Over lunch with the son-in-law—there was no getting out of it—Valerie explained a point of architectural layout with the aid of her napkin, a dessert spoon, and her water glass, being consciously charming, because pretending that Adam was watching and making him jealous was the only way of injecting any interest into the meal. There had been a time when she’d considered flirting with business contacts one of the perks of her job, when clients had provided a good source of lovers, and this type of bantering after work had been great fun. But now that seemed trivial at best, at worst downright sordid. Thank God all that was over. Thank God she was no longer “available”—an odious word. How grateful she was for that, and how soul-destroying it would be to have to go back to fishing for sex and romance in pools where fish like this one swam—bottom-feeders, ghastly blind fish that dwell in the slime. She looked in disgust at his plump, freckled hand.
No hand could be more unlike Adam’s—refined yet manly, like Adam himself. At first he had seemed unattainable. Always polite and charming, but reserved and removed from Valerie’s sphere. His voice was what she had first loved about him, a cultured English public-school voice, saying wonderfully amusing and self-deprecating things. “Classy” was how she secretly thought of it, aware that finding things classy was itself déclassé. But to an erstwhile poor girl—well, lower middle class actually, but “poor” was gutsier—it was irresistible, and so was he: the prize, the prince for Cinderella. He had education and talent, tempered charmingly by fatherly traits: He was protective and concerned, teacherly and encouraging, sometimes disapproving and admonishing. His drooping frame, his graying temples, even his slight tendency toward fuddy-duddiness enchanted her, as they seemed to be proof of his pedigree. Once she had sensed his submerged desire for her, overcoming his reticence became an erotic experience in which she found her boldness as arousing as he did. The challenge of seducing such a man required all her skills and guile, and in the throes of frustrated longing she even made a pact: Dear God in heaven, if you give me this man, I promise I will never ask you for another single thing. When Adam at last succumbed, his guilty anguish intensified her sexual pleasure—as it did his own—and fueled her fiery sense of triumph.
Valerie spent the afternoon trapped in her hotel, downtown Newark being no place to go out shopping. She passed the time in her room rereading the same paragraph of a dull novel, in the gift shop buying herself trinkets that failed to raise her spirits, and wandering the halls, glancing anxiously into mirrors.
Back in her room at dusk, after a solitary drink in the bar, she sat wishing she could light a cigarette and looking at her phone. No one had called. Was there someone she could call? Agatha? To hell with Agatha. That asinine “dare” of hers—that was how Valerie viewed the idea of the ultimatum—had rankled all day, and so had Agatha’s insinuation that she was afraid to do it, for as Agatha knew damned well, Valerie was brave enough to do anything… except pass up a dare. One particular line had been running through her head in Agatha’s taunting voice: “Why in God’s name should he ever choose between the two of you, as long as he can have you both?” Just another case of sour grapes, nothing to get worked up about. So. No calling anyone. Not Agatha, not Adam, not anyone. That’s that. She glared at the phone. Oh, perfect. As if the day hadn’t already been crammed full of adolescent humiliations, now she was going to spend the evening staring at the phone, hoping it would ring. No, to hell with that. Enough moping, thank you very much. She tapped in Adam’s office number—he didn’t like her to use his cell phone. It rang, once, twice, and again. Now that she had finally made up her mind to call, she was sick with worry that he wouldn’t be there.
He was, but only just. When the phone began to ring, he was already on his feet, organizing papers on his desk, getting ready for the next day. His jacket was lying neatly folded over his sports bag on the chair. It was Tuesday, the day he really played squash with James after work—on Thursdays he only pretended to and went to Valerie’s apartment instead for his weekly dose of sophistication and lovemaking—and James had been talking all day about the thrashing he was going to give Adam in revenge for Adam’s victory the week before. Adam was so nearly out the door when his phone rang—once, twice, and again—that he considered not answering; after all, it was past six, and his workday was finished. But then it occurred to him that it might be Sophie needing him to pick something up on his way home. Ever since he’d become unfaithful to her, he’d been punctilious in small matters concerning her, so he glanced at the caller ID, ready to agree cheerfully to bring home a carton of milk. But it wasn’t Sophie. He lifted the receiver on the sixth ring. “Hello, Valerie.” At the sound of his mannerly English voice, its precise diction and well-modulated tone, Valerie felt a stab of longing for him.
“Well, they ate it up!” she said, her voice artificially bright. “Just like we thought. We won’t know for sure until tomorrow, but my guess is we’ve got it in the bag, partner!”
“Ah, wonderful.” Adam frowned at James, who had appeared in the doorway and was waggling his squash racket impatiently. “Well done. That’s good news. Congratulations.” James, first sensing Adam’s discomfort and then guessing who must be on the phone, made an operatic mime of excusing himself and tiptoeing to close the door and let Adam speak in private, then grinned back at him through the glass. Embarrassed, Adam muttered, “Bravo.”
“What’s wrong? Is somebody there?”
“No. Not now.”
“Do you miss me?” Valerie had not meant to say that, or anything resembling it, but the words were already out of her mouth. There was silence on the other end of the line as Adam gestured to James to go downstairs and wait there. He mouthed, Five minutes, with one hand in the air, five fingers outstretched.
“Adam,” Valerie prompted. “Adam?”
James looked puzzled and mouthed back, What?
“Yes, of course,” Adam said sharply, in exasperation with James. “Always. Keep up the good work and let me know what happens. All right, then? Speak to you tomorrow.”
“Adam, wait!” The brush-off? “I just…”
“Yes?”
“I wanted to know if… you love me.” What? What was she saying? Stop it, for God’s sake, stop this drivel!
There was a breathy sound on the line that made Valerie stiffen; it was very like a weary sigh. She sincerely hoped that it had not been a weary sigh. “Of course I do,” Adam said. But there it was in his voice: that hint of weariness.
“No, I mean… really,” she said, meaning that she really, honestly needed reassurance; this wasn’t just some stupid little game. To keep herself calm, she thought, Don’t worry, it’s okay to miss your lover, okay to show him that you do, okay to express your insecurities. None of this is uncool, it’s all right, it’s natural, he’ll understand.
“What do you mean, ‘really’? Come on, Valerie—you’re not the ‘Do you love me? Really?’ type!”
There was a short silence. Then Valerie asked in a dangerously even tone, “Oh, no? What ‘type’ am I, then?”
“Valerie, what is the matter with you? You know I love you.”
Said impatiently. Irritably.
James could lip-read well enough to catch Adam’s last three words—as who cannot? He knew about their affair, of course; it was pretty hard to work in the same office and not know, so now he gave Adam a big, knowing wink. Adam’s left cheek pulsated with annoyance. It was high time to wind up this tiresome call. “Look, I’ve got to go,” he said. “Let’s leave this for some other time, shall we? We’ll talk when you get back.”
It was his tone of voice that did it. That brisk, harassed tone, as if after a long day at work it was just too much to have to put up with the hysterical neediness of his mistress, when all he really wanted to do was get home to a nice, relaxing dinner with his two small sons and his wife. It was the long-suffering quality of it that made anger shoot through Valerie like an electrical charge, and when she spoke, her voice was low and forceful. “Oh, n
o. No, that won’t do at all. We need to talk right now. That’s why I’m calling, in fact. I’ve thought things over, Adam, and I’ve realized I’m not ‘the type’ to sit around waiting for you to decide who you want to spend your life with. Time’s up, I’m afraid. You have to choose. Who’s it going to be, Adam, your wife or me?”
“What?”
She was as shocked as he was by what she had said. She felt a queasy jolt in her stomach, as if she were careening down a roller coaster, but also that same reckless elation. She betrayed nothing of her vertigo, however, as she continued in a firm voice, “I’ll be back in the office on Thursday. That gives you two days to make up your mind. During the next forty-eight hours, you can do one of two things: either tell your wife you’re leaving her, then call me and tell me you’ve done so, or else tell your wife nothing, in which case it’s all over between you and me.”
“Valerie, you must be joking. This is infantile!”
“I know what I want, Adam. Now it’s your turn to decide.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but the line buzzed dead; she had hung up. He sat staring at the receiver in his hand. It was no good now wishing he hadn’t answered the phone.
James came back in, shifted his weight from foot to foot, cleared his throat twice, and then whacked a few imaginary squash balls in slow motion, supplying the sound of the distant crowd’s roar of approval, but none of this succeeded in rousing Adam from his reverie, so at last James broke the silence with a tentative, “Trouble in paradise?”
* * *
A slender, blondish woman with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing a cotton dress, flat shoes, and no makeup, made steady progress through the aisles, frowning thoughtfully as she chose a cabbage, oatmeal, some Bosc pears, fruit juice, raisins, milk, cereal, fish, piling things and more things into her cart until it was so heavy she could barely steer it. She paused over two bottles of jam and read the ingredients carefully. “No added sugar,” one label promised in big letters, but in smaller letters it admitted to aspartame, which was worse. Such an astute jam buyer, a little voice in her head mocked, a voice she had come to think of as “the imp.”
In the supermarket Sophie Dean was sometimes assailed by doubts, although about what, exactly, she would be hard-pressed to say: her life, herself, something fundamental; which was puzzling, because this was, after all, the life she had chosen, with much care and forethought, in every detail. She had reflected at each fork in the road before selecting her path, her decisions had been sound, and yet sometimes she felt bewildered by the unfamiliarity of the countryside in which she now found herself.
She caught sight of her face in the reflection of a gleaming chrome freezer and she was surprised by the ferocity of her expression. Her four-year-old son, Hugo, wouldn’t approve at all. “Hairbrowns” was what he called eyebrows, and he used them to gauge whether a person was good or bad. Bad people frowned harshly, so their eyebrows were straight lines pointing down to the bridge of their nose, whereas good people’s eyebrows rose in high, perky half circles. This was true of the illustrations in children’s books, and it was also a reliable way of judging real people and their moods. “Why do you have those hairbrowns?” he would sometimes ask his mother when she was looking worried or angry.
Waiting in the checkout line beside her heaped cart, Sophie noticed a woman of her own age in the next line who was buying a container of yogurt, some frilly lettuce, and a bar of plain soap. Three things. So easy to carry that she didn’t even need a basket. She was a woman who, without appearing disdainful of her surroundings or standing out in any definable way, still managed to look markedly out of place in a supermarket. Only five years ago, right up to the time Matthew was born, it was still rare for Sophie to go into a supermarket. When she was single, and later, her first year with Adam, she had lived in a little studio on Marlborough Street between Exeter and Fairfield, and she would pop into DeLuca’s for one or two things on her way home—some cauliflower, a carton of eggs—and then off she’d go, clipping briskly down the street toward home, swinging her shopping bag. Now things were very different. Living in the suburbs meant she had to take out her car and drive a long distance, specifically to the supermarket, not on her way to or from anywhere, but on a trip of its own. Now she had to drag a giant shopping cart around a chilly, fluorescent-lit cavern and pile it high, the cart growing so unwieldy that she had to throw her whole body into the task of moving it. Grunting and shoving, buying more food than she could push, let alone lift. It was obscene. But the alternative was worse: buying less and coming more often, thereby ruining several mornings a week instead of just one. Seized by a sudden doubt, Sophie hunted for a mirror, found one on top of a stand of sunglasses, and studied herself anxiously. She looked all right, but… But! Her suspicions were confirmed: She did not look out of place in a supermarket. Not anymore. Those days were over. What hideous process of degeneration was this, then, more insidious than aging and so much more damning? Could it be reversed? What fashion makeover, what corrective surgery, what course of psychological overhauling could be required? She pushed her groceries across the parking lot, head down, muttering to herself, struggling to keep her side-winding cart on track to the car, and planning the rest of her day.
After a morning of domestic industry, she would drive to the Montessori school with a snack of cheese sandwiches and Bosc pears, her sons’ favorite fruit. It was a warm mid-September day, so they would go straight to the park and picnic there. Hugo, the younger of the two boys, had been in school for only a couple of weeks, so this routine was still new to Sophie, as was the vertiginous freedom of having both children occupied from nine to two-thirty. Time to herself at last—or not, as it turned out. With nature’s abhorrence of a vacuum, her timetable quickly filled up with other chores; the illusion of freedom vanished, and only the strangeness of separation from the children lingered. She usually got to the school early and sat by the gates, enjoying the feeling of anticipation before the bell rang and the schoolyard overflowed with shrieking children, among them her own two. She would kneel to hug them, relishing the strength of their small arms around her neck, their flattering shouts of joy at seeing her, and their breathless accounts of the days they now spent away from her. It was the happiest moment of her day and theirs, this reunion, and thinking about it now as she toiled across the parking lot, she wondered how she could be so churlish as to resent the supermarket that supplied her children’s favorite fruit.
The sight of the pears in her cart transported her to her Marlborough Street studio one rainy Sunday morning several years before. She and Adam had been sitting looking out the bay window at the garden and eating pears and Roquefort when she was reminded of a favorite poem. She found the book, opened a bottle of white wine, and he read “A Late Aubade” by Richard Wilbur aloud to her while the rain and wind dashed the blossoms off the little cherry tree out front.
Her memories were interrupted by a beggar in the parking lot asking for spare change—and then something unaccountable happened. While she was digging in her purse, her unattended shopping cart began to roll. The man took his coins, grinned toothlessly, and pointed at her cart, which had picked up a little speed, but not much. In a few quick steps, she could easily have caught and stopped it, but she didn’t move. She just watched. Feeling strangely detached, she stood watching as the cart rolled across the asphalt—slowly, slowly—gaining just enough momentum to smash the left taillight when at last it crashed into her car.
* * *
Adam was sitting on the chesterfield, his eyes closed, his hands covering his head as though to shield his thoughts from scrutiny. It had not been a good day, even discounting that hysterical call from Valerie—which was no joke, he knew. It had been a taxing day of tension and conflict, with that partnership looking more unlikely all the time. And now some nonsense about a shopping trolley.
“But I don’t understand. How fast was the bloody thing moving?”
“Not fast at all. That’s the
funny part.”
“Then why didn’t you stop it, for heaven’s sake?”
“I don’t know. The whole thing seemed… predestined.”
“Christ Almighty, Sophie!” Adam felt that it was vulgar to compare his mistress and his wife, but good God, here he had on the one hand a woman pulling off a multi-million-dollar deal and, on the other, someone who couldn’t even— “What good would you be in a crisis? Really, with reactions like yours, who needs danger? Through your sheer inertia, the most trifling incident could eventually become life-threatening—given that it has all the time in the world to evolve!”
“It’s very strange, I know.” She handed him his drink and went into the kitchen.
At Adam’s feet Matthew and Hugo were playing with toy airplanes, using part of the design in the Oriental rug as a runway and expertly re-creating with their mouths all the sounds associated with air-traffic control, takeoff, then engine failure, the triggering of the alarm system, generalized panic aboard, a forced landing in the jungle, the leading of the passengers to safety, and the subsequent explosion of the aircraft. Once the heroic crew had pulled one another to safety from the burning wreck and doused the flames, the boys wanted to play the game all over again, this time with their father as admiring spectator. There were cries of “Daddy, Daddy, look at this!” from Matthew, taken up by Hugo, and much eager tugging at Adam, resulting in Hugo’s knocking over his whiskey.
Leaving Sophie Dean Page 2