I was looking away, nowhere in particular, lost in that hairline crack that has turned into a chasm by now, when I hear his voice. He is giving his speech, delivering his lines with boyish charm and self-deprecating jokes. It’s a brilliant speech: short and sweet, funny, very interesting and completely different from what I’d expected, had I bothered to think about it. And, most importantly, it holds everyone’s attention. You could have heard a pin drop right until the end.
He’s glowing, my husband, like there’s a halo around him. His eyes are upon me, filled with pride and love and I smile back at him, my eyes similarly sparkling with joy, my cheeks flushed with pleasure in the glow of his love.
But then it dawns on me. It’s not me they’re looking at, those eyes filled with pride and love. I see now that they’re focused on a point just to my left, and I slowly turn around to look over my shoulder, until I locate the object of his adoring gaze.
Thirteen
Isabelle. Beautiful, ethereal Isabelle. Even her name rolls off the tongue like a promise. Isabelle. Young, Isabelle. Very young. I can’t peel my eyes off her. I stare at her shiny blonde hair styled in an elaborate updo, her perfect, porcelain skin, her sparkly blue eyes, and all I can think is, Give up now, Anna. It’s over. Just pick up your bat and go home.
I’ve been slowly edged towards the back of the crowd as people elbowed their way closer to Luis. My outfit, which I was convinced up until now was stylish and professional, suddenly seems all wrong. Like I’ve made an effort, but not the right one. I am dressed for an important meeting while every other woman in the room is elegant, wealthy, sexy. Isabelle is dazzling in a slate-gray flowing layered ensemble that cascades in ripples of silk down her front, showing off her perfect breasts—at least I was right about that part—whereas I look like a life-insurance salesperson on her way to a seminar.
You can feel the sexual tension between them even standing as they are at opposite ends of the room. My chest is rising and falling with the effort of breathing. Were they together that night, while I waited alone in Luis’s studio? Of course they were. That’s what he’s been doing these past few weeks, when I thought he was working hard on his exhibition.
I’m under the gun, babe. An image of myself holding a shotgun to his head pops into my mind and I leave it there for a moment because it makes me feel better.
What about all the nights I worked late on my application so I could get a better job, better paid, work harder for my family? All the healthy meals I prepared while he made love to her? The instructions I left peppered with exclamation marks and tips when I couldn’t be home?
Salmon Teriyaki. Just fry the salmon (already dusted with flour, in the fridge) in the wok with lemon juice—1 min or so each side, make sure the wok is super hot first! Then add the teriyaki sauce (in the little blue and white jug—also in the fridge) and when it’s almost bubbling, serve it up! Vegetables are cut up, ready to steam, in the container with red lid, bottom shelf of the fridge. Sorry I have to work late again, love you all! x
Was he licking her toes while I washed dog poop off our porch? Was she on her knees, begging for more, while I scoured for recipes that would be delicious and nutritious? A wave of nausea rises up my throat as I watch him lapping up the attention, and all I want is to walk up to him, slap him and yell, Remember me? right into his face.
They’re posing for photos now, Luis and Isabelle. The artist and the curator. I thought Luis and I made a nice couple, but these two together look spectacular. How long has it been going on? I try to remember when these late nights started, the evasive answers about where he went, but I can’t pin it down. I was hardly there myself in the evenings. Those months of work with Alex took care of that.
Is she going to reap what I’ve sown and tenderly nurtured all these years while my time came and went with barely a ripple?
Suddenly Luis is by my side, a glass of champagne in his hand. None for me, I note.
“What do you think?” he asks.
I pause and gather myself. I search his face for evidence of his treachery, a twitch of guilt even, but all I find is the beaming grin of a winner.
He raises his eyebrows. “So?”
“It’s wonderful. Really, Luis. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” He smiles. “But I couldn’t have done it without Isabelle.”
For a moment there I thought he was going to say, But I couldn’t have done it without you.
I pull my lips wide into an approximation of a smile.
“She’s amazing,” he continues, in the tone of someone talking to himself, shaking his head in awe at how wonderful she is. “It looks like she might have a shot at selling The Nest to the contemporary art museum for their permanent collection. Nothing concrete yet”—he holds crossed fingers—“but they’re considering it in their current acquisition round.” He closes his eyes and tilts his face to the ceiling. “God, that would be so amazing.” Then he turns to me and I guess he realizes I am here because he says, “Hey, you should talk to her, you’d really like her. She’s massively talented.” And I stand there thinking, Am I ever going to wake up from this nightmare? What if I jumped in front of a bus—would anyone even notice I was missing?
That night, when Luis comes to bed, I pretend to be asleep. He settles in with his back to me and within minutes he’s snoring. I lean close to his ear and whisper, “You snore, did you know that?” But he doesn’t move. I push the covers off me very slowly, swing my legs out of the bed and tiptoe over to his side. His cellphone is on the side table and I carefully pick it up. I try a code—not for the first time, that should go without saying. I’ve tried them all. Kids’ birthdays, wedding anniversary, the day we met—even though I’m pretty sure he has no idea when that was. I stare at it as Luis stirs and rolls onto his back, one arm flung over the edge of the bed.
Gently, softly, I lift his hand and press his thumb over the button, thanking my lucky stars he had refused to upgrade his iPhone. The environment, Anna! says the man who makes sculptures out of plastic. Ah, but it’s recycled! See?
The screen lights up and shudders.
Try again
I press his thumb harder this time. His eyes blink open.
“What are you doing?”
“You were having a nightmare,” I whisper. “Go back to sleep.”
He groans, rolls over.
I’m in.
I miss you.
It’s right there, in black and white. And he has a nickname for her. Belle.
I love you so much.
I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do this to my children.
Babe, please don’t shut me out. We’ll work it out, I promise.
I can’t stop thinking about you.
And I can’t stop crying. I’m sitting at the table in the kitchen, big snotty sobs erupting and dribbling down my chin, sobs so loud I have to keep my hand over my mouth so as not to wake up the neighborhood.
I scroll back quickly. The first one I find is dated April, three months ago.
I’m so sorry, it should never have happened.
I miss you so much.
I miss you too, Belle,
Do you love her?
Don’t.
He’s going to leave me. She’s going to make him, you can see that a mile off, the way she’s pulling at him like a drug. All I can think about are my children. How would they cope if we split up? And, immediately, the next logical thought pops into my head.
Who will they choose?
There was a time when they were little and I was working all the time, when they became bonded to Luis. He was caring for them just about full time so I could work. I missed my children so much it hurt, but it seemed the right thing to do while Luis got on with his art practice. I liked supporting him. I was proud of him. But I can still remember with a flash of pain when Mateo fell off his bike in the park and, clutching a bleeding knee, wailed from the top of his lungs, Dadddddyyyyy!!! And yet I was right there, mere feet away. But Luis had
already scooped him up and sat him on his lap on a bench, in full view of the other parents. They looked at me with pitying faces while Luis pretended to operate (scalpel? electric saw?), carefully putting a plaster with a picture of a ninja turtle on it (where did they come from? Did he carry them in his back pocket?). He kissed it better and sent him on his way. I resolved right there and then to spend a lot more time with the children. And I did. They needed me, and I needed them. I think they were puzzled at first by my insistence that I’d soothe them even when they weren’t that sad, and mop their brow when they weren’t that sick. I read stories whether they were tired or not and cooked hot meals that would make a child nutritionist want to quit their job and join the circus.
I go back through the texts, wailing into my palm. Her last text from last night:
I love you so much I could burst. Congratulations, my love.
And all I can think is, Do. Please burst. Please. Let your flesh rip open and bits of your organs fly out all over the walls because you just can’t hold it in anymore. All this love for my husband, it made you burst!
In reply he texted:
I couldn’t have done it without you. You’re incredible. I love how smart you are.
Seriously? What about me? What am I? Chopped liver? Am I not smart enough anymore? Considering it’s what has defined me my whole life, it’s a blow, I won’t lie. It’s my nightmare of a childhood, my career and my sacrifices, and it’s stupid Alex and the professorship I didn’t even get. Maybe I’m not that smart. Maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I’m not smart and everybody knows it except me.
“Come back to bed, Anna.”
My heart somersaults in my chest and I slap the phone down, screen to the table, so hard I think I might have cracked it. Luis puts his hands on my shoulders and squeezes.
Without looking up, I reach up and take his hand. “I will. I just need a minute.”
He picks up an empty glass from the table and puts it next to the sink. I shove the phone into the pocket of my bathrobe.
“Is it Alex?” he asks, stooping down and wiping my tears with his thumb.
I kind of nod, kind of not; anything to stop myself from laughing hysterically into his face.
Back in bed, he spoons me, strokes my hair, and I am so afraid I could die. I feel this yawning void stretch out before me. A schism of loneliness. All the promise of my life vanished. Alex’s death has robbed me of my professional future, Luis’s success has robbed me of my family. I put the pillow against my face to muffle my sobs.
Fourteen
This morning I stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, purple crescents beneath my eyes. Puffy eyelids. Frazzled brain. Despairing mood.
“Hey, babe, have you seen my cellphone?”
I spin around. Luis is leaning into the bathroom, holding onto the doorjamb.
“Um, no?”
“Okay. You okay?”
I nod quickly. “Absolutely. Great night last night by the way. I’m sorry I got…”
“No, I get it.”
“It’s his parents—I had to gather his things for them. That’s what got to me.”
“Oh, Anna, you should have said.”
“Don’t be silly. It was your night. And a wonderful night it was, too. I’m so proud of you.”
He smiles, slides a lock of hair in that space between his thumb and forefinger and pushes it out of the way. I can hear myself asking, Are you going to leave us? But his face doesn’t change so I know it’s only in my head.
“I’ll make coffee.”
“Thank you. I’ll be there in a sec.”
The moment he is gone, I pat the pocket of my robe and pull out his phone. After I get dressed, I make the bed and yell out, “Found your phone!” and he bounds up the stairs while I brandish it.
“It was on the floor.”
I have a quiet afternoon today so I decide to follow her. I tell myself I just want to see what I’m up against. What is so special about her that Luis would risk breaking up his family? He said last night that she can help him break into major collections, that the sale of The Nest is just the beginning, which surely can’t be reason enough that he’d leave us. Maybe she’s good in bed. Maybe she does things that every man dreams of but would never dare ask his wife. Maybe I need to update my repertoire. Maybe we have fallen into the classic married-couple trap, when making love is just a quick release because we’re too tired to do anything else.
I borrowed a cap from Carla, dark blue with a wide brim at the front and a small white pineapple logo. I know the gallery closes at five, so I sit in my car, the cap over my ears and my oversized, unbranded, mirrored aviator sunglasses over my eyes.
She emerges at ten past five, waves to someone inside and takes off on foot down the street. I slip out of my car and follow her, past the Westside Market and into Church Avenue. She walks into a vivid blue house that looks like something out of a movie set, with a pretty garden at the front. I’m surprised. I expected her to live in one of those renovation projects, a building that would have been some kind of factory once but is now converted into lofts and oversized apartments with floor to ceiling windows.
I get myself a takeout coffee from the deli across the road and wait idly for a while. I’m not sure she’ll come out again and I’m just starting to think, Why am I here again? So, she lives in a pretty blue house. Okay, can I go home now? when her front door opens. She’s changed into shiny, dark gray leggings and white running shoes with a hot pink stripy pattern on the side. She walks briskly down the street and crosses the river via a small pedestrian bridge, then takes the path that I know loops around the park and along the riverfront.
I’m red-faced and out of breath by the time I sit down on a bench with my coffee and watch her run in circles. She doesn’t even break a sweat, her ponytail swinging in time with each strong, bouncy stride. Whenever she loops past me I am tempted to extend my leg and watch her tumble into the geraniums. It’s surprisingly difficult to quash the urge, so in the end I leave and go home.
The next day I spend half an hour before the staff meeting browsing online until I find the exact same running shoes. I make a note of the brand and at lunchtime I go down to Champs and get myself a pair, even though they cost $160. I also buy a pair of leggings, which is kind of scary because my thighs are not what they used to be, and a T-shirt with little holes in it, just like she was wearing.
“We should go running together,” I tell Luis that night.
He frowns. “Why?”
“It would be fun. Don’t they say that couples who run together stay together?”
He laughs, because he thinks I’m joking. I’m about to argue, insist, but then I think I should probably practice first.
And I do. Only because I want to follow her again, and it’s easier to do that if I’m running. I get to the park and there are so many of us runners and for the first five minutes I’m enjoying myself. I feel like I’m part of a tribe as we smile at each other as we pass. It’s nice. I’m tempted to go up to Isabelle and say Hi! Remember me? just to see the expression on her face. But then she might suggest we run together and that’s just not an option. Compared to Isabelle I look like a sad middle-aged woman with saggy breasts and an expanding waistline desperately trying to hang on to her youth. Which is exactly what I am, so that makes sense. I don’t even know what I’m trying to achieve here, other than check her out. Size up the competition. And it’s done now: I’ve checked her out and she’s as beautiful as the first day I met her, which was just the other day, and she runs like a gazelle and I run like a duck.
Back home I put the clothes away in the bottom of the closet.
Three days later and I’m having a beauty day, as I call it. I’ve made an appointment after work at Marcus Bond Salon because it’s eye-wateringly expensive, so I figure that’s good, he should be able to fix me up.
I’m about to leave when Geoff shows up. “Anna, can you type up this grant acquittal, please?” He hands me the paperwor
k.
“It’s the form,” I say.
“Yes, I know.”
“But it’s blank. It hasn’t been filled in.”
“Yes, I know, that’s why I’m asking.”
“But it’s going to take hours, and I can’t right now.”
“What do you mean, you can’t? Why not?”
I slip on my jacket and grab my bag. “I have a hair appointment if you must know.”
“Oh? A hair appointment?” He smiles. “You know you’re beautiful just as you are.”
He’s still holding out the form. I tap it with one finger. “Ask Mila,” I say. “She’s all over this stuff.”
Two hundred and twenty dollars later, and I walk out with my hair dyed almost black. It was brown, but with strands of gray peeking through which I had said I wanted to get rid of. It’s been straightened to an inch of its life—it was vaguely wavy—and with bangs cut bluntly in a horizontal line. It’s in a kind of short bob, and when I say short, I mean cut-it-any-shorter-and-you’ve-gone-past-my-hairline short, and also cut real short above my ears, and whatever is not the bob is shaved, which is most of the back of my head.
“Short hair makes you look younger,” says the woman cutting my hair, who is not Marcus Bond, because apparently Marcus Bond only cuts for his regular clients.
It’s terrifying. And I don’t look younger. I look about fifty now, which is ten more years, boom, just like that, and I don’t know what to say, and my chin wobbles when I pay but I don’t want to cry at the hairdresser because who cries at the hairdresser? Other than small children, I mean.
I don’t go back to work; I just go straight home and Luis says, “Oh, wow, Anna, what happened?” and he says it like I had an accident and I’ve walked in on crutches.
Unfaithful: An unputdownable and absolutely gripping psychological thriller Page 8