The Affair

by Colette Freedman

  She touched the Hermès Birkin bag he’d given her. It was incredibly impractical and way too expensive, but she carried it proudly. She was both impressed and surprised that he had been able to procure such a coveted fashion accessory, and she adored the envious looks of the other girls in the office, or women walking down the street who recognized it for what it was.

  Stephanie dipped into her bag and pulled out her BlackBerry. Robert was the first number on her list. She tried his direct line in the office, bypassing Illona on the reception desk, but the phone kept ringing. She glanced at the clock: three thirty. A little early to have closed the office. She hung up and tried his cell.

  It rang for six rings, and she hung up before it transferred to his voice mail. She’d catch him later.

  Stephanie wandered through the men’s department. What exactly did you get the man who had everything and wanted for nothing? Clothes certainly, but they weren’t exactly the most exciting of presents, and he didn’t play tennis or golf. He had no real hobbies as far as she could determine; his entire life revolved around his work.

  Finding nothing in Neiman’s, she left the shop and maneuvered her way through the mall toward Landau, the jeweler. Maybe a watch. A watch wasn’t really jewelry. Watches tended to fall into two types, very thin or very chunky, and she wondered which one he would prefer. Maybe something in silver, with lots of dials and buttons—he was just like a big kid that way. She nodded, seeing her reflection in the shop window mirror the movement. A watch, a diver’s watch, with three dials and a rotating bezel, silver with a black face . . .

  Then came the little practical thought, the one that now accompanied, touched, and tainted everything she bought him: Would he be able to wear it without his wife noticing and asking questions about where he got it?

  She sighed, her breath misting the glass before her face. Who would have thought that buying a present would be so complicated, and would have so many conditions attached?

  Robert said that his wife had no interest in him—and Stephanie believed him. She saw absolutely no signs that Kathy showed any curiosity in his work or whereabouts, but that didn’t mean that the woman wouldn’t notice if he turned up wearing a nice chunky watch. Stephanie supposed he could always say it was a gift from a client. But she didn’t want that; she wanted him to be able to wear it and say: “My girlfriend gave me this.”

  Girlfriend sounded better than mistress.

  Maybe not a watch then. She pushed away from Landau’s window, exited the stuffy and overcrowded mall, and considered whether to go into Raven Used Books or Barnes & Noble. She wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck and hurried down Newbury Street. While she loved the used book store, it would be faster for her to find a present in the large chain. Barnes & Noble was absolutely jammed with people. She thought it was such a shame he read so little that books were a limited option. He claimed he simply had no time. She’d bought him some books on CD for the car stereo for his birthday a few months earlier, but she’d noted the last time she sat in his car that they were still in their plastic wrappers, unopened.

  Maybe a print, or an original painting? But, although they shared an interest in so many things, they were diametrically opposed in others, especially art. She preferred modern art, bright primary daubs of colors, loving the energy and emotion they conveyed. He preferred—if he had any real preference—photorealism.

  Besides, if she got him a picture or a print, where would he hang it? It came back to the same question, one she was beginning to tire of asking: What would his wife say? He could hardly bring it home and hang it on the bedroom wall. That would be awkward.

  She turned to the right as she came out of the bookstore and headed farther up Newbury Street, glancing cursorily in the windows of the posh shops as she hurried past. An overcoat was an option—something in mohair perhaps—or a Burberry scarf, maybe a nice briefcase, a wallet, pens . . .

  She stopped and grinned. She was getting desperate and stupid. She could hardly give her lover a fancy pen, could she? Besides, last year he had given her a magnificent antique gold pendant inset with a chip of opal as big as her thumbnail. And for her birthday recently, he’d given her a fabulous modern silver bracelet. He had designed it himself. He took time to look for interesting and unique presents for her. The final option would be a gift certificate, but she hated giving small, colorful plastic cards with money values for presents because they were completely impersonal.

  Kathy had given Robert a gift certificate last year. And a tie. And a state-of-the-art digital camera.

  Stephanie felt her cheery mood slip a little. Some days she felt as if she were living with Kathy Walker. Glancing up and down the street, she noticed a Salvation Army band was gathered around the huge Christmas tree, and the rich sounds of trumpets and cymbals were just audible over the noise of the traffic.

  Lately, she’d discovered that Robert’s wife was never too far from her thoughts. Mostly, when she couldn’t sleep at night. Then, she would toss and turn, imagining the two of them in bed: not having sex—but the smalls of their backs touching. Sharing an unspoken intimacy that she believed was meant for her. Stephanie tried, unsuccessfully, to expel Kathy Walker from her thoughts. And at times like these, when she was buying Robert a present, she’d find herself wondering what Kathy was going to get him for Christmas, or what she’d gotten him for his birthday. Sometimes she even found herself wondering what Robert was giving his wife.

  When she’d first begun her relationship with Robert, it hadn’t been a problem. She had known he was married; but she also knew that he was emotionally separated from a woman who seemed to have stopped caring for him. He was attracted to Stephanie and she to him, and they were two adults, and so long as they weren’t hurting anyone . . .

  Stephanie turned off the busy street. Even though she was outside in the crisp air, she suddenly felt incredibly claustrophobic.

  When she’d started the relationship, she had never expected it to last. She had given it three months, six at most. She’d never thought about his wife or kids, of that other life he had with them, a life apart from her. As time went by, and she had slowly, inexorably, almost unconsciously fallen in love with him. And, subsequently, she wanted to know everything about him. His likes and dislikes, his dreams, his plans, his past . . . and that’s where it became complicated, because Robert’s past was still very much with him, wrapped around a wife and two children and a job that he obsessed about.

  Why did she have to go and fall in love with him?

  Because she was an idiot.

  You don’t fall in love with a married man.

  She’d given the same answer to girlfriends who had ended up in similar situations, and she’d always sworn she wasn’t going to make the same mistake. Yet, when she fell in love with him, she had starting asking questions about his other life: the life that didn’t include her. A part of her brain even pretended that the more she knew about it, the more she could demystify it, and the more she could justify her actions. Because if Robert’s wife didn’t love him, Stephanie could defend her own behavior.

  You don’t fall in love with a married man.

  But she had.

  The fading notes of the Salvation Army trumpets sounded like mocking laughter following her down the street.

  CHAPTER 33

  The condo was still and silent as she pushed open the door, then picked up her shopping bag off the step and carried it into the hall. Old Mrs. Moore, Stephanie’s downstairs neighbor, watched her enter the building from her bedroom window, and for a single instant Stephanie had been tempted to wave at her, but she didn’t feel like having a conversation with her. Mrs. Moore liked to chat and involve herself in people’s business. She was better than a burglar alarm; she phoned the police at the slightest intimation of something amiss. Three weeks ago, when she saw two young men skulking along the alley, she’d called the police and a roaming patrol car had stopped the two men for questioning. They had been carrying gloves, screwdr
ivers, and masking tape in their bag. They claimed they were apprentice carpenters. They found it slightly more difficult to explain the dozen twists of silver paper containing heroin and an assortment of credit cards in different names in the same bag. A local police officer had called to personally thank Mrs. Moore for her assistance. Since then Mrs. Moore had assumed the role of security guard for the building. Stephanie made a note to get her a nice Christmas present. She should probably get presents for everyone in the building: the young couple who were expecting a baby, and the old man in number four who always reeked of marijuana.

  Stephanie opened the left door to number 8 and climbed the stairs to her apartment. She immediately hit the button on the answering machine and listened to the messages as she unpacked the few groceries she’d picked up on her way home. Robert always teased her because she had a classic bachelor’s fridge: beer, wine, yogurt, and salsa. But she rarely ate there—snacked, breakfasted, lunched certainly, but she’d never cooked a full meal in the oven. That’s why God had invented the microwave.

  “Stef . . . this is your mother. Are you there? Why aren’t you there?”

  Stephanie pulled open the fridge and added the half gallon of soy milk to the empty tray in the door, alongside the half-empty carton of pure orange juice and an unopened bottle of Pinot Grigio. She hated when people called her Stef.

  “You’re probably out enjoying yourself. . . .”

  Stephanie shook her head in resignation. She knew where the lecture was going. Her mother, if anything, was consistent in her nagging.

  “I was just checking to make sure that you were not going to come home for Christmas. . . .”

  Stephanie added a container of Greek yogurt to the fridge. She had told her mother at least a dozen times that she’d be staying in Boston for Christmas. One year—just one—she had made the mistake of returning to the family home in Wisconsin for the holiday, and every year thereafter her mother had phoned and put pressure—subtle and not too subtle—on her to come again.

  “All your brothers and sisters will be here. Your cousins too.”

  Stephanie Burroughs had grown up in Madison, Wisconsin, the daughter of a college professor and a high school teacher. The family was staunchly Catholic, and the seven children, four boys and three girls, had grown up in a four-bedroom house, in a Catholic neighborhood, living a quiet, respectable version of the American dream. There was only a twelve-year age difference between the oldest, Bill, and the youngest, Joan. Stephanie fell more or less in the middle of the group and had somehow managed to avoid the cliques, pairings, and groups that form in any large family. That had left her feeling slightly distant from the rest of her extended family, who seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time living in one another’s pockets. She had always felt like the outsider, which had actually made it easier to leave home and move away, first to New Jersey, then up and down the East Coast. She was also the first member of the family to own a passport and was now, at the ripe old age of thirty-three, the last one left unmarried. Billy was on his third wife, much to their mother’s disgust.

  “Your father went online last night and discovered some last-minute flight bargains. If there’s a problem with money, you know he will send it on to you. . . .”

  Stephanie poured herself a glass of water from the Brita pitcher and shook her head. Including salary, bonuses, and expense account, she earned about two hundred thousand dollars a year. She—and the bank—had just purchased this condo; she owned her own car, had weekly massages, ate out regularly, had a premium gym membership, and went to the theater and movies whenever she wanted. She flew business class and was probably the most successful and financially secure of all of the Burroughs children, and yet somehow Toni still thought of her daughter as a secretary or a lowly researcher earning a pittance. Also, because she was not married with at least one child, Stephanie knew her mother was seriously worried about her. Being the only unmarried Burroughs was one notch lower on the totem pole than her gay brother Jack, who had caused uproar in the family when he had come out three years earlier. But even Jack had a partner and a newly adopted kid from Haiti. And as soon as she had met her newest granddaughter, Toni Burroughs had “forgiven” her son for being gay. But she still hadn’t forgiven Stephanie for being single. Or given up on finding her a potential mate. The last time Stephanie had been home—Thanksgiving—Toni had arranged for a string of young and eligible and not-so-young and even less eligible men to troop through the house in a somewhat macabre parade. To appease her mother, Stephanie had gone on one date with a computer programmer, and even half a bottle of chardonnay hadn’t saved her from one of the dullest evenings of her life.

  “It would be lovely to see you. Maybe if you ask nicely, your bosses would give you a little extra time off. Tell them you’ll make it up to them in the New Year.”

  Stephanie still had ten vacation days left to take out of this year’s allocation. She was going to try and carry them forward into the New Year. If she could persuade Robert to take a few days off, she might take him back to the Midwest, and they could travel out to Madison to meet her parents. She stopped, suddenly struck by the thought. Meeting the parents: That was a very formal thing to do. She knew they would both adore him—a successful businessman. They might have an issue with the sixteen-year age difference, but she was a big girl and she knew what she was doing. Didn’t she? But you only introduced a partner to your parents if you were serious about him. And then she smiled, and her face lit up. She was serious about him—then the smiled faded slightly—and becoming increasingly serious as time went by.

  “Well, call me if you get a chance, but I guess you’re too busy. You might call on Christmas Eve. All the family will be here, your brothers and sisters and their spouses and all of the grandchildren. We’ll have a full house here. . . .”

  Here it comes, Stephanie thought, and mouthed the words along with her mother.

  “. . . All except you, of course.”

  Stephanie lay back in the thick-foaming bubble bath and pressed her cell to her ear as she repeated the conversation to her best friend. “So then she said, ‘We’ll have a full house here, all except you of course.’ Talk about emotional blackmail!”

  Izzie laughed. “My mother is exactly the same. Mothers the world over are the same. I’m sure they go to Mommy School and take lessons.”

  Stephanie lifted her leg out of the water and allowed the bubbles to run down her smooth skin. Putting the claw-foot tub into the condo had been outrageously expensive, but money very well spent. After a long day on her feet, even the best shower couldn’t compete with a hot bath. “But you know what, I was actually tempted. It would be fun to go home, be with all the family again. See all of my nieces and nephews. Plus, I’m really conscious that both Mom and Dad are getting older.”

  “Well, why don’t you?” Izzie asked, seriously. There was a sharp intake of breath, and Stephanie clearly heard the crackle of cigarette paper burning. She could just visualize Izzie standing outside a bar somewhere, drink in one hand, cigarette in the other. Even though Izzie was a successful surgeon, she still had all of the bad habits of their undergraduate days at Princeton.

  “Why don’t I what?”

  “Get on a plane Christmas Eve and surprise everyone? Don’t tell anyone you’re coming. Just turn up.”

  “I couldn’t!”

  “What’s stopping you?” Izzie asked sharply. “I bet your mother would be thrilled to see you.”

  “I’m sure she would.”

  “And you said yourself, one of these Christmases will be their last.”

  “I know. I don’t like to think about it, but it’s true.”

  “But . . . ?” Izzie prompted.

  “But what about Robert?” Stephanie squeezed her eyes shut as soon as she mentioned her lover’s name. She knew what was coming.

  “Oh, yes, Robert,” Izzie said coldly, and Stephanie could just see her sucking hard on that cigarette. “Let’s see. Hmmm, I wonder where Ro
bert will be? Gosh, let me think about it for a millisecond. Oh, I know: Robert will be at home with his wife and children. Like he was last year and the year before that, like he will be next year and the year after that.”

  Stephanie sat up and reached for the glass of Pinot Grigio perched on the edge of the tub. “You really don’t like him, do you?” she said brightly, trying to avoid another argument with Izzie over Robert.

  “Not much. No.”

  “He really is a nice man. You just have to give him a chance. One of these days I’m going to get you two together.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he’s a wonderful man, pats dogs, kisses babies, helps old people cross the street, recycles, donates blood, pays his taxes, gives money to charity, and makes his wife breakfast in bed . . . while he’s lying to her, of course.”

  Stephanie sighed.

  “I’m sorry,” Izzie said immediately. “Look, I don’t want to have a fight with you. I just don’t want to see you sitting home on Christmas Eve hoping for an hour with Robert, and then waiting in all day Christmas Day for a visit that will never happen. That’s all.”

  “I know.” Stephanie sighed. And she did know. She remembered last Christmas; she had never felt so lonely, so lost, so alone in all her life. She had ordered in Chinese food and watched a James Bond movie marathon, clasping the phone in her hand for most of the day, willing it to ring . . . which it never did. “I know you’re right. God, I feel so pathetic. I do need to talk to him. I can’t go through that again this year.”

  “Better do it soon, sweetie—less than a week to go to the big day,” Izzie advised.

  “Tomorrow night. We’re having dinner. I’ll talk about it with him over dinner.”

  “Okay then. What are your plans for tonight?”

  “Absolutely none. I took a half day, then walked my feet off looking for a present for Robert, and I still haven’t really found him anything. What are you getting Dave?”