Rachel's Folly (7 page)

She didn’t feel qualified to dissect other women’s motives anymore. She decided to keep her questions and comments at a superficial level. Luckily, Lisa didn’t seem to notice and left promising to reflect further on her actions and expectations for the affair.

Once Lisa had gone, Rachel moved over to her desk to check her voicemail before her next appointment arrived. There was just one message: from Elena. Her voice sounded joyful.

Hey Rach, it’s me. I miss you. It’s been too long since we’ve seen each other. We have extra tickets for
La Traviata
this Friday. Let’s do an early dinner and then go to the opera. I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer, missy! Call me.

Rachel’s stomach churned. She quickly erased the message and started to think of an excuse so she wouldn’t have to go, but then realized it
had
been a while since she and Elena had seen each other. The last time was just a brief visit a few days after Elena returned from her honeymoon. Plus, she had already turned Elena down for dinner on two occasions since then. Surely, Elena would start wondering if Rachel was purposely avoiding her, which of course she was. Rachel realized if she kept dodging, Elena would start suspecting that something was wrong. She sighed and decided to call Mrs. Richards to see if she could watch Jacob on Friday night.

She stared out the old French window waiting for Agnes to pick up. She watched a gray cat lounging in the shaded grass outside. The cat rolled around, stretched, yawned and occasionally stopped to lick its coat. She envied the cat’s carefree disposition.

Rachel spoke with Mrs. Richards and thanked her for agreeing to take care of Jacob, then hung up the phone. She leaned back in her seat and looked at the ceiling. She was going to have to suck it up, tuck it all away like Ben said. She looked back at her desk and quickly grabbed the phone again to make another call. After a few rings, she heard her brother answer the line.

“Hey, Ben. Whatcha doin’?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

“Hey,” he said, sounding pleasantly surprised. “Just having lunch and trying to write. Not very successfully, but trying nonetheless. What’s up? How’s Jacob?”

“He’s fine.” She took a moment to think about how she should proceed.

“What’s going on?” he asked nonchalantly. She could hear him chewing his food.

“Nothing really … well, I don’t know. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what happened with Jack.” She paused. “About what I did. I really think I just need to come clean with Elena. And before you interrupt me, let me just say, I’ve given this a lot of thought. I know it’ll make things really weird between Elena and me, but I think we can get past it.”

It sounded like Ben was trying to finish swallowing something. After a moment, he replied calmly, “If she wasn’t married to him, I’d agree with you, but the reality is you risk losing your friendship and ruining her new marriage, and very likely yours as well. I said it before and I’ll say it again: you have to put it out of your mind. Move on.”

“It’s impossible,” Rachel moaned. “It consumes me. I’m supposed to be the expert on relationships. I hear people tell me about their infidelities all day long, asking
me
for advice. I’m a first-class fraud.” She collapsed back in her chair and looked back out the window. She noticed the cat was now taking refuge from the sun under a parked car across the street.

“Well, there you go. You said it yourself: it happens all the time. It gives you another perspective. You’ve now personally been through it. You should see this as an opportunity. Let it make you stronger, wiser.”

“I wish it were that easy.”

Ben responded more forcefully this time. “I never said it would be
easy
. But the stakes are way too high. Listen.” He stopped for a moment and cleared his throat. “I have a question for you. Do you know why you did it? I mean, from what you told me, it happened suddenly, but you didn’t hesitate, right?”

“I think about that all the time. I really have no idea what I was thinking.” She shook her head gently as she gripped the receiver tighter.

“Were you having problems with Edward?”

“No. He’s a great husband,” she said swiftly and confidently. If there was one thing she was sure of, it was that Edward had nothing to do with it.

“I know that. What I mean is, were you lacking something, maybe some attention? Were you feeling neglected?” He paused, then added, “He does work a lot. Maybe you needed more from him?”

She brought her hand to her forehead and leaned over her desk. “I don’t know. I feel horrible when I look at him now. I can’t even touch him. He doesn’t deserve any of this.”

“So, why then? There has to be a reason, Rach.”

“I guess it had been a long time since I had felt that … uh …
alive
. I’m not going to lie. I was flattered Jack was attracted to me. And he’s so different from Edward. He was so spontaneous, reckless and relaxed. I guess that’s part of the reason I was so easily seduced.” She sighed. “Not that it makes it any better.”

“You’re almost forty. Maybe it was a moment of madness. Temporary insanity. A midlife crisis?” Ben suggested with a hopeful tone.

“This must be what it feels like when people recover from cancer and they can’t trust their bodies anymore. I don’t trust myself anymore. I never thought I could do anything like that.” She looked at a picture of herself with Edward that was propped up on her desktop. It was taken on a trip to Napa Valley before Jacob was born. They looked happy.

“That’s a bad analogy. People don’t choose to get cancer.”

“Touché.”

“You know,” he stopped to clear his throat again, and his voice softened. “I’ve always wondered how we could be raised by the same parents and live such different lives. My shortcomings are obvious. I drink too much, I’m a slob, and I couldn’t wait to move as far away from Mother as possible.” Rachel smirked. She knew too well that her compulsion was running, just like Ben’s was alcohol.

“But you stayed, and married a great man, had a great kid and live a pretty wonderful life in spite of everything.”

“Which makes what I did even more unacceptable,” she sighed.

“Let me finish. You’ve always been the rational one, the one everyone comes to for advice. Out of our entire family of screw-ups, you were the only sane one. You were just born that way. But I never really understood how you could bury all that crap inside. Now, I think you were probably, subconsciously, waiting for an opportunity to sabotage your happiness. Maybe deep down, you don’t really believe you deserve it.”

Rachel thought about his comment and realized there was a grain of truth there. “You sound like a therapist,” she joked glumly.

“There just has to be some of Mom’s craziness inside of you, inside of me. You can’t just move past all of that and not let it come to the surface. I don’t care who you are.”

“I don’t know. It seems like such a copout. We can’t just blame our parents.” She picked up a pen and began to doodle on the notepad lying on her desk. “But I will say this, I immediately think of Mom and what she would say to me if she knew, and I shudder. No matter how old I am, I instantly become ten years old again whenever I’m around her.” She paused and stopped doodling. “And Dad? You know he ran around with a lot of women. Maybe I’m more like him than anyone suspected.”

“Who knows?” Ben sighed loudly. “Could be, but look, you need to be stronger than that. None of us are saints, Rachel. One thing I’ve come to accept is that some good people do bad things. Everyone has their own demons. It’s just that some of us are better at dealing with them. People like Mom find it easier to judge others than to face themselves. You have to accept what happened, learn from it, move past it and carry on.”

“And if I can’t?” she asked.

“You have to. I know you can do it.”

Rachel slumped back in her chair. “Okay. Thanks, Ben.” She cut the line and took in a long, deep breath. “Okay,” she repeated to herself.

* * *

Friday came quickly. Rachel had been dreading its arrival the way the captain of a sailboat dreads an approaching storm. She was sure she was getting an ulcer from the anxiety she had felt since she called Elena to tell her they would go. As long as she could concentrate on other things, she could cope with the guilt and get through the day reasonably well. But she knew that having to be in the same room with Jack would bring that sick, burning feeling right back up to the surface. Rachel The Fraud would have to show up and give her best performance.

* * *

Edward and Rachel arrived at the quaint Japanese restaurant at six o’clock sharp. It was crowded, but they spotted Elena and Jack sitting at a corner table as soon as they walked in. The restaurant was a sophisticated 1920s bungalow on the south side of town. It was one of the most popular restaurants in the city, known for being slightly pretentious and slightly more expensive, but absolutely delicious. The ambiance was relaxed with soft lighting and rich, red fabrics.

Elena and Jack stood up as Rachel and Edward approached the warm wood finished table.

“Hi guys,” Elena said, smiling broadly and putting her arms out to hug Rachel. She hugged her back tightly. It was then that Rachel realized just how much she had missed her. Edward and Jack shook hands, and then Rachel held her breath and gave Jack a quick hug and said hello without looking at him directly.

“It’s so great to see you guys again. We were beginning to think you were avoiding us,” Jack said playfully.

“No, no, we’ve just been really busy lately,” Rachel shot back nervously.

“We hardly get out anymore,” Edward said, pulling the chair out for his wife.

They all sat down at the square table. Rachel made sure to sit next to Elena and Edward, but unfortunately this put her directly across from Jack, which made it hard to avoid him. As she suspected, he appeared as lighthearted and cheerful as he had at the rehearsal dinner and wedding.

“Before I forget, I brought you something,” Elena said to Rachel, reaching into her purse. She pulled out a small, red box and handed it to her. “Here.”

“Elena, why?” Rachel asked, taking the box and opening it. Inside, she found a pair of exquisite Spanish earrings. They were champagne gold with black diamond accents. “Oh, wow, these are gorgeous. Seriously, you shouldn’t have.”

“They’re antique. I found them while we were sightseeing in Granada. They were hanging on a mannequin head in this little jewelry store off the beaten path.”

“That was one creepy mannequin,” Jack said. “Just thinking about it gives me the heebie jeebies.” He shuddered.

Elena laughed. “It wasn’t creepy. It was vintage, silly.” She turned from Jack and looked back at Rachel. “I immediately thought of you when I saw them. I had to get them. Put ‘em on.” Rachel took off her diamond studs and tried on her new earrings.

“They’re perfect,” Elena said cheerfully.

“I hope you don’t mind, we ordered a bottle of our favorite French wine for the table to get us started,” Jack said and nodded to the waiter who quickly came over and proceeded to pour everyone a glass of Chablis Grand Cru.

“None for me, thank you,” Elena said to the waiter, signaling with her hand over her wine glass.

The next half hour was unbearable. Rachel was extremely self-conscious, trying hard to act as natural as possible. She smiled politely at Elena as she recounted their time in Europe and her crazy work schedule since their return. Rachel tried not to appear interested in Jack as he talked to Edward. The men laughed loudly a couple of times at some jokes Jack was making. She noticed he would sometimes place his hand on Edward’s shoulder while they spoke, which she figured was an attempt at camaraderie. She repeatedly had to force herself to focus solely on Elena to avoid any interaction with Jack.

When the sushi was brought out, they all marveled at how delicious it looked
.
Running so many miles made Rachel hungry all the time and she had only been able to squeeze in a quick lunch that day. She had been starving when they drove out to the restaurant, but now she could barely touch her food. Being with Elena and Jack was just too uncomfortable. She ate what she could and just played with the rest. No one seemed to notice, except for the waiter who asked if her meal was up to her expectations.

Occasionally, she couldn’t help but glance over at Jack. She couldn’t believe how calm and blasé he was. If she hadn’t known for herself what had happened between them, she would have never believed it judging by his completely nonchalant demeanor. She wondered if, like her, there was a storm raging underneath his cool exterior, although she seriously doubted it. He seemed to have simply brushed it all away like a bad dream. She wondered if what had happened between them was a unique event, or if she was just one of many women he had seduced while he was engaged to Elena. She suspected the latter. But then she began to think of how she was any different from him. She was just as guilty. Actually, her infidelity was worse.
She
was the one that was married at the time; Elena was
her
best friend; it had happened in
her
house. She realized that she was probably just trying to demonize Jack to make herself feel better. It wasn’t working.

“You’re not drinking?” Edward asked Elena.

“Well, no.” Elena paused and looked at Rachel with a mischievous smile. “You wouldn’t want me to.”

Rachel looked at her, confused.

“We have an announcement,” Elena said, reaching for Jack’s hand. Rachel stopped drinking her wine. She knew what that meant.

Pregnant.

“Oh, wow, that’s great. Congratulations,” Edward said, lifting his glass. “To the new brood!”

Elena was smiling at Rachel, waiting for her to say something. She quickly put her hand to her face to hide her slightly gaping mouth. After a moment, she forced a few words out. “That’s wonderful, El. Congratulations.”

“You sure did take your dad’s advice to heart,” Edward said, smiling widely.

“Oh, he’s over the moon,” Elena said. “I honestly have never seen him as happy as he was when we told him.”