Back In the Game (20 page)

Chapter 46

T
hat damned little ping.

I closed the file I was working on—an outline of a course I was thinking about suggesting—clicked on
GET NEW MESSAGES
and there was the important news that someone felt I just must have at that very moment.

An offer for a new Viagra substitute.

I deleted the message.

Checking e-mail has become a daily ritual I dread. No matter the safeguards the university has installed, the spam gets through—ridiculous requests for financial help from dethroned African royalty; prescription drug deals that just can't be legitimate; mortgage offers that scream fraud.

Colleagues send long, boring jokes or forward photos of their kids' every action—first time on the potty, first taste of ice cream, first birthday party.

I dread the day my mother finally gets an e-mail account. I'm sure she'll be forwarding articles about women who've ruined their lives by making foolish choices. Just for my edification, of course.

In fact, I am so tired of e-mails that waste my time, and have become so used to speedily deleting messages without opening them, that I almost missed the interesting announcement that came in later that day from Professor Rivers of the European history department. This is how it began.

Rumors? I'd heard no rumors, not even a ping.

It must, I thought, be a prank, an unkind joke played on poor Professor Rivers by an angry student upset with a bad grade. But a quick call to the department secretary—I felt I should alert Professor Rivers immediately—corrected my erroneous assumption.

“No,” Nancy said. She sounded as bewildered as I felt. “No, he really is getting a divorce.”

“Oh. Okay. It's just that I've never, uh, seen something like this. The e-mail, I mean.”

I imagined Nancy shaking her coiffed head. “Don't ask me what this world is coming to because I just don't know.”

That made two of us.

I hung up and read through the rest of the message.

I shook my head. No doubt about it, the announcement read like the press releases celebrities issue when they've cheated on their wife or fiancée or when they're getting divorced or when they've been caught doing something really naughty, like breaking parole or punching a photographer. I wondered if Professor Rivers had written this announcement himself or had paid a professional PR person to write it. It certainly sounded nothing like the awkward academic language he was notorious for using.

I read on.

I sat back, bewildered. Who did Professor Rivers think he was, Jude Law publicly apologizing to Sienna Miller for having sex with his kids' nanny? Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston asking their fans and the media for privacy in their time of pain? Renée Zellweger denying that her request for an annulment has anything to do with the character of her country-music-star husband?

If privacy was such a concern, I wondered, why issue the press release in the first place? Well, I know next to nothing about the nasty workings of Hollywood, but I suppose that old adage holds true: any publicity is good publicity.

But why was Professor Rivers, a lowly and by all accounts second-rate professor of European history, in need of publicity, especially of this kind? And why would he suppose that anyone would care about the personal trials of someone they barely knew, someone of no real interest to them at all?

I scrolled through the e-mail announcement again.

What was the etiquette in a case like this? Was I expected to respond to Professor Rivers's e-mail? And if so, what was I expected to say? Was I really expected to care? Was I expected to pretend to care?

Since when, I wondered, had the personal lives of the average Joe and Jane become fit subject matter for every other average Joe and Jane?

Oh. Right. Since the explosion of reality TV, of course.

And then I laughed out loud. Was Professor Rivers hoping for a TV contract? I could see it now: Real Life Divorces of the Middle Class and Unknown. Prime-time stuff for sure.

I wondered. Had divorce become the new must-have accessory?

Something that had once been hushed up and associated with shame had become so common, so ordinary that it seemed almost coveted. Couple Number One has a high-end condo, a Mercedes SUV, and a very public divorce. Couple Number Two has the condo and the SUV but not the divorce and are rumored to be jealous.

Ah, how the world has changed.

I forwarded the e-mail to Seth in case he hadn't yet received it. Of everyone I knew, he would most enjoy the absurdity of Professor Rivers's bid for fame.

Chapter 47

“I
said no!”

“Jesus Christ, Nell, you practically broke my nose!”

Brian stumbled into the dining table. I grabbed my blouse and held it against my chest. I tried not to think about what might have happened if Brian were a bit taller, a bit stronger.

“Good!” I cried.

I'd known Brian Kennedy for years. Richard and I had had dinner with Brian and his former wife several times. I'd seen him at parties and fundraisers. And not once had I suspected the ugly truth about him.

Fear and disbelief were rapidly being replaced by fury. I struggled not to throw something at him, a lamp or the phone or a kitchen knife.

“I should report you to the police,” I spat.

Brian laughed and reached for his tie; he had tossed it on a side table. “They wouldn't believe you. I'm a respected citizen. People in this town know me, important people. They'd think you were out for my money.”

It was probably true. Brian Kennedy was rich and powerful enough to be considered the target of a lonely, grasping woman. I felt sick to my stomach.

“You're right,” I said. “They might not believe me. So I'm not going to report you. I'm going to do much more damage to you. I'm telling everyone I know, everyone we know, about your disgusting behavior. I'm going to blacken your reputation beyond recognition.”

This time Brian gave me a look of amusement. “It won't matter. Enough women won't believe you. I know women. Some will think you're just angry because I wouldn't call you again. They'll go out with me.”

I watched as Brian calmly buttoned his cuffs. I tried to comprehend this man.

“You really don't care that you're using violence to get sex, do you?”

Brian looked up at me. He took his suit jacket from the back of a chair.

“No,” he said, “I don't. And enough women don't care, either. I've been around, Nell. You'd be surprised at what a man can get away with.”

No, I thought. I wouldn't be surprised. I stopped being surprised when my husband told me that he's gay. He'd gotten away with twenty years of deception. And what had he gotten from me in return? Twenty years of devotion and two children.

“Get the hell out,” I said. “Before I change my mind and call the police.”

Brian turned away from me. He started for the front door. “You don't want your name dragged through the mud, Nell. I know your type.”

This time I laughed. “You have no clue who I am, none. Get out.”

Without looking back, Brian left.

 

I took a long hot shower, after which I poured a large shot of scotch, turned the living room lights low, and settled in my favorite chair. Richard had bought it for me early in our marriage. It was early nineteenth century, in good condition. I don't know how he afforded it at the time, but that was Richard. Always trying to make me happy.

Happy and protected.

I took a first sip of scotch and breathed deep.

From the age of nineteen when I started to date Richard, I'd been protected from the world of menacing men. Of course, all women are subject to crude remarks and gestures and possibly worse from men on the street. But not all women are subject to attempted date rape.

I was completely unprepared for the encounter with Brian Kennedy, stunned that someone would attempt to force me into sex, me, Nell Keats, intelligent, well educated, financially stable, mother of two.

It was an embarrassing admission to make to myself. I had made a terribly harmful assumption, one I never suspected I'd made, that victims of rape were somehow complicit in the crime. That victims were foolish or careless, that they teased men, led them on until . . .

I put my hand over my eyes in shame.

And then I realized that if it had happened to me, it must have happened to other women in my circle, other decent women. But why hadn't anyone spoken about Brian? Why hadn't I heard warnings? And was Brian the only one in our social circle abusing women, or were there others, many others?

I took another slow sip of the scotch and let it burn its way down my throat. The sensation felt good.

I wondered. Maybe Brian's other victims were scared of the nasty publicity exposing such a powerful man might bring. Maybe Brian had threatened or bribed other women into silence. Or maybe there had been talk about him, just not when I was in the room. Mrs. Richard Allard, happily married; there'd be no reason for her to know about a predator like Brian Kennedy.

I thought of Trina then and determined to ask her what she knew; I felt sure she knew more than most. And then I was going to ask why she hadn't warned me, single, available Nell Keats, to reject all offers from Brian Kennedy at the outset.

I got up, went into the kitchen, and poured another scotch. What did it matter if I got a little drunk? There was no place I had to be in the morning. No one was expecting me; no one needed me. I walked back to my favorite chair.

And I wondered. What sort of nerve did it take to completely ignore the pleas, the needs, the desires of another person? What was the thought process of such a predator?

And right then I recognized another stupid assumption I'd been holding for way too long, that rapists of any sort were drug addicts or murderers, young, uneducated men from bad neighborhoods. I'd never imagined them as middle-aged, well-educated, socially respectable men.

Suddenly, I felt like the most naive forty-two-year-old in the city of Boston.

Why was Brian the way he was?

Enough women would willingly have sex with a man who seemed smart and funny and successful. What sick need made Brian choose violence over love, even over passion?

There had to be an answer.

I wondered then if I had encountered evil for the first time. Brian was amoral; that was clear. Was amorality the human, earthly equivalent of evil? I'd never given much thought to the concept. There'd been no personal, compelling need to think about evil, not in my daily life, not outside of a college philosophy class.

Oh, Nell, I told myself, you have been a very, very lucky woman. No one, I thought, deserves such luck.

 

“I wanted to tell you in person, Nell.”

Richard had asked me to meet him for lunch. I asked if Bob would be joining us. Richard said that no, he wouldn't. I accepted his invitation.

“Tell me what?” I asked when the waiter left with our lunch order. Oh, please, I thought, don't let him be sick. I scanned his face for signs of illness. But Richard looked almost robust, better than he'd looked for some time.

“Bob and I are getting married.”

“Oh,” I said. No beating around the bush for Richard.

I don't know why I was so surprised. Richard and Bob were in love. Wasn't marriage simply the next logical step in their relationship?

Richard cleared his throat. I noted a new pair of gold cuff-links. I wondered if they were a present from Bob.

“I know I can't expect you to be happy for us, for me . . .”

“No,” I snapped, remembering Brian Kennedy, remembering the night I had found the love note from Bob, remembering the day I had first met Richard. “You can't.”

“But I hope that in time you can be happy. For me and for Bob.”

If I hadn't believed before that Richard was gay and in love with a man and that I was no longer his wife, I believed it in that moment. Finally, finally, the truth hit home in a way it hadn't yet hit home.

And it felt awful. The truth is awful.

I looked at Richard with a brittle smile. “I still find it hard to believe I lost out to a guy with a permanent five o'clock shadow.”

Richard sighed. “Nellie, please don't be that way. It wasn't a contest; you didn't lose anything.”

“Oh, yes, Richard,” I said, “I most certainly did. I lost my identity. I lost my confidence. I lost you.”

The waiter placed our lunch on the table and asked if we needed anything else. I shook my head and stared blindly at the salmon steak in front of me. When the waiter was gone, Richard leaned across the table.

“You didn't lose me,” he said softly, “not entirely. You can have my friendship if you want it. You'll always have my love.”

But not in the way I need it.

I looked up at the man who had taken my virginity all those years before. “Is this why you wanted the three of us to have lunch a few weeks ago?” I asked. “So I could get to know Bob? So the big news would somehow be easier to take?”

Richard sat back. “Yes.”

“I suppose I should thank you for the effort. It didn't work, though.”

“I'm sorry. Bob didn't think it would.”

So, I'd been set up. The only one not in the know, the ignorant one. I'd been ambushed.

“Have you told the kids?” I asked.

Richard picked up his fork and put it down again.

“Of course not. I wanted you to be the first to know. I'll call them tonight.”

“Okay. When? When's the big day?”

“The Saturday after Labor Day. You'll be invited, Nellie. And the children, of course.”

What, I wondered absurdly, does one wear to the wedding of one's former spouse?

“I don't know if I can come,” I said.

“Try.”

“Maybe. Just don't expect anything of me.”

“I don't,” Richard whispered.

But what did I expect of Richard? And what did I expect of myself?

“I can't eat,” I said. “I'm sorry.”

“I'll get the check. I'll ask the waiter to pack up the food.”

I could hardly murmur my thanks.

 

I spent another night alone in the dark with a glass of scotch. And I remembered.

Just after Richard had moved out, I'd asked him point-blank if he had ever been sexually attracted to me. He told me that yes, he had. He said that in the beginning it was fairly easy for him to kiss me and to touch me.

Fairly easy.

Sure. I was young and pretty and slim. How could I have repulsed anyone? I'm sure sex with me had been tolerable.

Tolerable.

It came to me just after that conversation that not once in my life had I been touched by a man with real desire. I hadn't dated much in high school, and the few fumbling efforts I'd endured didn't count. Those randy adolescents would have grabbed for any port in a storm, even a blow-up doll. Especially a blow-up doll as she's a one-time expense; you don't have to buy her sodas and burgers every time you want a little action.

It was an accident of fate that at forty-two I found myself single and doubting my ability to inspire passion in a man. Or was it? For a long time after Richard's confession, I couldn't help wondering if I lacked some essential quality that men needed in order to feel passionately about a woman.

And then came Oscar. But I wasn't in love with Oscar and he wasn't in love with me. At least, I didn't think we were in love with each other. What, I wondered, was love with passion like? That night, after my lunch with Richard, after he announced he was getting married, and as I sat alone in the dark, I seriously doubted I would ever know.

I got up from my chair, tossed the rest of the scotch down the kitchen sink, and called Jess. It was late and I woke her up but she said it was fine, that I'd been there for her often enough. I told her about the incident with Brian Kennedy. And then I told her about Richard and Bob.

“Are you going to be okay?” she asked gently. “I could come over and stay with you tonight.”

“No,” I said. “I'll be fine. Really. Thanks again for listening. I needed to hear a female voice. I've got all these male voices clamoring in my head.”

“Male voices can be harsh. Good night, Nell.”

I hung up the phone. And then I cried like I hadn't cried since the night of my parents' funeral.