labor Day weekend,” he said.

  “Already?”

  “The first of September. It’s early this year. We got a postcard from Lynn. She’ll be back with her boyfriend and they’re giving us the pleasure of their company. Dorothy is coming unless she has to work, but even if she does, she gets one night off to be with us. We’ll have a family reunion. I thought we could have a cookout one night, and another maybe pick out a nice restaurant.”

  “I’ll take Friday off and come up early,” Nikki said.

  “You could come up Thursday after work.”

  “That’s what I’ll do. I’ll take my bag to the office and catch the six o’clock.”

  “What are you doing tonight?” Robert asked.

  “Just having a bite at home and cutting a manuscript. I have to work with the author all day tomorrow. She’s from out of town.”

  “She picked some time t
o come to New York,” Robert said.

  “I know.”

  “I’m having a quiet evening too. I brought some work from the office, and I’ll get a good night’s sleep.”

  “I’ll see you in a few days,” Nikki said. “I’ll call you tomorrow night.”

  “Good night,” he said.

  “Good night.” She hung up and turned around slowly to face John. He didn’t seem to have heard a word. “I have to go home to see my kids next weekend,” she said, knowing he had heard, no matter how bland his look. He was, after all, an actor.

  “Of course,” he said. “How old are they?”

  “They’ll be twenty in October. They’re twins. Girls. They were born three days after my birthday, so we always celebrate together and make a big thing of it. We’re good friends. I really like them as well as love them.”

  “That means you were a good mother.”

  “I hope so. Do you have children?”

  “Three. Two boys and a girl. They’re old enough so that we can be friends too. They all want to be directors. I guess that says what they think of their old man.”

  “It’s hard to be the same thing your parents were,” Nikki said. “My daughters don’t want to go into publishing. I don’t want to be just a housewife like my mother was. Do you want to do what your father did?”

  “Be a miner? I should say the hell not!” He laughed.

  “A coal miner?”

  “What other kind is there?”

  “I just never read about it in any of your publicity,” Nikki said.

  “I don’t like to use it. I’m me, not my past. He was killed when I was sixteen. I lied about my age and enlisted in the Navy. I had to get a friend of mine to take my physical for me. I had rheumatic fever as a kid and I have a bum heart. That would have kept me out of the service but not out of the mines. The Navy never found out until my ship was torpedoed and they were examining me in the hospital. They tossed me out—honorably of course. Then I went to acting school on the GI Bill, and the rest is, as they say, history.”

  She went back to opening the wine, thinking about the little boy with the bad heart whose father had died in the mines, and she realized how easily he had led her away from the embarrassment of a phone call from her husband and having to lie in front of her lover. Obviously John was an old hand at this sort of thing.

  “I’m very fond of you,” she said, handing him a glass of wine.

  “I’m fond of you too. You’re a good lady.”

  “Shall we eat at seven?”

  “Whenever it’s ready.”

  Is this right, she wondered, or should we have said we were in love? But we’re not in love. I have a mad crush on him, and I dearly like him, but it’s not love. Love is when you really know somebody. But I wish he’d said he loved me. I wouldn’t have believed it, but I wish he’d said it anyway.

  On Thursday evening when Nikki left for the country she was very depressed. She told John her husband was listed in the phone directory but not to call unless it was a problem with his book, because lying made her uncomfortable. She had never been so straightforward before with any man, but he didn’t seem offended. She thought afterward that she should have said nothing at all. She wondered if John would have second thoughts about their conflict of interest and try to get rid of her as a lover or as an editor. She knew it would matter more—if she had to make the choice—to keep him as a writer. She was learning things about herself every day. It was as if, having determined to change her life, she had opened herself to all sorts of realizations and insights. They had always been there waiting for her, but she had kept them at bay.

  Robert picked her up at the station. When she saw that he had Lynn in the car Nikki was overwhelmed with relief. She kissed them both.

  “Where’s the love of your life?” she asked Lynn.

  “He’s back at the house making a gigantic pot of chili for supper. It’s his specialty. We had a great time, but I’m glad to be home. I’ve got too used to comfort, not to mention a bathtub I didn’t have to scrub three times before I would dare get into it.”

  Between listening to stories about Europe and then Dorothy’s surprise appearance at midnight, it was easy to act natural. They were all so warm and cozy together, a family who loved one another, and Nikki could tell that Robert was trying. She was certainly trying harder than she ever had before. John seemed very far away, a dream she’d had, or perhaps a nightmare; nothing that was part of this family reunion. Yet when she got into bed with Robert, Nikki stiffened with fear. Would he be able to sense anything different about her? But that was silly, that was like her mother’s horror stories when she was young about boys knowing everything bad you’d done before you met them.

  Robert moved toward her and put his arms around her. “It’s been a long time,” he said.

  “Yes,” she whispered. She tried not to be too different when he made love to her, not to do anything she’d learned or to act peculiar. To her amazement she didn’t have to fake an orgasm, it just happened. He didn’t seem to find her changed, and she knew her mother had fooled her. The worst was over. Nothing bad could happen to her now.

  Sunday night one of John Griffin’s old movies was on television. Lynn and Dorothy had never seen it and they insisted. Nikki watched him on the screen, younger, and he seemed like a stranger. It was hard to believe he had ever happened to her. Yet she was going to see him again on Tuesday, and keep on seeing him. She hoped nothing in her face would betray her to Robert. She wanted to tell the girls he was one of her authors, that she actually knew him, because she knew they would be so thrilled, but she didn’t dare. Not in front of Robert. Her sense of unreality could only carry her so far in this charade. She said she had seen the movie and fled into the kitchen, where she baked a cake from a mix. They ate it afterward.

  “This is like old times,” Robert said happily. “I missed your cakes.”

  On Monday night Robert drove her to the station. It was his way of compromising, not making her stay over until Tuesday morning. They hadn’t had an argument the entire four days she’d been home.

  “Tell you what, Nikki,” he said, “next weekend when you come, why don’t you bring me a key to your apartment? Then maybe we’ll make a date the next week and I’ll take you to a play in New York and stay over.”

  She looked at his profile in the dark car. She couldn’t read his expression. This must have been very difficult for him. But he wanted her back, he wanted to try. Robert had always had a lousy sense of timing.

  “What a great idea!” Nikki said.

  “That is,” he said, “if you still want me. If you haven’t found someone else.”

  Nikki put her hand lightly on Robert’s knee. “You’ll love my apartment,” she said.

  “Our apartment.”

  “I love you.”

  Safely on the train, speeding through the dark, she began to shake all over. She put her cupped hands on the back of the seat in front of her and rested her face in her hands. She didn’t want any of the passengers to see her cry. She wasn’t crying from relief, or disappointment, but simply from weariness and inability to cope. She wanted her marriage to work. She couldn’t turn Robert down when he’d offered her his pride. That meant he loved her. And she loved him too, if only because he had become so much a part of her life during all these years that he was more than just a husband; he was family, her twin. But she couldn’t give up John just yet. She knew she would always regret it if she didn’t see this love affair through to its natural conclusion. She would always remember it as something wonderful she could have had that she had thrown away. John had offered her equal drawer space in his apartment. All right, if that was how it had to be, so be it. She would have both of them if it killed her.

  September 1975

  Ever since that night on the beach at East Hampton Margot had been living a triple life. The first part was her work life, where she was an efficient robot. No one on the news show, no one in the studio, no one i
n the office knew what she did with her private life. She was more unassailable than ever, almost cold. She had an unhappy look in her eyes that was at the same time too threatening for anyone to come close. The second was her secret sex life, which took her prowling to every decent place a man with similar intentions might be found. It was the lunch restaurants where a hamburger on a roll cost $3.50 and the customers were all slim and young and dressed in outfits that burlesqued poverty. It was Bloomingdale’s on Saturday mornings. It was to a few carefully selected bars in the Village, or midtown where newspapermen and advertising men hung out. She accepted every invitation to a party that crossed anyone’s desk at the office. The others didn’t bother to go, but if they did, she operated at the party so swiftly they had no idea what she was up to. She wanted to sleep with as many young men as possible. They had to be attractive, employed, and not maniacs. None of these qualifications was actually provable except for the first, which was subjective. She never saw them more than once, even though several called. They all left her with a deep sense of guilt and dissatisfaction that sent her out to find another to wipe away the presence of the one before. She had never seen the East Hampton bartender again.

  The third part was her secret depression. Sometimes it took the form of a journey into the past. She suddenly seemed to have total recall. Every unkind, unthinking word that had ever been spoken to her by her mother, an aunt, a teacher came back with the pain it had inflicted the first time. She seethed with anger. She thought of all the insults she had been intimidated by or had believed. She remembered the many times she had been accused of not being feminine by men who wanted something of her or women who felt threatened by her success, and how she had backed down and tried to please them. She regretted lost chances to fight back, words she had left unspoken, old, long-gone bonds she should have cut before she had. She felt the waste of her life. None of the good things she had now—her job, her friends, her health, her money, her looks—made any difference. The best years had been stolen from her by enemies.