Tempting Fate

by Jane Green

  Matt sits back, feigning dismay. ‘Me? Me? Dangerous? I’m not the dangerous one.’ Once again, a slow smile spreads across his face. ‘You’re the dangerous one.’

  ‘I’m an old married woman,’ Gabby protests, able to say these words only because she doesn’t feel like an old married woman at all, knows she doesn’t look like an old married woman. ‘You’re the sexy younger man flirting with a woman he can’t have.’

  ‘Oh?’ Matt sits forward, leaning very close, and as his lips brush her ear a shiver runs through her entire body. ‘Are you absolutely sure I’m flirting with a woman I can’t have?’ His voice is a whisper of desire and Gabby closes her eyes, her whole body on fire, knowing this is too much, this is more than she can handle. His hand is on her knee, and it is as if it is burning through her skin. She can feel him in every bone, every fibre, every tendon of her body, and it is so delicious, so intoxicating, she wants to just sit like this for ever, with his breath brushing her ear, his hand on her leg.

  But she is married. To a wonderful man. The thought of Elliott, of his face if he could see them, of his devastation if she was unfaithful, if he ever found out, is sobering.

  She opens her eyes to see Matt, his face inches from hers. A few seconds go by as they stare at each other, before Gabby shakes her head.

  ‘Matt, I … I can’t do this. I’m not the sort of woman …’ She stops. She doesn’t know how to say this. ‘I’m married. This feels like too much. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ He jumps back, his face filled with apology. ‘I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. I’m sorry. It’s my fault.’

  ‘Oh, Matt. If I was ten years younger, and single …’ Her voice tails off.

  ‘You’re perfect exactly as you are,’ he says. ‘You are. Truly.’ He gives a wry smile. ‘It’s my bad luck that when I’ve found the perfect woman, she’s unavailable.’

  ‘We can still be friends,’ Gabby says.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Matt says. ‘Friends.’

  He calls Gabby a cab while she mentally kicks herself. She did the right thing, of course she did the right thing, but he is slightly distant now. The playful flirtatiousness, the dangerous edge of earlier has gone, and Gabby would do anything, anything, to get it back.

  When the cab arrives and Matt has put his arms round her in a perfunctory hug, Gabby steps back, then moves forward again, taking his face gently in her hands. She opens her lips as she kisses him slowly, softly, moving back when she feels his tongue. No tongues. Just … teasing. She needs to keep him wanting her. She needs to continue feeling as beautiful as he has made her feel, and if that requires a tiny bit of teasing, so be it.

  This time she pulls back to see a smile of delight on his face.

  ‘Friends?’ he whispers.

  ‘Friends,’ she nods, climbing into the cab, her heart threatening to pound right out of her chest.

  The girls are fast asleep when she walks in. Olivia sleeps in the dark, her face as soft and peaceful as when she was a baby. Gabby brushes her hair off her face and kisses her on the forehead, then the cheek, then the cheek again. When the girls are asleep, at their most vulnerable, not fighting, not looking at her with disdain, not being the vocal, confident children they are, she is reminded of their innocence and she feels herself falling in love with them all over again, every night.

  Alanna’s light is on, her iTouch still clutched in her hand. Gabby hesitates, then prises it out and clicks the screen on. Sometime in the last six weeks Alanna set up an Instagram account, and Gabby, not allowed to look under normal circumstances, could perhaps find out more about what’s going on.

  But the iTouch is now password-protected, and nothing Gabby can think of will work. With a sigh, and after several kisses on the forehead and cheek of her younger daughter, she turns off the light and moves quietly down the hallway to her own bedroom.

  The television is on when she walks in, Elliott illuminated by the bluish light of Homeland. His mouth is open as he snores gently, the covers mussed up around his legs, his T-shirt ridden up to expose the rounded belly she has always loved so much.

  And suddenly Gabby feels like crying. The familiarity, the comfort in seeing Elliott, the relief at having come so close to doing something so terrible – and she did come close, as close as she has ever come – all makes her eyes prick with tears.

  Kicking off her boots she snuggles into Elliott’s side, wanting to smell him, feel him, wanting the safety of her husband to somehow negate the danger of the evening. She nuzzles into his neck just as he stirs.

  ‘Oh – hey! What time is it?’

  ‘Eleven-ish. I just got back.’

  ‘It must have been fun.’ Elliott pushes himself up on the pillows and smiles at his wife. ‘Did they think you were a total hot mommy?’

  ‘You know what?’ She is coquettish. ‘I think he did. This kid, Matt, who started the website, definitely seemed to think I was a MILF.’

  ‘He’s clearly a man of excellent taste.’ Elliott grins, tracing a hand lazily along the neck of her sweater then moving down to the waistband of her trousers, before pulling her towards him.

  As they kiss Gabby helps him ease off her sweater and trousers, and draws his T-shirt over his head.

  ‘Did you lock the door?’ he whispers, reaching for the remote and turning off the television.

  ‘No. Hang on.’ She jumps off the bed and comes back seconds later, rolling on top of him. His fingers are between her legs, her own stroking him to hardness as she closes her eyes, and once again – please let this be the last time – imagines that it is not her familiar, loved, teddy bear of a husband beneath her, but a hard-bodied, virile, unbelievably sexy thirty-something.

  It is Matt’s fingers she feels inside her, Matt’s body she moves her lips down until she takes him in her mouth, and she is more active, more energetic, more turned-on than she has been in years.

  Afterwards, Elliott cradles her in his arms and laughs. ‘What got into you tonight? You were amazing.’

  ‘Isn’t that how MILFs are supposed to show their husbands the love?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I sure as hell hope so,’ he says, and laughs again, turning the television back on. Within five minutes, he is gently snoring, leaving Gabby to replay every single thing that happened tonight, or, rather, every single thing that happened before she came home.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gabby doesn’t realize how obsessed she has become until the emails stop coming.

  She waits, all morning, for Matt to send one of his customary emails, determining he should be the one to make the first move, not her; but by lunchtime she is worried. Everything changed when she said no. Why did she say no? Why did she not keep it going for just a while longer?

  At two o’clock she can’t take it any more. She can’t focus on anything, and with a shaking hand she sends him a text, attempting to keep it light, fun; attempting to stay in the spirit of their correspondence before last night.

  But she is careful not to assume that the intimacy that existed between them is still there, not until she is reassured that he feels the same way. No ‘Surf Dude’ today, no easy jokes. She needs to wait to see where she stands.

  Matt, just wanted to

  thank you for a wonderful evening.

  Hope your meetings go well.

  Speak soon …

  Delete.

  Much too formal.

  Dear Matt,

  great evening! Thank you!

  Let’s do it again!

  Delete.

  M – A delicious, dangerous

  night. Thank you. xx

  Send.

  ‘Hi, Liv.’ Gabby comes into the kitchen just after Olivia, who caught the bus home, has walked through the back door. ‘How was school?’

  She doesn’t know why she asks this question. Every day, when the girls get home, Gabby has a need to ask them how school was. Perhaps, she reasons, this is because she was never asked. Somehow this has become cemented in he
r head as being symbolic of what kind of a mother you are: a good mother, an interested mother, always asks how your day was.

  Alanna usually says fine, even when Gabby can see the day hasn’t been fine. She is quiet these days, frequently going straight upstairs to do her homework, rather than sit at the kitchen table, as she has always done.

  Even when her teen and tween both grunt in response, Gabby has to ask the question. There are other things she tries to do in order to be a good mother: freshly baked cakes sit on the cake stand for when her children get home, although Olivia announced lately that she is on a diet and will not eat anything with sugar or flour in it. Still, there is something about a kitchen that smells of cinnamon and sugar and caramelizing butter that is homely, that makes their house what Gabby thinks a home should be like.

  Olivia duly grunts in answer to Gabby’s question before dumping her backpack in the middle of the floor and opening the fridge, peering in at the shelves.

  ‘There’s nothing for me to eat,’ she says belligerently, and Gabby slides her out of the way to point out the cheese, the yoghurts, the fruit.

  ‘I don’t want fruit.’

  ‘So have a yoghurt.’

  ‘I don’t eat yoghurt. I’m vegan.’

  ‘What?’ Gabby shuts the fridge and turns to stare at her. ‘Since when?’

  Olivia shrugs. ‘I’ve been avoiding meat for a while. I just decided today to go completely vegan.’

  ‘Great,’ Gabby says, not unsarcastically. ‘What am I supposed to feed you?’

  ‘Vegetables. Salads. Bread. Pasta. Quinoa.’

  ‘Eggs?’

  ‘No. Nothing from an animal.’

  ‘Cheese?’

  ‘No. Dairy products are the worst.’

  Gabby sighs dramatically. ‘What am I supposed to do with the macaroni cheese I made for dinner tonight?’ She suppresses a smile as Olivia pauses, her mother’s home-made macaroni cheese being her most favourite food in the world.

  ‘Are you just saying that?’

  ‘No!’ Gabby opens the fridge again and pulls the foil off an oval dish to show her.

  ‘I guess I could eat it tonight. I’ll start again tomorrow.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Gabby turns away, knowing full well that this, as with all of Olivia’s fads, will last approximately two weeks, at most.

  ‘The garden guy wants to see you. He’s outside,’ Olivia offers nonchalantly as an afterthought.

  Gabby grabs her chequebook from the desk drawer and runs outside, writing a cheque for fifty dollars made payable to cash for the mow, blow and go guy in the driveway, then she goes straight back inside to check her phone, except it isn’t where she left it – on the desk above the chequebook drawer. Damn. Where the hell is it? She turns and casts her eyes over the counter, until Olivia’s voice, filled with suspicion, pipes up from the family room.

  ‘Mom? Who’s Matt?’

  Her heart thumps in her chest. ‘What do you mean?’

  Olivia stands up from where she has been hidden, slumped down in an armchair facing the fireplace, and turns to face her mother, her expression a mixture of distrust and confusion, anger and also a need to be reassured.

  ‘“ur wicked sexy when drunk … wink Matt kiss kiss hug kiss.”’ Olivia, her hand on her hip, her eyebrows raised as she reads, stares at her mother accusingly.

  Gabby is aware that the colour has drained from her face. How should she play it? What should she say? What the fuck was she thinking, leaving her phone around unlocked? But, wait … she didn’t leave it unlocked.

  ‘How did you unlock my phone?’

  ‘Alanna and I have both known your code for ages. Which doesn’t explain why you’re getting these texts from someone other than Dad.’

  ‘It’s not what you think,’ Gabby says quickly. ‘Dad knows about it. It’s the guy who interviewed me and we were joking that he fancied me. Let me see.’ She holds out her hand for the phone and reads the text. ‘Wow, it sounds like he really did fancy me.’ She feigns surprise. Badly.

  ‘What about your text to him before that? I’m not stupid, Mom.’ Olivia grabs the phone from Gabby. ‘“A delicious and dangerous night”? What the fuck does that mean?’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Gabby’s voice rises in shock and guilt. ‘Don’t you dare speak to your mother like that.’

  Olivia’s voice also rises. ‘Don’t you dare send texts like that to someone who isn’t Dad!’

  ‘I’m not doing anything,’ Gabby says weakly, deflated, overwhelmed with shame.

  ‘Tell that to Dad,’ Olivia spits.

  ‘You know what, Olivia? I plan to. This isn’t what you think.’ Gabby snatches the phone back and deletes the texts, before turning abruptly, going upstairs to her bedroom and shutting the door.

  First she emails Elliott.

  Our daughter seems to think I am having an affair with the child I met with last night, and is now being a teenage bitch from hell. Incidentally, though, he did send me a text saying I’m sexy! You were right – the hot-mommy clothes worked! Meanwhile, I’m flying high that I’ve still got it (you lucky man, you). Will you talk to Olivia? She seems to think I encouraged him, which is laughable. What time are you home tonight?

  Love you,

  G xxx

  And next, Matt.

  My dangerous friend – it might be wiser not to text. My fault entirely, as I texted first, but it seems my daughters are adept at breaking codes to unlock my phone. I truly did love seeing you last night. I don’t remember the last time I had so much fun. You are utterly delicious, which you know, and you have brought sunshine into my life all day today.

  Thank you.

  G xoxox

  From then on Gabby keeps her phone tucked into the rear pocket of her jeans, going to the bathroom occasionally to pull it out and check for a response, but none comes. The high from the night before starts to wane. By the time Elliott comes home she is feeling a mixture of depression and anger.

  Why hasn’t he responded? What’s wrong with her? Why did she have to send that email to him? Why does she now feel so humiliated? The sight of Elliott walking in just before seven raises in her both relief and guilt.

  ‘Where are the girls?’

  ‘Alanna’s watching TV, and Olivia’s in her room, still not speaking to me. She thinks I wrote something provocative to that guy, Matt.’

  Elliott cocks his head to one side. ‘Did you?’

  ‘No!’ Gabby looks away, shaking her head dismissively. ‘I wrote it was delightful, but also dangerous because I had to reveal stuff about myself in the questionnaire. I think she thought it meant something else.’

  ‘Ohhh.’ His voice is drawn out as he laughs. ‘Okay. She phoned me, upset, and did tell me you had written a text saying something about dangerous.’

  ‘See? I think she thinks I’m having an affair.’

  ‘Yup. That’s exactly what she thinks. And she thinks I’m an idiot for not seeing it.’

  ‘Well, she’s right, because I am exactly the kind of woman to have an affair. After all, I’m married to a terrible man, and, really, my life is utterly awful so why not blow it up? Just for fun?’

  Elliott shrugs his shoulders and sighs. ‘Teenagers. Their frontal lobe isn’t fully connected. As we well know, it leads to all kinds of disasters. I’ll go and talk to her now, because she was really upset. You should talk to her afterwards. Don’t be hard on her; just reassure her.’

  ‘Okay,’ Gabby says, although at this moment in time she’d be just as happy not having to look her daughter in the eye.

  Twenty minutes later Elliott comes downstairs with Olivia, who is looking both grumpy and sheepish.

  ‘Anything you’d like to say to your mother?’

  ‘Sorry,’ she mumbles.

  ‘And Gabby? Anything you’d like to say to Olivia?’

  Gabby frowns at Elliott; she has no idea what he means. ‘Sorry?’ she attempts.

  ‘Right,’ he replies. ‘And we both want Olivia to know that you a
re not having an affair, nor would you have an affair.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Gabby says, wishing she could be as certain, although there is still no response from Matt and anger is starting to set in.

  ‘Come on, cheer up.’ Elliott gives his elder daughter a kiss. ‘Go get Alanna and let’s have dinner.’

  Their evening is uneventful, but Gabby is acutely aware that she has had something of a lucky escape. She has to stop. She wants to stop. But all she can think about, all she has been thinking about for weeks, is Matt.

  She is finishing off stacking the dishwasher when Elliott walks up behind her.

  ‘By the way, Gabs, I have to be at a GI conference on the twenty-third. Harvey was going but it turns out it’s his anniversary and one of us needs to be there. You don’t mind if I go, do you?’

  ‘Of course not. Isn’t that the weekend the girls are going to see Jill?’

  ‘We’re going to Aunt Jill’s?’ Alanna’s face lights up. ‘You didn’t tell me.’

  ‘I forgot,’ Elliott says. ‘Sorry. Your cousins are desperate to see you so we were going to drop you off and have a romantic weekend.’ He turns back to Gabby. ‘I’m really sorry, sweetie. The conference is in New Mexico, at a big hotel. Maybe you could come and have spa treatments. We could turn it into a romantic weekend there.’

  ‘Right,’ Gabby says wryly, shaking her head. ‘A romantic weekend during which time I wouldn’t actually see you.’

  ‘Probably not, but you could have massages and spa treatments, and I think the weather’s great.’

  ‘It sounds glorious, but not nearly as glorious as being in my own house, all by myself, for a whole weekend!’ She shudders with pleasure. ‘Now that’s a treat that never happens. I get to sleep in our great big bed with no one stealing the covers. I can eat sandwiches from Trader Joe’s for two whole days if I feel like it. I can work in the barn without worrying about having to come in and cook for anyone, or clean, or do laundry. Bliss!’