The Affair (38 page)

So now I knew. It didn’t make me feel any better, though.

The most frustrating thing about being fired is knowing I can’t reach my old clients. I don’t have any of their files, and
even if I did, I’m contractually prohibited from contacting any of them. There’s no way they can reach me because my home
number is unlisted.

I did run into Claire—at Oooh La La, the lingerie shop in the mall. She approached me as I pawed through a stack of gray cotton
briefs, probably the least attractive undergarments in the entire store. She seemed happy to see me. “What do you think?”
she said, holding up a hot pink, fur-trimmed teddy.

“It’s you,” I told her, wondering whose husband she planned to seduce this week. As it turns out, it would be her own. Claire
told me that after the picture window scene on her anniversary, her husband unleashed his inner satyr. “He’s an animal,” she
whispered. “I can’t keep up with him.

“I’ve meant to send you a note,” she continued. “I know I sort of dropped off the edge of the earth. It wasn’t you. I just
needed some time to process everything, to get centered. I just wanted to thank you for helping me turn my life around.”

I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t think our sessions had made a difference. I found it hard to believe
she credited me with saving her marriage, let alone her life. “You’re welcome,” I said, and then moved toward the cash register.

“Hey,” she said, tugging my sleeve. “Give your husband my regards.”

Huh?

’Til next time,

The stalker is back and wants Roger. A package was left in the big pot of dying geraniums on the porch. Inside was one of
those little books they sell by the counter at Barnes & Noble.
The Tiny Book of Big Sex.
On every page a full-color photograph of a couple in a different position. There was a yellow Post-it note tucked inside
the first page. My heart pumped wildly as I read the message, written in a distinctly feminine hand. Saturday. 2
P.M.
Room 219. Econolodge. At the bottom of the note, another of those tacky lipstick kisses.

The only thing I’ve told Roger is that I’ll need him to watch Petey Saturday afternoon. I said I needed to visit a former
client at Meadowfield. I’m going to the Econolodge myself to find out, once and for all, who is pursuing my husband.

’Til next time,

Mom just called. Dad’s blood tests came back from the lab. It doesn’t look good. Dr. Bendel suspects the cancer
has spread, possibly to the liver. He scheduled a biopsy for next Thursday. Ever the stoic, Dad’s telling Mom he’s going to
be fine. “You’re stuck with me, kiddo,” he keeps saying. “I’m not going anywhere for a long, long time.” His optimism, feigned
or not, is something I find heartbreaking. He is the consummate Good Provider. He knows Mom would be helpless without him.

In the meantime, Mom is convinced that she caused Dad’s cancer. Apparently she read somewhere that men who have lots of sex
and eat lots of tomatoes have a lower incidence of prostate cancer. “I should have cooked more Italian food … and … we haven’t
been, you know, as active since I went through, you know,” she whispered on the phone. It must have taken all her courage
to share that. I know that impotence and incontinence are common after prostate surgery. It was hard to imagine my father
wearing Depends, harder still to imagine how my parents got along without the sex. But now I knew that perhaps it wasn’t so
difficult for my mother, given what she’d just told me.

I’m having a harder time dealing with the really important issue: the possibility that Dad might not make it, and what that
means not merely for Mom, but for me. I’ve secretly believed that among his three daughters, I was his favorite. Why else
would he take me alone to skip stones and watch the sunset by Lake Jerome? Why did he teach me and not the others to throw
a football, to play his old bass clarinet, to make a campfire? He’d joke that Mom and my sisters were too prissy, that I was
the real trooper in the family. From a man who didn’t readily dole out praise to any of his daughters, these words were like
gold nuggets. I gathered them and preserve them to this day. I think of how Roger and I lavish praise on Petey, often when
it’s
not especially deserved, and I realize how meaningless that praise has surely become to a boy who hears it almost as often
as he hears his own name.

So it’s hard for me now to imagine my father dying. Instead I’ll distract myself by thinking about my husband, and the slattern
who will be waiting for him in room 219 tomorrow afternoon. And I’ll set up an appointment with Reverend Lee. I suspect I’ll
want some spiritual guidance after tomorrow.

I’m too nervous to relax, to eat, to breathe. Have to remind myself: inhale. When I manage to sleep a few hours, my dreams
are filled with images of tampons strewn on the front path. Dirty panties in the mail. I keep thinking of that phrase: Be
careful of what you wish for. I’ve been bored out of my skull since I lost my job at the center. I wanted a little drama.
I never expected this.

Despite Moseman’s most heroic attempts to steer us toward healing, it’s clear that my husband is a chronic cheat. I feel nothing
for him but anger, but this worries me: rage and lust are twin emotions—both are passionate, both can be barometers of attachment.
I won’t be ready to walk away until I feel detached disgust, disdain, more like a spectator than a participant in this car
wreck of a marriage. Thank God Roger’s taken Pete to visit his parents. I think I’d rip his eyeballs out if he were here now.
Which reminds me: I called the sheriff’s department last week, after Roger had claimed he was delayed that night because of
a terrible accident on the 246 bypass. It was Betsy’s idea to call. They put me through to a female deputy, the one who keeps
track of highway “incidents.” “Nope, it was a quiet night,” she
said in a flat, nasal voice. After a pause, she said something so unbelievably unprofessional, I’d have reported her if she
hadn’t been so eerily accurate: “Husband’s been cattin’ around, huh?”

“Excuse me?” I don’t know why I felt it necessary to sound so indignant, when she happened to be right.

“We get this all the time,” she said, sounding sincerely sympathetic. “Let me guess. Your old man was real late getting home.
And he told you he was held up because of an accident, right?”

“Right.” I felt completely defeated. This stranger knew more about my marriage than I did. I had to ask again. “Are you sure
there wasn’t anything? Could you just check one more time?”

I heard a loud sigh, and a shuffling of papers I’m certain was for my benefit alone. “I’m sure,” she finally said. “You open
to a little unsolicited advice?”

“Sure,” I told her, correctly sensing what would come next.

“Dump the jerk,” she told me. Then, “If I could do it, believe me, anyone can.”

I was filled with awe and admiration for this tough woman. I pictured her sitting at her desk in her navy blue sheriff’s uniform,
single but strong. I imagined her gun and wondered whether she’d brandished it as she kicked her own jerk’s ass out of the
house. I’m going to hold that image in my head as I drive to the Econolodge.

I’ve spent an hour dressing, putting on makeup. I figure, if I’m about to confront Roger’s lover, I’d better look good. I
ran back in the house, found my camera, and popped in a fresh roll of film. I impulsively grabbed a steak knife on the way
out and slipped it in my bag. Just my luck, I’ll probably stab myself while rooting
around for my car keys. Before I go, I feel impelled to send a quick prayer: God, please give me the courage to handle whatever
I happen to find in that room. Amen.

I am feeling what can only be described as shock, the kind of stunned numbness that you see in people with post-traumatic
stress syndrome. My impulse is to get drunk and pass out in bed, but if I don’t write about this now I’m only going to feel
worse tomorrow.

I drove to the motel with the female deputy’s words ringing in my ears. I had decided that I would tell this new whore, whoever
she was, that she could have Roger. I’d make a joke of it, like someone giving up an unwanted mutt, because that’s what Roger
was to me now, a mangy dog I’d sooner dump on the highway than allow back into my house. I found a spot around the back and
scoped out the room. The curtains were drawn. I couldn’t see a thing.

I grabbed my bag and walked up the steps to the second floor. I stared at the dingy door, then knocked hard, like a man might
(but quickly realized that a philandering man wouldn’t pound, he’d tap quietly, discreetly). I heard a woman’s voice. There
was no answer. I tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. The door creaked open. The room was dark. I felt something at my feet.
At first I assumed it was one of those moist towelettes I always carry in my bag in case Pete needs a quick cleanup. But when
I bent down to pick it up, I realized it was a condom. Tied around it, the same ribbon that held the feather to the can of
Kama Sutra powder I found in my Jeep. This woman obviously knew my husband wasn’t keen on rubbers; she’d brought her own.

I gripped the ribbon as it snaked into the room. I flipped on the light. Both beds were empty. The room was empty! But the
ribbon didn’t stop there. It led me to the doors that adjoined room 219 to 221. I knew there was someone on the other end
of that ribbon, because as I approached the adjoining doors, I felt a distinct tug. With one hand on the doorknob and the
other grasping the steak knife in my bag, I pushed open the door. And there in bed, lolling like a sultan amidst a pile of
pillows and wearing nothing but her Cheshire cat grin, lay Diana.

“Right on time.” Her eyes glittered and she tossed her head back.

“Right on time.”

’Til next time,

“What do you mean, right on time?” I asked Diana, my blood pounding in my ears. The brain is an incredible organ, it really
is. How’s this for multitasking: as one part was registering total mortification, the other was taking in every inch of Diana’s
naked body.

I saw firm, round breasts that hadn’t been flattened and sagged by nursing, and a flat belly that never had to expand to accommodate
a growing baby. Her hips were narrow, boyish. (Of coure, those panties had belonged to her, I suddenly realized.) And Diana’s
skin was smooth and unblemished, like a young girl’s. No stretch marks, no shrivels, no varicose veins. Her shiny black hair
was longer now, and curled around one rosy nipple. A bull’s-eye.

Diana snuggled back into the pillows. She giggled. “Oh, baby. Do you have to analyze every single thing I say?” She twirled
her hair around a finger. The nails were short, squared, buffed to a soft shine. “Right on time means right on time.”

“You mean, you were expecting me?” I noticed she’d lit some incense. Something musky. I recognized it. They sold it at that
funky gift shop in the Castle Creek mall. It was Roger’s favorite. He said it made him horny.

“Expecting you?” Diana’s eyes widened. “Of course I was expecting you. I’ve never known you to pass up adventure.”