When he realized he would probably have to jerk off into a cup with a magazine like a fifteen-year-old, he found himself squirming in his seat. Last time he took the cup home and he and Pace had some fun with it. Definitely no fun this time. After thirty minutes, a nurse called his name and led him down a brightly lit hallway. As he’d suspected, he had to whack off so they could determine the extent of the reversal. It’s reversed enough to get my wife pregnant! He wanted to shout at her. She led him to a room lined with magazines and DVDs, a mounted plasma television, and a leather couch. He could have sworn the nurse smirked at him when she closed the door.
Jason didn’t want to sit down or touch anything and he hoped like hell they’d sanitized the place after the last guy left. He flipped through a few magazines and then tossed them aside when the quiet of the room began to close in on him. Maybe a movie would speed the process along. Shit. What a mess.
He left the sample in a metal box in the wall and crept out of the office feeling as though he had just scored with a hooker. Jason felt a bit surreal returning to the office after jacking off to porn. He had forty-four emails waiting to answer and he’d promised Pace he’d be home to take Dillon to basketball practice. Jason rubbed his hands over his face and sighed. Looked like he was in for another all-nighter. Great.
Tarks was waiting in his office when he came in the next day, pissed because the prospect, who’d promised them exclusivity, had decided to solicit other bids. Jason spent the day on the phone sucking up to everyone at the client’s office while polishing some pie-in-the-sky proposals he’d kind of saved for his new company. Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, the phone rang and it did.
* * *
Mitchell had stayed home from school with a slight fever and Pace had put him in bed to rest. A stomach bug was going around school and she hoped he didn’t start throwing up. Dillon played at a friend’s house to keep germ contamination to a minimum. When she checked on Mitchell, he was asleep and a quick feel to his forehead told her the fever had gone down.
She’d just settled in front of the computer to answer emails when she heard the front door open. Pace glanced at the clock. Four p.m. Nancy Palmore wouldn’t drop Dillon off until five and it was way too early to be Jason, but she found him standing in the foyer when she came around from the kitchen. He just stood there, carrying his leather case as if waiting for an elevator. When he heard Pace and their eyes met, the look he gave her stopped Pace in her tracks.
“Jason, what’s wrong? Why are you home so early?”
He looked at her, his brow furrowed, his knuckles white from gripping his bag tight. He didn’t speak for a long time.
“Jas?” She moved toward him. He whipped his arm away before she could touch him. “What is it?”
He dropped his case and moved past her into the den. His head hung down and he had his hands on his hips as if he planned to give a half-time speech to a team getting their butts kicked. When he turned around, he looked…angry and perplexed, she’d probably have said.
“Dr. German’s office called with my test results.” His voice sounded quiet and very controlled.
“Okay…” The way he waited made Pace think they’d found cancer. He shook his head.
“They said I’m shooting blanks.”
“What do you mean?” she asked stupidly, because this used to be his favorite way to describe his status after the vasectomy.
“I’m sterile, Pace. There’s no way I got you pregnant.”
Chapter 4
Caroline was right. Tori needed to do something about Colin. But what? The last time she suspected him of an affair—an extended affair—Pace had been in college and still so enamored of her father. She’d considered posing an ultimatum then, but there’d been so much to lose—his job, their life, her daughter. She’d never been able to shatter Pace the way her own mother had shattered her, forcing her father’s hand and pushing him away for good. Tori grew up in the shadow of a father who, with his back against the wall, had chosen to start a whole new family. Colin would invariably select the same path; the man couldn’t function alone.
Tori suspected he’d dabbled occasionally and dismissed his slips as normal male behavior—it certainly had been for her father—and much easier to stomach than lengthy affairs that posed a real threat to her marriage. But now that Caroline had pressured her to do something about Colin’s behavior, she felt like a wish bone being pulled in two different directions.
When the phone rang at nine in the morning, she knew it was Caroline, checking in on her like she had every day since their lunch. Tori ended each call pledging to think about confronting him, think about keeping tabs on his schedule, think about protecting herself if his affair came to light. She was so tired of thinking about her options, when she really didn’t have any, that she considered avoiding her calls. If it were anyone but Caroline, she would.
“No, before you ask, I haven’t done anything since yesterday.”
Caroline sighed with impatience and a little bit of the humor that had always been a part of their relationship. “Not even any thinking? Really, Tori, how much time does it take just to think about it?”
“More than I’ve got these days. The campaign is—”
“I’m talking about your life and all you can say is the campaign?” She wondered when Caroline’s patience would expire. She’d never had much to begin with and it seemed today was the day. “The campaign isn’t a person!”
“It’s more demanding than a person has the right to be.”
In the subsequent pause, Tori knew Caro tried to think of another tack to take, another phrase that would lead Tori to where she wanted her to go. “Doing nothing, ignoring his behavior, can’t be one of your options.”
“No, it’s not one of your options.”
“I swear, if you spent half as much energy fighting your husband as you do me, you’d be free of him already.”
Why was Caroline so convinced she would be better off without Colin? Because really, whether or not he left her or she left him, she would be the one left alone. Did Caroline really not get it? “I know you want my freedom, Caro, but what matters is what I want.”
“Exactly.” Her voice softened and Tori imagined she’d slipped on what Ed called her sympathetic basset hound face. “What do you want, Tori? And before you answer I want you to think about it. What you want, not what’s best for Colin or Pace or the campaign. What you want.”
She couldn’t have what she really wanted. She’d known that for years. “I want the fairy tale.”
“Oh, honey.” Tori heard Ed kiss Caroline’s cheek before he left the house. She considered it a strike against her. “You’ve been living the fairy tale and it hasn’t made you happy.”
The fairy tale of their marriage had created her identity. She didn’t know who or what she’d be without it. “Happiness is overrated.”
When she heard Caroline snort, she thought she’d earned another twenty-four hour reprieve. “I called Paulina Hathaway.”
“Caroline…”
“I had to talk to her anyway and it seemed like a good idea to ask about Heather.”
Just hearing Heather’s name felt like a twist of the knife in her heart. “I wish you’d leave this alone.”
“He’s taken her to Washington, Tor. Several times.”
She didn’t know if Caro spoke softly or if she could barely hear her through the ringing in her ears. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Really? What do interns normally do, other than collate paper and stuff envelopes all day? You’re forgetting Bethany spent a summer working for Congressman Bartles. She got all excited when they finally let her answer the phone.”
“Maybe Heather is more skilled than Bethany.”
“Bethany was getting her masters at the time and I won’t even bring up the brilliance of her thesis.” Caro could brag about her daughter endlessly. “Heather hasn’t even gotten her undergrad.”
Tori rubbed her th
robbing temple. “I don’t want to argue with you about her qualifications.”
“Your husband is having an affair with a twenty-year-old. If you don’t want to believe me, that’s fine. But you can’t just ignore it. If Ed saw them and Colin’s gallivanting around Washington with her, it is going to come out sooner or later. If you need proof, real concrete proof, then I wish you’d get it, because getting mad at me and thinking I’m crazy doesn’t do anything to solve the problem.”
The pounding in Tori’s head would never cease if Caroline didn’t leave her alone. The picking and nagging and rubbing Heather in her face! She almost slammed the phone down and vowed never to answer it again. “How am I supposed to get proof? You think I should follow him?”
“It doesn’t have to be you and what you do with the proof is up to you, but at least you’d know for sure.”
Tori didn’t answer, but gave some excuse about being needed by the staff and hung up the phone.
Follow Colin? It seemed too absurd for her to consider. But Caro was right about her needing to protect herself. If rumors of Colin’s affair started up, he’d deny it like he always did and she’d be forced to stand by him without evidence on her side.
* * *
Jason stood in his den, toy cars littered the floor, video games sat piled in the corner, and the painting he and Pace had picked out on their honeymoon hung over the mantle. He looked at his wife and it felt like he’d never seen her before.
“There has to be some kind of mistake,” she said. “Either your test or mine is wrong.”
It all sounded logical; medical science wasn’t exact. “I made them go back and re-do the test. I’m sterile.”
“Then my test is wrong.”
“Didn’t the nurse say blood tests aren’t wrong?” He knew the answer. He’d thought of nothing else since he got the call about his sperm and headed home to confront Pace.
“Yes, but…” She came into the den and sat on the couch, sandwiching those nervous fingers between her knees. She looked up at him like a child, her eyes wide. “Jason, you can’t possibly think I cheated on you.”
“I don’t want to think it, Pace, but I can’t seem to find an explanation that doesn’t come back to that.”
She was up in an instant, her hands clutching his arms. “I’ve never cheated on you. I’ve never even considered it. Jason, we’ve talked about this before. You know how I feel about cheating.”
“I know what you said.”
They’d had a conversation about infidelity after one of her best friends found out her husband was having a long term affair with someone at his office. Jason and Pace had been shocked; they’d seemed like the perfect couple. After a few months of trying to work it out, their marriage ended in a nasty divorce. He and Pace had both agreed that cheating was a deal breaker, a bright neon line in the sand. So now, standing there facing her, he couldn’t believe she did it or he couldn’t believe she’d deny it faced with proof. He just couldn’t believe…
“I didn’t cheat on you. I would never…” She shook her head and didn’t say anything else.
Mitchell screamed from somewhere in the house. “Mommy!” It was the kind of scream they both knew meant serious business.
Pace ran for the stairs and Jason followed behind. Mitchell sat up in bed, a Tupperware container between his hands, filled with vomit. The smell of it hit Jason’s nostrils before he even saw it. Mitchell’s eyes looked glassy and tired. He hated to vomit, hated to poop in public, hated to admit he had any sort of bodily functions that took place outside his own private world. When he saw his dad in the doorway, he looked confused and a little embarrassed.
“I threw up, Daddy.” Jason’s heart broke. His little man was down.
He moved to the bed and kissed his son’s forehead while Pace emptied the container in the toilet and came back with a warm wash cloth. Mitchell leaned back against his pillows, closed his eyes, totally comforted by Pace. How could she have done this to them? He jerked the tie off his neck when he felt it strangling him.
Pace stayed with Mitchell, rubbing his belly, and when they both thought he’d fallen asleep, she tried to stand up so she and Jason could keep talking. “Mommy?” His voice sounded weak and pleading. “Don’t go.”
Pace looked at Jason. “I’m right here, baby. I’m not going anywhere.”
Jason left them alone and went into their bedroom to change clothes. Once he’d thrown on his jeans and a t-shirt, he looked around their room at her stuff. Could there be a clue amongst her things? Had she left a note or something incriminating tucked away? With a glance down the hall toward Mitchell’s room, he began opening the drawers of her dresser, moving aside bras and panties, shirts and shorts, looking for something that would tell him she’d been unfaithful, all the while thinking how unreal the whole idea of it seemed.
This was Pace, after all, the woman who’d walked away from a future paved in gold to marry him. Could that be the reason? Did she regret their life together? Was she bored? And what kind of idiot had he been for not even considering she’d had an affair when she turned up pregnant?
He found nothing in her dresser and moved into the closet. It smelled like her, the perfume she wore and the fancy soap she used at night in her bath. Jason felt like a hypocrite, looking through her stuff while she soothed their son, until he remembered the condescension he heard in the nurse’s voice when he’d asked her to run the test again. He checked the pockets of her coats, the boxes of shoes—who needed this many shoes?—and found nothing. When he came out of the bedroom, he heard her singing the song she’d sung to the boys since they were babies.
He moved downstairs to her desk and the computer. She had over a hundred emails on her computer and a scroll down the list led nowhere. The drawers of her desk were filled with receipts and knick-knacks, stuff for the boys from school, old sunglasses. The only things he’d discovered were her packrat tendencies and that she owned too many shoes. He pushed away from the desk and went into the kitchen.
Jason always thought if Pace cheated, he’d bolt, come home and pack a bag. But there he stood with proof, undeniable proof that she’d had an affair and he kept trying to convince himself there’d been a mistake. If she cheated and got pregnant with some other guy’s baby, would she be stupid enough to try and pass it off as his? She’d pressed him to have the vasectomy checked out. He whirled around and found her leaning against the doorway, staring at him with her arms tightly crossed, her fingers tapping away on her biceps.
“I’m calling Dr. Hidel’s office. I’m going to make them re-do the test.” She walked to Jason and stopped an arms length away. He wondered if she knew he’d been snooping through her stuff. “There’s some kind of mistake, Jason. I didn’t cheat on you.”
He looked at her, her big brown eyes, her honey colored hair, and teenager’s body. Any guy would be lucky to get their hands on her. She’d always been the prettiest person he’d ever known. Didn’t her friend Sherry’s husband admit, two six-packs into the night, that he’d pick Pace as his wife swap? He should have decked him instead of feeling proud.
“Call the doctor.” What else could he say?
Chapter 5
Pace called the doctor and begged for an appointment, but they couldn’t even squeeze her in until Friday. She couldn’t bring herself to go into the whole sordid mess over the phone and decided it would have to be the end of the week. She couldn’t believe the way Jason continued to look at her, like she’d had sex with every man on the block right under his nose.
Before she could say anything else, Nancy dropped off Dillon and Mitchell woke up and started vomiting again. Dillon peeked his head into Mitchell’s room an hour later and said he and Dad were going to get dinner and that they’d bring something back for her. Couldn’t Jason have come up to talk to her instead of sending Dillon in his place? He was deliberately avoiding her, hiding under that cool veneer he’d always used to keep people at bay. At the very least he should have checked on his son. Pace
didn’t have time to get worked up because, as soon as Dillon turned to leave, Mitchell dry-heaved into the bucket she held up to his mouth.
She spent the night on the floor of his room in a Scooby-Doo sleeping bag. By the next morning, her back was killing her, Dillon had made it on the bus, Mitchell felt better, and Jason barely spoke to her before leaving for work. By noon she’d started throwing up in the toilet. Life just kept getting better and better.
* * *
Jason kept thinking about when Pace first took him to meet her parents. He didn’t have a clue how rich she was until they pulled into the drive of the Georgian mansion where her parents still live. He didn’t feel worthy of mowing their lawn, much less dating their daughter. The house served as a glaring reminder, concrete evidence of everything he’d chosen not to see about her life—the designer labels on her clothes, her luxury car, her snotty friends. Pace belonged to a world he’d never seen and it scared him that they were so in sync and yet came from two completely different ends of the universe.
Her mother, Victoria Pace Whitfield, met them in the library, drink in hand, and perpetual smile on her face. He remembered meeting her and thinking she looked like the perfect Senator’s wife, like a billboard advertisement for the American Dream. And now, sixteen years later, he felt the same way. She’d hated Jason from that very first day he’d walked in with sweaty palms and his heart in her daughter’s hand. If he could have snatched it back from Pace as he’d faced the icy stare of her mother, he may have.
Pace had warned him about Tori. “She’s not the warmest person, so don’t expect a big hug and a welcome-to-the-family smile. She’ll probably grill you.”
Misconception Page 4
