She talked about Brendan’s poise and his sensitivity, which were as impressive to Karen as his brilliance. She talked about his compassion for Jimmy. She talked about his occasional discomfort about who he is and what people expect from him, his occasional longings to be regular instead of special. She talked about the surprising depth of his character. He seemed more mature, secure, and sincere than adults Karen knew. Nick raised his eyebrows when Karen stopped. “You got more than I thought.”
“Really?”
“I knew this had the potential to be a good story, but, as with all stories, it depends on the reporter as well as the subject.”
“Was that a compliment?”
“Yeah,” said Nick. “And I’m not in the habit of handing them out on the first day.”
They sat for a moment, looking at each other in silence. “What should I do now?”
“Take all the energy you have about this little boy and put it into a page one story.”
“Page one?”
“If it’s good enough, yes. I want to see your first draft in an hour.”
Karen drove home with the windows down and Madonna’s Immaculate Collection blasting out of her car speakers. She felt as free as a teenager who had just finished her last high school exam and knew she would graduate with honors. Excellent job, is what Nick had said about her story; you did an excellent job. She could still see his face and hear him praising her for something she had written instead of something she cooked or baked. His words implied she had intelligence, sound reasoning, and insight, all the things she used to hear from professors in college, but had heard rarely since. Jennifer Clear had often praised Karen’s work, but it hadn’t meant as much as Nick’s words today. It had been such a long time since Karen heard words like this about something that mattered. She took her cell phone out of her purse and called Bob. Hi, this is Bob Parsons. I’m either in a meeting or on the phone at the moment. Leave your name and number, and I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can. Thanks for calling.
“Hi, honey, it’s me,” Karen told Bob’s voice mail. “I had a great day at work, and I can’t wait to tell you about it. Call me when you can. I should be home.”
At home, Karen plopped her work bag and purse on the kitchen floor, then ran up the stairs to her room to change. Five minutes later, she was in jeans, a T-shirt, and her favorite white tennis sneakers. She bounded back down the stairs and into the kitchen. With fifteen minutes before the kids got off the bus, she grabbed the packaged cookie dough from the fridge, broke it along the precut lines, and placed it on two cookie sheets. She took both of the sheets out of the oven just as Rebecca and Robert came through the front door. “Wow!” said Robert. “Can we have some?”
“Of course you can,” said Karen, setting the sheets down on her counter and hugging him.
“You made them for us?” asked Rebecca, looking bored.
“Yes.”
“You mean they’re not for a luncheon or a friend who got a bad pedicure?” she asked sarcastically.
“Look,” said Karen, “if you want me to make cookies for you, I will. But if you’re going to be a jerk about it, Rebecca, I won’t.”
Rebecca glared at her mother. “I don’t want your fattening snack anyway,” she said, turning and walking out of the kitchen.
Karen watched her go, then looked at Robert, who was sitting at the kitchen table.
“Can I still have your fattening snack?” he asked.
Karen smiled at him and got him a glass of milk. She put two warm cookies on a plate and sat down at the table with him. “How was your day?”
“It was great! We were really good in science, so the teacher gave us double recess. And she can be kind of cranky in science, so I was really surprised.”
“Surprises are nice.”
Suddenly, Robert’s eyes got big. “You went to your job today, didn’t you, Mom?”
“I did,” said Karen, smiling.
“Did you have a good day?”
She got up from the table and hugged her son from behind. “I had a great day, just like you. Thank you so much for asking.”
“What did you do?”
Karen sat back down across the table from him. “I wrote a story about a boy almost your age.”
“A story about a kid like me?” asked Robert, taking a bite of his second cookie. “What did he do to get in the newspaper?”
“He’s really smart. I think he’s going to do something really great for the world.”
“I’m going to do that, too. Like do an invention.”
“That would be cool.”
Robert finished his cookie. “You’re the best mom.”
Bob called after Robert had his snack and before Karen found out that Rebecca had had a fight with her good friend, Tara, over a boy. Bob had a dinner meeting and would be late. He was on a quick break from a meeting when he called, so he couldn’t talk long. He remembered to ask Karen about her job, but appeared too distracted to listen thoughtfully to her answer. Karen was accustomed to this treatment, but that afternoon found it particularly distasteful. He knew how much this new job meant to her; he knew how excited she was. She hung up the phone and dragged herself up the stairs to find Rebecca. She was in her room, lying on her bed with headphones on. She didn’t remove them until Karen sat down next to her and folded her arms across her chest. “What?”
“I sense you didn’t have a great day.”
“You’re psychic, Mom,” said Rebecca, putting the headphones back on.
Karen stayed put. After several moments, Rebecca again removed them. “What?”
Karen uncrossed her arms. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Rebecca exaggerated a blink. “Do I look like I want to talk about it?”
“Do you want to ask me about my day?”
Rebecca made a face. “Why would I want to do that?”
“Because I started at the newspaper today.”
“The Record?” asked Rebecca with a forced smile on her face. “Does this mean we have to actually read it before putting it into the recycling bin?”
Parenting Rebecca took a lot of mental energy and anger management. However, instead of getting angry with her this time, Karen lifted herself off the bed and walked out of the room. She felt crappy about what her daughter had said, but pleased that she had remained in control, especially since Rebecca loved to argue. She was a smart enough kid to attack Karen’s vulnerabilities, a very good strategy. This afternoon Karen decided she wouldn’t give her the chance.
Bob walked through the back door at ten o’clock. Rebecca and Robert were in bed, and Karen was on the living room couch reading the assigned novel for the book group she had recently joined at the library. She looked up when he walked into the room.
“Hi,” he said, bending down to kiss her cheek.
She could smell beer on his breath. “How was your meeting?”
“Intense.” Bob removed his blazer and loosened his tie. “In the end, we got the account.”
“How many beers did it take?”
Bob smirked. “Let’s not start, Karen. You know how this works.”
“Oh, I am very familiar with how it works.” Karen closed her book and turned out the lamp over her head. “It’s you who doesn’t know how it works.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My point, exactly,” she said, before walking up the stairs.
Bob slowly followed her, replaying her words in his mind. But they were like a code he couldn’t break. He had been busy at work lately, but he was trying to pay more attention to her. After all, he called her today and asked about her job. Hadn’t he scored points with that?
CHAPTER 14
OCTOBER 2004
Even though he thought it wasn’t possible, Bob got busier at work. Forester was doing better than it had in a decade. Its sales of uncoated free-sheet paper and container board looked as though they would continue to soar in the fourth quarter, as they had in the second and t
hird, easily offsetting the high cost of raw materials and energy. Production was smooth and uninterrupted at all of Forester’s seven international manufacturing locations, with the exception of a scheduled shutdown at the Alabama plant at the end of September. Management thought a celebration was in order, and Bob was selected to visit each plant to offer congratulations and cash incentives for continued outstanding performance. His visits would coincide with the annual safety reviews, which Bob would attend as well. It was an honor, Bob realized, but it would mean he would be away from home for more than a month.
Karen was far more understanding than he anticipated. In fact, she seemed almost eager for him to leave, telling him again and again that she, Rebecca, and Robert would be fine. When he told her he felt pushed out the door, Karen told him he was being sensitive, a word she seldom used to describe her husband, and that she was just trying to help him feel good about the trip. The night before his departure, Karen arranged for her parents to have the kids for the night. She made Bob’s favorite cool-weather meal: roast beef, mashed potatoes, and green beans, and served it with a bottle of Bordeaux that cost well over Bob’s fifteen-dollar limit. Afterward, they had sex on the couch in the den, with the Tigers game on the television that Bob had glanced at only once.
When the children were younger, Karen dreaded Bob’s extended business trips. The challenges of single parenting managed to outwit her every time, making her cross with Rebecca and Robert as well as herself. She was anxious to see how she’d manage now that her life had turned around. And that’s exactly how she felt about her job; it was life altering. She had told Bob and her friends how much working meant to her, but she hadn’t been able to measure it until she was faced with this trip and felt relief instead of panic. Without him, she could do exactly as she pleased in the evening as well as during the day.
Karen had recently discovered that, as a working woman, she felt even more entitled to do whatever made her happy on her off hours. She still had Bob and the children to consider, but most of the time, they were manageable considerations. She had to make sure Rebecca and Robert made it to school and to their after-school obligations. She had to shop for food and prepare meals. She had to oversee Robert’s homework. And she had to listen to Bob’s work stories. That was it, on a day-to-day basis. None of that changed when she started working. What had changed, however, was her attitude about herself and about her leisure time, which was limited again. Gone was any guilt she felt about pleasing herself, replaced by the knowledge that she deserved whatever she wished. And with Bob gone, she had one less person to please before she got to herself.
As soon as Bob told her he was leaving, she started mapping out her five-week plan. She worked Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from eleven to three. She played tennis Tuesday and Thursday mornings. She exercised at the River Club gym on Monday and Friday mornings. She shopped for groceries on Wednesday morning and again on the weekend if needed. She lunched out on Tuesdays with Caroline, Stephanie, and Ginny. That left part of Tuesday afternoon and all of Thursday afternoon free. She decided she’d call her mother and arrange a couple of get-togethers with her in Bob’s absence. Maybe she and the kids could go to her parents’ house for dinner and a sleepover. And maybe she’d do a little clothes shopping. Since she had started working, she hadn’t bought herself a single thing.
The most exciting part for Karen, however, was not the daytime hours; she would be doing what she normally did. It was the evening. Instead of making dinner every night and then eating it while listening to Bob’s relentless jabber about work, she’d take the kids out to dinner a few times a week, to Applebee’s, Bennigan’s, and Taco Bell. When they didn’t go out, she’d spend the evening in her bathrobe and slippers after serving boxed macaroni and cheese and applesauce or spaghetti or chicken pot pie for dinner. When she got into bed, she’d read the newspaper and then a novel, instead of fending off Bob’s advances. It would be heaven!
Karen felt liberated when Bob drove out the driveway. She convinced herself this was not because she felt any differently about him, loved him any less than she had before. She was simply looking forward to some free time. After all, since she married right out of college, she’d never had any. She moved from her parent’s house into a university dorm system, into Bob’s apartment, their apartment, and then into their house. She’d never had her own space. Plus, she spent most of her college career attached to him. And at the time, she was grateful. A lot of the women at school had been jealous of Karen because she had been able to land an attentive, attractive boyfriend like Bob. Unlike them, Karen didn’t have to wonder at parties if someone would notice her. She wasn’t reduced to talking or laughing too loud in the cafeteria or at a campus or downtown bar in a desperate attempt to garner someone’s attention, to get someone to pick her out of the crowd. Her future was tidily wrapped up with one guy. Thinking now about the hunt—as her roommate Allison referred to it—Karen wished she’d been more adventuresome. It would have been fun, she guessed, to flirt with one guy on Friday night and another on Saturday night.
During their tennis lunches, when they had two glasses of wine instead of one, Caroline sometimes told stories about her torrid college days, when she dated several guys simultaneously, ignoring what other less attractive and willing women said about her reputation. Reputations, she would often say, are made after college. So, at school, she routinely accepted and evaluated every invitation and then spent the evening with the highest bidder. If one guy offered to simply meet her at a party and take her home to his bed, he was at the bottom of the list, one slot above her opting to stay in. If another boy wanted to take her out to dinner before taking her back to his bed, he was above Bachelor #1. And if another guy was willing to wine and dine her at an expensive restaurant before he took her back to his bed, he trumped Bachelor #2, winning Caroline for the evening. Caroline told Karen and the others that she had had no trouble having casual sex, provided she was attracted to the guy and he used a condom.
Karen thought back to her relationship with Ray McNamara and the kisses they shared that night in the darkened classroom. Objectively, Karen thought, that night was the best kissing session she’d ever had, including the night she and Bob first met and kissed in the street. Ray’s kisses were slow and gentle, yet fiery, warming Karen’s skin. Karen had been so turned on by his mouth that night that if she hadn’t been preoccupied with Bob, she would have unbuttoned her shirt and encouraged Ray to go further.
She couldn’t get Ray off her mind all day. She had trained herself not to think about him and had been successful for months, her streak broken when she had seen his picture in the newspaper several weeks before. He was playing for the Boston Red Sox now, making spectacular plays on the field and millions of dollars a year. After the kids were in bed on Bob’s third night away, Karen went to the Red Sox website and read his bio. He was married to a woman he had known since childhood. They had three children. Karen typed his name into her computer’s search engine and found an official Ray McNamara website. She opened it, and there he was, looking directly at her, looking even better than he had in college. He still wore his hair on the long side. It was kind of like Nick’s, Karen realized. They had very similar hair—and eyes. While Nick’s were brown and Ray’s were an arresting blue, both pairs grabbed and held Karen’s attention. Karen sent his fan club address a message, signing it Karen Spears. Two days later, she heard back. He was on the road; could she log on at eleven o’clock that night for an online conversation? Karen hesitated for three seconds before e-mailing the address he sent her: Yes.
That day, she played tennis and had lunch with the girls. She ran errands. She helped Robert with his homework, and she and Rebecca painted their fingernails. She took them out to dinner, then let them watch TV. After they went to bed, she read her book group novel and then skimmed the newspaper to pass the time. At ten forty-five, she took her laptop and a glass of wine upstairs to her bedroom and flipped through a magazine while she waited. At e
xactly eleven o’clock, he wrote:
Hi.
Karen’s heart beat in her chest quickened. Hi back.
It’s so good to hear from you. How are you?
I’m great, wrote Karen, with shaking fingers. And you?
Very good. We’ve had a great season. I can’t believe we’re headed for the Series.
Because of you, from what I hear, wrote Karen, smiling.
Not really.
You were always humble.
Not humble, honest.
I’m laughing, wrote Karen.
I remember your laugh.
Karen inhaled. Tell me about your family.
They’re great. Ellen’s a terrific mother. We have two girls and a boy. The boy, Carter, loves baseball.
Are you surprised?
No. I love it, too.
I’m glad you still love it.
There was a pause.
I still think about you sometimes.
Oh, Ray.
I think it would have worked between us.
I can’t think about that, wrote Karen, thinking about it.
Are you happy?
Yes, wrote Karen before she had time to think.
I’m glad. You deserve to be happy.
So do you.
Can I call you?
Karen thought a moment. Don’t call. I want to remember you as you were in college.
You always had a good head on your shoulders.
Take good care, Ray, Karen wrote, wanting to talk to him, to see him, to kiss him one more time.
You too.
Instead, Karen turned off her computer, finished her wine, and masturbated.
After a fitful sleep, Karen was slow-moving the next day at work. It took all of her concentration to get through two interviews and write first drafts. When she finished, she was glad they weren’t due until the end of the week. Even though she was feeling more awake as the afternoon progressed, the stories needed editing. She was distracted by and regretful of her actions the night before and needed time to sort out what she was feeling. While she was resolved to quash any impulses to contact Ray again, she was troubled by what prompted her to do it. Why now? Just before three o’clock, she packed her bag and shut down the computer. Nick stopped at her desk on his way to the kitchen for more coffee on his way out. “How did everything go this morning?”
A Changing Marriage Page 22