The Smart One (16 page)

“Tell me,” I pressed.

She was quiet for a moment, but I let her be. I sensed that she was trying to put something into words. I wondered what it was about taking the literature class that made Clare feel guilty. Was it possible she enrolled in the course to impress someone other than Marc, like her mysterious online friend? Or was I letting my imagination run away with me? Maybe Clare was simply enjoying the idea of taking time for herself—time away from her kids—and was feeling guilty about it.

“Do you think about Lydia?” she finally said.

“Yes.”

I put my head back down and gazed at the stars. I tried hard to imagine there was such a thing as an afterlife, that Lydia’s soul might exist somewhere in that vast distance, and that she got to love her little baby for all eternity.

“I’m such a piece of shit,” Clare said.

“You’re not.”

“I should be grateful I’m alive.”

“Are you…keeping the promise you made about not having an affair?”

She went quiet for a moment and I got a terrible feeling in my gut. “Clare—”

“Don’t lecture me,” she interrupted. “I’m doing my best.”

“What does that mean?”

She stood. “Let’s go back inside.”

After dinner, Leo and I got into his van and exited the parking lot. I struggled with how to end the date, wondering what I would do if he asked to come inside. Did I owe him any kind of an explanation? And if so, what would I say?

I looked over at him and saw that he was gripping the steering wheel tightly, his lips moving as if he were talking to himself. He glanced over at me, and I understood that he had been rehearsing what he wanted to say.

“What is it?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t a proposition.

He took a deep breath. “I haven’t been completely honest with you,” he said.

“No?”

“I should have said something earlier. I’m sorry.”

What was he getting at? “If you’re seeing someone else…,” I said, and stopped, wondering if I was projecting.

“It’s not that. Not exactly. I mean, there is someone else, but I’m not seeing her. That’s why I didn’t tell you. I thought I could get over her but I can’t.”

I was confused. “Is this about an ex-girlfriend?”

He glanced back at the road. The car in front of us had slowed down but Leo was still accelerating. I had noticed be
fore that he was what I call a “late braker,” which indicated a strong Brooklyn influence. Either he learned how to drive there, or learned from someone who learned how to drive there. I instinctively pressed on a nonexistent brake, holding my breath the whole time. Leo finally slowed only inches from the car in front of us.

“We never went out,” he said. “I’m just totally hung up on her. I can’t get her out of my head. I thought I could, but I can’t.”

“Have you pursued her?”

I waited for an answer while he changed lanes and then made a right turn, but he was silent. Finally I said, “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer.”

“It’s not that, it’s…she’s married.”

“Married?”

He nodded. “Fucked up, right?”

I shifted uncomfortably. The air-conditioning vent was blowing right in my face and I redirected it, wondering how he could have gotten close enough to a married woman to fall in love. That kind of thing usually happened in an office setting, where you were thrown together every day all week long. But the only women Leo saw on a regular basis were the housewives he did remodeling for.

Then a thought hit me like a two-by-four and I started connecting the dots in my head. The way he looked at Clare in her pink top. How she had carefully orchestrated having him at dinner tonight. And then there was her cryptic insistence that her motives for taking the Modern American Lit class weren’t pure. Was it possible she took the class to impress someone? Someone with aspirations to be a writer? And oh dear God! Leo was a carpenter—a
hammer man
.

As much as I didn’t want to believe it, I had to face the truth. Leo was Clare’s mystery man. He was Hammerman223.

“Leave her alone,” I muttered.

“What?”

“Just don’t go after a married woman.” I leaned over and shut off the air conditioning.

“I’m not. I’m trying to keep my distance, trying to get my mind off her. And you’re so wonderful, Bev. I thought if I went out with you I could distract myself and maybe even forget about her.”

Sure. What better way to get over someone than to go after her sister? A chill of nausea swept over my flesh. How on earth did this happen again? Was it my destiny to get mixed up with guys who had intimate connections to my sisters? Surely this was a sign from above that moving as far away as I could was the right choice for me.

And then another thought occurred to me. I was smack up against a chance to save my sister’s family. If I slept with Leo, there was no way he and Clare would have an affair. She’d consider it declasse to sleep with a guy her sister had gone to bed with. After all, what kind of trailer trash, spandex-wearing, Jerry Springer reject would sleep with a guy who had porked her sister?

Okay, so the irony wasn’t lost on me. I knew I had done just that with Kenny. But in my defense, the porking in question had happened nearly two decades before. Surely there was a statute of limitations for these things.

I opened my window and felt a rush of humid air. Was it really okay to do to Clare exactly what Joey had done to me all those years ago? Was it okay
not
to? If I had the power to keep my sister from ruining her life, and all I had to do was sleep with an utterly adorable and sexy guy, did it make sense to turn my back?

I imagined what would happen if Clare had an affair with Leo and Marc found out. Their marriage would be over. These
two, who really loved one another, would spend the rest of their lives nursing their wounds. And the children. Everything they knew would be ripped out from under them.

I knew, of course, that some kids did fine with divorce, and that some of the most screwed-up children were, in fact, the products of intact marriages. But I also knew how insidious the effects could be for an eager-to-please kid like Sophie, who would probably appear to be a model child until it was time to have an adult relationship of her own, and how devastating for a kid like Dylan, who internalized everything so deeply. It could be a prescription for disaster, and I didn’t want to see that happen to this family. There was just too much at stake.

I glanced over at Leo again. His lips were so red. He’d be lovely to kiss. And his hair looked so soft, those dark curls so appealing. I could do this. I
would
do this.

Problem was, I lacked that damn flirtation gene and didn’t know how to go about shifting his focus from Clare to me. I pictured Joey fluffing her hair and arching her back, and couldn’t imagine pulling it off without looking like I was doing a poor imitation of a porn star. And Clare’s charming smile and easy laugh eluded me entirely. I couldn’t figure out how someone could turn this conversation in a seductive direction.

With Kenny, it was always so easy. The second I had a sexual thought he could see it as clearly as a swallowed key on an X-ray. I looked at Leo, but he was still stuck in his own private agony. If only he knew that I was just as hung up on Kenny as he was on Clare, I could break through.

Then I realized I had been ignoring the obvious. Why not let him know, in some subtle way, that we had this in common? I ran my fingers through my hair as I tried to figure out how to do this. Then at last I had an idea.

“So you were using me,” I said, stirring his guilt to the
surface so I could skim it right off. “To try to get your mind off her.”

“I guess I was,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I was using you too.”

He blinked. “You were?”

“There’s this guy,” I said, picturing how sexy Kenny looked in the airport with his rolled up shirtsleeves and a bag slung over his shoulder. “He’s wrong for me in every possible way and yet…it’s like a virus I can’t get rid of.”

“Like a fever,” he said.

I nodded. “But then I met you and I found myself so attracted and I thought, ‘This is perfect.’”

“Yeah, that’s how I felt too.”

“So I don’t know, Leo. Are we stupid to let each other go for the sake of relationships that are all wrong for us?”

He went quiet, mulling that over. I leaned forward and switched on the radio, hoping for something seductive, but it was Carrie Underwood belting out something about Jesus. I switched it off.

“You think we should give this a shot?” he asked.

I hugged my arms against my body to try to create some cleavage. I wore a scooped neck top Clare had picked out for me, but had rejected her advice to wear a push-up bra. Alas, I needed all the help I could get.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s so hard to figure out what’s right.”

He glanced at my chest. “
Uh,
yeah.”

“Maybe you should come in and we can talk about it.”

When we reached my house, he parked the car and leaned across the seat to kiss me. It was a gentle peck, soft and sweet. I smiled and he kissed me again, this time deeper. I noticed that a neighbor was playing loud music, and I guessed it was some recent high school grad throwing a wild party. By the
time we got out of the van the music had stopped, but we weren’t paying much attention. We had worked each other into a frenzy, kissing and groping as we approached the front door, fumbling with buttons before we even reached it, so we wouldn’t have to waste any time getting naked.

I somehow managed to find the keyhole, even though my eyes were closed in ecstasy as Leo’s body was pressed hard against mine. And then, just a second before I got the door open, there was an explosion that didn’t come from inside my body. It was music, so loud the doorknob literally vibrated in my hand.

“What the hell?” I said, as I pushed it open.

There, in the middle of my living room, was my sister Joey, backed up by a full band, including Teddy Goodwin on the keyboard. The massive amps faced the front door and nearly knocked Leo and me on our asses.

“Oh my God!” I screamed over the music. I couldn’t even hear my own voice.

“Joey!” I screamed. “Joey!”

She had her eyes closed and didn’t see me. And she certainly couldn’t hear me. Teddy acknowledged my presence by waving from behind the keyboard. He smiled, as if he assumed I was delighted to be witnessing this rehearsal.

“I’m sorry!” I screamed to Leo.

“What?”

“I’m sorry! I had no idea they were doing this tonight!”

“What?”

I looked at Teddy and sliced my finger across my throat to indicate that they should cut the music. He took his hands off the keys and spoke into the microphone. “Hold up.”

The music stopped and Joey looked from Teddy to me and smiled.

“Hey, Bev!”

“What the hell is going on?” I asked.

“What do you mean? I
told
you we were going to use this place to rehearse. You said it was fine.”

I gritted my teeth. “You said you would call me first.” I turned to Teddy. “You promised.”

He bit his lip. “Oops.”

“What’s the big—” she looked at Leo and stopped. “Oh, I see. You want us to leave?”

“That would be nice.”

“Wait a second,” Leo said. And then to me, “Can I talk to you for a second?”

I stepped outside with him, figuring he was going to ask me to come to his place instead, but he said, “Maybe I should just take a rain check.”

“No!” I blurted, knowing that if we didn’t do it that night I would lose my nerve. Or worse, that he’d make a move on Clare and she’d say yes. “I mean,” I said more softly, “I have something upstairs I really want to show you.”

Of course, the only thing upstairs I could think of showing him was my very sheer, very sexy, and very ripped negligee. I imagined finding a needle and thread when Leo wasn’t looking and rushing into the bathroom to mend the thing.

Leo agreed, and went upstairs to wait for me while I ushered the band out of the house as fast as I could. Then I locked myself in the bathroom to put some quick stitches in my negligee. When I finally came into the bedroom dressed in my white-hot nightie, Leo was lying down with the sheet pulled up to his waist.

“What do you think?” I said, modeling for him.

“Fancy.”

Fancy? I was prancing around the room in Victoria’s Secret’s sluttiest fuck-me nightie and all he could say was “fancy”?

Okay, so some guys just prefer naked. I pulled off the neg
ligee and climbed into bed with him, where we made sweet, gentle love. And I didn’t think about Kenny once. Okay, maybe once. Or twice. Three times at most. But that was only because he took so long that it was hard for me to stay focused. Point is, when he woke up at 6:00 a.m. and said he had to leave for work, he had a smile on his face and I felt my plan had worked.

Later, as I was getting out of the shower, I thought I heard a female voice singing downstairs. I opened the door a crack and listened. Someone absently hummed a tune that sounded so familiar and ancient it was almost as if it existed in some primal memory.

“Joey?” I called out.

“Sorry!” she yelled. “Did I wake you?”

I slipped on a bathrobe and went downstairs. Joey was standing in the middle of the living room with her hands on her hips, looking around.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“We’re missing a cable from one of the amps. I thought I might have left it here.”

From my vantage point, I could see it under the couch. “There,” I said, pointing.

She bent and picked it up, and then draped it around the back of her neck like a prayer shawl. At that moment I realized what tune Joey had been humming. It was the Shema, an ancient Hebrew prayer that religious Jews chant to declare their faith.

“How was your night?” she asked.

I sat down on the soft armchair, sinking into it. “I think I did something really bad.”

“You didn’t stuff Leo in an industrial drum, did you?”

“Not funny.”

“What, then?”

I stood. “I need coffee.”

I went into the kitchen and Joey followed behind. I was silent as I made the coffee, thinking about how to tell her what I had done.

“C’mon,” she said. “Spill it.”

“I slept with Leo.”

“Duh.”

“I slept with Leo to stop him and Clare from having an affair.”

Joey pulled out a chair and straddled it. “This is getting interesting.”

“He’s in love with Clare,” I said.

“Did you tell him to get in line? Everyone’s in love with Clare.”

“This is different. She’s in love with him too. And she’s planning to sleep with him.”

Joey’s mouth opened. “Get
out
!”

“It’s true.”

“How do you know?”

“She told me. But it was only because I confronted her about it. Apparently, they were having cyber sex and she forgot to close the window on her computer. Dylan saw the whole thing.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Shit.”

“So you fucked Leo to distract him from Clare?”

“And also to keep her from pursuing him. I know how it can derail your interest when the guy you like sleeps with your sister.”

Joey raised her arms toward the heavens as if asking God what she should do with a sister who wouldn’t let go of something that happened nearly two decades ago. “C’mon, that was different. I was stoned.”