No Way Back: A Novel

by Andrew Gross

  “She used to record with Basie back in the day.” He pointed to a stylishly dressed black woman and an older white man at one of the round tables. “That’s Rosie Miller. She used to record with Miles Davis. Maybe she’ll get up later.”

  “You’re in the business?” I asked. I mean, he did kind of look the part.

  “No. Play a little though. Just for fun. My dad was actually an arranger back in the seventies and eighties. He . . . anyway, I don’t want to bore you with all that,” he said, shrugging and stirring his drink.

  I took a sip of mine and caught his gaze. “You’re not boring me at all.”

  A couple came in and went to take the two seats that were in between us, so Mr. Cutie picked up his drink and slid deftly around them, and asked, motioning to the seat next to me, “Do you mind?”

  Truth was, I didn’t. I was actually kind of enjoying it. And I did have a rescue plan, if necessary. I checked the time: 7:25. Wherever the hell Pam was!

  “So this friend of yours,” he asked with a coy half smile, “is she real or imaginary? Because if she’s imaginary, not to worry. I have several imaginary friends of my own back in Boston. We could set them up.”

  “Oh, that would be nice.” I laughed. “But I’m afraid she’s quite real. At least she was this summer. She and her husband were in Spain with me and my . . .”

  I was about to say my husband, of course, but something held me back. Though by this time I assumed he had taken note of the ring on my finger. Still, I couldn’t deny this was fun, sitting there with an attractive man who was paying me a little attention, still reeling from my argument with Dave.

  Then he said, “I suspect there’s probably an imaginary husband back at home as well . . .”

  “Right now”—I rolled my eyes and replied in a tone that was just a little digging—“I’m kind of wishing he was imaginary!” Then I shook my head. “That wasn’t nice. Tequila talking. We just had a little row last night. Subject for tonight with friend.”

  “Ah. Sorry to hear. Just a newlywed spat, I’m sure,” he said, teasing. This time I was sure he was flirting.

  “Yeah, right.” I chortled at the flattery. “Going on ten years.”

  “Wow!” His eyes brightened in a way that I could only call admiring. “Well, I hope it’s okay if I say you surely don’t look it! I’m Curtis, by the way.”

  I hesitated, thinking maybe I’d let things advance just a bit too far. Though I had to admit I wasn’t exactly minding it. And maybe in a way I was saying to my husband, So see, David, there are consequences to being a big, fat jerk!

  “Wendy,” I said back. We shook hands. “But it sure would be nice to know where the hell Pam is. She was supposed to be here twenty minutes ago.” I checked the time on my phone.

  “Would it be all right if I order up another of whatever you’re drinking?” He raised his palms defensively. “Purely for the imaginary friend, of course . . .”

  “Of course,” I said, playing along. “But no. One more of these and I’ll be up at that piano myself! And trust me, I wasn’t playing with anyone in the eighties . . . Anyway”—I shrugged, deadpan—“she only drinks imaginary vodka.”

  Curtis grinned. “I’m acquainted with the bartender. Let me see what I can do.”

  My iPhone vibrated. Pam, I was sure, announcing she was pulling up to the hotel now and for me to get a dirty martini going for her. But instead it read:

  WEND, I’M SO SORRY. JUST CAN’T MAKE IT TONITE. WHAT CAN I SAY . . . ? I KNOW U NEED TO TALK. TOMORROW WORK?

  Tomorrow? Tomorrow didn’t work. I was here. Now. And she was right, I did need to talk. And the last place I wanted to be right now was home. Will call, I wrote back, a little annoyed. I put down the phone. My eyes inevitably fell on Curtis’s. I’d already missed the 7:39.

  “Sure, why don’t we do just that?” I nodded about that drink.

  I’m not sure exactly what made me stay.

  Maybe I was still feeling vulnerable from my fight with Dave. Or even a little annoyed at Pam, who had a habit of bagging out when I needed her most. I suppose you could toss in just a bit of undeniable interest in the present company.

  Whatever it was, I did.

  Knowing Dave was out for the night on business and that it was all just harmless anyway helped as well. And that there was a train every half hour. I could leave anytime I wanted.

  We chatted some more, and Curtis said he was a freelance journalist here in town on a story. And I chuckled and told him that I was kind of in the same game too. That I’d actually worked for the Nassau County police in my twenties before going to law school for a year—having signed up after 9/11, after my brother, a NYPD cop himself, was killed—though I was forced to resign after a twelve-year-old boy was killed in a wrongful-death judgment. And that I’d written this novel about my experience, which was actually why I’d been in the city today at a self-publishing conference. That I’d been having a tough time getting it looked at by anyone, and that it likely wasn’t very good anyway.

  “Care to read it?” I asked. I tapped the tote bag from my publishing conference. “Been lugging it around all day.”

  “I would,” Curtis said, “but I’m afraid it’s not exactly my field.”

  “Just joking,” I said. “So what is your field?”

  He shrugged. “I’m a bit more into current events.”

  I was about to follow up on that when the pianist finished her set. The crowded room gave her a warm round of applause. She got up and came over to the end of the bar, ordered a Perrier, and to my surprise, when it arrived, lifted it toward Curtis. “All warmed up, sugar.”

  Curtis stood up. I looked at him wide-eyed. He shot me a slightly apologetic grin. “I did mention that I played . . .”

  “You said a bit, for fun,” I replied.

  “Well, you’ll be the judge. Look, I know you have a train to catch, and I don’t know if you’ll be around when I’m done”—he put out his hand—“but it was fun to chat with you, if you have to leave.”

  “I probably should,” I said, glancing at the time. “It was nice to talk to you as well.”

  “And best of luck,” he said, pointing as he backed away, “with that imaginary friend of yours.”

  “Right! I’ll be sure to tell her!” I laughed.

  He sat down at the piano, and I swiveled around, figuring I’d stick around a couple of minutes to hear how he played. But from the opening chords that rose magically from his fingers, just warming up, it was clear it was me he was playing when he coyly said he only played “a little.”

  I was dumbstruck, completely wowed. The guy was a ten! He wasn’t just a dream to look at, and charming too—he played like he was totally at one with the instrument. He had the ease and polish of someone who clearly had been doing this from an early age. His fingers danced across the keyboard and the sounds rose as if on a cloud, then drifted back to earth as something beautiful. It had been a long time since goose bumps went down my arms over a guy.

  Donna St. James leaned over. “You ever hear him before, honey?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “His father arranged a bunch of us back in the day. Sit back. You’re in for a treat.”

  I did.

  The first thing he played was this sumptuous, bluesy rendition of Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” and the handful of customers who were paying their checks, preparing to leave, started listening. Even the bartender was listening. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Whatever my definition of sexy had been an hour ago, forget it—he was definitely rewriting it for me now.

  I didn’t leave.

  I just sat there, slowly nursing my margarita, growing more and more intoxicated, but not by the drink. By the time he segued into a sultry version of the Beatles’ “Hey Jude,” it was as if his soul had risen from that keyboard and knotted itself with mine.

  Our eyes came together a couple of times, my smile communicating, Okay, so I’m impressed . . . The twinkle in his
eye simply saying he was happy I was still there.

  By the time he finished up with Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind,” goose bumps were dancing up and down my arms with the rise and fall of his fingers along the keys. With a couple of margaritas in me—and fifteen years from the last time anyone looked at me quite that way—the little, cautioning voice that only a few minutes back was going, Wendy, this is crazy, you don’t do this kind of thing, had gone completely silent.

  And when our eyes seemed to touch after his final note and didn’t separate, not for a while, I knew, sure as I knew my own name, that I was about to do something I could never have imagined when I walked into the place an hour before. Something I’d never, ever done before.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ten minutes later we were up in his room, my coat and bag strewn on the floor, one meaningless comment about the view before my breath seemed to jump out of my skin the second he touched me and backed me against the wall.

  I was waiting for that voice inside to go, Hold it, just a second, Wendy. You know this isn’t right.

  But what I seemed to want even more was for his hands to be all over me. Under my top. Beneath my skirt. Electrical shocks dancing all over my body. Places I hadn’t let another man touch me in years.

  In a second his mouth was on mine, and I kissed him back just as eagerly. I felt the feel of his tongue dance against mine, just as I had watched his fingers dance along the keys. Then he traced a meandering path with his lips along my neck, my breaths leaping. His hand slid inside my skirt and down my rear, and I felt a shiver travel down my thighs and my heartbeat go out of control. My mind was like a dark vault, shutting out any thoughts of whether this was right or wrong.

  I lifted my arms and let him pull me out of my sweater. I undid my thick, dark hair, letting it drape all over him, every cell inside me bursting with desire. He lifted me up against the blue, Japanese-wallpapered wall, my arms around his neck, and we knocked into the bamboo desk, sending the hotel directory onto the floor, not even stopping to go “Oops” or acknowledge it. Every time his lips brushed along my skin, my body seemed to explode, as if a live electrical cord was jumping around in it, amazed at what I was letting him do. Eyes locked on each other, he pulled my bra straps off my shoulders, my heart speeding up and getting stronger.

  “There’s a perfectly good bed over there,” he said, his own breaths growing short and rapid.

  “I know. There is.” Then I kissed him again and almost smothered him in my hair, feeling the zipper on the back of my skirt being drawn down, the leather wiggling down my thighs, the click and tug of his belt becoming undone . . .

  A part of me was going, Yes, yes, take me over. The bed.

  Another part went, The hell with the bed . . . I’m ready . . . here. Now . . .

  Now.

  And then something stopped.

  Inside me. Like the emergency brake pulled on a train.

  It was as if that one shuddering sound, the click of his belt buckle being undone, shot through me like cold water reviving an unconscious man, rocketing me back to earth.

  Instantly awakening me to the reality of what I was doing.

  It suddenly shot through me just how incredibly wrong this was. Wrong what I was letting him do. Wrong to even be here, in this room.

  Wrong to betray a marriage I had worked so hard to make successful. To do this to someone who I knew I loved. And who loved me! How maybe I was only doing this to get back at him.

  Just wrong.

  And then this overwhelming feeling of dread wormed through me. Of how, when trust is broken, like that first crack in a dam about to give way, it only leads to more and more pressure against it until it can no longer hold. And then it bursts. Not just your marriage, but your whole life. Whatever was truthful in it. It all just starts to crumble and wash away. Everything. And how this was that first crack, what I was doing now. And how you couldn’t do it, Wendy . . . You just couldn’t unless you were willing to take that risk. That everything will go.

  Which I wasn’t willing to take.

  No matter how it may have felt downstairs. Or even a moment ago.

  No, I didn’t want it all to burst.

  Something came out of my mouth that a minute earlier would have been the farthest thing from my mind. From my desires.

  “Stop,” I said.

  Maybe a little under my breath at first; it could have been mistaken for a shudder or a sigh. I wasn’t even sure Curtis actually heard me. He was slowly weaving his tongue along my belly, getting lower, eliciting electric waves.

  But then I said it again. Louder. “Please . . . stop. I can’t.” My hands went to his shoulders and I eased him slightly away.

  This time he looked up.

  “Curtis, I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

  My skin was on fire and slick with sweat, and part of me was begging to just say, Fuck it, and let him carry me over to that bed. But the better part of me drew in the deepest, most determined breath I’d ever drawn.

  “I can’t.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Curtis gave me an uncomprehending smile, slowly rising.

  “No. I’m not. I know how this must seem. But I just can’t. I’m sorry. It’s just not right.” I blew out a breath. “Curtis, you’re a totally irresistible guy, and I know there’s a part of me that is going to one hundred percent regret this in an hour on the train . . .” I shook my head. “But I can’t do this with you. I thought it was okay. Even a minute ago it seemed so. But it’s not.” I let my hand fall to his face, and I looked into his confused, almost incredulous eyes. I didn’t know how he was going to react. Clearly, I’d played as much a part as he had in getting us up here.

  The fire in my eyes was suddenly replaced by tears. “I’m so sorry. I just can’t.”

  He blinked.

  I wasn’t sure exactly what was going through him. Confusion. Frustration. Disbelief.

  Absolutely disbelief.

  And there was a moment when I admit it crossed my mind, Shit, Wendy, you’re up here with a guy you don’t know. No telling what he might do now.

  But all he did was take a step back and nod, slowly, resignation seeming to drown the ardor. He glanced down, his jeans undone, my skirt down around my thighs, my black panties drawn. My hand now covering my breasts; breasts that only a moment ago I was willingly offering up to him.

  “I’m totally embarrassed,” I said, putting my other hand in front of my face.

  My face that was now flushed with shame.

  He nodded. Thankfully, not the nod of someone who was about to do something crazy, which I guess, in another situation, could have been the case. More like the nod of someone caught by the total absurdity of what had just happened. Clothes strewn all over the floor. Pants down. Sweat covering both of us. Breathing heavily.

  “No chance this is simply your particular spin on foreplay?” He smiled hopefully. A last-ditch plea.

  “I wish it was.” I shrugged, pushing the hair out of my face. “It would probably make the whole situation a lot easier. Sorry.”

  His nod seemed almost dazed. “Figured it was worth a check.”

  He took the waist of my skirt and shimmied it back up, letting out a deep sigh, as if to say, I can’t believe I’m actually doing this.

  “Thank you,” I said. “You’re really a saint for not making me feel like a total shit.”

  “I’m not sure the word saint exactly applies right now.”

  “You’re right.” I just stood there covering myself, bursting with embarrassment. I shrugged. “I think I need to straighten up.”

  He nodded resignedly. “Bathroom’s over there.”

  About as awkwardly as I’d felt since maybe back in college, I scurried around, covering myself up with my bra, and picked up my sweater off the floor, my bag that had spilled over on the floor, my boots. “I can assure you, I haven’t been in this position in about twenty years.”

  Curtis just looked on and picked up his own shirt. �
�You can trust me, neither have I!”

  With my bra and my sweater covering me, my handbag dangling from my arm, I turned at the bathroom door, grinning. “I suppose this isn’t a particularly good time to ask you again to take a look at my novel?”

  “No,” Curtis said, unable to hold back his laugh. “Definitely not.”

  “Thought as much.” I forced a rueful smile. “I’ll be out in a while.”

  I closed the door behind me and took a deep, releasing breath as I looked in the mirror. My face was profusely blushing with shame. How had I let it get this far? I knew I could never tell anyone. Surely not Dave. Never. Not even Pam. No, this one was mine to deal with and try to rationalize. In a way I felt lucky. Lucky I had come to my senses when I did. Lucky Curtis was actually a decent guy. It could have been a whole lot worse.

  Lucky I hadn’t done something that I’d look at with shame for the rest of my life.

  I ran the cold water, wet a washcloth and pressed it to my flushed face. I put my arms back through my bra and started to brush out my hair, until I began to resemble a manageably put-together version of the person who had come up here a few minutes before—though still far too ashamed to even look at myself fully. I threw on my sweater and straightened myself out. Even dabbed on a little makeup and lip gloss. Then I took a breath. Okay, Wendy, now, you have to face him one more time and make your way home. And then go on with your life and pretend like this never even happened. And when Pam asks you about that cute guy at the bar you were texting about, it’s “What guy?” I merely finished my drink and caught the 7:39 and was home by Law & Order . . . right?

  I blew out a final, steadying breath and steeled myself, when suddenly, over the running water, I heard something coming from the bedroom.

  Voices. At first I just thought it was Curtis on the phone.

  Then I realized I was hearing someone else’s voice as well. Another man. I turned the water down slightly and listened. This was already embarrassing enough. The last thing I needed was to face anyone else.

  I cracked the bathroom door open and peeked out.