The Cousins

by Rona Jaffe

  They ate mystery burgers from a vegetarian Indian restaurant on the couch in front of the television set, watched a mindless docudrama, because it was her turn to pick, and discussed their day briefly during the commercials. Roger’s arm was affectionately around her shoulders.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you, too.”

  They were always so kind to one another.

  As the week went by she both looked forward to and dreaded her next meeting with Marc. Where could this infatuation go? Each possibility seemed worse. But it didn’t have to go anywhere, she told herself. She should just enjoy it. Roger had finally shaken off the sexual malaise that had hung over him since their reconciliation, and now when they made love, although it was still not frequent, at least he tried to be passionate. As for herself, she thought of Marc and became wild, the way she had in the old days. Roger thought it was for him, and responded. So the result was that they were getting along quite well. Did it matter why? It seemed such a long time ago that she had believed everything to be perfect.

  When she called Marc she told him that they should choose a new place, because she didn’t want them to become known as regulars, a couple. He suggested another bar, not so chic or public but pleasant, around the corner from his apartment on the Upper East Side. As before, she could walk there and back from her office and not have to deal with gridlock while Roger was busy at the gym. The fact that their moments together were so rushed and secret made them even more exciting. Never enough, she thought, but never too much either. She was still afraid that all this would disappear.

  His neighborhood place had a hail-fellow-well-met look about it: dark wood walls, leather booths, a big television set over the bar with a sports event on it, young men in business suits waving bottles of beer and cheering their team. The women were all in their twenties, suitable for the young men and hoping to find one. Marc led her to a secluded booth in the back, sat across from her and pretended to pull a curtain protecting them from the world. They sat there smiling at each other as if they had been parted for a long time.

  “So this is where you hang out,” Olivia said.

  “It’s convenient. Do you hate it?”

  “No, I like it.”

  Her left hand was on the table. He reached over and ran his finger lightly between her fingers. She felt that streak of light again. She was wearing a ring, as she almost always did, and Marc moved his finger over it, stroking it, obviously thinking it was her wedding ring.

  “Did you think about me this week?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. She was picking up flirting very fast for someone who was out of practice.

  “I thought about you, too.”

  When the waiter came over for their order, Marc ordered beer. “I have to warn you,” he said to her, “the wine here isn’t great.”

  “Perrier, then.”

  The waiter went away. “What did you think about me?” Marc asked.

  “You would only be flattered.”

  “So would you.”

  “You’re not still alone?” she said, hoping he was. I shouldn’t have asked that, she thought. But I want to know.

  “I didn’t go out with anyone who overwhelmed me,” he said.

  “Just checking.”

  So he went on dates. Of course he would; why should he stay home and wish he were with her? He was horny and free. She wanted to know about his private life and yet she didn’t. Reality had to disappoint. He liked that she was taken, he thought he knew just where she was; but she didn’t like that he was available because that meant soon he wouldn’t be. If she didn’t ask, it would be better. She could pretend.

  “You’re the woman I really want,” he said.

  She smiled.

  The waiter brought their drinks and left. “I have some superior wine in my apartment,” Marc said.

  “Really!”

  “I live practically next door.”

  “I know.”

  “We can’t do anything so bad in an hour.”

  “Oh, yes we could.”

  His eyes were glistening; she couldn’t tell if he was still flirting or giving it a real try.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Olivia said.

  “Just checking,” he said, imitating her.

  “You’re outrageous.”

  “Now you know what I was thinking all week.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you think I’m terrible?”

  “I know you are,” she said, and laughed.

  He was playing with her hand again, his touch delicate, almost thoughtful. She wondered if that would be the way his fingers would move over her body. “I’m going away next week,” he said.

  “Oh? For how long?”

  “Till after Thanksgiving. I have some friends who have a house in the Berkshires, and they’re lending it to me to write. Actually, I’m house-sitting for them, so we’re all happy.”

  She felt both disappointed and reprieved. No decisions, no guilt. The safe, sweet longing of separation. “I think I’m going to miss you,” she said.

  “I’ll miss you. I wish you could come with me.”

  She pictured them making love under a feather comforter, in a room with wooden beams on the ceiling. There would be a window overlooking green and orange hills. She wondered if the leaves would have fallen by then. But this was her fantasy, and so the trees would be forever in full flame. “So do I,” she said.

  “Nature, fresh air, long walks. Get in the car and explore. But if you were there I wouldn’t get much work done.”

  “And Roger would never understand.”

  “Is it all right if I send you a postcard?”

  “Only if you write something really boring on it.”

  “Don’t worry. Boring writing is my trade.”

  “Your book is going to be wonderful,” Olivia said.

  “Thank you. I hope so. Will you read some chapters when I finish them?”

  “I’d be flattered.”

  They looked at each other across the table. She saw the child again in his face. “Will you have to be all by yourself on Thanksgiving?” she asked.

  “I’ll make friends,” he said cheerfully. “Someone will be sorry for me and invite me. They always do.”

  “Your family doesn’t get together?”

  “Yes, but you know, they’re French, so it’s not really their holiday, even though we always enjoy it.”

  “I love Thanksgiving,” Olivia said. She remembered how he had said he didn’t like being alone, how he needed someone so he could wander away and come back, knowing she was there. That person wasn’t herself, so maybe he would find her in the Berkshires. She hoped not.

  When it was time for her to leave, Marc kissed her good night in the street in front of the bar. This time his lips were not so tentative. She felt her head reel, and she kissed him back. They stood there kissing for a few moments and then they both pulled away. It was, after all, a public place and this was not a casual goodbye. But before he moved she felt the unmistakable hardness of his attraction to her. She felt giddily happy, irresistible. I could live for a month on this, she thought.

  “Goodbye,” he whispered. “I’ll call you as soon as I come back.”

  “Do.”

  She wanted to run after him to kiss him again, but she also wanted to go on to her orderly life, carrying this confidence with her. She began to walk home. She felt a little guilty toward Roger, but it made her feel as if she were at last as in control of their situation as he was. And then, as she walked through the streets that had become so comfortably familiar to her, she remembered her single days, and what she had always dreaded about an affair—it was the waiting, the imagining, the longing. It was, most of all, the obsession. She would have to be careful.

  24

 
THAT THANKSGIVING Olivia gave her annual feast for their friends. Alys, who had passed her first adult year of celibacy and was depressed about it, got drunk as usual, but not disorderly. Her single friend’s adopted baby was a year older and running around. One couple had broken up, so only he came to the party. Another couple, who had broken up but remained friends, each arrived with a different partner, and the four of them acted as if it were perfectly normal to be there chatting happily like a longstanding quartet. It was a year since Olivia had seen the cat scratch on Roger’s thigh and had let him delude her into thinking that it was nothing.

  She had received a picture postcard from Marc. It was of scenery, and as he had promised, his inscription was boring . . . but not to her. She put the card on her desk among a pile of papers and mail so it would look unimportant, and once in a while she ran her fingers over it, feeling her lips burn. She already knew it was possible to lust after him more when he wasn’t there than when he was. The feeling was safe but confusing.

  She kept asking herself what exactly she wanted from him. He made her feel confident, sensual and desirable again. He made her feel alive and silly. He wanted her, and she withheld what he wanted as if it were a game. She wondered if part of the excitement of their flirtation was that her still lurking anger made it a way of punishing Roger. She knew she liked her guilt because it made her feel strong. It made her love Roger more in a way, and want to protect him. She had always thought she was above such perfidy, but wouldn’t it be ironic if her anger had simply freed her to think of doing what Roger had already done?

  Marc came back between Thanksgiving and Christmas and they met for a drink. They sat side by side in a back booth in a small, dark bar and kissed. His hand was on her leg. They talked and kissed and kissed again, like teenagers with no home of their own to go to, and she had difficulty breathing.

  “Come to my apartment,” he whispered. “Please.”

  “You have no idea how much I wish I could.”

  “Then do.”

  “I can’t,” Olivia whispered, and sank again into his soft lips.

  “Get away from him and have dinner with me,” Marc said. “A whole evening. Think of it. . . .”

  Roger’s not a him, Olivia thought, defensive and offended for Roger, whom she loved and who had often been so good to her. She shook her head no, and smiled.

  “You could tell him you’re helping me with my book,” Marc said. “Giving me research material.”

  “Oh, right. I’m such a source of information. He’ll be bound to believe it.”

  “But he will. People believe almost anything. And you would be helping me, you could.”

  “Help you?”

  “Yes. You said you’d read some chapters.”

  “I will,” Olivia said. “Alone. Not with you, you’d distract me.”

  “I want to distract you.”

  “I know.” They smiled, and kissed while smiling. He rubbed his face against hers like a cat, put his head down and she massaged his neck.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing to me,” he said.

  “I have to go home now.” She looked into her compact mirror at the damage he had done to her mouth, and put on lipstick.

  “I can’t get up,” Marc said. “I have a hard-on.”

  She was flattered. “The semi-permanent affliction of the young,” she said lightly.

  “No, because of you.”

  “You make me happy,” she said. Their eyes locked. She knew she was glowing.

  “I could make you happier.”

  She looked away. “I know. I’m leaving now.”

  “What am I doing out with a married woman?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “You could become very dear to me,” he said. She smiled. What a nice way of saying he could fall in love with her without committing or saying that overused and threatening word.

  “I’m fond of you, too.”

  He held her hand and tapped it gently, pensively on the table. “Will you meet me next week? Then I’m going away skiing for Christmas.”

  “Are you!” She was both disappointed and relieved. Again the reprieve, but it seemed too soon. What did she expect? They both had lives of their own. “Where?”

  “The French Alps. And the whole family is going to spend Christmas in Paris with my grandmother.”

  Safe and far from here, she thought. She wondered if he would be going away if they were having an affair, and thought he would. “All right,” she said. “We’ll have a little pre-Christmas celebration.”

  I must never, never fall in love with him, she told herself.

  They met for their holiday drink in a different darkened bar. She felt like a spy, covering her trail. She had brought him a silly present: a tiny paper bag on a magnet, with a tinier toy bear inside it, wearing a Santa Claus cap. He gave her a CD of rock stars singing Christmas carols. It might have been something she would have bought for herself. He also gave her a manila envelope.

  “The first three chapters of my book,” he said.

  “Thank you!”

  “You have to call and tell me what you think before I go.”

  “Of course I will.”

  They drank champagne and looked into each other’s eyes. She wondered if he would be sleeping with a woman, or many women, over the holidays. She didn’t dare ask, because he could then reply that she would be sleeping with Roger. She didn’t want to part on a note like that. This was their own private place, their fantasy. But the question tormented her anyway.

  “Why do you have that odd look on your face?” he asked.

  “I was wondering if you were taking a date with you.”

  He smiled. “No.”

  “I guess there are lots of women there to . . .”

  “Go to bed with?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you care?”

  “Of course I would,” Olivia said lightly. “It’s selfish, but I would.”

  “Well, there are, but that doesn’t mean I will.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “An intelligent person would have to be crazy to be wild these days,” Marc said. “I’m very prudent.”

  “Good.”

  “You would be completely safe with me,” he said. “I can promise you that. Are you tempted yet?”

  “I’m always tempted,” she said. “I’ll miss you.”

  He inhaled her neck. “I’ll miss the way you smell.”

  “My perfume?”

  “Your skin. I can tell the difference.”

  “What do I smell like?”

  “Pure sex,” he said. She laughed.

  They fell upon each other’s mouths quite naturally by now—this was what they did. “I’m not going to ask you to come to my apartment,” he said. “I’m going to make you suffer.”

  “And ask you.”

  “Yes.”

  “I like that arrangement better.”

  “You won’t. You’ll think about me more than you expect when I’m away.”

  “I know I will.”

  “Do you want another postcard?”

  “Yes,” Olivia said. She stroked his silky black hair, his smooth cheek. He had always obviously shaved just before he met her, and this touched her. He wanted to look nice. He didn’t want to leave marks. If he had left a mark it would have been a disaster. Knowing he was leaving soon, she allowed herself to feel very tender. There was something about him that was strangely moving, and she felt a little flutter in her heart, like a leaf falling.

  “What are you thinking this minute?” Marc asked.

  That this is almost as bad as fucking, she thought guiltily: or worse because it’s so intimate. She was achingly aware that she was betraying Roger. “Nostalgic,” she said, thinking of Roger’s happy, welcoming face.

 
“Good,” Marc said. Of course he thought she meant she was nostalgic only for him.

  They said goodbye in the street, as always. But by now their arms were wrapped around each other, under their open coats. He felt so thin. As always, he had an erection for her, so hard she felt it was an intrusion to be so close to him and do nothing about it.

  “You see what you could have?” he said.

  “I would be so sad if you didn’t feel that way about me.”

  “You’re a terrible woman.”

  They kissed again, lingering, and finally she pulled away and left. On the way home she thought he was right; she was a terrible woman. She couldn’t figure out why he put up with her, why he still wanted her, what was in it for him. Maybe he was a masochist who wanted only what he couldn’t have: something wrong with him, a little off. Or maybe it had become a contest he was intent on winning. Or perhaps he was secretly madly in love with her, which would have been such a nice thing to believe.

  When she came home, Roger was lying on the couch. She was startled to see him; he was supposed to be at the gym. “Where have you been?” he asked.

  “You didn’t work out?”

  “No. I felt like I was coming down with a cold this afternoon so I thought it wouldn’t be a good idea.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry you’re feeling sick.” She went over and felt his forehead.

  “No fever,” he said.

  “What about if I send out for chicken soup?”

  “Where were you, anyway?” He didn’t sound suspicious or angry, just curious.

  “I had a drink with Marc Delon,” Olivia said. She could hardly believe this was her own voice coming out so calmly. She held up the manila envelope. “Remember I told you that he was writing a book? Maybe I didn’t tell you. Anyway, this is the first three chapters he wanted me to read.”

  “Why you?” Roger asked. He didn’t seem jealous, just surprised. She was hurt by his tone, which clearly implied she was not anyone to be consulted for her literary opinion. Well, maybe she wasn’t, but Marc cared what she thought of him.