The Beach House (10 page)

But Michael had always been an expert at rescuing women. If there was a call for a knight in shining armor, Michael would be the one knocking at the door. If there was a woman in distress, Michael would leap in to make it all better. His heart was too big, his mother always said, but he liked that he was able to help, to make a difference. Which was probably how he’d ended up in this mess. Jordana had seemed so tough when he had started working for them all those years ago, but recently he’d seen another side to her, he’d seen her as lonely, as sad, and it had resonated with him.

He tiptoes back into the bedroom and goes flying over a high-heeled shoe, kicked off in abandon last night as they collapsed onto the bed, frantically pulling off one another’s clothes. “Shit.”

As he lands with a thump on the floor, Jordana sits straight up in bed.

“Ja—Oh.” She was about to say her husband’s name, catching herself just in time as she sees Michael. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Michael stands awkwardly, not sure what to do, wishing he hadn’t fallen into such a deep drunken sleep, wishing he had had the foresight to get out of here long before Jordana woke up.

“How are you?” she says. “Did you sleep?”

“I slept like a log. You?”

“Me too. The champagne, I imagine. Are you . . . okay?”

“Let me get dressed,” Michael says, vulnerable suddenly in his nakedness. “Let’s get some coffee and we’ll talk.”

Inside the café Michael orders two cappuccinos and, as an afterthought, a couple of almond croissants. He leans against the counter while he waits and turns to see Jordana sitting at the table. It still feels surreal. He hasn’t a clue what to say to her. He knows this can’t be repeated, that there are many sins you are never to commit, and sleeping with the boss is the primary one.

Not to mention that Jackson would kill him. And he likes Jackson, has always liked Jackson. What the hell is he doing?

“We can’t . . .” They both start speaking at the same time, and laugh awkwardly.

“This is wrong,” Michael says finally. Gently.

“I know.” Jordana’s smile is rueful. “Wonderful. But wrong.”

“Have you ever . . . ?”

“Done this before?”

Michael nods and Jordana shakes her head. “I can’t believe I’ve done it now. I’m not the type to be unfaithful.”

“Do you think it counts if it was just a mistake, one night that will never be repeated?”

“I’m hoping it doesn’t.” Jordana sighs, and takes a bite of her croissant. “You’re so lovely, Michael. I’m sorry this is so awkward, but thank you for making me feel so special last night.”

“You’re lovely too,” Michael says, and he stretches across the table, takes her hand and squeezes it, looking her in the eye. “I know things are difficult with Jackson now, but, even though I’m not the answer, you’ll find your way through it. I know you will.”

“I know,” Jordana says. “I’m not sure how, but I’m sure you’re right.”

Jordana knocks on the door of the workroom and comes in with a smile. “Mrs. Silverstein just came in. She said she didn’t have time to see you today but she’ll pop in tomorrow to thank you personally. She adores the ring, said to tell you you’re a genius.”

“The lady obviously has impeccable taste.” Michael grins at Jordana, relieved that there is no tension from last night, that they truly are able to be grown-up about this, to put it behind them and carry on as if nothing ever happened. “What do you think of this?” Michael beckons her over and Jordana looks down to see that he is already working on a sketch of a fish pendant.

“I love it,” she says, delighted, tracing the outline of the fish. “I love the gills in—what are they, yellow diamonds?”

“I thought yellow sapphires. I want these to be fun, a mix of diamond and semiprecious, but something that might appeal to a younger audience.”

“It’s beautiful,” Jordana murmurs, and Michael turns his head to smile at her and finds himself looking at the curve of her breast through her unbuttoned shirt, and he feels a rush of blood to his head, and the world stops, yet again, and this time, when Jordana leans down and kisses him, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps, feeling as though he is swimming up for air.

“I’m sorry too,” she says, stepping back and adjusting her shirt, running her fingers through her hair and wiping off the smudges of lipstick around her mouth.

“Oh fuck,” he groans, wanting nothing more than to sweep everything off the worktable, throw her on it and drive himself inside her.

“This isn’t a one-night stand, is it?” Jordana says slowly, and Michael sinks his head in his hands before looking up at her.

“What are you doing tonight?”

“I was going to Manhasset,” she says. “But I can get out of it.” There’s a long pause. “If you want me to.”

Michael looks at her, helpless. “Yes,” he says finally. “I want you to.”

For someone who has always been a terrible liar, Jordana is finding it surprisingly natural to lie to her husband about where she is and who she is with. She is discovering that if she tells him some of the truth, she will not flush and look away, and he will not question her.

Under different circumstances, she would never have an affair, but this doesn’t feel like an affair. For starters, this is someone she knows, someone who has always, until very recently, felt like a brother to her. Twenty years, she has known Michael. In the beginning, she will admit to having had a huge crush on him. Jackson even used to tease her about it, but he was never really threatened, never worried that Jordana would actually do anything, and Michael, despite how attractive women found him, never posed a real threat, was too nice a guy, too clever to ever have an affair with the boss.

And because Jordana is not the type to have an affair, to weave a tissue of lies to prevent her husband suspecting anything, because she is not the type to do all of the things she suddenly finds herself doing, she starts to think that perhaps this is different.

Perhaps this is not just an affair. Perhaps Michael—as unlikely as she ever would have found this up until a few days ago—but perhaps Michael is The One, perhaps she made a terrible twenty-year mistake with Jackson, and God has made this happen because Michael is the one who listens to her, who understands her.

Michael is the one she is supposed to be with.

Dr. Posner leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers together, peering over the top at Daniel, who is shifting uncomfortably in the corner of the sofa, and he waits.

The seconds become minutes, and still Daniel doesn’t say anything.

“Daniel?” Dr. Posner starts, gently. “You wanted to see me alone?”

Daniel nods, looking miserable.

“Is there something you want to talk to me about?”

He nods again, his eyes flickering up to meet Dr. Posner’s before he looks away.

“I think . . .” Daniel starts, his voice almost a whisper before he stops and sighs. “There’s something I haven’t ever been able to talk about . . .”

Dr. Posner waits.

“Oh God.” Daniel’s voice is a moan, his pain and confusion evident, and Dr. Posner knows what Daniel is about to say, has suspected it from the first.

Daniel closes his eyes, unable to look at Dr. Posner, his guilt and shame too much to say the words while looking someone in the eye.

And his voice, when it emerges, is broken and hoarse.

“I think I might be gay.”

It is something Daniel has always known. His big secret. The one he has spent his life running from. He has spent his life trying to pretend that it is not the case, that he can be what he thinks of as “normal,” that he can be the son, the husband, the father that everyone expects him to be.

He has known since he was a boy, even before his teenage years, those years when he pretended to be interested in girls even though alone, at night, the fantasies that aroused him most always featured boys and, more specifically, his best friend at school.

He would lie there, trying to push the fantasies aside, terrified of being different, terrified of anyone finding out, trying to convince himself that he was interested in girls, that as long as he had a girlfriend, stayed around women, he would be like all the other boys, he would be normal.

And he loved women. Surely that must mean something, he would tell himself. He had always been so much more comfortable with women so surely he must be straight, like everyone else, even if he never developed a fascination with breasts the way the other boys did, even if the girls he dated were, well, boyish.

Then, at college, he remembers trying to date a girl who didn’t seem to know they were dating. The night he first attempted to kiss her she had pulled back in surprise.

“But I thought you were gay,” she said, and he had recoiled in horror.

“Why?” he demanded. “Why would you think that?”

“I just assumed,” she said, and she never gave him the reasons.

He built himself up. If he looked masculine, macho, there would be no doubt, for he assumed she had thought he was gay because he was skinny.

He made sure he always had girlfriends. Lovers. Women around him all the time. Long-term relationships. Being with a woman meant he didn’t have to think about it, didn’t have to think about the hard bodies that he felt so drawn to in the gym, the men who occasionally gave him searching looks, the men he tried to ignore.

Until Steve.

Friends for years, they had gone to Amagansett the summer he met Bee, and the night before they met Bee, he and Steve had got drunk together, and, despite thinking about every detail, every second of that night for years, despite thinking of it still, he is not sure how it happened, but he and Steve ended up sleeping together.

What he remembers most about that night is how every bone and every fiber of his body felt as if it was on fire.
This
is what I’ve been missing, he remembers thinking.
This
is what it feels like to be turned on.
This
is what I’ve been waiting for my entire life.

And it didn’t feel unnatural, or strange, or wrong. It felt like he had come home. It felt like the most wonderful, thrilling, incredible night of his life.

In the morning they could barely look at each other, and when they did Daniel found himself announcing he wasn’t gay, and Steve agreed. They said it wouldn’t happen again.

Daniel noticed Bee later that day. A woman. Safety. Bee meant not having to travel down a path Daniel wasn’t ready to travel down. Bee meant security. She meant not having to think about his night with Steve, what it really meant, not having to shock his parents, tell his friends, live a life that Daniel didn’t want.

Because he didn’t want to be gay, and he thought if he didn’t want to enough, then he wouldn’t be.

For years it was easy to keep running. At night he would replay that one night with Steve, and the temptation to find it again was sometimes overwhelming. On an overnight trip in Boston to inspect a building the company was thinking of buying, he walked past a gay bar with a few men standing outside, eyeing him up and down, giving him that look that he doesn’t know, but he knows . . . oh how he knows.

In many ways it would be so easy to go inside, he thought, to be led into a back room, to have a nameless, faceless encounter that might put some of these fantasies to rest, might allow him to put it behind him. No one would know, no one would be hurt. But he’s married now, he has his beautiful girls, and if he started down that path there is a part of him that knows there would be no going back.

Secrets become harder to keep the older you get. The things you think you can suppress, those idiosyncrasies and fantasies you hope no one will ever discover, become harder and harder to hide as the years advance.

Partly it is maturity—the fear of discovery grows smaller, less significant, for you learn that none of us is perfect, that human nature is flawed, that life twists and turns in all sorts of unexpected ways and it is okay to end up in a different place to where you expected.

In Daniel’s case the secret is like a tumor, growing larger and firmer deep inside him, refusing to go away by itself, refusing to lie dormant, metastasizing last month when he got a phone call from Steve. Steve, whom he hasn’t seen since his wedding day. Steve, whom he has tried very hard to forget.

“I’m in your neck of the woods.” Steve’s voice was so familiar, but different. “It’s been so long but I thought I’d look you up.”

“It has been years.” Daniel laughed. “How great to hear from you. How’ve you been?”

“Life’s been good,” Steve said. “So how about it? Drinks? Dinner? I’d love to see Bee and I hear you’ve got two beautiful girls.”

Steve came for dinner. Bee made loin of pork stuffed with apricots and prosciutto, and Steve brought two bottles of Pinot Noir.

As soon as he walked in, Daniel knew. Steve hadn’t run with fear from the life that had been calling him for years, Steve hadn’t pretended to be someone he wasn’t. Steve had struggled with it, and then had given in.

“These are our dogs—” he passed photos around as they sat at the table, the girls having gone off to bed—“Mimi and Bobo.” Small Westies sat on the doorstep of a beautiful colonial house. “And this is Richard.” An older, bearded man, smiling on the deck of a boat. “My partner,” he added, although he didn’t need to.

“Not husband?” Bee rescued Daniel from his crippling awkwardness, his heart pounding fast, color rising to his cheeks.

“Not legal in our state, sadly,” Steve said. “But one day we will. We’ve been together almost ten years. The love of my life.” And he looked up and caught Daniel’s eye, and this time Daniel felt shame for a different reason. He felt shame for not being brave enough to do what Steve had done, and envy—oh God, so much envy for Steve having the life that all of a sudden Daniel realized he had always wanted.

They went out after dinner for a drink at the bar at Tavern on Main. Daniel recalled seeing
Brokeback Mountain,
looking longingly at the characters played by Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger embracing furiously at their reunion, and he parked the car on Main Street, hoping that that might happen for him, that Steve would grab him and take him into an alley.