Point, Click, Love (27 page)

“I know.”

“I’ve never seen you like this before,” said Janie. “And it’s kinda freaking me out.”

Claudia looked at her daughter, who was on the verge of tears. “Janie, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry, Mom,” she said, fighting back her own tears. “If you’re sick and all. Right?”

“I know, but I’m sorry that I’m in bed and not … you know. There for you.”

“I just want you to be better, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I can’t stand seeing you like this.”

“Okay, honey, I’ll try to get better.”

That evening, while Steve was cooking dinner and the girls were doing their homework, Claudia took a shower. Then she dried her hair, put on real clothes—not pajamas or sweatpants—and emerged from the bedroom.

“What’s for dinner?” she asked Steve, who looked up at her with alarm.

“Chicken cacciatore,” he said rather fearfully, as if he expected her to find fault with his choice.

“That sounds good. Is it Rachael Ray’s recipe?”

“Yeah, it is, actually. She made it today.”

“Well, if it’s okay with you, I think I’ll join you.”

“Sure, of course.”

The next morning, as Claudia got ready for work, she smiled to herself. She had wondered for days whether she would have to go on one of those medications they advertised on TV—Abilify, Cymbalta, Zoloft. Now here she was, cured, from nothing more than her daughter’s pain and frustration.

Okay, maybe not cured, thought Claudia, but at least she was out of bed. And she knew she had to go to work, even though she might very well run into Fred, because her family was counting on her.

Throughout her long week at home in bed, Claudia had managed to avoid talking to Steve. He slept in the guest room and pretty much left her alone in her room throughout the day. Claudia had no idea whether he knew about her affair or not. But now that she was back at work, seeing people face-to-face, talking to them and watching them as they talked to her, she found herself wondering with each and every interaction: Do they know?

During her affair with Fred, Claudia was so caught up in it that she never even considered what her coworkers were thinking. She convinced herself it was perfectly normal to go to lunch every day with a colleague. Plenty of people did it: John and Craig, Susie and Diana and Barbara, Wendy and Martin and Vanessa. But she had to admit, she couldn’t think of any examples of a man and a woman going out together alone.

Now she had to wonder: What was everyone thinking?

Claudia found herself trying to decipher people’s facial expressions, detect a tone of disapproval when they spoke, read between the lines of their email messages.

Then one day Susie and Diana passed by her cubicle on their way to lunch and Susie asked, “Hey, Claudia, want to come to lunch with us?”

“She goes to lunch with Fred,” Diana quickly interjected. “Where is Fred, Claudia?”

Claudia didn’t have to work too hard to find the contempt in Diana’s remark.

She played a similar game with Steve at home, searching his every look and word for a clue as to what he knew. She couldn’t imagine that Marjorie hadn’t said something to him, but if she had, where was the anger, where was the indignation, where was the hurt?

Then Claudia started to wonder who else Marjorie had told and who else in her Facebook circle might have seen her posting.

“Heather? This is Claudia.”

“Claudia! How are you?”

“All right. Listen, Heather. You know Marjorie Gooding? I need to find her.”

“No problem. I can get you her number in just a …”

“Actually, I want to find her, like, bump into her. Not call her. You know what I mean?”

“What’s up, Claudia?”

“I can’t really get into it. I’m sorry. I …”

“That’s okay. Hey, I’ve got an idea. Are you on Twitter?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Well, I am, sorry to say, and I’m one of Marjorie’s followers.”

“Seriously?”

“Whatever. So, anyway, she’s always tweeting about where she is and what she’s doing.”

“I thought she was all into Facebook.”

“She is, but she uses Twitter for more mundane stuff, like ‘I’m getting my nails done at Rose Nails.’ ”

“Got it.”

“So I can give you a call when I know exactly where she is.”

“You’re awesome, Heather. Thanks.”

A few hours later, Heather called Claudia to report that Marjorie
had just gone to the Starbucks at 119th and Metcalf to have a Mocha Frappuccino and work on her laptop. Claudia immediately left work, hopped in her car, and raced to confront Marjorie.

As she opened the glass door to the Starbucks, Claudia realized she had no idea what she would say, but she had faith that the right words would come to her. She scanned the store and spotted Marjorie sitting alone at a long table toward the back.

“Hi, Marjorie,” she said, taking a seat across from her, trying to appear nonchalant.

“Claudia,” said Marjorie, pasting on a smile to hide her nervousness. “How are you?”

“I wanted to talk with you.” Claudia figured it was pointless to pretend this was a chance encounter.

Marjorie eyed Claudia suspiciously. “How did you know I was here?”

“Everyone knows you’re here,” said Claudia.

“Do you follow me on Twitter?” asked Marjorie, trying to hold back her smile as she imagined her public to be far greater than she had thought.

“I want to talk about that posting.”

“Forget about it,” said Marjorie, in a way that made it clear she would never forget about it.

“I wish I could,” said Claudia. “I want to know if you told Steve about it.”

“Why are you asking me? Why don’t you ask him?”

“Because I … Can’t you help me out here, Marjorie?”

“You know, maybe if you talked to your husband more, you wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“I am going to talk to Steve, but I thought that since you guys have been so tight lately—”

“What are you saying, Claudia? Are you implying that—”

“I’m not implying anything. I just know that Steve’s been confiding in you.”

“Right. And that’s all. I would never have an affair,” said Marjorie, her voice dripping with disdain.

“So does Don know about how close you and Steve have been getting?”

“My husband knows everything I do.”

“Really? He knows about Steve and whoever else you’ve been compulsively emailing and IM’ing and whatever else you do?”

“I’m not compulsively doing anything.”

“Because there’s more to having an affair than sex. Right? There’s the emotional connection. There’s the sharing of feelings and personal information. Do you really think Don would be okay with that?”

“I’ve done nothing wrong, Claudia. And just because you have gives you no right to start accusing me.”

“All I want from you is to know if you told Steve.” But Claudia wondered if that
was
all she wanted.

“That would be violating his trust.”

“A simple nod would do the trick.”

“Don’t forget, Claudia, I’m the one who pointed out your stupid mistake, remember? I’m the one who saved you a lot of embarrassment.”

“Right. And after that, how many people did you go and tell?”

“No one!”

“Really? You can’t get a cup of coffee without letting five hundred people know about it and you’re telling me that you didn’t tell one person that the wife of a friend of yours accidentally admitted to having an affair on Facebook?”

“You know what’s so crazy about this, Claudia? It’s that you’re sitting here chastising me when you’re the one who screwed around behind your husband’s back.”

“Right. So you know I’m probably not in the best state right now, and here I am, asking for one little bit of information, and all you have for me is a whole lot of disapproval.”

“Sorry, Claudia, if I’m not full of forgiveness.”

Is that what Claudia wanted? Forgiveness from Marjorie Gooding? Forgiveness from the person who had unintentionally been her confessor?

Suddenly Marjorie’s cell phone began to vibrate. She picked it up to take a look. Then she started pressing buttons, as if she had forgotten that Claudia was sitting right there in front of her.

“What are you doing?” asked Claudia.

“Nothing,” Marjorie said distractedly.

“What are you doing?!” Claudia demanded.

“I’m updating my Facebook status, if you must know!”

“My God!” Claudia shouted, causing everyone nearby to turn and look. “Do you ever stop? What are you writing? Are you writing about me? Are you writing about this conversation?”

“None of your business,” said Marjorie, continuing to punch away.

“It is my business!” yelled Claudia, her voice getting louder and her face turning red.

“No, it’s not!” said Marjorie, her voice also getting louder.

“Stop it!”

“No!”

Claudia reached across the table and snatched the phone out of Marjorie’s hand.

For a split second, the two of them stared at each other in shock. Then Claudia, realizing what she had done, grabbed her purse and ran with the phone into the bathroom.

Claudia quickly locked herself in, and while Marjorie pounded on the door, Claudia read the message Marjorie was writing: “Wondering how a person can be so rude, especially when they’re the one who just admitted to breaking one of the 10 commandme—”

Claudia pressed the “delete” button until all that was left was “wondering how a person can be so” and then added: “judgmental
and unforgiving, especially when you’re most weak and vulnerable. Maybe it’s time we all got off these stupid machines and smiled at the next person we meet, no matter what kind of sin they just committed.” Claudia hit “share” and, when she was sure the message went through, dumped the phone in the toilet.

When Claudia opened the door, Marjorie, who was still pounding away, practically fell on top of her. “Where’s my phone?” she screamed.

Claudia pointed to the toilet. “Don’t worry. I have a friend at Sprint. I’m sure she’ll give you a good deal on a new one.”

As Claudia drove home, surprised that she’d managed to get out without sustaining any physical harm, she realized that she would now have to accept—even embrace—her new persona. Surely Marjorie would tell as many people as she could what had happened, and there would be no way for Claudia to deny it. Not only would she be known as the adulterer, she would be known as the lunatic adulterer.

But she couldn’t worry now about what the world thought of her. First and foremost, she needed to deal with Steve, the one person she’d been avoiding and neglecting for far too long.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon, and instead of going back to work, Claudia decided to go home and talk to Steve before the girls got home from soccer practice.

She found him in the kitchen, trying to lift a whole chicken out of a steaming stockpot. On the counter sat two pans of freshly baked sugar cookies. Ever since Claudia’s weeklong sojourn in bed, Steve had stepped up to the plate and started cooking regularly. Not only that, but he seemed to be graduating from the no-fuss recipes of Sandra Lee and Rachael Ray to the more challenging concoctions of Martha Stewart and Bobby Flay.

“Whatcha making?” she asked.

“Just some chicken stock for a white bean and escarole soup.”

“Yum,” said Claudia. “And cookies?”

“Those are for a caramel sandwich cookie I saw Martha do yesterday. Do we have any powdered sugar?”

“I think so,” she said as she went to the pantry to look. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” said Steve. “Why are you home so early?”

“I wanted to talk to you,” said Claudia.

“Uh-oh,” said Steve, as he began to remove bones from the chicken.

Claudia smiled, appreciative of Steve’s ability to lighten things up. “First, I want to say I’m sorry.”

“For what?” asked Steve, his hands still deep in chicken skin and flesh.

“Where do I begin?” said Claudia, mostly to herself. “For being a bitch? For being unsympathetic? For spending an entire week in bed?”

“Look, Claudia. I need to apologize too. I mean, look at me. This is what I should have been doing all along, ever since I lost my job. I should have been cooking, taking care of the house, taking care of you—”

“Steve. Please don’t apologize to me right now.”

“Why not? I know what kind of a husband I’ve been and I just—”

“Steve! Stop. Please. Nothing you’ve done compares to what I’ve done.”

“Claudia—”

“I had an affair.”

Steve looked up and wiped the chicken fat off his hands with a dish towel. “I know.”

“Marjorie told you?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“A week or two ago.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I figured I should wait till you were ready to tell me.”

“Wow,” said Claudia.

“Marjorie told me what you wrote. I could see that you regretted it.”

“You must have been angry.”

“I was hurt.”

“I’m so sorry, Steve.”

“But it’s not like I wasn’t hurt already. I’ve been hurting for a long time.”

“I know,” said Claudia.

“We both have. It hasn’t been good.”

“No, it hasn’t.”

“So I know why you did it. For the same reason that I was getting so close to Marjorie.”

“Did you and Marjorie—”

“No. We never even met in person.”

“Really?”

“It was all on Facebook, a little on the phone.”

At that moment, Claudia finally saw the value of Facebook: the ability to connect with people while keeping a safe distance. Yes, she had heard about old high school sweethearts reuniting there and leaving their husbands and wives in a quest to reignite a past flame and give a spark to their dim lives. But more often than not, people were using Facebook as a way to work through their fantasies without causing any harm. They could “friend” the captain of the football team or the head cheerleader they had a crush on and carry on a simulated relationship full of pictures and postings that led everyone to believe they were much happier and more successful than they actually were. People had affairs to boost their egos or to get the attention that they weren’t getting from their spouse. Isn’t that why she got together with Fred? So maybe
it was better to get that ego boost or that extra attention from five hundred fantasy friends than one real live human being.