Stones

by Marilyn Baron

  “That’s rich, coming from you.” Talk about role reversals. “What it boils down to is this. I’m not going to leave Matt. He needs me and I need him and I love him. I’m going to try harder. He’s my husband, and I want us to work things out if we can. And I don’t want you to contact me. No X-rated e-mails, no Internet come-ons. And if you do send me anything, make sure to screen it so it’s acceptable enough to show my husband. I’m sorry if that hurts you, but that’s the way I want it.”

  “I don’t even know you any more, Julie.”

  “I don’t think you ever did. I’m not that same starry-eyed teenager you seduced in college or the girl who hung on your every word in high school. That girl is gone. And you only have yourself to blame.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Manny demanded.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me. I just woke up and smelled the coffee.”

  “You don’t even drink coffee, and you can’t smell.”

  “Well, maybe that’s been my problem all along. I didn’t smell a rat when I saw one.”

  “And what if I threaten to tell Matt?” he says. Manny is the type who will follow through on his poisonous threats.

  “I’m going to tell him myself, about everything. He deserves that.”

  “You won’t tell him,” Manny challenges. “You can’t.”

  “I can and I will,” I respond. “Just watch me. I could call Nita and blow your marriage right out of the water. You’d have to kiss your cozy career goodbye. But I won’t do that to her. So relax. You’ll get away with it. It probably won’t be the first time, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

  As if to punctuate my statement, the bedroom door blows off its hinges, knocking us onto the floor.

  “Get into the closet,” I scream.

  “No, the bathroom is better,” he argues, dragging me with him around the corner of the room, probably saving my life. He closes the bathroom door behind us and we crawl onto the floor of the shower, pulling the mattress over us.

  This is not the time for an argument or a deep discussion. We are beyond exhausted, and too scared and stiff to move or tussle, like survivors of some great battle. So we verbally joust a minute more until we fall asleep facing away from each other under our respective duvet covers. Somehow, during the night, our positions shift.

  Chapter Twenty-Six:

  Let’s Start Now on Forever

  That’s how Matt finds us, huddled on the floor of the walk-in shower, tangled together like the pair of lifeless chipmunks I found last month curled around each other at the bottom of our pool, looking peaceful, like they were just asleep. The storm is over. It is still sprinkling. There’s a slight breeze, and I can see the sky through the opening in the roof.

  Matt nudges me awake with his toe. I am soaked and chilled, cramped and disoriented, when I finally rouse to focus on him. He is showing signs of exhaustion. His eyes are bloodshot. He looks like he’s been doing battle. But even at his worst, Matt is the best thing I’ve ever seen.

  “Matt, what are you doing here?” I smile, momentarily startled. Forgetting where I am, I scramble up to hug him, I am so glad to see him. But I can hardly stand. I have lost all feeling in my legs.

  He is staring at Manny and me in disbelief, looking genuinely perplexed and stunned to find Manny in our condo.

  “What are you doing here, Gellar?” he demands. “Get your Goddamn hands off my wife.”

  And then, for that split second, that one last moment before realization dawns on him, I am still innocent in his eyes. Until I see a lifetime of trust shatter, then break, and land with a sickening thud. It isn’t until that very moment that I realize the full consequences of my actions. Our easygoing relationship, though far from perfect, is gone, destroyed, by me. I see the look of hurt register in my husband’s eyes, and turn to betrayal and contempt, before it boils over into anger. And the blame lies squarely where it belongs. With me.

  I can lie and lay blame and make promises from now until the cows come home, and it won’t matter. I can tell him I’d blundered into it, but this tryst has “premeditated” stamped all over it. I am caught. What is done cannot be undone. I can never take back the hurt I’ve caused him.

  And then come the recriminations.

  “Did you have sex?” Matt asks, his voice tightly controlled. “I hope it was good, Julie. I know that’s what you wanted.”

  “No, we never—” But I catch myself when I realize how inadequate that sounds. I may not have followed through or done the deed, but I had wanted to, and the desire I felt was real, and just as damning. I had kissed Manny willingly and let him hold me, touch me, and I had enjoyed it. I was guilty of getting carried away and betraying Matt in every important way.

  “I’m sorry, Matt,” I say softly.

  “You’re sorry?” Matt is curt. “Is that all you have to say? How was it?”

  How can I explain to him that being with Manny again was everything I remembered and expected but it still wasn’t enough?

  “That good?” Matt ventures awkwardly when I can’t answer.

  “Matt, don’t.”

  “In our bed?”

  I shake my head remorsefully. At least not that.

  With deadly calm, and murder in his eyes, he drags Manny up by his shirt with both hands and jerks his rival to his shaky feet.

  “Do you know how much I want to tear you apart right now?” Matt seethes, his face turning an ugly, twisted shade of purple. “So help me, I want to kill you, dammit. And I will if you don’t get away from my wife and get out of here. The game’s over. I’m calling Nita. So go home to your own wife or go to hell. I don’t care. I don’t ever want to see you anywhere around Julie again. Is that clear?”

  “No, Matt,” I beg, as I stand before him. “I know you have every right to, but please don’t call Nita. She doesn’t know anything. It will just hurt her.” It surprises me that I want to protect the White Witch. Or am I still trying to protect Manny?

  “But it’s okay if I get hurt?” Matt says bitterly. “I never would have expected this from you, Julie. Never in a million years.

  “I don’t blame you, entirely,” Matt adds. “This creep knew you were vulnerable. He played you all though college. But you still can’t see through him to what he really is, can you?”

  Matt lets go of Manny in disgust. Manny looks at me, and I nod, indicating that he should leave. He looks relieved to get away from Matt’s grasp. And he can’t get away fast enough. All that bastard cares about is saving his own skin. He doesn’t even pretend he wants to defend me, defend us, fight for us. If I ever needed further proof about his character or his motivation, it is staring me right in the face.

  I think Manny knows that in a fight he’d come out the loser. He is taller and broader than Matt, but he has gone to seed. Matt is more compact, in much better shape, and angrier.

  “And Gellar,” Matt says, “I haven’t decided yet whether I’m going to call Nita. I’ll let you stew on that while you’re driving home.”

  Now Manny looks scared. In that brief blinding moment I wonder what it is I ever saw in him.

  Manny walks out of the bedroom and into the hall before I hear him shout. “Holy Shit! Jesus. The whole side of the condo is gone. There’s nothing left. Oh, my God!”

  A few minutes later he risks wandering back to the guest bedroom.

  “The elevator isn’t working. How am I supposed to get down?”

  “You could try jumping,” Matt suggests. “Oh, and Gellar, I hope your car wasn’t parked in the garage.”

  Manny’s face twists.

  “Water washed away the garage and the first floor,” Matt reports. “What kind of car were you driving?”

  “A blue BMW,” Manny answers, not realizing Matt is baiting him. He already knows.

  “You mean that fancy sports car I just saw floating in the pool?”

  Manny swears and runs out the bedroom door to look down at the pool. Then he starts making his way down.

&n
bsp; “That was mean, Matt.”

  “I wasn’t joking,” he says, almost smiling. “He can try climbing down, but I’m not taking a chance with you. We’ll wait here until the police come. What about your car? I didn’t see it when I came in.”

  “It’s parked at The Home Depot,” I answer.

  “You hate The Home Depot,” Matt says.

  “I had this idea that I could fix our marriage myself,” I explain lamely.

  Matt has spent a lifetime trying to make sense of my convoluted logic, but he still looks stymied.

  “And, well, I guess I thought that if I left my car there, it wasn’t like I was really going to the condo to, you know—”

  “I think cheat is the word you’re looking for.”

  I could only stare hopelessly at him.

  “Julie,” he ventures, in a more serious voice, low and level and infused with hurt. “I think you owe me an explanation.” He is standing right in front of me, arms folded, looking straight into my eyes.

  I have never seen Matt this angry, and it is one hundred percent worse because his anger is directed right at me like a laser and I cannot deflect it. I cannot get the words out.

  “I know things haven’t been great between us. But I never believed you would do anything like this.” He leaves the accusatory words hanging there.

  I look at him and still can’t find my voice. Then I look down.

  “How long?” he demands. “How long has this been going on? Look at me, Julie.” He grabs my chin roughly and forces my face back into his line of sight. I flinch.

  “Don’t bury your head in the sand, Scarlett. For once, face up to what you’ve done.” His breath is coming out in short, heavy spurts.

  Matt has never been this cruel to me or anyone else. But it is no less than I deserve.

  “Why would you do this to me? Have I ever given you cause to behave this way? I’ve never so much as looked at another woman or had thoughts of anyone else. And don’t think I haven’t had plenty of opportunities. But it was you, always you, for me.”

  I can barely speak. I am suffocating. Something is welling up in the pit of my stomach and choking my air passage. At least I don’t have to run far for the bathroom. Without moving, I vomit into the duvet cover.

  “Now you know how I feel,” Matt rages. “You make me sick, both of you. Go clean yourself up. You stink of him.” He is not ready to let his anger go. Cringing, I walk over to the sink and, finding that the water system doesn’t work, realize I can’t even rinse off the scent of shame and the stench of my betrayal.

  “How long have you been making a fool of me?” he rants. I have never seen Matt so out of control, never even caught a glimpse of his temper. I didn’t know Matt had a darker dimension. Apparently, there is a lot I don’t know about my husband, have never bothered to learn.

  “I know it doesn’t change anything or excuse my actions, but this is the first time we’ve seen each other, and we really didn’t do anything. You have to believe me, Matt,” I finally manage, speaking quietly while I wipe my mouth with a paper towel. “We met here yesterday. It was supposed to be for lunch. Only for lunch.”

  “That’s weak, Julie. That’s like saying you’re only a little bit pregnant.”

  “And then the storm came,” I say, refusing to be derailed, desperately needing to explain. “We had been in touch on line before that. He couldn’t get home because of the storm. I’m sorry. So sorry.”

  “Do you honestly expect me to believe that you never saw your old boyfriend on all those trips you took to Miami this past year?”

  “That’s not why I—” I look down at the pattern in the tile floor. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry,” Matt rants. “You’re carrying on with your old boyfriend behind my back and that’s all you can say? Admit it—you never got over him, did you? Did you ever love me, Julie?”

  “I did love you,” I say, then correct myself. “I do love you.” I mean it, too. A lump is forming in my throat, and I know I am going to cry, but I try hard to hold back the tears. “When he started e-mailing me, things between you and me were, well, you know how they were. You were gone all the time. I was so alone. I thought you didn’t want me anymore. You never, we never, well, I thought maybe you and that woman from Germany… God, Matt, I thought it was over between us anyway. I still had a lot of unresolved feelings for Manny. I had to find out whether there was anything there. I wanted it to stop. Matt, there’s no comparison between you. You’re so nice and he’s so—”

  “I’m tired of being a nice guy,” Matt says scornfully. “You don’t like nice guys. You seem to gravitate toward scumbags like Gellar. Did you know when he first introduced us, he gave you a half-hearted endorsement and made it clear the package came with a warning? Hands Off.”

  “The package?” I am confused.

  “You,” Matt clarifies. “I spent our first date wondering why he was just handing you over to me. I thought there had to be something wrong with you. Then I tried to resist you, and by our second date, I couldn’t, and then it was too late. All bets were off, and I went after you. By the time I figured out his angle, I realized that your old boyfriend had no intention of ever handing you over to anyone. He was just creating a diversion to keep you hanging on, grateful and dazzled by his power to arrange things.”

  “He wasn’t my boyfriend,” I protest, sick about this further evidence of Manny’s manipulation.

  “Well, then he was the biggest fool on the planet. Look, if you were so unhappy, then why didn’t you come to me, tell me? Talk to me, before you ran off to him in Miami?”

  I answer only after an uncomfortable silence. “I don’t know. Matt, I didn’t go to Miami to see Manny. I went to help out at Stones…and to see Little Jon.”

  “Little Jon?”

  “He was helping me to—I was depressed—and he was helping me with that, helping me to get better.”

  “Jesus.” I can’t read the look in Matt’s eyes. Disbelief? Fury? Disgust? Guilt?

  Matt takes a deep breath and shudders, trying to process this new information, Manny’s presence in our condo, everything. “Julie?”

  He is pleading with me for verification, and I nod.

  “And you couldn’t tell me? Little Jon never said a word to me.”

  “No, I couldn’t talk about it. I made Little Jon swear not to tell you or Mackie. I was too embarrassed. Matt, I have to know, is it over with us?”

  I watch my husband with a mixture of emotions. What I want more than anything is his forgiveness, though I know that’s the last thing I deserve. I want our life to be the way it was before. Take me back, Matt, please.

  “I know, that’s up to you, but I hope not,” I say in answer to my question. “I do love you, Matt, and I love being your wife. What I did was unforgivable, I know that. I did what felt good at the time. I didn’t think about how it would hurt you, what it would do to us. I just didn’t think. Will you ever be able to forgive me?”

  “I don’t know if I can,” Matt answers truthfully. “I don’t know what happens next. I can’t stop thinking about him touching you, kissing you, screwing you. Oh, God, Julie.”

  “He didn’t. We didn’t. I promise you, Matt. It didn’t get that far.” Matt is still scowling.

  “When I couldn’t reach you, I imagined the worst,” Matt says. “But I was wrong. This is worse. I’m going to need some time…” Rubbing his face with his fists to hold back the tears, he continues, “Time to get over this, if I can. It hurts, Julie.”

  “Can we talk about it?” I ask. “It’s something we needed to do a long time ago, I know.”

  “What I need is some time alone to think, away from you,” he says, reaching out to touch me, seeming to need the physical contact, then reconsidering and pulling back his hand. “But right now we don’t have that luxury. We’re stuck here until someone rescues us. So I guess, yes, we don’t have any choice.”

  Then his shoulders heave, and I think he is going to break down.
I want to comfort him, but I can hardly do that, since I am the source of his agony.

  And the miracle is he doesn’t make me wait any longer. He meets me more than halfway. He doesn’t even hesitate. He looks deflated, like he is winding down, his anger spent. The mad just goes out of him as quickly as it has come on, and his face crumples.

  Suddenly he is pulling me into his strong arms and holding me against his sturdy body. Just holding me. He is holding on so tight I think he might smother me. I lose control and clutch at his shirt and can’t stop sobbing as I burrow my head into his chest.

  Then I wrap my arms around his back in a death grip and hold on for dear life. But I can’t look at him yet.

  “I made a horrible mistake, Matt, I’m so sorry,” I keep repeating. “So sorry.”

  “God, Julie, I thought you were dead,” Matt says as a flood of emotion pours out of him. “I was so worried. You could have been killed. The storm was stalled on the coast, and then it took a turn at the last minute. By the time it came ashore on Palm Coast, it had intensified into a Category Five. It was a direct hit, with a monster storm surge, and a tornado that ripped right through the place like it was a Caribbean shack. When I got here and saw the rubble, I thought I’d lost you.”

  “I’m okay, Matt. You can see that I am. You haven’t lost me.”

  Matt still looks desperate.

  “Not to the storm,” he whispered, and then I understood.

  “Do you hate me?” I ask, licking away at the salty tears streaming out of my eyes and staining his shirt.

  “I hate what you did to me, to us, but I could never hate you,” he assures, trying to compose himself. “I called your cell about a million times,” says Matt, who isn’t normally given to hyperbole.

  “I turned it off to conserve the battery in case of an emergency,” I explain.

  “You didn’t consider this hurricane an emergency?” Matt asks, bewildered but not surprised.

  I shrug, and he massages my shoulders.