by Ariella Papa
But perhaps this wasn’t the wisest choice, because my sandals couldn’t get any traction on the dirt back up the hill. Keith went first and I felt my feet slipping from beneath me and I grabbed onto a tree next to me. Keith turned smiling. Maybe he had it planned this way.
“Do you need a hand?” he asked.
“I might,” I said. And then we were holding hands, but it wasn’t the romantic side-by-side strolling down the beach hand-holding that we used in so many shows. It was him half pulling me up the hill, preventing me from sliding down. I was completely useless. This was a big mistake. To top it all off, I was sweating worse than he had been. I was dripping. It wasn’t that it was that hot, it was the situation making my heart pound.
But at last we were back on Deanna’s property right next to her tennis courts. Marcia from marketing and Erica in press were playing a set. I waved, expecting to have to explain why I was sweating and holding Keith’s hand after coming up from the beach, but they went right back to their volleying.
“I should probably find that softball game,” I said to Keith. I was having a harder time meeting his eyes.
“Yeah, do you know where it is?”
“In the past it’s been on the front lawn.”
“Maybe you should take a minute, you know, cool off. You’re panting,” he said. It was a bizarre choice of words, and I wondered if he did it on purpose.
“Am I?” I asked. He nodded.
‘Maybe I should freshen up,” I said, heading toward the house. He started to follow me. There was no reason for him to come. The idea of it caused me some anxiety. “Are you going to play softball too, do you think?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Well, I guess I will see you there,” I said, trying to sound dismissive. And he stopped, but I kept walking back up to the house and straight into the bathroom.
I didn’t need to go to the bathroom, and if I had Deanna had rented portable toilets for us, but I needed to escape the heat. I checked my message. I was grateful that it wasn’t from Peter. I hadn’t completely shirked the update on my children. It was from Brookese following up about paperwork they claimed they didn’t have, but I was certain I sent. Damn it! Why did I always have to deal with everyone else’s incompetence?
I sat on the toilet lid and pressed my hands into my forehead. I sniffed my armpits. I was starting to stink through my clothes. When I got up to wash my hands, I stared at my face in the mirror. My eyes looked old and my skin was sweaty and grimy. I splashed some water on it. I spilled some on my sweater. This was quite an unkempt look I was sporting. At least my hair was short enough that it always looked good.
He’s right outside, my brain said. And I knew, I was sure that when I opened the door, he was going to be out there, waiting for me, wanting to come in. I couldn’t let him in. No, I was going to let him. But what if someone saw us? And how was I going to make it to the softball game. And what about the fact that I was married? I couldn’t. But, God, I wanted to.
I opened the door expectantly. I still wasn’t sure what I was going to say, but he wasn’t there. This couldn’t be possible. I had been so sure. I was confident that he would be there, waiting, wanting me. But he wasn’t. Maybe he didn’t care.
“Hey,” I heard him say. I looked down the hall. There he was in the doorway of the room Deanna called the library. He wasn’t smiling. He was looking at me like he wanted me. It was all up to me.
“Hi,” I said.
“Come over here,” he said. But I was already on my way. His desire was a pied piper. I started to say something, not sure what it was going to be. I was only buying time, but it didn’t matter. He grabbed me, both hands on the sides of my face, and pulled me to him for a kiss. He kicked the door closed behind me.
I’ve only ever had sex in a bed. But now I was being pushed against the desk. Things were coming off the desk. The blinds were partially opened. The door wasn’t locked. I was expected to be at the softball game. I was married to someone else. We worked together. All of these thoughts went through my head, but I didn’t hold on to them, because what he was doing to me, what we were doing, felt so good. The fact that we shouldn’t have been doing this made him more exciting. There was a thrill. Something this fun couldn’t be wrong. I could feel guilty later, but this moment was beyond rationalization. In this moment, I was only there with him and whatever result my actions would cause in the future paled in comparison to his hands on my ass, his face in my chest, and his shoulders beneath my fingers.
“You’re amazing,” he kept saying. “You’re amazing.”
I was amazing. It was amazing.
I felt him inside of me and realized I had crossed the line. I was cheating and I hesitated for a minute, but then I got caught up. I was laying back against the desk with my head thrown back. I couldn’t stop myself; my body moved on its own.
He knelt before me and wrapped my legs around his neck. It was impossible to fight this. I was outside of my own control, no longer in my head.
“Turn around,” he said. I would have done anything he asked. And I did, pressing my cheek into the desk blotter, turning my face so my moans would be muffled. When he turned me again I was jelly. And it felt good to not be in control, to be so pleasantly surprised by how ferocious and strong my body could be.
When it was over, I clung to him, trying to come back, trying to figure out how to go back to whatever normal was, but not really sure that I wanted to. I wasn’t really able to find my footing. I wasn’t in control. I was changed. Now I had done something that felt good just because.
I wasn’t even sure I could walk out of this room. My body was tingling as I clung to his neck. I was panting, which reminded me of the term “pant-worthy.” Perhaps I was no better than the soap opera audience to whom I had always felt superior. And as these thoughts floated into my head, it was a concrete reminder of my whole life. This was only a moment that I couldn’t hold on to. This was a person that I couldn’t be. I felt that awkwardness return. I became again the person who never knew the right way to act. I didn’t know how to do this. I turned my face away from him as we disengaged,
“Hey,” he said, cupping my chin with his fingers. “You’re amazing.”
But now even the word didn’t sound as genuine as it had a few minutes earlier and I wasn’t sure if he meant you are or you were. And either way in this aftermath it just seemed like something to say.
“I have to go,” I said, standing up, straightening up.
“Sure,” he said. And then he kissed me. It was all so strange. I began to wonder what was going to happen next. I half-expected a crowd to be gathered outside the door.
But there was no one out there. If someone had come in to go to the bathroom and heard us, they hadn’t hung around. I stopped again in the bathroom. I cleaned myself all up. I wanted to sit on the toilet again and wait, just wait, but I couldn’t. I was already late for the softball game. I was never late. I walked out of the house and into the sun. I squinted and then felt woozy. My legs were still weak. I grabbed onto the railing of the porch as Linda from Online was heading up. I was prepared to make up some excuse about having one too many white wine spritzers, but Linda was oblivious.
“Hey, Claudia,” she said, with a smile. She had probably already seen Keith, so I kept moving.
“I’ve got to find that softball game.”
“Good luck,” she said. “I’ve got to find that lounge chair by the pool.”
She didn’t suspect anything, and if she did she should have been an actress on one of our soaps. I continued down the path toward the softball game. I calculated that the game had been going on for about forty-five minutes. I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to say when Deanna asked why I hadn’t shown up at the beginning.
But she didn’t ask. They folded me right into the line up when Gary from Legal felt his knee acting up. I struck out my first time at bat, walked my second and spent a lot of time waiting for the ball in the outfield. I could see Keith si
tting on the lawn with the rest of the party who were milling about.
I caught the ball for the second out in the ninth inning and then there was another out and my team won. And everyone was really excited and slapping each other five in self-conscious ways and saying good work.
I kept waiting for something. I think I expected someone to be able to tell, but no one did. No one said anything. I didn’t speak to anyone that I didn’t have to talk to. We had some cake for the CEO, Carl’s birthday as we always did, and then the party was over. Everyone was a little friendlier, and a few were a lot drunker. I’m sure Deanna would consider her party another success for the team. There were smiles all around, so maybe she was right.
“I’ll see you,” Keith said to me as I was going to my car. I was grateful that he didn’t ask me for a ride. He had taken the train out with a group from the city, and he stuck with them for the way back.
“Yes, see you Monday.” I said. I tried to sound as normal and professional as possible.
The ride home was surreal. If I got pulled over, a cop would have said my driving was impaired. I was barely looking at my Post-it note directions. On that summer Friday, most people were headed out to Long Island, but I was going back to Brooklyn. In spite of the lack of traffic, I took it slow in the right lane.
There was a cloud over my brain. But at the same time I felt like a character in a suspense movie, gripping the steering wheel, waiting for something to pop out. And then I kept remembering being with Keith. Little moments came back; his mouth sliding up my legs after pulling down my underwear, the way he didn’t bother to unhook my bra, but pulled it aside. It was amazing. And the memory of it made me feel good and shameful all at once.
I called Peter. I couldn’t concentrate on the words he was saying. I was listening for the tone of his voice to be different. But it wasn’t. Nothing was. The kids were eating toast and feeling better. He put them on speaker so they could say hi. They screamed hello.
It didn’t necessarily make me feel guilty as I expected that it would. I felt more afraid that the rug was going to be pulled out from under me. I was worried that I was going to be found out.
When I hung up with him, I threw the cell phone in the seat beside me. And I kept glancing at it. It took me until I got onto the Brooklyn Queens Expressway to realize that I was waiting for my mother to call. I expected her to know, just like that. Something should have alerted her to her daughter’s impending downfall.
The cell phone didn’t ring. By the time I got off my exit, I was ready to call her. Too much had changed; I needed to know something was the same. And I had to believe in my mother’s power. I had to believe she would know and punish me accordingly.
But I didn’t call her either. I found a parking spot right in front of my apartment. I could almost believe that luck was on my side. Nothing was punishing me. And when I opened the door, I expected the kids to still be up way past their bedtimes, but the house was quiet. Peter was on the couch with his bare feet up on the ottoman. He had his laptop open in front of him, but he closed it when I came in and smiled up at me.
“So how was the picnic? Is morale way up?”
“It was fun,” I said, meaning it for the first time ever. Couldn’t he tell? Shouldn’t he be able to see through me? “You know, the usual politics.”
“Well, it’s too bad you couldn’t have the kids there to make it better,” he said. I glanced at him. And I realized that if he could, he would want the kids at his company picnic. He genuinely loved spending time with them. But not me. I was relieved that they weren’t there and I didn’t have to deal. If they had been there, they would have made me feel out of control. And of course, if they had been there the day wouldn’t have turned out as it had.
That made me feel guilty. And I realized that Peter was a way more loving parent than I was. Also, he wasn’t cheating.
“You must be beat from the drive. Plus the party. It’s tough to be on all day,” he said. It was wrong that he was sympathetic to me. I was tired because of what my body had done. “I know I am exhausted from spending the day with those guys. They were off their game and still a handful.”
“I bet,” I said, trying to manage a smile. “I think I’ll watch a little TV for a while. You know, decompress. But great work today.”
“Thanks,” he said. He got up off the couch and stretched. “I really don’t know how people do it.”
“Me either,” I said. He kissed my cheek and I kissed the air next to his face. Compared to Keith’s breath in my ear it all felt so tame. “Good night and thank you for staying home with them so I could go.”
Thank you for staying home with the children so I could go have an affair. I shook this thought out of my head. It was too much.
I flopped on the couch and flipped through the channels. I couldn’t settle on anything. My brain was flipping though channels too, agitated and jumping from one thing to the next. Keith. Peter. My mom. The kids. This feeling of being caught. This feeling that no one would notice.
I needed some air. I went out and sat on my stoop. Something had to help calm my mind down. I was taking deep breaths and trying to organize my thoughts. I wasn’t sure how long I was out there when Ruth came walking up to my stoop.
“Oh, hi,” I said.
“Hey, I saw you from my window. I was looking at the moon, too. It’s pretty amazing tonight.” I glanced up. For as long as I had been outside, I hadn’t noticed the full moon.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “How are you? Is the baby down?”
“Yeah, finally. I thought it was going to be one of those full-moon wild-man nights. You ever have those?”
“What do you mean?” Did Ruth know? I barely knew her.
“You know, where people get crazy because of the full moon. Do you believe in that stuff?”
“No, I don’t. I don’t think the moon has any affect on us whatsoever,” I snapped. Realizing, I tried to soften the blow the only way I know how. “That’s only my opinion.”
“You’re entitled to it,” Ruth said, trying to keep it light. She looked up at the moon and sighed. “Is everything ok?”
“Yes,” I said. What could I even say about it? On one hand, things were better than ok, the thoughts of Keith were making me feel alive. But then of course, everything else was pressing on me. But before I could stop myself, I was talking to her, trying to make sense of it, looking at the moon.
“I mean, I don’t know, I sometimes can’t believe this is all there is. It’s only you.”
“Only me? What do you mean?”
“Not you. Me. It’s only me. There are no more grades; there are no more awards; there are no more scholarships. I’m all the reward or punishment there is. Everything I worked for so long, my whole life it seems. Now there isn’t anyone to say that I’m doing a good or bad job. There is no one to punish me or give me a gold star. It’s just me.”
“I don’t get it. What do you want a grade on?” Ruth asked.
“I don’t know. Living. I thought life was made up of these black-and-white rules you were supposed to follow and if you didn’t follow, well, wow, you know, I don’t even think I ever thought about what happened when you didn’t follow. Only that it was bad. But now I realize, sure, maybe something bad happens when you’re a kid or a teen, but now I can do whatever I want. The world doesn’t stop. It’s just me. The only consequences are from me. Can I deal with me? Can I accept who I am? Can I reconcile what I do?”
“Can you? Who are you? What did you do?” Ruth asked, trying to joke.
I shook my head and looked at her. This poor woman. She wanted a little fresh air a way from her kid.
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter what I did or what I do. There are no consequences. And the part that really kills me is how close I stuck to the rules because I believed that there were rules, even though I didn’t know what they were. I feel like calling my mother to find out if she knows this. I don’t think she does.”
“Well, maybe sh
e doesn’t if she made you believe these things.”
“No, she doesn’t. You’re right. I don’t think she does. God, it’s all been such a stupid ride I’ve been on. Everything planned and scheduled and mapped. Everything happening the way it was supposed, to be normal, to achieve, to excel. Go, go, go.”
I didn’t say anything for a little while. I don’t think Ruth knew what to say. It’s not that I expected her to have all the answers. I knew that I didn’t, and I wished someone did.
“Well, maybe it’s good you recognize this now, so you can stop the pattern with, you know,” she hesitated. “Your own kids.”
This is what was supposed to happen when women became moms. Somehow everything was supposed to relate back to your kids. But it wasn’t the kids I was thinking about it. It was me. It all seemed like time I had wasted, and I guess because of that they had suffered for who I was.
“But what’s the point of any of it? Why bother?”
“I’m not really sure what you mean. If you’re asking what the point is of achieving I’m not really sure. I don’t know who you are trying to prove anything to at this point. I guess I wonder why anyone would set the bar so high if it didn’t make her happy. Not everything has to be just so, something can give.”
Is this how all the grasshoppers felt? It was astonishing, but I guess for them it also must have been kind of liberating.
“But, hey, what do I know?” she asked, trying to make things light again. “I was always only a C or B student.”
“Really? Wow,” I looked at her. We lived in virtually the same apartment. Sure, she rented and I owned, but she was also younger than me. Our situations on paper were probably not that different. Her grades, which my mother would have considered poor, hadn’t really changed things that much. She hadn’t set the bar as high, but our lives hadn’t shaken out that differently, except maybe she was happier. She probably hadn’t just had an affair. I shook my head. “I guess what I meant was what is the point of following the rules?”