The Affair (15 page)

Roger phoned to say he was extending his stay at the artist’s colony. When I asked him for how long, he said something like,
“A week, maybe more.” I wonder if he plans on coming back at all. This feels more and more like a separation, and I’m scared.
Yes, I want to strangle him, but I’m not ready to lose him. I don’t like being alone.

Had quite a day yesterday. Started off with me not being able to find anything in my closet that fit, as I’ve become enormously
quaggy. Spent so much time searching for something not totally horrible that I had no time to wash my hair and walked in late
for a first appointment with a new client. Finally found those khaki stretch pants I got at the Gap, thinking: stretch has
to fit, right? They stretched all right, all over my fat ass. By lunch I couldn’t bear it a minute longer and ran out to find
something—anything—that fit. I was in the dressing room, struggling to pull up the zipper on a black skirt, when this girl
asked me to button her. She had her back to me, holding her long, curly hair away from her neck, smelling of Estée Lauder’s
Pleasures, my personal favorite. I was happy to help, but then she turned around to thank me and I saw who she was.
Alyssa! I actually let out a little scream. I thought she recognized me, too, but apparently not. Looking concerned but also
a little scared, she asked, “Are you okay?” in that
voice
, the voice that has tormented me for weeks. I wanted to confront her—claw her eyes out—but she was wearing a size four nothing
of a dress and I felt like a giant upholstered couch. I couldn’t possibly reveal myself.

I left the store immediately, but instead of going back to the office, I waited in the car, then followed Alyssa back to her
house. I expected her to live downtown in one of those singles condos near the health club, but it turns out she lives in
the dowdy Windsor Acres subdivision, which can mean only one thing: she’s still living at home with her parents. I decided
that I must return to her house (thinner) and nail her once and for all, in front of her parents. With enough Slim-Fast, maybe
next week.

Now for the big news. I hadn’t talked to Eddie all week, though he’d e-mailed me several times and continues to leave little
gifts on my desk. This morning he asked me to lunch, said he had something really important to tell me. As soon as we sat
down at a table, he reached for my hand and dropped the bomb, “I’m leaving Patty. I want to make a life with you.” I couldn’t
believe it. I honestly thought it was some kind of joke. I started to laugh, then saw the tears in his eyes. I tried to talk
him out of it, told him I was committed to keeping my marriage together for Petey’s sake. He said he told Patty all about
me, about us, and she wanted him out by Monday! Now what?!?

’Til next time,

After five days of Slim-Fast I am down only three pounds. My thighs are still chafing. I spent an hour on makeup and hair,
determined to look entirely different from the frazzled behemoth Alyssa encountered in the dressing room. I changed my side
part from left to right, even tried a new deep purple lipstick—too bride-of-Frankensteiny, so I frantically wiped it off.
I pulled on black jeans and a white tank top. My arms looked like twin dolphins, so I tore off the tank top and put on a T-shirt.
I decided that if Alyssa recognized me from the dressing room I would insist it was my fat look-alike cousin.

I dropped Petey off at my mother’s and drove back to Windsor Acres, determined to finally confront Alyssa, ideally in the
presence of her parents. In case her parents had any doubt about their daughter’s involvement, I’d brought along copies of
her e-mail messages and a tape of the phone messages. I drove maniacally, almost rear-ended a cyclist. I rehearsed what I
would say and narrowed my opening line down to three possibilities:

1. “Alyssa: Whatever is going on between you and my husband has got to stop.” (No. This assumes I’m sure there is something
going on. Not sure.)

2. “Listen, you little bitch. Keep your filthy hooks out of my husband.” (Better not. It makes Roger look like innocent victim.
Plus, I don’t want to appear vulgar in front of parents.)

3. “I’m Roger’s wife. I think we need to talk.” At this point I will gesture toward her parents and ask them to sit down.
“I’d like you to stay, please. I believe you’ll
want to know what your daughter’s been up to.” (Yes. I’ll say this. It sounds poised, in control.)

As I pull up to the curb across the street and begin walking toward Alyssa’s house, I see her parents on the porch and my
heart sinks. Her mother is in a wheelchair and her father looks as if he could use one. They both appear old enough to be
her grandparents, and I wonder if that’s the case until I hear Alyssa’s voice from the backyard, “Daddy, should I pick the
rest of the tomatoes?” The old man calls back, “Sure, darling. We’ll have them with supper.”

What can I say? I simply lost my nerve. I just didn’t have the heart to plunge these two kindly, geriatric people into crisis.
At least not today.

’Til next time,

Eddie e-mailed me his new address. Apparently he’s renting a place near the university, in the student housing area. He wrote:
“Come check out my new crib.” I read this and immediately became nauseated. I did not e-mail back.

’Til next time,

Roger finally came home. He seemed serene, happy. He looked good (dare I say … sexy?). He offered me a small box, and I opened
it to find a tiny silver armadillo
(an inside joke: it was our pet name for each other when we were dating). He tumbled with Petey on the family room floor (Pete
was overjoyed), and for a moment I thought, “We’re a family. This is how it should be.”

Then Roger opened his mail and everything changed.

He held a letter and his whole body trembled. He backed into a chair and stared at the piece of paper. “Jeez,” I heard him
say softly. I’d never seen him look so unnerved.

“What is it?” I asked. “Please tell me.”

“Apparently,” he rasped, “I’m being charged with sexual harassment. One of my students.” He passed the paper across the table.

Alyssa had brought charges against him. “I guess you need a lawyer,” I told him, my mind scrambling to comprehend. I was scared
but knew I had to ask: “Roger, did you harass that girl?”

He leaned toward me and reached for my hand. I pulled it away. “I think it’s time you knew exactly what’s been going on. You
deserve to know the truth.”

I’ll fill in the rest later, when I have more time to write.

’Til next time,

What compels a man to tell the truth, even when the truth will stain his name, shame his family, and threaten to shatter the
foundation on which his life and career are built? Does the man confess because he has found his moral center? Or is he motivated
by fear of
protracted legal action and the loss of a job he holds dear?

After months of evasion and deceit, and faced with the terrifying reality of Alyssa’s sexual harassment suit, Roger finally
admitted that he and Alyssa had been lovers. It began, he said, with playful flirtation. (Even this small and relatively benign
point makes me ill. How could my sullen, brooding husband play and flirt with another woman?)

Alyssa had invited him for coffee after class and he agreed, under the tacit but mutually understood pretext of improving
her dialogue-writing skills. Coffee at Starbucks led to wine at Bernardo’s, and wine led to a first kiss by the pay phone
as he dialed home to tell me he would be late. “I knew it was wrong,” he told me, “but at some level I honestly believed that
I was entitled to this. Our marriage … held nothing for me. I felt you had lost interest.” (Lost interest?! I thought of the
times I’d paraded like a fool in that stupid teddy or reached for his zipper and was rebuffed. I wanted to strangle him.)

After several weeks of making out and petting (always at her initiation, he insisted), she asked for a ride home. They parked
by the lake and had sex. Just to spite myself, I asked Roger if that was the night she left the diaphragm in the van. He looked
away and I watched the color rise to the tips of his ears. He wasn’t sure. “Maybe. Maybe not. I can’t remember.”

They’d had sex five or six times over the following months, but once we began therapy, Roger insists he told Alyssa their
relationship was over. Apparently Bonita had explained that she would not accept him as a client if he continued to play around.
“I’ll be honest,” he said. “It wasn’t easy letting go. The affair was so …invigorating.
I was like a god to her, and yes, she made me feel young.” He looked at me directly for the first time since he had started
talking. “Can you understand how hard it was to give that up?” And, of course, I could.

Ultimately it was Roger’s concern for Petey that pushed him to end it with Alyssa. I wasn’t surprised. Roger may have been
a negligent husband, but he would lay down his life for our little boy. Roger called Alyssa, made it clear that the relationship
must end. But she wouldn’t hear of it. And that’s why we’ve got real trouble on our hands.

This moment was so profoundly serious, so dramatic, so horribly
real
, yet I found myself slipping in and out of a disembodied state. A small and distant voice whispered, “This is really happening.
Pay attention!” But I wanted to go to sleep. And there were moments when I felt the total impact of Roger’s confession as
though I were standing on the beach in winter, taking the ice-cold waves head on, feeling the force of every painful shard.
I took the confession like a lashing, retribution for my affair with Eddie. Yes, I was hurt. But any impulse to play the aggrieved
wife was quickly smothered by the memory of Eddie’s body heaving above mine in our bed at the Roundtree.

I found myself doing the math. I flirted, I kissed, I fondled. But I only had sex with Eddie once. In this contorted comparative
analysis of infidelity, I ranked my transgressions against Roger’s. Is he the bigger sinner because he went between the sheets
with his lover more often than I did with mine?