Ordinary World (30 page)

            “He never told me about the novel, or the trip to Rome, obviously, but other than that… no, I don’t think so.”

I grew suspicious. “Why are you asking me this, Melody? Do you think he was having an affair or something?”

            “No, it’s just that sometimes we see only the things we want to see.”

            I wanted to strangle her.

“Well, thanks a lot. Thanks for filling my head with all kinds of doubt. Now you’re going to make me want to go through his drawers and read his diaries and letters and things.”

            “That wasn’t my intention.”

            “What was your intention?”

            “Certainly not to make you doubt your husband’s faithfulness.”

            “Sam loved me massively. He was the only guy with whom I felt perfectly at ease in my own skin. Being with Sam was like being at home.”

            She looked at me curiously. “And what is being with Devin like?”

            “David,” I rebuked like a defiant teenager.

            “I’m sorry,” she said politely. “What is being with David like?”

            I stared at a stain on the carpet a few feet away from me, wishing I was someplace else.

            “Being with David is like being away from home,” I finally responded, unsure of what it meant.

            I changed the subject and mentioned Marta and the supposed tarot reading in Peru. Melody was wide-eyed. This was right up her alley, I thought. Total New Age shit.

            “Apparently she went through a lot of trouble to dupe me,” I said in conclusion to my story. “And I almost fell for it, too. I mean, I got caught up in it while I was there—how could you not? But I came to my senses when I got home.”

            I was waiting for Melody to argue with me, to tell me that this was one of those signs from the universe, or maybe from Sam himself, and that I was just using my denial to avoid going exactly where I needed to go. But she said nothing in response. In fact, she let a good ten seconds of silence pass by, making me increasingly uncomfortable. Finally, she spoke.

            “Well, I guess in the end you were too smart for her.”

            “Yeah,” I said, and pulled my feet up and curled into the chair.

***

I tossed and turned in bed that night, unable to get the session with Melody and subsequent memories out of my head.

You hid nothing from Sam?
I heard Melody say.

Before we were married, Sam and I had gone on a spring break jaunt to New York and stopped at Maggie’s on the way to Long Island. We met her at Junior’s in Brooklyn, where Sam had his first taste of the famous cheesecake and wasn’t disappointed.

“When was the last time you were here?” Maggie asked.

“It was—” I caught myself. The last time had been with Devin, sitting two booths away, when I told him about Sam and that I was leaving New York. Told him that I loved him.

“When?” Sam coaxed me to finish.

Mags and I exchanged glances, and she uttered, “Oh.”

“What?” asked Sam. I jammed a forkful of cheesecake into my mouth while Maggie sipped her coffee. But he knew that look on my face and changed his question.

“With whom?”

“No one,” I lied, my face turning crimson.

What a stupid, stupid thing to say.

“The guy,” he said.

An hour after we left Junior’s, coasting in the High Occupancy Vehicle lane on the Long Island Expressway towards my mother’s house, Sam spoke less than two words the entire time while I feigned casualty. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” I asked.

“Sweetheart, tell me right now who the guy is and what he meant to you. Because I don’t think you’re being completely honest with me.”

I froze in my seat and said nothing.

“Was he your first, Andrea?”

I couldn’t remember the last time he called me by name and not “Sweetheart.”

Once again, my silence answered his question.

“Dammit,” he muttered, illegally pulling out of the HOV lane and off the next exit, where he drove along the service road until he came to an elementary school. He then pulled into the parking lot and turned off the car after screeching to a halt in a bus lane.

“I can’t believe you’d keep something like that from me.”

The parking lot lights cast a jaundiced glow on his face. He took off his glasses and squinted his eyes shut, rubbing them with his fingers and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“It was just one time,” I explained, my voice quivering. It sounded so cliché, so completely lame. “His father died, and I went to the funeral, and we wound up together that night. He just needed someone to comfort him.”

“And you just happened to be there.”

“I told you, we were friends.”

“When? When did this night happen?”

“Before I moved,” I answered meekly.

“In other words, you and I were already…” he searched to find the appropriate words, “…emotionally involved. It was after you came up for the NU interview.”

“It changed nothing,” I insisted.

“It changed
you
,” he said, raising his voice. “It changes
everything
! You lied to me! How am I supposed to trust you now? How do I know you don’t still have feelings for him? How do I know you’re not still
seeing
him?”

“Ask me, Sam.”

He looked me directly in the eye, his own eyes pleading.

“Are you?”

“No,” I affirmed, my voice resolute and unwavering.

“Have you since then?”

I thought of Paris Gallery and the Peruvian coffeehouse two weeks later.
But that was David
, I rationalized. No. I couldn’t lie to him.

“I ran into him one more time, but that’s it. It was at a coffee shop.”

“Where?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Boston or New York?”

“Boston.”

“When?”

“This past fall.”

I hoped he was putting it together with the weekend lecture that Maggie and I had attended rather than our Columbus Day getaway. But he didn’t venture any guesses out loud.

“And?” he demanded.

“And he saw the ring on my finger and the look on my face whenever I talked about you.”

Sam shifted his attention to my engagement ring, the diamond and sapphire catching a glint, as if to make sure it was still there. As if expecting it to have magic powers, and being disappointed to find out otherwise.

“That was it, Sam. I haven’t seen or heard from or thought of him since. Check the phone records, if you want. Check my cellphone and email. Read my diary. I’m telling you the truth.”

“Why didn’t you tell me then? Why didn’t you tell me you slept with him even for that one night?”

“Because it was a chapter that was over and done with as far as I was concerned.
You
’re the book I wanted to read—to
write
,” I corrected. “It was one unplanned night with him. But you are my
lover
, Sweetheart.” I softly brushed his cheek with my thumb. “He never was and could never be that. You’re my lover and my best friend, and I can’t wait for you to be my husband.”

He stared through the window and into the blackness.

“I don’t know how I can marry you if I can’t trust you.”

 “Oh Sam,” I said, trying to fend off the arrow heading for my chest. “I think if you take some time and search your heart, you’ll find that you can. I never told you about the guy because I wanted a clean break. That’s all. I
moved
, after all. Don’t you see? I was done with him even if you hadn’t been in the picture. And I never once doubted my decision.

“I fall deeper in love with you every day. I can’t say or do anything to persuade you of that except to give you my diary. Seriously. I’ll turn it over to you tonight.”

We sat still, staring ahead. It wasn’t until I looked down that I realized we were holding hands, so tightly that the gemstone from my engagement ring dug into and left an imprint on his skin.

“We should go,” he said coldly. “Call your mom and tell her there was traffic.”

He started the car and left the school, heading back towards the Expressway. The remainder of the trip took forty minutes, all of it in silence. Not a single word uttered between us. Not even the radio. I stared out the window just like I used to when I rode the train to and from my old East Meadow apartment and the city.

When we got to the house, Mom could tell something was wrong.

“What did you do?” she asked when Sam was out of earshot.

“What makes you think I did anything?”

“Because he’s a saint.”

“And what am I, a gremlin?”

“Don’t lose him.”

“Butt out, Mom.”

Two days later, before we went back to Massachusetts, we took a long morning stroll on the beach. It was Sam’s first time on a Long Island beach. The dunes stretched out before us, with houses on the horizon, the Atlantic Ocean to our right, its musical waves crashing with force, yet receding with ease, as if imitating Sam’s and my present dynamic. The breeze blew our bangs back, while the sun warmed our faces. This was one of the few places I felt truly at home, I remembered thinking that morning. This beach, a classroom, Sam’s arms. 

We padded along the flat, damp sand, holding hands, saying nothing, looking ahead, listening, listening…

Sam spoke first.

“I’ve decided that you were incredibly wrong to keep such a vital piece of information from me.”

“Yes, I was,” I conceded. “And I’ll never forgive myself for it.”

“Why?” he asked. “I have.”

For the first time since that moment in Junior’s, the knot in my stomach loosened.

“And I understand why you didn’t tell me,” he continued. “All those things you confided in me about your growing up. Those weren’t lies.”

“No, they weren’t.” I handed him a folded piece of pink stationary.

“What’s this?”

“A love letter.”

He clasped it without opening it, then stopped walking and turned to me. “I have something to confess.”

I stiffened.
Here it comes,
I thought.
“I’ve been having an affair with my secretary, George.” “I’ve decided to leave you and become a Buddhist monk.” “I’m going to shoot you with this gun and throw your body into the ocean along with your silly love letter.”

“I didn’t really think the Junior’s cheesecake was all that.”

I opened my mouth, shocked.

“Well gosh, I don’t know if I can marry someone who can’t appreciate the instant orgasm that is Junior’s cheesecake.”

“Maybe you killed it with all your hype.”

“Maybe you’re afraid you can’t compete,” I teased.

He gasped in mock outrage. Then he took a few steps toward me as I took as few steps back. “I can’t compete?” he said, his voice a flirtatious threat. Our playful faces had finally returned from their temporary exile. “I can’t compete?”