“I love my husband,” I said, “and my kids.”
“I love Greta. I’m not asking you to leave them or to change anything for me, Janet. I’m asking you to be with me just as you are.”
“With a non-disclosure agreement?”
He shook his head.
“Oh, Hannah, Hannah, Hannah. This is why she and I have never been intimate. I trust her as my attorney but not as my Second.”
“Your Second. Of course, this is all a numbers game for you. Counting conquests, putting notches on your belt. It’s disgusting.”
“It’s nothing like that,” he said. “I promise, Janet. These are just signals in our hierarchy. Everyone knows where they fit in and the responsibilities that come with that. It also means that there’s continuity in the organization and everyone’s taken care of.”
“Like Eleena—”
“That’s not fair. This has nothing to do with Eleena,” he said. “If you want to talk about Eleena, Janet, we can talk about Eleena, but not right now. This is about you and me—”
“You and me? There is no me and you. We don’t even know each other. We’ve seen each other at work. Your work has brought you to my home. I don’t even know where your home is—”
“I was born in Vegas in 2003, and my family moved to Stockton when I was a kid. I am one of three kids. My parents are still happily married. My sister is a surgeon, and she works with us. My brother is a publicist, and he also works with us. My parents are retired. My mom was a teacher, and so was my dad. What else do you want to know?”
“What about Hannah?” I asked as if I were planning to take out a rival. (Please don’t judge me.)
“Apart from Anton, Hannah’s probably the smartest person I’ve ever met,” Mike said.
“Not Jeremiah?” I asked. “The visionary. ‘First of his Brilliance’?”
Mike shook his head and took a deep breath as if to calm himself down.
“I have my reasons, Janet, for courting Hannah that have nothing to do with wanting her to be my Second. Hannah needs to believe in love for her to trust people. So, I give her what she needs, which is a slow burn in a relationship so that I get what I need from her.”
“What do you need?”
“For another time, Janet. I want you . . . to be my Second. No one’s asking you to leave your marriage, to change anything about it. I’m not even asking you to decide tonight, but I want you to be my Second.”
“Call me a cab. Now.”
“I’ll drive you home.”
We didn’t talk on the way to Rancho San Antonio.
I took another shower when I got home, and Mauru sat up in bed with me as I cried in the darkness.
He turned the lights on, stared at me, and nodded.
He turned the lights off and went to bed.
A few hours later, I felt him get out of bed, take his pillow with him and go to the living room.
The next morning, he didn’t talk to me.
We got the kids ready for school and day care in silence; the habits of our morning routine perfected over at least several years, now automatic. Mauru refused to look at me, and I couldn’t look at him either. It felt like a fissure had formed in the ground that had previously held us together, and Mauru had detected it as soon as it had occurred, which was why he’d taken the first step back.
As we put the kids in my car, I looked at Mauru, and he turned away from me.
Jon and Nate wanted to know, “Why is Dad so mad today, Mom?”
I looked in Mauru’s direction but couldn’t look at him. I wanted to deny whatever it was he thought had happened, but I didn’t want to lie to him. Cheating on him with someone we’d had in our home, who had a fiancée who was now his wife, and they were my clients (well, my employers’ clients) and our employees, as public servants of the state, was one thing. Lying was quite another.
Mauru didn’t like the Hoviaks.
No. He despised them.
I guess that I, too, had despised them sometime in the past.
Things were different now.
Mike was different now.
I was different now.
I loved my husband more than ever—
“Mom!” Nate yelled, “Why is Dad crying now? What did you do to him?”
Mauru was crying as he sat in his car. He was fighting the tears, the emotion, and the more he did so, the more he cried. I had strapped the kids in, and Jon, seeing his dad cry, was also crying now.
“Dad! Dad! Dad!” Jon cried. “I want my dad! I want my dad!”
Hearing my son cry for his dad with those words, which he repeated, “Dad! Dad!” made me think of “Disgrace! Disgrace!” which had been yelled at Eleena’s execution.
I was a disgrace.
There was no pride.
Mauru dropped his head and cried for a while as Jon and Nate called out for him. Mauru blew his nose, opened his car door, walked past me, and he opened the passenger door and took Jon and Nate out. Jon was eight, and Nate was five. They could have gotten out on their own.
I now had five people against me; the twins had joined in.
I went to get them.
“I’ll call in sick,” I said, trying to defuse the situation. “I’ve never called in sick. Larry will understand.”
Mauru didn’t respond. He took all four kids. He put them in his minivan and drove off.
I didn’t realize that Jennifer and Adam de Jong had been watching from their carport.
I thought of covering my tracks, of saying that a pet had been diagnosed with a fatal illness—Mauru’s father’s pet called “Oodles”—up in Sacramento—Mauru loved the pet—and so did the kids. Instead, I forced a smile and waved at the de Jongs. Whatever I did next, I promised myself, I didn’t want to lie, and I didn’t want to tell anyone more than they needed to know.
I thought of calling Mike, but I didn’t have his phone number. I felt my breathing hasten, hands tremble, and my eyes lose focus.
I looked at my watch as the de Jongs left for work.
I was going to be at least five minutes late.
Would he leave me?
Mauru.
Would he leave me?
I walked back into the condo and sat on the couch. There was a hamper full of clean laundry beside the couch. I threw the hamper against the bookshelf, cracking the glass panels on its doors. I sat on the couch, and a message came in from Larry. Could I come by his office when I got in? Something urgent had come up.
Did Larry know?
I picked up the laundry and stuffed it into the hamper, glanced at the cracked bookshelf door, and walked up to it, trying to assess how badly damaged it was. Maybe it was just a little crack, the sort of thing you can repair with some “filler” purchased at the hardware store. If Mauru or anyone asked, I’d say Jon or Nate did it when they were playing with, with . . . something. Kids are always playing with something, and they’re always breaking things, cracking them, destroying them. That would take care of it.
I wondered if Mike wanted kids; I wasn’t having any more kids.
I stopped that thought before it evolved into a full-blown fantasy with the picket fence and 2.5 pets in the suburbs.
Mauru. Was he OK?
I looked at all the photos of us, happy, on the living room walls, and I walked out.
“Hi, Larry.” I typed into my phone. “Sure. A few little ‘wrinkles’ at home this morning! Sorry I’m a little late. I’ll come by. Sorry!”
When I got to work, Hannah said I looked rested.
I couldn’t look at her.
She said that Mike had canceled their dinner appointment scheduled for that weekend.
I nodded.
She asked if everything was OK.
I nodded.
Had something happened?
I shook my head.
Wasn’t Mike a gentleman for driving me home?
I nodded.
“I’m so sorry, Hannah,” I said. “The kids have a cold, and when one of them has a col
d, the whole house stays awake. You’ll see when you and Mike have kids, Hannah. You’ll be a great mom.”
“That’s the sweetest thing you’ve said about Mike and me.” She hugged me. “You are my friend, after all.”
I knocked on Larry’s door, and he asked me to close the door after I entered.
My heart was pounding, and I was breathing so fast I felt a little unbalanced.
“You OK?” Larry asked as he told me to take a seat.
“The kids have a cold, Larry. I also drank a little too much tequila last night. Mauru—anyway, I’m so sorry I’m late, Larry.”
“I need you to be very, very discrete, Janet,” Larry said. “Like your life depends on it. You hear me?”
I nodded and dropped my head.
He looked away.
“I guess it was going to happen sooner or later. I’m glad it happened later.”
He dropped his head.
“I, I,” he said, “just don’t know what to say. I don’t even know what to do.”
I tried to look at Larry but couldn’t.
“I guess the things we fear, some of them at least, come to pass. I didn’t sleep at all last night, Janet. You tell yourself you can deal with anything in this line of work. You’ve seen and heard it all. The bullshitters, the con-artists, the frauds, the sinners, and the prophets—you’ve met them all. Never in my life did I think I’d be dealing with this—”
“Larry, I’m so—”
“Let me finish. I guess I’ve had this coming for a while now. Remember Elizabeth Browning—”
“The divorce lawyer up in LA, Larry?”
“Yeah. I need you to call her—”
“Why, Larry? I’m—”
“Let me finish! What’s up with you this morning, anyway! My wife walked out on me last night. She’s had enough. She took the boys with her.”
I started crying now, bawling uncontrollably, sniffling, and asking for tissues.
Larry’s eyes glistened.
“I’m not gonna fight her on this,” he said. “She’s gonna get whatever she wants. She hasn’t been happy for years, and she’s just put up with all of it, for me, for the kids, for—who knows why she’s put up with it? Last night, she followed Michelle and me when we left here. Caught us at the Coronado Imperial. For the first time ever, she asked herself, ‘How does this help me? What am I getting from this? Nothing but the honor of being devoted to a liar and a fraud.’ At some point, you get tired of being the asshole, especially to your wife. You know it must end. You just can’t do it anymore. For me, that moment’s come, Janet. I’m, I’m not gonna fight her on this. I’ve seen too many kids destroyed when their parents get a divorce. The anger just eats you up, and the kids blame themselves for everything. Lloyd and Hudson deserve better than that. I want this to be done in, in a dignified way. I want to be sure that Albertine-Rose is always OK. She’s a good woman, a good wife—”
Larry dropped his head and fell silent.
“Call Browning,” he said. “Make an appointment—”
“But she loves you, Larry. I know Albertine-Rose loves you. She’ll be back. Why don’t you hold off on the divorce? You’re a good man, a good boss. You don’t deserve this.”
Bawling uncontrollably again. Larry offered me some tissues.
“Why,” I continued, crying, “would anyone divorce you for, for being human, Larry? You take care of everyone. You make sure everything’s OK. You’re always there, you’re always the one who has to be in control, taking care of everything, smiling, being on top of everything. And one little error, just one small mistake, and people treat you like, like you’re vermin or something. Why do people do that, Larry?”
He stared at me and nodded.
“Call Browning, Janet. Be discrete about it. Pull yourself together.”
I straightened my clothing, blew my nose, wiped my eyes, and counted backward from twenty before I stood up, which I learned at college helped me calm down. I asked Larry if I could use some of his hand sanitizer. I waited for my hands to dry and apologized again to Larry for being late and “expressive.”
“Ask Browning to call me tomorrow morning at 10:30, Janet. Also, book me in at the Coronado Imperial indefinitely. Albertine-Rose will want both homes: the one here and in the other in Aspen. She can have them. Have someone you trust from housekeeping go to my place and pick up some clothing for me. I’ll call ahead. Have it delivered to my room at the Coronado Imperial. Call Michelle and tell her I’ll be coming over at around 8 tonight. Ask her to set a table for me. Discrete, Janet. Discrete.”
I nodded, apologized again, and left his office.
As I left Larry’s office, LSD and Lawrence waved at me, from the end of the hallway. I waved back.
“Ha-nnah!”
As Hannah walked into Larry’s office, the Hoviaks on-site filed into their offices.
I pulled out my phone, and, trembling, typed a message to Mauru.
“I love you. I really love you. Let’s talk.”
Mauru usually responded within three to four hours at the very most. Six hours later, around 3:30 p.m., still no response.
I tried to reach him again. He didn’t pick up.
I panicked and called Elisa. She said she hadn’t heard from him in about a week, but everything seemed OK the last time they spoke. How was I doing?
“Great,” I said, “we hope you visit soon. Love you, sis.”
I called Anna and Giulio. Anna told me that she was on her way to pick Giulio up from his dentist’s appointment. How were their grandkids? They were thinking of coming down for the weekend, if that was OK, in about three weeks.
I said I’d chat with Mauru about a visit and would be back in touch; we all loved spending time with them.
“Give our love to everyone,” Anna said.
I felt a little nauseous after talking to Anna.
I wasn’t in any way like Giulio and Anna (or Larry), who all slept around. I was . . . “better” is not the word because it makes me sound superior. “Happier.” Yes, I was infinitely happier than they. Mauru and I never once looked at anyone else with any interest like they all did. We joked about the people we dreamed of having fun with. We talked about the movie stars that would find us irresistible.
We enacted fantasies, imagining what it might be like to be with our fantasy lovers. We called each other by their names when we were intimate. We even occasionally dressed up as them, using the clothes we had.
It made for lots of fun, strange at first, when I suggested it after Jon was born, but our fantasies were confined to our bedroom. Mauru was “Sweet Woodruff,” the thoughtful Appalachian coal miner in Ambrosia Skiffles’s bestseller, Sonnets from Appalachia, and I was “Heather Anthrum,” the farmer’s daughter from another continent whom Sweet Woodruff had spurned for her arrogance when he first met her, only to fall irresistibly for her.
Mauru was a clumsy actor. He found acting “silly,” but he did it for me. Sonnets requires Sweet Woodruff to declaim and then sing a few verses he’s written for Heather. Mauru refused to read them until I begged him to indulge me.
I tried to reach him again.
He didn’t pick up.
Sheila came by my desk and asked me to take a walk with her. I told Larry I was stepping away from my desk, and he nodded.
I followed Sheila to her office, and she closed the door as I entered.
“What’s up?” I asked her.
“Take a seat, Janet. It took our researchers, CWP researchers in Menlo Park, to find out what caused The Hatred. Inhalation of dust spores in deforested places subject to increasing temperatures and high winds. Still no cure and still no idea about why, when, and how fast it happens. If anyone finds a cure, we will be the ones to do it, Janet. What you’re not hearing is that The Hatred has already killed two boys in San Diego; nine total across the US. The death certificates are being required to classify it as ‘Chemical Pneumonia,’ or ‘Inflammatory Lung Infection—Other,’ or ‘Dust Particulate Inflammation
.’ Couldn’t be further from the truth. Not a chemical infection, and inflammation is only part of it.
“You have three boys, Janet. Who knows what the future holds for those innocent boys, given the state of the world? The CWP takes care of its own. We always do. Some would like us to believe that they respect us, but they are so dangerous they need constant supervision. One day, you’ll hear what Larry, Amandine, and Andy are really up to here.”
Sheila placed both her hands on her desk.
“Why am I telling you all this?” she asked. “We like you, Janet. You’re real. You don’t vote although you show up to vote. You’re generally honest. You don’t pretend to like Scrimmage. You don’t care about politics. You’re all about the salary and the benefits; pretty utilitarian. You also don’t like Larry, Amandine, or Andy, though you pretend to. You only like Hannah and a few of the associates. With you, we generally know what to expect, so we like you.”
I was silent.
“Mike told us a few months ago, Janet,” Sheila continued, “that when he first met you at your home, he wanted you to be his Second. A tricky thing because having you as a Second would require an exception to Scrimmage, which mandates that you be one of us. You’ve made it clear that you don’t want to be one of us. That meant that Mike had to either court you and encourage you to accept Scrimmage or he had to leave you alone.
“He chose to leave you alone and pursue Hannah, who was single. Our vetting process disqualified Hannah because she’s a security risk to us for reasons I’m not at liberty to disclose. Mike, who’d already started dating Hannah, couldn’t let Hannah go without hurting her, so now he has to figure out a way of making her break it off with him and feel good about it; the Right Path.”
I wondered where this was going. I apologized, pulled my phone out of my pocket, and checked for a message from Mauru.
None.
“We know that you and Mike were intimate last night, Janet.”
I told myself not to say a thing, to deny whatever she thought she knew. She wasn’t there. She didn’t know a thing. What she had just said, therefore, was probably more of a question than a statement.
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