Misconception

by Christy Hayes

  “Colin…” She moved toward him and he waved her away.

  “I’m alright, Tori.” He ran his hands through his hair and let out an exasperated breath. “This whole damn election has me tied in knots. I haven’t had competition in so long I guess I’ve forgotten how it weighs on me.” He attempted a weak smile. “I’m too old for this.”

  “Old?” Tori laughed and tugged him over to the couch. “You look better now than you did during your first term.” She reached out and ran her hand over the streaks of gray by his temple. “People will see through his rhetoric before the end of the year, you wait and see.” She was ridiculously grateful to be able to comfort him, not to be the vulnerable one. She leaned over and kissed his lips. They tasted of scotch and fear.

  He pulled her into a hard hug. “I love you, Tori. I need you.”

  It was everything she wanted to hear. “Then show me.”

  Chapter 20

  Jason had been acting…weird ever since he’d dragged Pace to bed and then announced after a phone call he had to run to the office for some sort of emergency. He came back a few hours later looking like he’d been wrestling with demons. When she’d asked him about what had happened, he’d shrugged it off and said he’d taken care of it.

  But something wasn’t right with him.

  He’d been going to work, coming home, and playing with the boys and he even agreed to go Christmas shopping with Pace—something he hated to do. At night when they’d slip into bed, he reached for her in a way that felt…different. She couldn’t put her finger on it exactly, but there was a desperation to his love making that left her unsettled and unable to sleep afterward. She had started to think things were back to normal and now things just seemed strange.

  During the last week the kids were in school before Christmas break, Pace managed to ferret some time for lunch with Amanda. She hadn’t talked to her about anything personal since they’d started seeing Dr. Falcon. She’d talked with her on the phone several times about work, but Amanda knew she and Jason were back together.

  “So everything’s back to normal?” Amanda asked as they dove for a free table at the crowded deli around the corner from her office.

  Pace knew what she was asking, but things seemed so far from normal these days that she hesitated before saying, “Yes, as normal as they can be.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I mean things are crazy right now. I told you Jason’s planning to leave the firm. He’s working around the clock and with the holidays…”

  “Pace,” she interrupted. “I mean your marriage. I’ve been seriously worried about you two.”

  She knew Amanda wanted to talk about her marriage and reconciliation, but for some reason, she didn’t want to talk about it. At their last session with Dr. Falcon he’d said, “There’s been a breach of trust in your relationship. You’ve faced it head on and are starting to heal. What I don’t want is for you two to pretend it didn’t happen, pretend that everything is fine, because you’ll end up right back where you started if you don’t acknowledge what you’ve been through and how far you’ve come. You’ve got to keep talking about it and how you feel when you hit a bump in the road.”

  As Amanda waited patiently for her to give details, his words echoed in her head. They were doing exactly what he’d told them not to do. It was like they’d wiped the slate clean and they didn’t ever mention what had happened or what got them there. So talking to Amanda about something she and Jason avoided like the plague seemed…weird. “We’re fine. Better than fine.” Pace took a big bite and watched Amanda’s eyes narrow as she chewed. “In fact,” she rambled on, hoping she’d drop it, “we haven’t been so close, physically, since college. We can’t keep our hands off each other.” That wasn’t exactly true, nothing could compare to the crazy, lustful state of new love, but compared to how they’d been a few months ago, their sex life had definitely recharged. Besides, Pace felt like the marriage merchant of doom and she needed to throw Amanda some nugget of hope as she skipped toward the altar.

  She didn’t seem appeased. “So…you never mention it? It never creeps up on you?”

  “What?”

  “The fact that he thought you cheated? The fact that he didn’t believe you? The fact that neither of you trusted each other for about a month?”

  “Oh…” Pace felt like Dr. Falcon had sent her to check on them. She tried to shrug it off. “It doesn’t come up.”

  “It doesn’t come up?” Amanda nibbled at her turkey club before putting it down. “How can it not come up?”

  She should have known Amanda couldn’t be thwarted. “We’re busy, the kids are thrilled we’re getting along…we don’t want to rock the boat.” She popped a chip in her mouth and glanced around the restaurant. Couldn’t someone drop a tray or choke on some food? She really needed a lifeline.

  “Are you sure he’s past it?” she asked. “I just don’t buy that it never bothers him. What if you don’t answer your cell phone or…or you go out with your girlfriends—he doesn’t think, for just a second, that you may be with someone else?”

  Her patience with Amanda’s line of questioning quickly evaporated. “First of all, whose side are you on, anyway? And second of all, I sure don’t have many girlfriends left.”

  Amanda backtracked before Pace had even finished her uncharacteristic show of annoyance, her hands lifted in the air above the table. “I’m on your side and you know it. It just seems…I don’t know, unhealthy to act like you didn’t go through something so big.”

  Amanda took another bite of her sandwich and studied her. Pace could almost see the wheels in her head grinding. She wiped her mouth and reached her hand across the table where Pace’s hands lay limply beside her plate. Her appetite had vanished. “Pace, I’m not bashing you or Jason, I just don’t see how this doesn’t come back to bite you over and over again. I don’t see how Jason can have his reputation and his manhood questioned like that and then just shrug it off. There isn’t a guy on the face of this earth who wouldn’t let stuff like that eat away at him.”

  She couldn’t stand to hear her friend’s logic. Maybe because it was Amanda, someone who wasn’t even married yet, that made hearing it so upsetting. “So what are you saying? I should try to bring it up, initiate conversations about how he’s feeling and if he’s still worried I’m running off every free second to have sex with some other guy?”

  “Don’t get pissy with me. I’m just saying…”

  “Yeah, well…after you’ve been married a few years, then we’ll talk.”

  Amanda straightened in her seat and Pace knew she’d hurt her friend. She hadn’t even asked about Paul and the wedding plans. She sure couldn’t ask now. Amanda switched into work mode, bringing up the clients most likely to give Pace trouble, what projects needed more attention than others, her tone stilted. When the waiter came and took their plates away and Pace saw her rooting around in yet another designer bag for her lipstick, she knew she only had a few minutes to try and undo the mess she’d made earlier.

  “Amanda?”

  She glanced up, but continued pushing things aside in the huge purse.

  “I’m sorry. I appreciate your concern and your honesty. I know you’re right. I just don’t know how to broach the subject.”

  Amanda sighed and pulled out a tube of red lipstick. “You’re like watching a train wreck, Pace, and I’m about to get on the train.” She uncapped the tube and expertly applied a fresh coat without a thought. She smacked her lips together and tossed the lipstick back into her purse. “It’s a little bit scary.”

  “How are the wedding plans coming?”

  She rolled her eyes, but behind the bluster Pace could sense her excitement. “Crazy. Even with me trying to keep it simple it seems to have taken on a life of its own.”

  “They have a way of doing that.”

  “You know, the worst part is the thought of meshing our families together. You know how simple my parents are? Well, Paul’s family is Up
per East Side New York. I just keep having nightmares of his mother speaking to mine like she’s the help.”

  Pace laughed and thought of the look on her mother’s face when she’d told her about the rehearsal dinner. Tori had gasped and clutched her chest. Pace thought she’d given her mother a heart attack. “You’ll get through it, Amanda. We all do.”

  Pace left the restaurant feeling securely back in Amanda’s good graces, with an armful of research, and the very distinct feeling she needed to talk to her husband.

  The strangeness continued when Tori paid a surprise visit one afternoon, just a few hours before the boys got home.

  “Mom?” Pace opened the door and found her standing on the porch wearing a bright purple overcoat, her hair and makeup picture perfect. She followed her mother’s gaze as she silently critiqued her yoga pants and t-shirt. Her expression all but said, “You’re a complete disappointment to me.” Pace felt instantly irritated. No one could get under her skin the way her mother did without even saying a word. “What are you doing here?”

  “Can I come in?” The wind blew a section of her hair over her eyes and she swiped it away.

  Pace stepped back and closed the door behind her. Tori stood in the foyer and glanced around the den before taking off her coat. Underneath, she wore black tailored slacks, a white tunic, and a purple print cardigan sweater wrap. She could have come from a charity lunch or shopping at the mall. Either way, she managed to look more put together than if Pace had spent all day trying—which she rarely did. “I didn’t know you were coming by. You’re lucky I’m home.”

  She handed Pace her coat, which Pace tossed over the stair rail to her mother’s utter dismay. Unfortunately, her coat closet was filled to overflowing with their coats and jackets. “I was in the neighborhood.” Tori walked into the den and eyed the piles of magazines Pace had spread over the coffee table. Amanda had her doing some research and she’d just gotten started. “Doing a little reading?”

  “No. What do you mean you were in the neighborhood?”

  Pace lived about a half-hour north of the city, way outside the perimeter, the highway boundary that separated the haves from the have-nots. Tori never came up their way unless the boys had a game or she’d been invited by Pace, the only person Tori knew who lived in what her mother considered no man’s land.

  She shrugged and continued to scan the room with critical eyes. “You really need to get some window treatments in here, Pace. I told you before I’d send Marsha up.”

  “I don’t want window treatments, Mom. I like the light and the clean lines of the wood shades.”

  Tori scrunched her nose. “It just looks so informal.”

  “We’re informal people.” Pace moved toward her and waited until she looked her in the eye. “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “What question?”

  Her mother was stalling and Pace felt frustrated with the games and the fact that she was intruding on her only time to work while the kids were at school. “Why are you here?”

  Tori carefully lowered herself onto the sofa as if the middle class of their house could somehow rub off on her. She sighed down at her lap before looking up at Pace. “I…I take it things with you and Jason are better?”

  She’d made a surprise appearance at Dillon’s basketball game the prior weekend. She’d watched with curious eyes as Jason rubbed the sore shoulder muscle Pace had pulled while walking the puppy. Tori hadn’t said a word then.

  “Yes.” Pace hesitated to go into the details with her mother. She couldn’t tell if she was happy her marriage was back on track or upset that her list of possible son-in-laws would go to waste.

  “Good. Your father and I have been very worried about you.”

  “You needn’t be. I’m fine. I’m happy.”

  Tori looked around the room and Pace did too, trying to see it through her mother’s judgmental eyes. The toys, the clutter, the dog hair, all the things that screamed home to Pace probably screamed disaster to her mother. Oh well. She’d never been able to please her.

  “Your father’s still worried, even after I told him you and Jason seemed to be getting along fine.” Tori flicked one of Cooper’s hairs from her sweater.

  She thought back to her lunch with her father, his willingness for her to walk away from her marriage. “Daddy has nothing to worry about and neither do you.”

  “Good.” Tori slapped her knees and stood to retrieve her coat.

  “That’s it? You drove all the way up here for that?”

  Her mother sighed and pushed Pace’s hair behind her ear like she’d done countless times since Pace was a child. “I wanted to make sure my only daughter was doing okay.”

  “You could have called and saved yourself the trip.”

  “You and I both know you don’t always answer when I phone. I wanted to see for myself.”

  Busted. “I hope you’ll pass on the good news to Daddy.”

  “Oh, I will.” With a brief kiss on the cheek, she breezed out to her car.

  Pace wrapped presents in the basement one morning while the kids were at school and Jason was at the office. He’d called not long after he’d left for work to ask Pace to check his desk for a file he thought he may have left at home. She went into his office and found the file, sitting right on the credenza where he stacked his things before shoving them into his case. She’d always been amazed at how clean he kept his work space, when he used the rest of the house as a dumping ground for his shoes and discarded clothes. Whenever she found a food wrapper on the floor or in the den, she was never sure if it had come from one of the kids or from her husband. He thanked her, told her to leave the file on his desk, and hung up the phone.

  Pace stood up to get back to wrapping presents when she noticed his trash can was filled to overflowing. The boys had obviously skipped Jason’s office on their weekly trash run. She lifted the heaving can in her arms and took it upstairs to dump in the big can outside. She didn’t see Cooper sprawled on the hallway rug and tripped over his slumbering body. With all the grace of an NFL lineman, she fell face first onto the floor and lay stunned while trash drifted around her prone body like confetti after a Super Bowl win. Cooper lifted his head and started to lick Pace’s face as if she’d just decided to join him in the hallway for a nap. She got up, rubbed her sore elbow which had taken the brunt of the fall, and gave Cooper a smacking kiss before shoving him out the back door. She didn’t need his “help” to clean up the mess.

  Pace was on her hands and knees, stuffing food wrappers, discarded drawings, and work correspondence back in the receptacle when she spotted a crumpled note card. She opened it up and read the unfamiliar looped handwriting.

  Jason,

  Mr. Bisbain asked me to send you this picture of a building in Salt Lake City. He saw it in a magazine and wanted your thoughts on whether you can incorporate this type of look into your drawings. I would have emailed it, but our scanner is on the blink. I hope to see you before the holidays so I can wish you a very Merry Christmas in person.

  Yours,

  Deborah.

  Pace slumped against the wall and reread the note over and over again. There wasn’t anything in the words that should make her stomach roll the way it decided to do just then, as if the cereal she’d eaten might come back up at any moment. Bisbain was his client from New York. New York was where she had heard a woman call his name from the restaurant the night he’d called, the call that had put her hackles up and had left her suspicious for days. She’d forgotten the phone call until just then as she stared at what may or may not have been evidence against him. Please, no. Jason, please, please, please no.

  She thought back to the day he’d started acting weird. He’d blamed a work emergency and was gone for hours. No matter how many different times or ways she tried to ask him about it, he gave nothing away. Without even thinking about what she was doing, Pace went back downstairs to Jason’s home office and logged onto his computer. She felt guilty for looking throu
gh his personal stuff, but not guilty enough to stop. He’d discovered the doctor’s email by snooping on her computer.

  He was as meticulous with his work on the computer as he was with his office. Every email was filed under the client’s name. It only took a moment for her to find Bisbain Mellon and start wading through the forty or so emails. A third of a way down the list she spotted an email from Deborah. She’d put a smiley face next to her name and the tone of the email seemed more friendly than professional. Pace’s stomach tightened as she scrolled down and read the rest of the emails from Deborah. There was a snippet of business in each email, but they all contained a personal aside: she’d complimented his attire, the lack of grey in his hair, and his mood on more than one occasion. With each email, her language got more and more personal, so personal, in fact, that if she were standing in front of Pace right then, she probably would have been tempted to slap her. Pace had never struck another person in her life.

  Who communicated with clients that way? She switched over to Jason’s sent items and read all the items directed to anyone at Bisbain. There were only two to Deborah, both brief and businesslike, but she couldn’t help but feel suspicious. As she stared at the emails on Jason’s computer screen and tapped her fingers on the surface of his desk, Pace had to wonder if Jason was having an affair in retaliation for her botched pregnancy results. And if he was having an affair, did their abrupt reconciliation and his unusual behavior since have everything to do with guilt?

  Chapter 21

  Pace didn’t say anything to Jason about the note or the emails. For days she obsessed about Deborah, wondering what she looked like, how old she was, and what she’d done with her husband. She watched him when she could, took note of when they kissed, if it felt different, if he held her differently, if he orchestrated some new move when they were together. But strangely enough, he’d been more attentive to Pace than ever and she couldn’t help but think it was guilt at having been with Deborah that was responsible for the change in his behavior.