The Night I Got Lucky (14 page)

“I’l keep yours as backup.” I took the martini from his hand.

Evan grinned.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He reached around me to the sink, which was ful of ice and beer. His shoulder brushed mine. I set Evan’s drink down and took another sip of my martini.

When he’d grabbed his beer, he was stil smiling.

“What are you grinning at?” I asked.

“You.”

“Explain, please.”

“You were jealous when Carly said we used to sleep together.”

“She said you used to fuck.”

“Yes, we did. And that made you a little crazy, didn’t it?”

“Don’t kid yourself.”

Someone opened the refrigerator door behind Evan, jostling him toward me. He put his face close to mine, his mouth near my ear. “You imagined it, didn’t you?”

I froze. I could barely breathe, much less respond.

“You thought of Carly and me together, and it made you hot.”

A coarse breath broke into my chest, causing it to rise and fal rapidly. I couldn’t have hid my reaction from Evan if I’d tried.

“And then,” he said, moving even closer. “And then you imagined
us,
didn’t you?”

The scent of marijuana became stronger in the air. I wondered if there was any truth to the secondhand smoke business because I felt almost stoned. The temperature in the kitchen seemed to have shot up ten degrees. I could feel the heat of Evan’s body. I could hear my own sharp intakes of breath. But I stil couldn’t talk. Instead, I gulped the martini, imagining the cool liquid cleansing my insides. At the same time, I couldn’t stop imagining Evan and myself, our mouths together, our bodies entangled.

I coughed to scare away the image, and reached around Evan for the backup martini. When I looked up at him, his eyes were locked on my face, his lips slightly parted. “You’ve thought about it, haven’t you?” he asked.

I nodded.

“You know just what it would be like, don’t you?”

Another nod.

Someone cranked up the music. Everyone in the kitchen turned to look into the adjacent room, where Carly and Sharon were now dancing, the others standing back to watch. The two women wound around each other with their moves, almost stalking. These were people who clearly knew each other’s bodies wel . Every so often, one of them reached out to stroke the other’s arm or hair. Evan moved closer to me so that we were side by side, his arm around my back. I felt the pulse in my back, right where his hand was; I felt it in my head, in my stomach. Everyone in the room was riveted to the two women.

Carly and Sharon moved closer to each other, until their bodies pressed together, stil moving. Carly’s cheek rested momentarily on Sharon’s breast. Sharon threw her head back, hips swaying, and touched Carly’s head. Carly’s hands went to Sharon’s undulating hips. The two of them moved like one body. And then Sharon was looking down, Carly up, and stil swaying, the two of them began to kiss—open mouths, pink tongues.

My own mouth was a little open now, my body hot.

I felt Evan’s hand on my elbow. “Come with me,” he said, his voice low and rough.

I let him lead me out of the kitchen. We skirted the living room, where Carly and Sharon were stil embracing. We walked down a hal way. I didn’t ask him where we were going. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to talk. Evan opened the door at the end of the hal way. It was a smal bedroom with a tiny lamp next to a double bed.

“Is this their bedroom?” I said, glancing at the pile of coats on the bed.

Evan shook his head. “Guest room.”

He crossed the room and switched off the lamp light. The room went black.

“Ev?” I said. I reached out, and he was there, his arms wrapping around me, his mouth coming down hard on mine. We kissed, fast and greedy, as if this had been waiting for us forever.

He pushed me against the wal and pressed his body against mine. I grabbed his hair as we kissed, pul ing it, embracing him tight. His hands were al over my body, touching me through my clothes. I did the same, grabbing—
finally—
that hard chest through the soft cloth of his shirt, pushing my pelvis into his thighs. And in my head, I was imagining what it would be like to shed the clothes from my body and to have him push hard inside me.

“Oh, yeah,” Evan grunted. “Yeah.”

His words made me hotter. I bit his neck. He groaned, and I was grateful for the music banging outside.

His hands felt for the hem of my sweater, and I thought,
here we go.

He pul ed the sweater up, his fingers on my bra. I felt a hard tug as he pul ed that up as wel , so that my sweater and bra were in a ring around my neck. His hands were on my breasts now, Evan’s warm, large hands.

I froze. Those hands were foreign. They weren’t Chris’s long, smooth fingers. No one else had touched my bare skin in so long that I couldn’t ignore how shocking the sensation was.

Why I hadn’t noticed the difference between Evan and Chris during our kiss, I couldn’t say, but now it was palpable.

“Evan,” I said, pushing him away slightly.

His hands dropped, roaming my hips, but I couldn’t shake the sense of surprise, of something wrong.

“Stop,” I said. “Please.”

The air felt cool as he stepped back. “What is it?”

“I can’t.”

“What’s wrong?”

I laughed, a desperate shaking laugh. “I’m married!” My voice sounded hysterical. Near tears. “And I love my husband. I real y do.”

Somehow kissing Evan, and the dismay I suddenly felt at my betrayal, had made Chris and me seem as clear as new glass, where the image had been foggy before. Somewhere in our history, as wel as in the recent weeks, I’d had passion with Chris, I’d had affection, I’d had caring. I’d had the whole deal. It wasn’t lost, as I’d feared over the last few years. The intimacy just needed to be worked at and maintained and balanced. We needed to put together the passion and conversation of recent times, with the independence of old. We stil had the pieces and the very real love for each other. This thing with Evan, on the other hand, was just a shard of something, a splinter of sexual longing.

“Okay,” Evan said. “Hold on.”

I heard him moving through the room, swearing as he bumped into something. Then the smal lamp went on. Evan was sitting on the edge of the bed, panting. His shirt was askew, his hair standing at odd angles.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I tugged my sweater and bra into place and crossed my arms. I leaned against the closed door.

He shook his head, straightened his shirt. “No, it was my fault.”

“It was both of us.”

“Right.” He looked at me, a questioning look that said,
What do we do now?

“I’ve got to go.” I opened the door, and left Evan sitting on the bed.

“Where have you been?” I heard Chris cal from the living room as I opened the door.

It was only nine o’clock when I got home, but I felt as if it were the middle of the night. The martinis, the fevered kissing and the shame had made me exhausted.

I leaned my head against the doorjamb. “A party,” I said softly.

I stepped inside and closed the door. Chris sat on the big chair, smiling, as if I were the only person he’d want to see at that moment. I fought not to cry.

“A party on a Wednesday?” he said.

“I know. Weird, huh?” But it was me who sounded weird, my voice smal , hol ow, as if it came from a tin can.

“Let me guess. Evan’s friends?”

At the word “Evan,” the remorse flattened me. I could barely stand.

“You al right, Treetop?” Chris came to me, his arms encircling my body.

But I couldn’t stand his touch, not when Evan’s arms had been there only fifteen minutes before. “Fine, fine.” I pul ed away.

“Did you eat dinner?”

“No.”

“Great, I’l make you some pasta with truffle oil. It’s a new recipe I’m trying out.”

“Chris, don’t.” I couldn’t bear the thought of his kindness. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Wel , I’l join you.” He ruffled my hair, leaning his tal body down to kiss my neck.

I pul ed away again. “I…I can’t.”

“You can’t what?” Chris’s face was confused.

I can’t live with myself.

But instead, I said, “I’m just so tired.”

“Okay, sweetie, I’l start the water for you.”

“No, don’t.” The thought of him doing anything was too painful, making the shame unbearable.

Chris’s face fel at my harsh words.

I was fucking up everything, hurting everyone. My head swam with flashbacks of what had happened tonight with Evan. Not one cohesive thought could take hold. “I’m just going to go to bed,” I said. I went into the bedroom. I stood for minutes, glaring at the frog until I final y turned off the light.

I
nfidelity is not a warm and fuzzy concept. It’s not a word you’d find embroidered on a pil ow or placed in a calico frame. And yet, infidelity has so strong a pul for so many people. I’d never considered myself part of that unfaithful population, or even on the outside looking in. In fact, the only real person that I knew who
might
have had an affair was my father.

He was gone from our house one day, just gone, like a bird that had flown south for the winter. My mother was grief-stricken. She cried. She stared out windows, as if waiting, praying, for his gold Cadil ac Eldorado to pul down the drive. And yet at other times, she was matter-of-fact about it, even stoic. She sold our white house with the two-story columns, and she moved us across town to the apartment by the old hospital.

Often I traipsed down the back apartment stairs, which smel ed like a strange, sweet smoke from the Indian couple who lived on the first floor, and went into the cement yard. An old picnic table, gray from the weather, was chained to the side of the building, and if I stood on it, I could see the cupola on our old house—a tiny, white-painted room made al of windows, peeking over the town.

One day, my sister Hadley came outside while I was there. She wore yel ow pants and a white T-shirt with a dark smear near the shoulder. There was a scratch on her face, probably from getting in another fight at school. The fact that she and Dustin had these brawls with classmates made them seem like different beings. Not normal girls or sisters, certainly nothing like me. “What are you doing?” she said.

“Just looking.”

In one fluid leap, Hadley was on the table next to me. We stared at the cupola in silence.

Final y, Hadley said, “He’s probably got a girlfriend.”

“Who has?”

She scoffed. “Dad. That’s why men leave. To get other girls.”

“Oh.” This was new information. My mother had always said that he had business to take care of, that he would be back eventual y. I’d stopped believing that he would return, but for some reason I’d never questioned the statement that he’d left because of business.

I never learned what the real story was, which only made my anxiety, disappointment and obsession about my father grow. Infidelity was always a possibility, though, one I abhorred on behalf of my mother and her tearstained face.

Now, I was busy hating myself, too, for what I’d nearly done the other night with Evan. What I’d wanted very much to do.

To tel or not to tel ?
That
is the goddamned question.

Confessing to Chris was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? Certainly hardcore honesty was the way to go. Or was I only trying to assuage my guilt by considering such a thing? Wasn’t I hoping Chris would absolve me from the shame? And if so, wouldn’t I be a better person to simply live with that shame instead of hurting Chris when real y nothing had happened? But something
had
happened, even if it wasn’t ful -on sex. Which brought me around to square one.

I cal ed Tess, and we met at a coffee shop on Clark Street. We took our foaming lattes outside to a black metal table. She was beaming now about her pregnancy—it had settled around her.

“Maybe someday you and Chris wil join us in Baby Land,” she said, smiling serenely, patting her bel y.

“Maybe.” I knew in that moment I couldn’t tel her. Her husband, Tim, worked with Chris. She and Tim had introduced us. If they knew, it could affect al of our friendships. I drank my latte and kept quiet.

When I left Tess, I tried my mom. But when we met at Milrose again—me brimming with my secret, with my need for some seasoned, even harsh, maternal advice—she had brought two women from her neighborhood.

“El en and Mary,” she said, “this is my daughter Bil y.”

I smiled. I shook hands. I shelved the thought that my mother and I would ever again have a heart-to-heart.

The next day I cal ed Dustin in San Francisco. I wasn’t sure if I could confide in her, since we so rarely did that kind of thing, but I was wil ing to try. The scene with Evan was eating at my insides, clawing its way to the surface.

“Hi, Bil y!” Dustin said, sounding pleased to hear from me. I’d caught her at home for once.

“How’s Robert?” I said, asking after her husband.

“He’s on a golf trip.” She laughed wryly. “Remember how dad used to golf al the time?”

I blinked at the mention of our father. “No.” I had no recol ection of my father ever holding a putter or even talking about golf. And that realization made me sad. He was gone from me in so many ways. Physical y, of course, for over twenty years, but since that morning I woke up with the frog on my nightstand and with everything changed, he’d been gone from my heart, too. I real y didn’t miss him anymore. I didn’t wonder why he’d left. But somehow I
missed
the missing of him. I was starting to realize that my old obsessing, my never-getting-over-him had been the way I held on to him. He was real y and truly gone now.

“Oh, wel ,” Dustin said, onto a different topic. “What’s going on with you? I hear you’re a big VP now.”

“Yes, it’s true. I got promoted.”

“My little sister! A vice president! I’m so proud.”

“Thanks, Dustin.” But the congratulations was bittersweet; hearing the words now reminded me that she hadn’t even cal ed or e-mailed to congratulate me on my promotion when it first happened. Not that I needed her approval, but the lack of it reminded me how distant we were. So I knew I couldn’t tel her about Evan. After a few minutes of mindless conversation, we were off the phone.