The Affair (10 page)

“K
athy!”

“Hi, Maureen.”

Kathy stood on Maureen Ryan’s doorstep, a bunch of flowers held awkwardly under one arm, a bottle of wine in a tightly wrapped brown-paper bag under the other.

“Come in, come in. I wasn’t expecting you. I’d kiss you, but I don’t want to give you whatever I have.” Maureen stepped back and allowed Kathy to squeeze past her. “Go straight through into the kitchen.”

Maureen lived in Mission Hill in a row house near the Triangle District. She’d been born in the house, and she always said she would like to die there as well.

“I should have called,” Kathy said slightly breathlessly, walking down the narrow hallway and into the kitchen. She stopped, shocked. From the outside she had been expecting dark and gloomy Formica and linoleum; instead she was blinking in brilliant light, looking at the latest in Swedish kitchen design, polished blond wood and cool chrome. The rear window, kitchen door, and a section of the wall had been removed and replaced with French doors that led down into a circular conservatory that was bright and fragrant with Christmas blooms. “This is gorgeous,” she said.

“Isn’t it fabulous?” Maureen said, voice wheezing a little as she came up behind her. “We did a pilot for a reality makeover show a couple of years ago. It never got off the ground, but I volunteered my house for the pilot. Not only did I get a new kitchen, a patio, and a conservatory, I actually got paid for it as well.”

“It’s fantastic. And you’ve decorated it beautifully.” Kathy turned to look at the older woman. She handed her the flowers and the wine. “I’m so sorry, Maureen. I only found out last night that you were sick. Robert forgot to tell me. He insisted he had, but he hadn’t.”

“I’m sure he’s had a lot on his mind lately,” Maureen said. She turned away, set the flowers and wine down on the counter, and started to fill the kettle. “Sit down. Go out into the conservatory. It’s my favorite part of the house.”

Maureen Ryan was twenty years older than Kathy, a tall, masculine-looking woman, with strong, sharp features, pale green eyes, and a shock of snow-white hair that she wore in a single tight braid that hung to the small of her back. When Kathy had first met her, she’d worn half-moon glasses, but she’d thrown them away in favor of contact lenses, claiming that the glasses made her look old. She had never married, but over the years had been romantically linked with several minor politicians and one equally minor movie star. Maureen liked to say that the stories were only half true; it had been a dozen minor politicians and two not so minor movie stars. Normally, she kept up with the latest fashion trends, and she was still slim and svelte enough to get away with jeans and boots. Today however, she was in a plum-colored velour tracksuit and incredibly ratty slippers.

Kathy stepped down into the conservatory. The air was perfumed with the scent of the flowers and the musky odor of a fat candle burning on an ornamental stand. Two enormous, fan-backed white wicker chairs were placed on either side of a circular glass table. A Stephen King paperback, his book
On Writing,
was open on the table. Kathy remembered that Maureen had always talked about writing a novel based upon her experiences of forty years working in and around the entertainment business.

“How are you feeling?” Kathy asked.

“I’m fine. Slowly getting better.” Maureen’s voice echoed down from the kitchen. “I picked up a cold, which turned into a chest infection. Pleural effusion is the official medical diagnosis. I wanted to continue working, but there was so much fluid that I had trouble breathing. So, for once in my life, I took some good advice and took some time off.”

“You should have let me know. I’ve have visited you sooner.”

“I thought Robert might have told you,” Maureen said, stepping out into the conservatory. She was carrying a wicker tray, which held a hand-painted teapot and two matching cups. “Aren’t these fun? I got them in Ayia Napa.”

“In Cyprus? Isn’t that the place where all the young people go for raves?”

“There and Mykonos, but I’ve already been there and done them,” Maureen suggested with a mischievous glint in her eye. “And I like to think of myself as one of those young people.”

“Hey, you’re the youngest person I know. I hope I’ve still got your energy when I’m . . .” She allowed the sentence to trail off.

“When you’re my age, you mean.” Maureen grinned.

“Something like that.” Kathy sank into the creaking wicker chair and watched Maureen pour tea. “What keeps you so young?”

Maureen lifted her head and grinned, showing perfectly white teeth. “I used to say ‘regular holidays and Spanish waiters,’ but lately I’ve been saying ‘attitude . . . and Spanish waiters.’ I picked an age and stuck to it.”

Despite the sick headache throbbing at the back of her skull, Kathy smiled. “What age?”

“Twenty-two.”

“I thought most people chose eighteen.”

“I knew nothing at eighteen. I knew it all by the time I was twenty-two. By the time I turned twenty-three, I knew too much.” Maureen passed the cup to Kathy, then waited while she added milk. “I don’t think I’m old, therefore I’m not old. That’s why I hate this chest infection; reminds me that I’m not as resilient as I once was.”

The two women drank their tea in silence, looking out over the tiny rectangle of garden.

“This conservatory must make you the envy of your neighbors,” Kathy said eventually.

“I started a trend. There are three similar conservatories in this block alone. It was a shame we couldn’t get the makeover show off the ground. I had plans to have the whole house transformed.” She sipped her tea. “I must come out and see what you’ve done with your place. How long have you been there now—five, six years?”

“Six, and it’s still a work in progress. Somehow there never seems to be the time. I seem to have become a professional chauffeur now that the kids are both involved in sports and clubs and band and student government; they seem to be coming and going at all hours of the day. But next year, I’ve plans to get in and make some more changes. I definitely want to renovate the kitchen. . . .” Realizing that she was babbling, Kathy abruptly shut up.

“How’s Robert?” Maureen asked.

Kathy blinked at her in surprise.

“What? I haven’t seen him in nearly six weeks,” Maureen added.

Kathy shook her head in disgust. “He said you’d been gone for three or four weeks.”

“I went out sick early in November. Other than a couple of e-mails, I really haven’t spoken to him.”

“He hasn’t called?” Kathy asked, getting angry now. R&K owed much of its growth and success to this woman. But more than that, she was a friend.

“Oh, sure, he called for the first few days, usually when he wanted something, or had lost something, or couldn’t find a file. I wasn’t really expecting him to keep in touch. This is a busy time of year for him. He’s probably run off his feet.”

“I haven’t really seen a lot of him,” Kathy admitted. “Let me apologize for him—”

“Don’t,” Maureen said quickly, raising a hand. “I’ve worked with him for a long time. I know what he’s like.”

“And he hasn’t . . . hasn’t done anything stupid, has he, like stopping your salary, or anything like that?”

Maureen laughed and then wheezed a rasping cough. “Are you kidding? He’s terrified he’d lose me to one of his rivals. He knows both Hill Holliday and Digitas have been chasing me.”

“Good. Good.” Unsure what to say next, Kathy concentrated on her tea.

Maureen sat back into the wicker chair, then lifted up both legs and tucked them beneath her. “I get the impression that this may be more than a social call,” she said gently.

Kathy stared miserably into the dregs of her tea. She nodded. “I really did only find out you were sick last night. It’s a long story, but Robert was out with Jimmy Moran . . . or at least, he said he was out with Jimmy Moran,” she added softly.

“That’s an odd thing to say,” Maureen said, putting down her cup. “You sound as if you don’t believe him.”

Kathy put down her own cup and looked Maureen in the eye. “I don’t.” She breathed deeply. “I believe Robert’s having an affair with Stephanie Burroughs. What do you think?”

And she knew, even before Maureen answered, what the answer was going to be. It suddenly seemed colder in the conservatory.

The older woman nodded. “I have suspected that for a long time.”

It took Kathy a moment to catch her breath and when she spoke, her voice was little more than a whisper. “When did you know for certain?”

“About a year ago. I was suspicious for a little while before that.”

“A year! A year and you didn’t bother to tell me!” Kathy bit back the wave of anger that surged through her body.

“I thought about it often enough. I wanted to tell you . . . but it never seemed to be the right time.”

“You should have told me!” Kathy’s voice rose as she surged to her feet. “I had a right to know!”

“I’m not the one you should be angry with.” Maureen said quietly.

Kathy sank back into the chair and put her head in her hands.

“If the roles were reversed, would you have told me?”

Kathy opened her mouth to snap a “yes” but closed it again without replying. Would she, could she, put another woman through the agony, the self-doubt, the self-loathing, the fear, the anger she’d experienced over the past two days? She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

“I’ve just come from the office. I went looking for something—something to tell me that he was having an affair, hoping to find nothing. I’d almost walked out the door when I discovered his cell phone bills.”

The older woman smiled bitterly. “That’s how I found out too. I was doing an analysis of the bills, looking to see where we could cut costs, when I saw that he kept phoning the same number. I initially thought it was your cell, then I realized he was calling it late at night when he would have been home with you.”

“Tell me what you know,” Kathy said fiercely. “Tell me everything. I have a right to know,” she added desperately.

Maureen stood. Wrapping her arms tightly across her chest, she turned her back on Kathy and stared out at the empty December garden. “I think they’ve been having an affair for about eighteen months. Maybe a little longer, I’m not sure.”

“A year and a half,” Kathy said numbly. “He knew her a long time before that. I suspected them of having an affair six years ago when she worked for us as a researcher.”

Maureen frowned. “I don’t think they were. I know they worked closely together, but I don’t think they were having a relationship then.”

“Are you sure?”

“No. But if they’d been having a relationship six years ago, I would have found out,” Maureen said confidently. “I know something is going on now.”

“But you’ve known for a year and a half. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Complicated,” Kathy whispered. “What does that mean? I’ve just discovered my husband of eighteen years has been having an affair for the last year and a half, maybe longer, and you couldn’t tell me because it’s complicated! What’s so complicated about that?”

“Stephanie Burroughs sends a lot of business our way.” Maureen turned to look at Kathy, her face hard and expressionless, but her big eyes were brimming with tears. “Stephanie is the account manager with one of the largest advertising agencies in the city—she got us a lot of work. Without her, we would probably have gone under this past year.”

Kathy stood and backed away from the older woman. “You let my husband continue his affair because you didn’t want to lose your job?”

“His affair was none of my business,” Maureen said, biting the inside of her cheek to keep her calm. “His affair is between you and him. No one else. That’s why I didn’t tell you. I’m not one of those women who go running to their friends with news that they’ve seen their husbands with other women. Don’t you blame me for this, Kathy. This has nothing to do with losing my job. If R&K goes under, sure, I’ll lose my job, but I’ll get another. But you’ll lose your house, and in this economy a man pushing fifty isn’t going to be getting another job any time soon. People like him are a dime a dozen, and the kids coming out of school will work twice as long for half the salary. If I’d told you, you would have confronted him and then what? We’d all have lost, you and Robert most of all.”

Kathy licked dry lips. Her tongue felt swollen in her mouth. “You’re saying he slept with her to save the business.”

“I’m saying nothing of the sort.”

“But that’s what you’re implying.”

“I’m not implying anything. I’m simply telling you the truth.”

“Then what exactly are you saying, Maureen?”

“Kathy . . .”

“Tell me,” Kathy demanded, voice rising to a scream. “Why is he sleeping with her?”

Maureen sighed. “I’ve seen them together. I think they’re in love.”