Infidelity (19 page)

( CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE )

In the book Charlie could have Ronnie. She could be his.

He could have her and he could fuck her.

In the book there would be no Aaron.

No two-bedroom apartment in Parkdale. No wedding.

There would be no Tamara.

No Noah.

No writing career.

No disgusting first-year students with their poor hygiene and manuscripts and questions. No cocktail parties.

No accusations.

No anxiety.

In the book there would be no tests.

No cancer.

No too many whisky shots.

No lying and cheating and sneaking around.

No disasters.

No mistakes.

In the book there would be no book. Only Ronnie, with her Vivien Leigh, Elizabeth Taylor hair and her simplicity. The curve of her hip. Her mouth. Her offering of escape from a life Charlie had grown tired of. A life, that because of Ronnie, had disintegrated completely.

All Charlie had now was the book.

( CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR )

Ronnie was in the bathtub, just as Lisa had instructed, contemplating where she would go and what she would do now that Aaron was gone and the wedding was off. Quitting her job and selling her things was as far as she'd gotten in the scenario that would get her out of her life in Toronto. She knew she couldn't stay and suffer the shame of the wedding cancellation, the concerned faces, the disappointment, that inevitable call from her mother where she would be worried about Ronnie's age, how hard it would be to find someone else, the shared knowledge that Ronnie had failed at the process of being a woman. Again.

She was considering ideas of distant locales . . . the places to escape that she and Charlie had discussed over and over as pipe dreams, places she could actually go now that she was free . . . when there was banging on the front door.

Ramona jolted from her light sleep on the blue bathmat next to the tub and galloped like a bull to the front door, letting out small, passive barks as she did. Generally Ronnie ignored the front door, assuming it was children raising money or adults selling worthless things, but it was an incessant, frantic pounding, and she could only assume it was Aaron, a few drinks in and without his keys.

She wrapped a white bath towel around herself and positioned Ramona between her and the front door, just in case it wasn't a fragile, emotional Aaron hellbent on making things right. She pulled it open slightly, leaving the chain lock on.

“You kicked him out.”

“Oh fuck, Charlie. What are you doing here?”

“You kicked him out.”

“You reek of whisky.”

“Well, I've been having a drink with a friend and he let me know that you called off the wedding.”

“What friend? What are you talking about? Charlie, I told you I didn't want to see you. Go back to your wife.”

“My wife?” Charlie was aggressive in a way that disturbed Ronnie, a part of him she hadn't seen, likely provoked by too much whisky. He started laughing. “Go back to my wife? You've seen to the fact that'll never happen again. What did you tell her when she came to see you at work? Did you tell her I loved you, Ronnie? Did you tell her you were the only one I ever loved?”

“How did you find out about that?”

“It took her awhile, but Tamara told me that she managed to pull it out of you during a fucking haircut.”

“Please. Don't blame me for that.”

“Who would you like me to blame, then?”

“I think you should go. Call me tomorrow and we can talk like adults.”

“Ronnie, I had a drink with Aaron.”

Ronnie was silent. Bile filled her throat. She took a few steps back from the door and unlocked the chain . . . a gesture that Charlie should step inside. Despite the fact that she knew he was angry and she was slightly afraid of him in a way she hadn't been in the past, she wanted him out of the doorway where he risked having the neighbours hear any more than they already had.

“Does he know?”

“No, Ronnie. He doesn't know. I, unlike you, was kind enough to spare him that truth.”

“Well, at least he didn't accost you at your place of work.”

“No, he stumbled into my hotel. The hotel where I now live, thanks to you. Your Aaron bought the stranger at the end of the bar a drink so they could cheers their sorrows.”

“Oh fuck.”

“Oh, don't worry. Your careful illusion isn't shattered. I'm just the random stranger he talked to at a hotel lobby bar about his girl Veronica. And he just thinks you have cold feet. Do you have cold feet?”

“No.”

“Then you're leaving him?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't know?
My life is fucking ruined
, and you don't know?”

“That's not my fault, Charlie. You ruined your own life.”

“I can't believe you. I can't believe I loved you.”

“All I know is that I don't want all of you dictating my life anymore.”

“Fuck you, Ronnie. I never tried to dictate anything. You're toxic. Poisonous.”

“You held me hostage.” Ronnie was yelling now, holding the towel tightly around her while tears fell freely down her cheeks. “You made me love you and you were never, ever going to leave her. And I knew that and I just followed along. That day at your front door? When you looked at me like you didn't even know me?”

“There was nothing I could have done. You know that.”

“There was so much you could have done. You knew that you were never going to leave and you just let me follow along. It can't be you or him anymore. It has to be me.”

Charlie softened, took a few steps toward her, reached out his arm, attempted to touch her cheek “But, Ronnie—”

“No, Charlie. I need you to go. You're scaring me,” she said, pushing his hand away and clutching the towel closer with the other hand.

But Charlie wasn't listening. He put his arm around her waist and pulled her toward him. She resisted meekly at first, and then with more of her strength, but he began kissing her face, her mouth . . . clumsily, awkwardly . . . while she tried to pull away.

“But I love you, Ronnie. I left my family for you. I gave everything up. I lost Noah. I sacrificed it all for you.”

“Stop it. Stop—”

“I love you, Ronnie. Come back to me. Please. Please come back.”

“Please. Stop.”

But Charlie wouldn't stop. He yanked the towel from her body, grabbed at her naked body, still damp from the bath, pulling her down to the floor as she kicked and squirmed. He was then firmly on top of her, gripping her wrists to prevent escape, bruising elbows, wrists, and knees against the hardwood floor.

“Charlie, please stop. Please. Don't.”

“But you always liked it this way. Didn't you?”

She turned her head as he tried kiss her. He let go of one of her wrists to put his hand between her bare legs. Forced his fingers inside her as she clawed at him.

She decided to plead. Cried out. “Charlie, please. Please. Please don't do this. Please.”

“But you're mine, Ronnie. You're mine.”

“You don't want to do this.”

He took a moment to look down at her, looked down at her body exposed beneath him, suddenly catching sight of a long pink scar on her abdomen, a cut fresh and healing, a new marking he had not seen before on a body he'd studied endlessly, worshipped limitlessly.

He realized it had been done. That while they had been apart it had been done.

He froze, the sight of it there revealing the reality of what he was doing.

“Oh, Ronnie. I . . . when? Why didn't you tell me?”

It was then that Charlie felt a searing pain in his right calf. A tearing, excruciating, severing anguish through the flesh and muscle, through his entire body. He looked behind him to find that Ramona had latched her massive jaw just beneath the back of his right knee and into his right calf. Once she had a secure grip, she began shaking her head back and forth as if she had found a small animal to dismember. Charlie let out a deep, inhuman groan, lifting himself off Ronnie and attempting to kick the frenzied dog off him with his uninjured leg.

Ronnie scrambled for the towel, wrapping it around herself and getting a safe distance from Charlie.

“For god's sake, Ronnie. Call her off me.” The words were barely audible, so marred by agonizing pain.

Ronnie waited a moment, watched wordlessly as Ramona twisted and thrashed, and then called out the dog's name, gesturing for her to come. She wrapped her arms around the anxious, frustrated animal, attempting to control her as Ramona lunged and snarled. She strategically positioned the dog between herself and Charlie.

“Charlie, I need you to go. Now.” Ronnie wasn't crying anymore. She was stoic. Charlie's leg was throbbing, and blood was beginning to seep through his pants, spreading down toward his ankle and onto the floor of the hallway. He looked like a wounded animal, crumpled in on himself in a way that suggested he had given up.

“Ronnie . . .”

“Don't say anything, Charlie. Just leave. I can't even look at you.”

“I didn't mean . . . oh god, I'm so sorry,” Charlie started, horrified.

“Just fucking go.”

Ramona barked.

“Can't you at least give me something to stop the bleeding?” he asked, a final request in a situation he knew he could not fix.

Ronnie stood up, letting go of the dog but gesturing for her to stay. She pulled the towel from her body, holding it out with a single swift gesture. She stood there completely naked, scarred, tear-streaked, and defiant, with the Rottweiler standing menacingly beside her, its muzzle faintly pink with Charlie's blood.

“Now get the fuck out of here. I never, ever want to see you again.”

( CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE )

Aaron checked out of the hotel the next morning, gleefully optimistic. He had spent the evening in a blissful two-whisky sleep, dreamless and stretched out in the rare comfort of a night alone in a king-sized bed.

Full of confidence he came home to find that Ronnie had, as promised, left.

There was a faint red stain on the hardwood in the front hallway, a bloodstained towel in the hamper, and a note that said only “Please take care of Ramona while I am gone.”

Aaron found the dog cowering shamefully on their bed, as if she had done some secret thing, something terrible and wrong.

Aaron read the words “while I am gone” over and over and over, wondering if they meant she was coming back.

( CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX )

Ronnie had spent her life being taken care of. Tongue depressors and paper gowns, she was the focal point of a world of worry, a broken thing that needed to be taken care of.

I didn't want to be forgiven.

I felt like I'd gotten off too easy.

I simply walked away.

The pain?

I felt like I deserved it.

And it was the only thing that made me feel better.

Because I get away with everything.

I've always been getting away with everything.

What Ronnie needed now was darkness. She needed the sun and the stars and the moon blotted out for a time, at the very least so she could convince herself that a way would be found. That she could survive without the care, without the good and the bad. Without the violence of her desires. That she could feel alive without the turmoil.

Ronnie went to stay with Lisa. She called her immediately after Charlie left. It took Lisa a good fifteen minutes through the mangled, hysterical sobs to understand what had happened.

“Listen to me, Ronnie. Just pack some things. Let Ramona out and then put her in the bedroom for the night. I'll stop by and get her first thing tomorrow morning. I'm calling a cab to come now and pick you up.”

The cab arrived as promised and Ronnie spent that night drinking the entire contents of Lisa's minimal liquor cabinet. When she had enough she ended up in Lisa's lap, crying and lamenting while Lisa stroked her hair. When she finally passed out Lisa put a Bay blanket over her on the couch, and switched off the light.

The next morning, Ronnie sat puffy-eyed and defeated at the kitchen table while the two had breakfast (a fried egg on rye toast with hot sauce). She hadn't changed her clothes, nor did she feel any reason to do so. Lisa immediately let her know she could stay as long as she needed to. “If you need anything from home I'll go and get it for you.”

“Just Ramona.”

“The two of you are more than welcome.”

“You don't have to do this, you know. I'll figure something out.”

“I wouldn't mind the company. And if you decide you want to stay, I wouldn't mind the help with the rent,” she said, smiling.

“That's what you're supposed to say.”

“Do I strike you as the kind of person who would ever say something she didn't mean? Please.”

Lisa's apartment in Kensington Market was comforting in its perfected lack of domesticity, the very opposite of everything Aaron had been striving for. There was a ceramic Elvis head in the living room and framed prints of sugar skulls on the walls, and a healthy littering of papers, take-out containers, and a collection of abandoned glasses with their remnants crusting and congealing inside. Despite the state of it, the apartment was actually quite spacious, with a very small office space that was functioning as a closet for endless piles of Lisa's clothes.

“If you decide to stay, we can put a bed in there,” Lisa offered, smiling.

The whole scene was comforting to Ronnie, the neighbourhood allowing her to wander and regain her footing with minor milestones like grocery shopping and having a coffee by herself.

“If there's anything I know how to deal with it's breakups,” Lisa said. “It's
America's Next Top Model
downloads and buffalo wings for the rest of the week. I think you need to be as drunk as possible for most of the time, and I'm more than happy to facilitate that. I'll tell the salon you've got some stomach bug and you can't come in for the rest of the week, okay?”

“You know, I really appreciate this, Lisa.”

“Really, it's no problem. Tell me about Stern's penis and consider us even.”

Ronnie laughed for the first time in weeks. Lisa reached for her hand and squeezed it, her face uncharacteristically soft.

“You don't have to answer this if you don't want to. Fuck, you don't have to tell me anything at all if you don't want to—”

“No, I'm happy to talk to you about it.” Ronnie wasn't really sure how true that was but was willing to find out.

“Why did you leave Aaron?”

“You mean besides the fact that I was having an affair with someone else?” Ronnie laughed again.

“Well, it's not like he knew. And given who you were having an affair with, it's not like he would find out.”

“I love your brand of logic.”

“No, seriously.”

“I guess I just got sick of being taken care of.”

“Well, then why didn't you stay with Charlie? Now that his wife knows?”

While she said that Charlie had come over to confront her, Ronnie didn't tell Lisa what Charlie had done. She would never tell anyone about it. She simply pushed it from her mind as quickly as she could. If she was honest with herself she would have realized that she felt like she had deserved it.

“I guess I just got sick of taking care of someone else.”

Lisa began collecting dishes from the kitchen table and walked them over to the sink, adding them to the accumulating pile. “Well, let's take care of ourselves, shall we?”