Lost in His Eyes

by Andrew Neiderman

  And yet what did it really mean that, after all these years, Ronnie didn’t have an inkling about my affair? Was it his indifference to me or my ability to disguise and hide the truth from him? Rarely did I ever show interest in any other man. I even hesitated to point out a good-looking actor. It was as if I thought I might open up some floodgate and all my doubts and complaints would come pouring out in the open.

  I had told Lancaster that many marriages depended on little lies, a little dishonesty – some marriages more than others. For those marriages, cold truth was debilitating and broke them down too quickly. Perhaps we were always one of those marriages. Maybe I shouldn’t have sounded so condescending and ridiculed the little lies everyone seems to need in order to remain viable, above water. Yes, every marriage needs some subterfuge, some mystery, and when the two of you get so familiar with everything about each other, the romance suffers. By definition, love diminishes, I suppose.

  What about Ronnie? I saw the way he looked at other women, but I also saw that shyness, almost a fear in him when it came to doing much more than just look. If another woman returned his gaze and smiled at him, his face would flush like someone who was struggling to breathe. If he has done anything extramarital, he would have to be one helluva good liar, I thought. I really did believe he felt I was quite enough for him. Did his friends tease him about that? Would he even say such a thing to them?

  Was I being naive? My own behavior now made me question everything about his. Here I was, practically congratulating myself on how well I was hiding my affair, when it could be me who was the cuckolded spouse. What an irony that would be! Actually, if he was having an affair, that would explain why he was so oblivious to mine. But he was still seeking out sex with me, while I wasn’t the initiator with him. That has to mean something, doesn’t it? Or was he that good at keeping his extramarital relationships hidden? Maybe I’m too arrogant for my own good, I thought. What if I did discover his betrayal? Would I even mention it, considering what I was doing?

  These thoughts kept me up longer than I had anticipated. I heard him enter the house, put out the lights and start up the stairway. Better to fake sleep, I thought. He surprised me, however, by being a little noisier than usual. Accidentally, or perhaps deliberately, he walked into the small bench at the foot of our bed.

  ‘Sorry,’ I heard him say. I didn’t move or respond. He went into the bathroom and didn’t close the door as softly as he usually did.

  When he came out, he bounced on the bed instead of slipping softly under the blanket.

  ‘OK,’ I said, turning. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Oh, you’re awake?’

  ‘Either that or I’m talking in my sleep. I’d have to be in a coma not to be awakened.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  ‘It smells like a brewery in here.’

  ‘I washed my face and brushed my teeth. You’re just supersensitive.’

  Lancaster’s excuse. How ironic.

  ‘That must be it.’

  ‘How come you didn’t say you were going out when I called?’

  ‘She called after.’

  ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘Flora Anthony. She was on my dorm floor. We did a geology project together.’

  ‘I don’t remember her.’

  ‘She’s easy to forget, which is what I’ll return to doing.’

  ‘Why did you go out with her, then?’

  ‘I thought it would be better than eating alone. It turned out to be almost the same thing.’

  ‘I thought you would eat with Kelly.’

  ‘She had a girlfriend over. I was hoping to talk about something else besides girls who are doing too many selfies and the pros and cons of body piercing.’

  ‘What’s a selfie?’

  ‘Taking pictures of yourself and emailing them all over the universe. You should be the one having dinner with Kelly so you can learn to speak teenager.’

  ‘Sorry, but you’ve never minded my going to a game with the guys and since—’

  ‘I’m not blaming anything on you, Ronnie. I hope you had a good time.’

  ‘Yeah, we did. It was a great game. So you want to go back to work for sure? I’m not pressuring you to do it. That wasn’t my intention. I merely suggested that—’

  ‘Can we talk about this tomorrow? I was in the middle of this dream where I was waterskiing in Nice, on that European trip we never took.’

  He laughed.

  ‘OK, goodnight,’ he said and turned over.

  I’m getting very good at this deception thing, I thought.

  Is that something I want to be good at?

  Wasn’t I much more transparent these past years? How many times do we change in a lifetime? I wondered. Am I anything like the woman I was just before I met Ronnie and immediately afterward? Did a serious relationship and the marriage that followed take me off the path I had been following and expose me to feelings and thoughts I never had even imagined? If your surroundings, the people you love and who love you, and everything else you’re exposed to and experience shape and influence you before you were married, why can’t all that be true afterward?

  After all, you make so many compromises. You find yourself laughing at things you might never have laughed at previously. Your opinions about so many things change, and not because your husband dominates you so much as because you seek a smoother, less complicated direction to take or accept. Specifically, your thoughts about sex, about what you would do, change. You might eat foods you never really liked, go to places you’d rather avoid, and tolerate friends you wouldn’t spend five minutes with before you were married. You would do this all in the name of love and marriage, and then, after you’ve had children, you do it mostly for them, so the world they are growing up in isn’t full of static. I knew many women who wouldn’t hesitate to fight with their husbands in front of their children, but it wasn’t something I was comfortable doing.

  It wasn’t that Ronnie took advantage of all this. I could see that he simply and probably naively assumed so much about me, about us. Right now, it didn’t occur to him that I wouldn’t agree with his political thoughts, or that I would dislike to make something he enjoyed eating. It was as if he believed that I would always trim and cut around my thoughts and feelings so they would slip in comfortably beside his own. He was confident that my surrender or compromise was part of that famous female DNA I tossed around so lightly when I spoke to Kelly.

  Was that faith or arrogance and selfishness? Should I dislike him for wanting us to ride on smooth waters, or should I rock the boat and condemn him for not seeing me as more of an individual? Many of the women I knew did that, some so vigorously that they defeated their own marriages. I gave up my maiden name when we were married, but did I give up something so essential to my identity that I lost all connection with the woman I had been? Did I have to join some female talk group to get the answers?

  I glanced at Ronnie who had already fallen asleep. Kelly’s questions had stirred some old fears. He was different, too. He still had that edge in business, but he had lost something vital when he grew comfortable and confident about me. When we were dating, as when all couples first date, there was a vivid, hovering fear that something will be said or done that will abruptly end it. Maybe that was good.

  Maybe I was seeing Lancaster, this forbidden man, hearing him and admiring him because he embodied that danger, that edge, and somehow, in some way, I hoped and expected it would bring it all back to Ronnie. As Lancaster had said, he wouldn’t be here forever and he had yet to propose that I go off with him.

  Was I dreaming? Rationalizing? Justifying my sins so I could go on?

  I turned over and closed my eyes so I could imagine Lancaster walking into our bedroom softly and slipping under the blanket beside me. His embrace, feeling his muscular body, being nudged and teased by his erection aroused me. I held my breath. Could Ronnie, even in his sleep, sense my sexual energy?

  I heard his heavy, regular breathing. We s
lept beside each other, but we had taken the sleep train in different directions, which somehow, miraculously, brought us to the same station every morning.

  I curled comfortably, safely, and bathed in my fantasy, even moaning a little about the pleasure.

  Ronnie never heard or sensed it, probably because he was already buried in his own.

  SIX

  I was up ahead of him, ahead of both of them, in the morning. I needed a cup of coffee and went down for it with the intensity of an addict. Although I hadn’t drunk very much the night before while waiting for Lancaster, I felt like I had a hangover, as if my brain had turned to cement. I didn’t descend so much as slowly sink down the stairway, taking a deep breath and then holding the air in, as if bubbles would emanate from my lips and nostrils otherwise. After I managed the coffee, I floated on to the chair at the kitchen table and hovered over my steaming cup, clasping it like a Neanderthal cherishing the first sparks of a new fire. The caffeine would burn in my blood and open curtains, raise shades and unlock doors.

  Kelly came down first. She, too, looked as if she was walking in her sleep, traveling down the road to some wonderland of her own making. Her eyelids opened and closed like the lid on our mailbox, accepting the incoming messages of light and shapes so she wouldn’t walk into anything. Her ears were still clogged with the voices and sounds of last night’s dreams. I could tell she didn’t even realize I was sitting at the table.

  ‘Were you texting late last night again, Kelly?’

  ‘What? Oh. I didn’t see you there, Mom. How long have you been up?’

  ‘Way longer than you. I just got up.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  She poured herself a cup of coffee and took a health bar out of the refrigerator.

  ‘Are you remembering to take your vitamins?’ I asked.

  ‘What vitamins?’ she replied and then laughed. ‘Yeah, sometimes. Mrs Norton, the school nurse, says we don’t need them if we eat a balanced diet.’

  ‘I haven’t heard that since I don’t know when. Who eats a balanced diet?’

  ‘Mrs Norton,’ she replied and slid into a chair across from me like a soccer goalie retreating to the safety of her zone.

  ‘You should have some juice, too, Kelly. I’m going to make some scrambled eggs for your father and me.’

  She put her finger in her open mouth.

  ‘Thanks for stirring my appetite,’ I said, and she laughed.

  ‘Actually, I was up texting. Art Williams texted me last night,’ she said after taking a long sip of her coffee and a bite of her bar.

  I stared at her blankly. I don’t know how many names she tossed across the table when we ate or at me when I was driving her somewhere, but she always expected I would somehow remember who everyone she mentioned was. She could be halfway through a story before I had a chance to ask about whom exactly she was talking. From the expression on my face at the moment, she could see I had no idea who she was talking about this time either.

  ‘Art Williams? His father is a homicide detective, remember?’

  ‘Vaguely. So?’

  ‘He said he thought he saw you at Gianni’s.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What a coincidence, huh? He and his father picked up his mother from her flight at LAX and stopped at Gianni’s to eat on the way home. Turns out it’s a favorite of his father’s.’

  I continued to just stare at her.

  ‘He said he wasn’t sure it was you, so he didn’t come over to say hello. He said you were in the bar at a table alone. Were you?’

  I sat back, finished my coffee and stood.

  ‘I’m going to make some scrambled eggs for your father and myself. Last chance. Do you want any?’

  ‘No. Hello. I never have a big appetite in the morning, Mom. Why were you in the bar?’

  ‘I was waiting for my friend. She was late, so rather than sit alone at a table in the restaurant, I sat at a table in the bar.’

  She looked astonished.

  ‘The last woman executed for that was in something like 1428, Kelly.’

  ‘Your friend was late and she had to leave early?’

  I spun round. ‘What’s with the questions, Kelly?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It was a long way to go for so short a time. Weren’t you upset?’

  ‘I doubt that I’ll give it any more thought for the rest of my life,’ I replied. ‘And I intend to live for a long time.’

  ‘Did you end up eating in the bar?’

  I took out the eggs.

  ‘I mean, that’s what I told Art. I told him that was probably why they didn’t see you in the restaurant itself. He said you were gone by the time they left.’

  I didn’t reply. I started to make the scrambled eggs. Ronnie was coming down the stairs.

  ‘Art Williams is one of those people who tell you every little detail of what they’re doing, even what they’re thinking. Facebook was made for him especially. He’s always on describing what he’s eating or something. Sometimes, it’s plain gross – like he found a piece of something he ate yesterday between his teeth.’

  ‘Don’t turn on your computer.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ she said, as if I had told her not to drink water.

  ‘Morning, girls. You two look wide awake,’ he said, going for the coffee.

  ‘Looks deceive,’ I replied. He laughed.

  ‘Who won?’ Kelly asked him.

  ‘Lakers by ten, but it was a close game almost all the way.’

  ‘Oh. Congratulations, Dad. Mom told me last night about your promotion.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He sat beside her and kissed her. He held his face only inches from hers. She pulled back and grimaced.

  ‘Ugh. You smell like cigarettes.’

  ‘Didn’t shower yet and was around a lot of it.’

  ‘Second-hand smoke kills,’ Kelly said. ‘You always tell me that and quote insurance statistics.’

  Ronnie looked to me to come up with something to save him from hypocrisy, but I was silent, even though I usually did. I wasn’t feeling particularly charitable this morning. Kelly’s questioning had changed my mood. I hated feeling defensive and guilty.

  Ronnie poured himself some coffee, ignoring her. It occurred to me that both of us do that quite a bit – ignore our daughter, her questions, her comments. It’s like dodging bullets sometimes. She seems to take it in her stride. I get the feeling it’s something the parents of most of her friends do as well. Sometimes, we ignore each other to survive, I thought, especially when it comes to teenage sons and daughters.

  ‘Don’t forget I’m interviewing you for my paper on business,’ Kelly told him. ‘Tonight.’

  ‘I’ll make sure I don’t forget. I’ll have your mother remind me.’

  The two looked up at me. Usually, I had a good comeback for Ronnie’s lame jokes, but I wasn’t in the mood this morning.

  ‘Eggs are almost ready,’ I said.

  ‘Mom’s upset because her date last night was a disaster,’ Kelly told him.

  ‘Yes, I had that impression,’ he said, looking at me.

  ‘Art Williams saw her in the restaurant.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A boy in my class, Dad. His parents were returning from the airport and stopped there to eat.’

  Ronnie turned to me, looking as if he had just remembered who I was.

  ‘I never asked you where you went,’ he said.

  ‘She went to Gianni’s in Fullerton,’ Kelly told him. I thought she was acting like an informer. Was that on purpose?

  ‘Gianni’s. Why go that far?’

  ‘Do you want to tell him or should I, Kelly?’ I asked, holding up the spatula. She giggled. ‘It was midway,’ I said.

  ‘Food good? I think it was good when we were there last, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I wasn’t impressed this time. Maybe it was the company. Some people can spoil your appetite, ruin your taste buds and turn your digestion on its head.’

  ‘She was very
fat.’

  ‘Who?’ Ronnie asked her.

  ‘Mom’s friend. But maybe it was also because you ate in the bar.’

  ‘Ate in the bar?’ Ronnie asked.

  ‘Don’t keep asking me to regurgitate the experience,’ I quipped. He shrugged and sipped coffee.

  I started to serve the scrambled eggs. Kelly shot up out of her seat.

  ‘Got to go,’ she said. ‘Denver’s picking me up this morning.’

  ‘Denver?’ Ronnie asked.

  ‘Her date for Friday,’ I said.

  ‘Have we met him?’

  ‘Twice, Daddy,’ Kelly said. ‘Neither of you ever pay much attention to my friends when they’re here.’

  Ronnie looked at me, again expecting some defense, but I was tired of playing the lame blame game.

  ‘She’s right,’ I said. ‘We don’t, but it’s not so surprising. The girls wear the same clothes, say the same things, giggle in the same key, and the boys are always waiting for some sign of disapproval because of their poor grooming or lack of hygiene.’

  ‘Thanks, Mom.’

  I ate some of my eggs.

  ‘OK. We’ll try harder,’ Ronnie said. It was almost as if a button was pushed and his pat answer came spilling out of his mouth. ‘For starters, what’s his father do?’

  ‘Robs banks,’ she replied. ‘You always ask that about any of my friends, Daddy. I don’t hang out with anyone because of what his or her father does.’

  ‘Don’t be a wise ass,’ Ronnie called after her. ‘And who names their kid after cities?’

  He looked at me, but before I could defend her, the phone rang. I looked at it for another ring and then picked it up hesitantly.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Am I calling you too early?’ Carlton Saunders asked.

  ‘Oh. No. I’m having breakfast.’

  ‘Good. As it turns out, I’d like you to start on this case today, if that’s possible. The court calendar was updated. As I said, there’s lots of footwork involved, documents to go through and—’

  ‘I’ll be there in an hour,’ I said.

  ‘OK. Good,’ he said. ‘I’m expecting a call that might get me to court sooner rather than later, but I’ll leave instructions for you in case I leave before you arrive.’