The Affair Read online

  As I loaded up the dishwasher I remembered that next week is the office Christmas party. Everyone’s invited, including service staff (computer tech people, the coffee lady, and, yes, Eddie). Significant others are also invited, but Roger hates these things so I usually go alone. Just then a song came on the radio, a song about a furtive kiss, the flicker of a tongue, an affair. I put another plate in the dishwasher.

  ’Til next time,

  December 21

  The Christmas party was everything I’d hoped and feared it would be. Eddie and I made small talk most of the night. Diana trapped us by the buffet. Beer in one hand, unlit cigarette in the other. “You know that song,” she started, hooking a painted fingernail into my sweater. “Oh, you know that great Bonnie Raitt song. I just love her, don’t you?” My mind clicked through every Bonnie Raitt song I knew.

  Which one could she possibly be thinking of?

  Then I realized. Oh no. Not that one. “People are talking …” Diana began to sing. “That’s right, Valerie and Eddie, they’re talking about you,” she crooned, lounge lizard style.

  I could feel a stinging wave of heat pass through me. Eddie, on the other hand, seemed completely unruffled. He smiled and raised his beer. “Diana, I think you missed your calling.” She curtsied and sidled up to me. “He’s a peach, kid.” She paused and looked me in the eye. “But then again, you already have a peach at home, now, don’t you?”

  Some peach. Roger has said barely four words to me in over a week. We sleep back to back, without even a perfunctory good-night kiss. He is animated and happy when Pete is in the room, but when he’s alone with me he seems to die by degrees. Our marriage is in a free fall. So am I.

  It was during this gloomy contemplation that I felt a warm hand on my arm. “Meet me in the stairwell,” he said. I’d never seen him so serious. My heart felt like the engine on my old Mustang, racing so hard and fast I thought it might explode. When I got there he was sitting on the stairs. Even in my crazed state I could step back for a moment and admire him. God, he is sexy. And so big. Everything about him (as far as I can see) is just so deliciously big. His neck. His arms. His legs. All muscle. When I’m near him I just want to curl into him. Roger is so pale and slight sometimes I think I’d have to protect him if we ever got attacked by muggers. With Eddie, I feel so sheltered. It feels so unfamiliar and so good.

  “You look beautiful tonight.” I could feel him taking me in. “I have something for you.” He had nothing in his hands. I was confused. He stood up and moved close to me. He smelled of beer and Eternity. I thought I was going to pass out. He dipped down and put his mouth on my cheek.

  A kiss.

  “Don’t look so scared,” he said, touching a finger to my cheek. The spot that he’d kissed felt warm and moist. “We’re friends, right?”

  “Of course,” I answered, unsure of where he was going with this.

  “Well, friends kiss, don’t they?” he asked, smiling wryly. “It’s not like I kissed you on the lips or anything.” My lips tingled at the thought.

  He held out a hand. “Friends?”

  I reached out and shook his hand. “Yeah. Friends.” My voice wavered. My hand felt scorched. He started to pull me toward him—I felt an almost imperceptible tug—then he stopped. He must have sensed my terror. I wanted it so desperately. I was not ready.

  I have replayed that kiss a hundred—no, a thousand—times since then. The office has been closed for the holidays. I’m almost afraid to go back.

  ’Til next time,

  December 24

  I am sitting here in the same clothes I’ve worn all day, the same clothes I slept in, sweatpants so rank I can smell them. I haven’t showered in forty-eight hours because I haven’t been able to carve out the six minutes I need to hop in the shower, blast my hair with the dryer, and slap on some makeup. Instead, I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours preparing for this most joyous of holidays. I’ve assembled Pete’s new Fisher-Price workshop (Roger, as usual, pleaded mechanical incompetence), I’ve hauled out the Christmas dishes and set the table. I picked up the Santa costume Roger insists on renting every year (though vanity prohibits him from faking the fat belly, which invariably leads Pete to ask, “Mommy, what’s wrong with Santa?”).

  ’Til next time,

  January 8

  The sky is white, the air is wet and cold. I have such a hunger to be held. I imagine Eddie’s thick arms wrapped around me, imagine burying my face in his broad chest. I try to picture myself in Roger’s embrace and just can’t do it. The desire isn’t there. I lost it when he stopped wanting me. Are there women out there who can lust after a husband who clearly has no interest in them? I can’t.

  I remember when he would fix his gaze on me as I undressed. He’d say, “You look good,” and I knew he wanted me and his wanting stirred my own lust. Now I undress and his eyes are fixed on the hockey game and I’m just another piece of furniture. Granted, I don’t have the body I did before Pete was born, but that shouldn’t matter, should it? I’ve known all kinds of women—my own clients—fleshy, jiggly, round women who have sex with their husbands. It can’t be about my body, can it?

  So I don’t imagine Roger holding me now. I imagine Eddie. I see the wisps of black hair trailing from his belly to beneath his pants and wish I could run a finger along that trail. I smell the soap on his skin. I can almost feel the softness of his lips on mine. It feels so good to know that somewhere in this city is a man who wants me. Why am I torturing myself like this?!?

  Last night I was determined to talk to Roger about our marriage. I had the name of a therapist I respected (we both worked at the hospital after I got my degree), and I wanted to make an appointment. So what do I do instead? Like a crazy woman I ask—in the middle of NYPD Blue—“Are you having an affair?” He mutes the TV (he would never actually turn it off) and says, “What in the world are you talking about?”

  “Well, I mean, you never want to make love anymore. Is there someone else?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Is it that time of the month, perchance?”

  I knew what was happening. Obviously, I was projecting. But I couldn’t stop myself. “No, it’s not that friggin’ time of the month, Roger. Just tell me, are you screwing around?”

  He laughed and clicked the sound back on. “If you want to have a conversation about why we’re not having sex, that’s fine. But if you’re going to make up some crazy story about me and another woman, forget it.”

  I rolled over and switched off my lamp.

  ’Til next time,

  January 16

  Now this is interesting.

  Just after I got Petey into bed I heard the phone ring. Roger picked up. I listened for a moment, trying to discern if the call was for me. Apparently not. He was talking in a familiar tone. Who could it be? His mother? His sister? I walked by the bedroom and saw him stretched out on the bed. He looked comfortable, as if he was settling in for a long conversation.

  I went downstairs to check out the Caller ID. A. R. Elkins. Then I did something I haven’t done since high school. I picked up the extension in the kitchen and listened in. It was a woman. A very young woman. I heard her say, “I hate this weather.” I heard her say, “My dog threw up all over the living room rug.”

  Then Roger said, “Wait. Someone just picked up the phone.”

  Busted.

  “Petey, is that you?”

  I disconnected the phone from the wall. I listened as Roger’s footsteps moved across the hall to his office. I went upstairs. I tried to sound casual. “Who called?”

  “Was that you who picked up the phone?”

  I suppose I could have lied. I could have told him I’d scheduled a fax and it was just the computer breaking in. But something impelled me to be truthful.

  “Yeah, it was me. I was just curious to know who you were talking to.”

  Roger swiveled around in his chair and stared at me. “I can’t believe you. You actually eavesdropped on my phone call?” He shook
his head in disgust. “You’re crazy, you know that?” His voice got louder. “You don’t trust me, do you? Well, do you?” He was yelling now. I was afraid he’d wake Petey. “I trust you fine, Roger. I just wanted to know who was on the phone.”

  Turned out it was someone named Alyssa, one of the students in the playwriting class he teaches at the Learning Attic. I told him I thought she sounded rather chummy. “All my students like me. I can’t help that, can I? I don’t see why you have a problem with that.” He is practically screaming now. His face was red and a thick vein bulged along his forehead. “It so happens that Alyssa needs a little fatherly attention. Her parents are splitting up. I can’t believe you have a problem with that!”

  “Gee, Roger,” I told him. “The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks. And do me a favor: Stop screaming!” I slammed the door as I left his office. I headed back to the kitchen, looking for something sweet, chocolate specifically. Just for the hell of it I went back to the Caller ID.

  Jesus. A. R. Elkins had called every day since last Wednesday, sometimes three and four times a day! Here I was, tormenting myself over a chaste kiss at an office party, while my husband is messing around with his student? What the hell is going on?

  ’Til next time,

  January 30

  It is 3 A.M. I haven’t had the guts to ask Roger about the girl. She hasn’t called again unless she’s figured out how to disable Caller ID. I picture her: leggy, busty, blond, full lips, and so damn young. I am torturing myself.

  We did the family thing today: made pancakes for breakfast (Petey helped), spent an exhausting day at the children’s museum, went to Applebee’s for dinner. What a farce: the two of us, trying to be civil for the kid’s sake, interacting with a minimum of words, gritted teeth, and zero eye contact. In the restaurant I watched an older man stroke his wife’s hair. It was clearly a familiar gesture; she leaned into him and tucked a hand in his back pocket. Like a teenager, I thought. Such tenderness. Such affection. How I have wanted that.

  My parents had it. I’d find them making out in the kitchen or in the car at the end of an evening out when they thought I was asleep in the backseat. Or I’d catch Daddy playfully grabbing for my mother’s ass. She’d shoo him away—only halfheartedly—then he’d pull her close and nuzzle her neck. My sisters and I would shriek: Yuck! But the truth is, I liked it. It made me feel safer, somehow more secure, knowing that my parents were truly together. And they still are.

  I always assumed my marriage would be like that. I’d had four intimate relationships from my freshman year in college—when I lost my virginity—to the month I’d met Roger. Great sex in every case, natural and routine, like brushing your teeth (but a lot more fun). But it wasn’t just the sex. It was the sense of being profoundly desired.

  And it was like that with Roger for the first year or two. Things began to deteriorate the year he left his job at the ad agency to devote himself to writing plays. Emboldened by the success of his first show, he chucked everything, bought a new Mac, and holed up in his office. But the second try was a flop and I remember how it cast a gloom on our lives, as if he’d been diagnosed with some terminal disease.

  For a moment there, in the children’s museum, I almost reached out to Roger, almost squeezed his shoulder. Would it have changed things? Could it have been the beginning of a reconciliation? Why didn’t I do it? Pride? Fear? An unwillingness to relinquish the fantasy of Eddie?

  ’Til next time,

  February 6

  I can barely breathe, let alone write. I have made such a mess of things. Eddie came by my office at one o’clock, slipped a note under my door while I was in session. The note read: “Play hooky with me. Movies and a beer? Meet me at 2 on the corner.”

  The prospect of cutting out for the day felt deliciously wicked. I’d never cut a class, never missed a homework assignment, never failed to send a thank-you note. Skip out on two clients? I glanced out the window, noticed a pigeon on the ledge, the sun glinting off its iridescent feathers. Suddenly, impulsively, I grabbed my coat and headed out the door.

  “Call my four o’clock and reschedule,” I told Gail. I knew it was too late to reach my three o’clock. She came straight from school. She was probably already in the cab heading for my office. “And when Alice gets here, tell her I had an emergency and set up another time this week.”

  Right then I could feel the guilt swelling in my throat like a black balloon. I should have paid attention.

  Alice is fourteen and clinically depressed. Last summer she found her father in bed with the au pair. He begged her not to tell, even bribed her with a new puppy, but Alice spilled it. The parents divorced, plunging the mother into near poverty. Alice blames herself. Last month she started cutting herself, first with paper clips, now with a pocketknife. But she never missed a session. She told me I made her feel safe.

  I thought about the mysterious Alyssa Elkins. It had been a couple of weeks since I’d eavesdropped on that phone conversation. I didn’t have the nerve to ask Roger if he’s having an affair with his student. I fleetingly imagined her straddling my husband on the desk in his office at the Learning Attic. It had been six months since Roger and I had had sex, even longer since we had a real conversation. I needed to be with Eddie. This would be my therapy, or so I had myself convinced.

  We spent the afternoon like a couple of kids, giddy and free. We caught a matinee, then headed to Pony’s for a beer, and then on to Space Cave to play video games. There was a kind of underworld element in that dark and noisy room. Who were all those grown men huddled against these arcades, and why weren’t they at work? Eddie stepped behind me, presumably to help me aim the rifle. I felt his breath against my neck, his groin against me. “You smell so good,” he whispered. I’d never felt more aroused. “Let’s leave,” I heard myself say. By now it was 5 P.M.

  Then my pager beeped. I found a pay phone and called the office. “It’s about Alice,” my secretary said grimly. “She stepped in front of a bus. I mean, right here, outside the building. There were witnesses. They say it was no accident. She’s at Memorial. She’s critical.”

  At this point I didn’t know if I’d vomit or pass out. Was I really responsible for this girl’s suicide attempt? What if I’d been sick? What if I had crashed my car on the way to work? Why should it matter how I spent that hour?

  It matters.

  ’Til next time,

  February 12

  Like an alcoholic bargaining with God—get me through this hangover and I’ll never take a drink again—I’d promised to end my “thing” with Eddie if He would let Alice live. Today she’s out of intensive care and I’m already dreaming of my next rendezvous with Eddie.

  I saw him this morning. I’d come in early to catch up on paperwork, but when I came across Alice’s file, I fell apart. He found me sitting at my desk, and I’m sure he noticed I’d been crying. He locked the door behind him, pulled a chair close to mine, and held my hands in his. After a long silence he said: “Talk to me.”

  “My life is a complete disaster. I feel totally out of control.”

  He wiped a tear from my cheek with a callused thumb. “This isn’t your fault. The girl was suicidal. It could have happened anytime, anywhere.” He traced little circles across the top of my hand. The early-morning sunlight streamed through the blinds. I’d never noticed the flecks of violet in his eyes.

  We spent the next hour like that, talking about our lives, our expectations, our disappointments. His eyes never left mine. We didn’t kiss or even embrace, but after he’d left I felt as if we’d spent that hour making love.

  If it was his raw male sexuality that first attracted me to Eddie, it is his ability to truly listen that now keeps me captivated. It’s impossible not to contrast Eddie’s interest in me with my husband’s profound lassitude. To wit: When I came home last Friday, convinced that Alice’s suicide attempt was a message from God, I was ready to start anew with my husband. I put Petey to bed and walk into the family room. R
oger is watching ESPN. “Can we talk?” I ask him. He cranes his neck so he can see the TV. Apparently, I am blocking the view. “Can it wait?” he wants to know. For a split second I see the two of us sprawled on the bed with cartons of Chinese food and the Sunday papers. We used to read the paper aloud, then discuss the issues of the day with the earnest intensity of a couple of graduate students. We didn’t even own a TV then. It seems like such a long, long time ago.

  “Well, no, it really can’t wait.” I try to sound assertive. It’s what I teach my clients, yet it’s the thing I find most difficult to do. I hate begging for attention. I mightily resist the urge to say: Fine. Watch your damn TV. Instead, I say, “I really want to talk. Now.”

  Roger snaps off the set and crosses his arms over his chest. “You’re on.”

  “Something terrible happened. One of my clients tried to kill herself. I had canceled out on her. I think that’s why she did it.” I am not ready to offer all the details.

  At this point Roger is tapping his fingertips on the table and jiggling his foot, signaling that he’s losing interest or patience or both. I had interrupted the hockey game. The meter is ticking and I am just about out of time.

  “So what do you want me to do about it?” he says.

  “You? I don’t want you to do anything. I’m upset. I just wanted to talk.” By now I want to throttle him.

  “Look. You work with a bunch of crazies, and crazy people do crazy things. She’s a sick kid and you’re taking this way too personally.” I can see him looking past me at the dark TV screen. “Okay?”

  “Yeah, Roger. Okay.” I grab the remote. “Here. Let me do this for you.” I switch on the set and fling the remote to the floor. It cracks apart and the batteries roll out. “Hey!” Roger cries. “Whadja do that for?”