“These things are too sweet,” Evan said, staring at his martini with disdain. “I need a beer.”
“I’ll keep yours as backup.” I took the martini from his hand.
Evan grinned.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He reached around me to the sink, which was full of ice and beer. His shoulder brushed mine. I set Evan’s drink down and took another sip of my martini.
When he’d grabbed his beer, he was still smiling.
“What are you grinning at?” I asked.
“You.”
“Explain, please.”
“You were jealous when Carly said we used to sleep together.”
“She said you used to fuck.”
“Yes, we did. And that made you a little crazy, didn’t it?”
“Don’t kid yourself.”
Someone opened the refrigerator door behind Evan, jostling him toward me. He put his face close to mine, his mouth near my ear. “You imagined it, didn’t you?”
I froze. I could barely breathe, much less respond.
“You thought of Carly and me together, and it made you hot.”
A coarse breath broke into my chest, causing it to rise and fall rapidly. I couldn’t have hid my reaction from Evan if I’d tried.
“And then,” he said, moving even closer. “And then you imagined us, didn’t you?”
The scent of marijuana became stronger in the air. I wondered if there was any truth to the secondhand smoke business because I felt almost stoned. The temperature in the kitchen seemed to have shot up ten degrees. I could feel the heat of Evan’s body. I could hear my own sharp intakes of breath. But I still couldn’t talk. Instead, I gulped the martini, imagining the cool liquid cleansing my insides. At the same time, I couldn’t stop imagining Evan and myself, our mouths together, our bodies entangled.
I coughed to scare away the image, and reached around Evan for the backup martini. When I looked up at him, his eyes were locked on my face, his lips slightly parted. “You’ve thought about it, haven’t you?” he asked.
I nodded.
“You know just what it would be like, don’t you?”
Another nod.
Someone cranked up the music. Everyone in the kitchen turned to look into the adjacent room, where Carly and Sharon were now dancing, the others standing back to watch. The two women wound around each other with their moves, almost stalking. These were people who clearly knew each other’s bodies well. Every so often, one of them reached out to stroke the other’s arm or hair. Evan moved closer to me so that we were side by side, his arm around my back. I felt the pulse in my back, right where his hand was; I felt it in my head, in my stomach. Everyone in the room was riveted to the two women.
Carly and Sharon moved closer to each other, until their bodies pressed together, still moving. Carly’s cheek rested momentarily on Sharon’s breast. Sharon threw her head back, hips swaying, and touched Carly’s head. Carly’s hands went to Sharon’s undulating hips. The two of them moved like one body. And then Sharon was looking down, Carly up, and still swaying, the two of them began to kiss-open mouths, pink tongues.
My own mouth was a little open now, my body hot.
I felt Evan’s hand on my elbow. “Come with me,” he said, his voice low and rough.
I let him lead me out of the kitchen. We skirted the living room, where Carly and Sharon were still embracing. We walked down a hallway. I didn’t ask him where we were going. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to talk. Evan opened the door at the end of the hallway. It was a small bedroom with a tiny lamp next to a double bed.
“Is this their bedroom?” I said, glancing at the pile of coats on the bed.
Evan shook his head. “Guest room.”
He crossed the room and switched off the lamp light. The room went black.
“Ev?” I said. I reached out, and he was there, his arms wrapping around me, his mouth coming down hard on mine. We kissed, fast and greedy, as if this had been waiting for us forever. He pushed me against the wall and pressed his body against mine. I grabbed his hair as we kissed, pulling it, embracing him tight. His hands were all over my body, touching me through my clothes. I did the same, grabbing-finally-that hard chest through the soft cloth of his shirt, pushing my pelvis into his thighs. And in my head, I was imagining what it would be like to shed the clothes from my body and to have him push hard inside me.
“Oh, yeah,” Evan grunted. “Yeah.”
His words made me hotter. I bit his neck. He groaned, and I was grateful for the music banging outside.
His hands felt for the hem of my sweater, and I thought, here we go.
He pulled the sweater up, his fingers on my bra. I felt a hard tug as he pulled that up as well, so that my sweater and bra were in a ring around my neck. His hands were on my breasts now, Evan’s warm, large hands.
I froze. Those hands were foreign. They weren’t Chris’s long, smooth fingers. No one else had touched my bare skin in so long that I couldn’t ignore how shocking the sensation was. Why I hadn’t noticed the difference between Evan and Chris during our kiss, I couldn’t say, but now it was palpable.
“Evan,” I said, pushing him away slightly.
His hands dropped, roaming my hips, but I couldn’t shake the sense of surprise, of something wrong.
“Stop,” I said. “Please.”
The air felt cool as he stepped back. “What is it?”
“I can’t.”
“What’s wrong?”
I laughed, a desperate shaking laugh. “I’m married!” My voice sounded hysterical. Near tears. “And I love my husband. I really do.”
Somehow kissing Evan, and the dismay I suddenly felt at my betrayal, had made Chris and me seem as clear as new glass, where the image had been foggy before. Somewhere in our history, as well as in the recent weeks, I’d had passion with Chris, I’d had affection, I’d had caring. I’d had the whole deal. It wasn’t lost, as I’d feared over the last few years. The intimacy just needed to be worked at and maintained and balanced. We needed to put together the passion and conversation of recent times, with the independence of old. We still had the pieces and the very real love for each other. This thing with Evan, on the other hand, was just a shard of something, a splinter of sexual longing.
“Okay,” Evan said. “Hold on.”
I heard him moving through the room, swearing as he bumped into something. Then the small lamp went on. Evan was sitting on the edge of the bed, panting. His shirt was askew, his hair standing at odd angles.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I tugged my sweater and bra into place and crossed my arms. I leaned against the closed door.
He shook his head, straightened his shirt. “No, it was my fault.”
“It was both of us.”
“Right.” He looked at me, a questioning look that said, What do we do now?
“I’ve got to go.” I opened the door, and left Evan sitting on the bed.
“Where have you been?” I heard Chris call from the living room as I opened the door.
It was only nine o’clock when I got home, but I felt as if it were the middle of the night. The martinis, the fevered kissing and the shame had made me exhausted.
I leaned my head against the doorjamb. “A party,” I said softly.
I stepped inside and closed the door. Chris sat on the big chair, smiling, as if I were the only person he’d want to see at that moment. I fought not to cry.
“A party on a Wednesday?” he said.
“I know. Weird, huh?” But it was me who sounded weird, my voice small, hollow, as if it came from a tin can.
“Let me guess. Evan’s friends?”
At the word “Evan,” the remorse flattened me. I could barely stand.
“You all right, Treetop?” Chris came to me, his arms encircling my body.
But I couldn’t stand his touch, not when Evan’s arms had been there only fifteen minutes before. “Fine, fine.” I pulled away.
“Did you eat din
ner?”
“No.”
“Great, I’ll make you some pasta with truffle oil. It’s a new recipe I’m trying out.”
“Chris, don’t.” I couldn’t bear the thought of his kindness. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“Well, I’ll join you.” He ruffled my hair, leaning his tall body down to kiss my neck.
I pulled away again. “I…I can’t.”
“You can’t what?” Chris’s face was confused.
I can’t live with myself.
But instead, I said, “I’m just so tired.”
“Okay, sweetie, I’ll start the water for you.”
“No, don’t.” The thought of him doing anything was too painful, making the shame unbearable.
Chris’s face fell at my harsh words.
I was fucking up everything, hurting everyone. My head swam with flashbacks of what had happened tonight with Evan. Not one cohesive thought could take hold. “I’m just going to go to bed,” I said. I went into the bedroom. I stood for minutes, glaring at the frog until I finally turned off the light.
chapter ten
I nfidelity is not a warm and fuzzy concept. It’s not a word you’d find embroidered on a pillow or placed in a calico frame. And yet, infidelity has so strong a pull for so many people. I’d never considered myself part of that unfaithful population, or even on the outside looking in. In fact, the only real person that I knew who might have had an affair was my father.
He was gone from our house one day, just gone, like a bird that had flown south for the winter. My mother was grief-stricken. She cried. She stared out windows, as if waiting, praying, for his gold Cadillac Eldorado to pull down the drive. And yet at other times, she was matter-of-fact about it, even stoic. She sold our white house with the two-story columns, and she moved us across town to the apartment by the old hospital.
Often I traipsed down the back apartment stairs, which smelled like a strange, sweet smoke from the Indian couple who lived on the first floor, and went into the cement yard. An old picnic table, gray from the weather, was chained to the side of the building, and if I stood on it, I could see the cupola on our old house-a tiny, white-painted room made all of windows, peeking over the town.
One day, my sister Hadley came outside while I was there. She wore yellow pants and a white T-shirt with a dark smear near the shoulder. There was a scratch on her face, probably from getting in another fight at school. The fact that she and Dustin had these brawls with classmates made them seem like different beings. Not normal girls or sisters, certainly nothing like me. “What are you doing?” she said.
“Just looking.”
In one fluid leap, Hadley was on the table next to me. We stared at the cupola in silence.
Finally, Hadley said, “He’s probably got a girlfriend.”
“Who has?”
She scoffed. “Dad. That’s why men leave. To get other girls.”
“Oh.” This was new information. My mother had always said that he had business to take care of, that he would be back eventually. I’d stopped believing that he would return, but for some reason I’d never questioned the statement that he’d left because of business.
I never learned what the real story was, which only made my anxiety, disappointment and obsession about my father grow. Infidelity was always a possibility, though, one I abhorred on behalf of my mother and her tearstained face.
Now, I was busy hating myself, too, for what I’d nearly done the other night with Evan. What I’d wanted very much to do.
To tell or not to tell? That is the goddamned question.
Confessing to Chris was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? Certainly hardcore honesty was the way to go. Or was I only trying to assuage my guilt by considering such a thing? Wasn’t I hoping Chris would absolve me from the shame? And if so, wouldn’t I be a better person to simply live with that shame instead of hurting Chris when really nothing had happened? But something had happened, even if it wasn’t full-on sex. Which brought me around to square one.
I called Tess, and we met at a coffee shop on Clark Street. We took our foaming lattes outside to a black metal table. She was beaming now about her pregnancy-it had settled around her.
“Maybe someday you and Chris will join us in Baby Land,” she said, smiling serenely, patting her belly.
“Maybe.” I knew in that moment I couldn’t tell her. Her husband, Tim, worked with Chris. She and Tim had introduced us. If they knew, it could affect all of our friendships. I drank my latte and kept quiet.
When I left Tess, I tried my mom. But when we met at Milrose again-me brimming with my secret, with my need for some seasoned, even harsh, maternal advice-she had brought two women from her neighborhood.
“Ellen and Mary,” she said, “this is my daughter Billy.”
I smiled. I shook hands. I shelved the thought that my mother and I would ever again have a heart-to-heart.
The next day I called Dustin in San Francisco. I wasn’t sure if I could confide in her, since we so rarely did that kind of thing, but I was willing to try. The scene with Evan was eating at my insides, clawing its way to the surface.
“Hi, Billy!” Dustin said, sounding pleased to hear from me. I’d caught her at home for once.
“How’s Robert?” I said, asking after her husband.
“He’s on a golf trip.” She laughed wryly. “Remember how dad used to golf all the time?”
I blinked at the mention of our father. “No.” I had no recollection of my father ever holding a putter or even talking about golf. And that realization made me sad. He was gone from me in so many ways. Physically, of course, for over twenty years, but since that morning I woke up with the frog on my nightstand and with everything changed, he’d been gone from my heart, too. I really didn’t miss him anymore. I didn’t wonder why he’d left. But somehow I missed the missing of him. I was starting to realize that my old obsessing, my never-getting-over-him had been the way I held on to him. He was really and truly gone now.
“Oh, well,” Dustin said, onto a different topic. “What’s going on with you? I hear you’re a big VP now.”
“Yes, it’s true. I got promoted.”
“My little sister! A vice president! I’m so proud.”
“Thanks, Dustin.” But the congratulations was bittersweet; hearing the words now reminded me that she hadn’t even called or e-mailed to congratulate me on my promotion when it first happened. Not that I needed her approval, but the lack of it reminded me how distant we were. So I knew I couldn’t tell her about Evan. After a few minutes of mindless conversation, we were off the phone.
Which brought me back to my dad. He might have been the one family member I could have talked to about this. If what Hadley had told me all those years ago was true, he might have understood. Father and daughter, united in guilt.
“What’s it been like?” Alexa said.
“What do you mean?”
“Being vice president. What’s it like?”
We were sitting outside near State and Rush having lunch on a sunny, Friday afternoon. Alexa had called me this time, and after a long, painful week (both emotionally and professionally) I’d quickly cleared my schedule of budgets and board meetings and assistant hand-holding to meet her. I hadn’t been sure why she wanted to meet, a mystery that became even more curious as we ate and chatted. Just chatted. About her brothers and sisters and the silly things they did, about where we went to college and how we got into PR. It was a pleasant experience-especially given the bright, seventy-degree day, the crowds strolling the street and my desperate need for a girlfriend. This afternoon was small relief from my agitated mind. But at the same time, I kept waiting for the Mexican curses to fall, for a quick turn of Alexa’s suddenly engaging personality.
But now this question about my new position. This was why she’d called, I supposed, and although Alexa was the last person I wanted to have this discussion with, I thought I owed it to her.
“It’s all right,” I answered.
“Just all right?” She shook her hair away from her face, and I noticed two guys at the next table staring openly. When she wasn’t putting on her tough-PR-girl image, she was gorgeous.
“The role is not exactly what I thought it would be.”
“What did you think it would be?” Alexa leaned forward.
I shifted around in my chair. I didn’t want to sound ungrateful about the vice presidency, but I really did want to talk to someone, especially someone in the PR world.
“Being a VP is a bit dull,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed to slits. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
“No, I’m not. I thought it would be more exciting and glamorous, but I miss my old job a hell of a lot.”
“Why?”
“I miss the creativity. My new job is all administrative, all the time. It’s looking at the P &L sheets and going to officers’ meetings and arguing about the damn pop machine and making personnel decisions.”
I stopped short, realizing I was sitting on State Street with one of those personnel decisions.
But Alexa blew right by it. “That’s what’s exciting about it!” she said. And indeed, she looked excited just by the topic. “You’re getting to focus the direction of the firm. You’re making real decisions about which of the firm’s resources to put where. That’s power.” I dropped my head a little. Here in front of me was someone clearly cut out to be a VP at Harper Frankwell, someone who would have relished it as much as she succeeded in it.
“I suppose you’re right,” I said in a weak voice.
“It’s absolutely true. That power is something to be respected. Most of the people I grew up with will never know that kind of power.”
Her talk embarrassed me. My new power had led me like a stumbling drunk bent on breaking something. What I’d broken was Alexa’s career. “Any luck with the job search?”
The Night I got Lucky Page 11