The Affair

by Colette Freedman

Stephanie glanced at him curiously before stopping to look at a spectacular abstract oil, vivid in green and gold, slashed across with daubs of red and violet. She leaned forward, toward the painting. “Tell me,” she murmured, so softly that Robert had to lean close to hear her. “Do you love me?”

  His instinct was to snap a quick “yes,” but something about the apparent casualness of the question stopped him.

  When he didn’t answer immediately, she turned her head to look at him. “That’s a mighty long pause.”

  “What? No. I suppose I was just surprised that you had to ask me.”

  “I want to know, Robert.” She moved away from the painting, and he followed her. “I want to know how much.”

  “I’ve told you often enough.”

  “I know that. But have you shown me?”

  “I’ve given you presents. . . .”

  A flash of annoyance in her dark eyes shut him up. “What is love, Robert?”

  “Love is . . .” he floundered, “. . . well, love.”

  “You’re such a typical man!” she snapped. “Think about it, Robert: What is love? You tell me you love me. What does that mean?”

  “It means . . . it means I want to be with you. That I love being with you.”

  “So, you’re saying that love is commitment?”

  He suddenly saw where the conversation was going, but had no way to change it. “Yes. Commitment,” he agreed.

  Stephanie stopped to peer at another painting, a tiny, delicate watercolor of a single daffodil. “And are you committed to me?” she continued.

  “Yes.”

  Stephanie straightened. “Okay. So, how do you show that commitment?”

  Robert was about to answer, but the overeager artist, a young woman with huge glasses and a streak of cobalt blue in her hair, came forward. “We’re not interested,” Robert said, before she could utter a word. He caught Stephanie by the arm and led her out of the park. “If we’re going to talk, then let’s talk and leave the art for another day. What do you want from me, Stephanie?”

  “The truth,” Stephanie said. “I told you that last night. Just tell me the truth.”

  “I’ve told you I love you. That’s the truth.”

  “And I believe you.”

  Her response stopped him in his tracks. She walked on a couple of paces, before turning to look back at him. The path was busy, and for a moment he lost her in the crowd, and there was the temptation simply to turn his back and walk away. When the path cleared, she was standing in the same position, waiting for him.

  “If you have something to ask me, then ask me straight out,” he said.

  Stephanie dug her hands into the pockets of her jacket. Her eyes were glittering and her cheeks were red, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or emotion.

  “You tell me you love me. You tell me you want to be with me. You seem to enjoy my company. You certainly enjoy my body.” She stopped and took a deep breath. “I need to know if there is more. If there is going to be more.”

  “More?”

  “More of us. Together. Not snatched half-hour lunches or one-hour dinners, not fumbles in your office or dirty weekends away. I need to know if we’re going to be together. As a couple. Openly.” She looked away from him, across the park, which was bright with people. “That’s all.”

  The answer he gave now was going to determine the rest of his life. All the thoughts of the previous night, his rambling notions had revealed nothing, had not prepared him for this moment. He could try and be cold and calculating, try and choose between the two women, choose the security that Kathy represented, or the uncertain future that Stephanie promised. He could refuse to make the decision and lose Stephanie, but in doing so, might force her to go to Kathy, and then he would lose her too. Jimmy Moran was right: Everything had a price.

  “I’ve had plenty of relationships before, Robert; you know that. I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you. I love you. I need to know if you love me. I need to know if you love me enough to do something about it.”

  They walked out of the Common together. An Old Town Trolley tour drove by, passengers snapping pictures and shouting Christmas greetings; neither Robert nor Stephanie turned to look at them.

  Robert was watching Stephanie out of the corner of his eye. When they had first been falling in love, but before they had made love for the first time, they had walked. They had spent weekends together, walking through the streets of the city, along the Charles, around Jamaica Pond, through the Arboretum, walking side by side, not touching, not holding hands. She was fitter than he was; there were times when he struggled to keep up. Later, he understood what had been happening. They had both been so full of energy—nervous energy, sexual energy; this was how they had channeled it. Once they started making love regularly, they had stopped walking. Now they were walking again, but with a different energy, a different motive. Their steps were slow, grudging.

  “You want me to commit to you.”

  “I don’t want to be your mistress anymore. That was fine for a while, because I wasn’t sure if you were the one.”

  “The one?”

  “The one I loved. And I allowed myself to fall in love with you—even though you were a married man—because I believed that there might be a chance for us. A future.” Stephanie took a deep breath, and Robert realized that his heart was hammering. “My girlfriends have gone away for Christmas to be with their families, but I’m going to be spending Christmas alone, because I wanted to be close to my lover. But my lover is spending time with his family. It was that way last year too; I don’t want it to be that way next year. I feel so foolish, Robert. So incredibly foolish.”

  “Stephanie, I—” he said quickly.

  She held up a hand, silencing him. “If there is no future for us, then just say so. I can handle it. It will hurt, but I’ll get over it. I’ll survive. And I’m not going to be stupid about it. I’m a big girl. I won’t make a scene. I won’t tell Kathy, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  So there it was.

  Robert took a deep breath. In a single sentence, Stephanie had removed his biggest fear. And she had given him the get-out-of-jail-free card. He could now, guilt-free, tell Stephanie that there was no future for them, at least not for a few years, until the children had grown up. He could go back to Kathy, be more attentive, more loving, more considerate, and she would never know anything about his affair. Stephanie would drift away. And things would continue on with Kathy until . . . well, until they drifted completely apart. The children would have their own lives, their own families. He would be left with nothing.

  Except now he had an opportunity.

  For the first time in his life, he had a unique opportunity to make a selfish decision, to do something for himself. From the moment he had married, he’d ended up in a trap, running faster and faster to stand still, scrambling for work to keep everyone satisfied, to keep a roof over their heads. He’d sacrificed friendships and holidays, weekends and late nights in the desperate search for work in a business that was, ultimately, worthless. What had happened to his dreams of being a great director, of producing documentaries of worth, of making people think, of making a difference? His life was one of missed opportunities: his chance to be on that film poster, his chance to make a difference with his work, his chance to be happy.

  Was he too old to start again?

  Was this an opportunity to start again with a woman who loved him, and whom he would work with to make sure they stayed in love?

  His head was spinning, and he physically swayed. Stephanie reached out and caught his arm. Even through the layers of cloth, her touch was electric.

  The decision, when it came, was almost a shock to him. He felt as if pieces were sliding and slipping into place. He moved around to stand in front of Stephanie, catching both of her shoulders, looking down into her dark eyes, magnified now by unshed tears. His breath was coming in quick gasps as if he had been running.

&nbs
p; “I love you. I want to be with you. To marry you. Will you marry me?”

  And then the tears came. Stephanie wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled his face down and kissed him. He could feel her tears running down his collar and was sure there were tears on his own face.

  “Yes, I will, yes, yes, yes.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Sunday, 22nd December

  The remainder of Saturday passed in a blur. Robert stayed up late watching television, but he couldn’t concentrate. He flipped through the channels, but all he could think about was his new life.

  His future. With Stephanie.

  Since proposing to Stephanie, Robert felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Bizarrely, he wanted to phone people and tell them his good news, his great news: He was in love with a woman who loved him.

  No decisions had been made; Stephanie had been satisfied that he’d made the commitment. She’d been laughing, crying, and when they’d reached her condo, she’d invited him in, but he had resisted the temptation; once they were inside, he knew they would end up in bed together, and for some indefinable reason, he felt that would be unfair to her. Standing in front of the Victorian, she kissed him, lovingly, passionately, and thanked him.

  “For what?” he asked.

  “For making me so happy.”

  It was half past midnight when he finally headed up to bed. The house was silent. Kathy had gone to sleep early, claiming another one of her interminable migraines. The kids had drifted off to bed much later. Robert moved around the house, checking the doors, turning off lights. Who would do this when he was gone? He was startled to find himself thinking in the past tense, as if he had already left. Truthfully, he had left emotionally a long time ago. He climbed the stairs and turned off the hall light, then stepped into the bedroom, closing the door gently behind him. Undressing in the dark, he tossed his clothes onto the back of the chair and slid into bed, sighing as his head hit the pillow. This was a day he was not going to forget.

  “I went to see Maureen today.”

  Kathy’s voice startled him; he had thought she’d been asleep for hours.

  He was too wired with thoughts and emotions to sleep, but the last thing he wanted to do was start chatting about Maureen. Besides, once the news broke, Maureen would have no hold—real or imagined—over him. He could let her go without a second thought. It would be a chance to make a clean sweep and start afresh in the office too. Maybe Stephanie could join him as a business partner; that was an exciting thought. He turned in the bed to look at Kathy. He could see her wide-open eyes sparking in the dim, reflected streetlight. “How is she?”

  “Getting better. But she won’t be back till the New Year.”

  “Didn’t think so,” he mumbled.

  “She’s not as young as she pretends to be.”

  “I know.” Maureen sometimes thought—and dressed—as if she were in her twenties. He shifted again, rolling onto his back. “The new girl, the Russian . . .”

  “Illona?”

  “Yes, Illona.” He was somewhat surprised that Kathy remembered the girl’s name. “She’s very good. Does what she’s told, doesn’t have an attitude, is in on time, and takes exactly an hour for lunch. Maureen does it her way, treats me like a boy, and has no concept of a one-hour lunch.” Robert remembered one day last year when Maureen had actually taken a three-hour lunch. She simply did not respect him the way a secretary should respect her boss.

  “You’re not thinking about firing her, are you?”

  “It’s crossed my mind,” he admitted.

  “It’s not going to happen,” Kathy said. “I forbid it.”

  “Forbid it?” He was genuinely shocked. He bit back the crack of anger in his voice. “You forbid it?”

  “I still own half the company, remember? Maybe it’s time I started to take a more active interest in it.” She sat up in bed and snapped on the light.

  Robert groaned and shielded his eyes. “It’s almost one, for Christ’s sake! Can we talk about this in the morning?”

  Although the company was in both their names, he ran it, he did all the work; he’d always thought of it as his business. Kathy had a perfect right—a legal right—to query or veto any decisions. But it was his company. Shit . . . Exactly what had happened to Jimmy was going to happen to him. Kathy would want half. Maybe he could do a deal with the house....

  “Now that the kids are older,” said Kathy, “I’m thinking in the New Year I might start coming in with you three or four times a week. Even when Maureen comes back, she’s not going to be able to work full-time. I can go back to doing what I used to do: helping you run the company. Put the K back into R&K Productions.”

  This was getting worse. He rubbed dry lips with an equally dry tongue. “Where are you going to find the time?”

  “I’ll make the time. I’ll concentrate on getting new business; you concentrate on making the material. Remember? The way we used to.”

  “Yeah, that would be great. Let’s talk about it in the morning.” He didn’t want this conversation to proceed. He needed time to think through the ramifications of what he was hearing.

  “Maureen said the company was in the red.”

  Robert shuffled up in the bed. “Maureen should have kept her mouth shut. Can we talk about it in the morning?”

  “We rarely get a chance to talk anymore, Robert. We’re running in opposite directions.”

  “C’mon, Kathy, it’s only temporarily, and it’s Christmas,” he said. “That always brings its own drama.” He closed his eyes, trying to end the conversation, but Kathy pressed on.

  “No, it’s not only temporarily, and it’s not just Christmas. We’ve been doing it for months, maybe longer. I barely see you anymore. You’re home late four nights out of five, you go in to the office on the weekends, and when you are home, you’re locked in your office, working.”

  So she had noticed. Where was this coming from? What had suddenly triggered it? He shrugged. “It’s been crazy busy.”

  “Put my mind at ease; tell me the business is going well.”

  This had to have something to do with Maureen. What had that bitch told her? “Look, we’ve gone through a rough patch, but I’ve landed a few new accounts. Next year will be good.”

  “Does that mean you’ll end up working eighty hours a week next year too?”

  Next year would definitely be different, he promised himself, but not in ways she would expect. “While the work is there, yes. Kathy, I don’t have an option. It’s one of the joys of being self-employed; you know that.”

  “Then I’m even more determined to help you. Starting in the New Year, you’ve got a new colleague: me. You can give your Russian girl notice.”

  Robert bit the inside of his cheek to keep his face straight, but not before he had started to shake his head. She’d been out of the business this long; she could now stay out of it.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing’s wrong.” He was getting annoyed with this nonsense. “But here’s what’s going to happen. You’ll come work with me for a week, maybe two, then you’ll have to take time off to be home for some reason: Theresa’s sick; you have to get to Brendan’s concert on time: you have to be home for the refrigerator repairman.”

  “Really? That’s your worry, my needing to be home for the repairman?”

  Robert ignored her and kept justifying himself. “Then you’ll take more and more time off, and soon enough, we’ll be back to the way we are now. Except I’ll have to go looking for a secretary again.”

  “So, you’re using the fact that I’m prioritizing my kids . . .”

  “Our kids, and I’m not saying that, Kathy.”

  “You sound as if you don’t want me to work with you.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Look, Robert, I want to be more involved. I feel . . . I feel like we’re drifting apart.”

  Robert reached out to take her hand, but Kathy slid her fin
gers away. He took a deep breath. “We’re not drifting apart; we’re just busy. And it’s Christmas. That’s all. I’d love you to be more interested in the business,” he lied. Her offer was coming at least two years or three years or even five years too late. He lifted the clock off the nightstand. “Jesus, can we please continue this tomorrow? I have to get an early start in the morning.”

  “Okay,” she agreed, turning off her light and sliding down beneath the covers. “But we will continue it.”

  He heard what sounded like a threat in her voice.

  “Fine,” he said.

  “Fine.” The ice in her voice was unmistakable, and it seemed to give a chill to the room.

  That settled it: another night without sleep. The rational part of his mind knew that he shouldn’t be getting upset with Kathy because she was offering to help him. On any other day of the year, he might have been thrilled that she’d finally decided to become his partner again and help shoulder the burden of the business. Obviously something Maureen had told her had twinged her conscience; maybe she had revealed just how rocky things were, just how hard he worked to keep the business afloat. But right now he was more concerned with Kathy’s reminders that she was half of R&K. He was going to need legal advice. He didn’t want to end up in a stupid and expensive litigious process; he was hoping they would be able to decide things amicably.

  That same voice, the little whisper of conscience deep in his skull, started to laugh hysterically. He was about to separate from his wife of eighteen years and he hoped they would do it amicably? She’d take him for everything he had.

  And he couldn’t really blame her.

  Robert spent most of Sunday hidden away in his study, editing a corporate video for a new green energy company. He heard the laughter coming from downstairs as Theresa, Brendan, and Kathy decorated the tree. Although Robert wanted to participate in his family’s tradition, he felt somehow it would be unfair to Stephanie, that it would be disloyal, so he worked through the day and into the night.

  He just needed to focus on work, keeping Stephanie happy, and getting through Christmas. Then he would be home free.