Envious Shadows

by R.P. Burnham

  End of the Affair

  After the disastrous breakup of the team in August, Marilyn hoped that Bill would leave his wife and move in with her. It would be sweet for its own sake, and better for being a victory over those so-called teammates who accused her of toying with the man. But when the day came that he did leave his wife and come to her, it happened so quickly, so unexpectedly, and he was so distraught that she was not able to savor her triumph over either the little conventional wifey-wife or her hateful teammates. On Thursday afternoon she talked with Bill on the phone about making plans for a rendezvous at her place for a session of “working late” on Friday night. The original plan was to have the session on that night, but a late afternoon meeting at school had been unexpectedly scheduled. Their conversation was brief and businesslike, and after it was over she resigned herself to a routine day of work and rest. At home that night she worked out on her exercise machine and then had leftovers for supper. At seven o’clock while she was going over her lesson plan for the next day, the phone rang. It was Bill calling from his mobile phone en route to her apartment. She picked up as soon as she heard his voice on the machine. He had two suitcases with him and asked if he could spend the night. He was upset and somewhat incoherent, and when she asked him what had happened he said he would tell her when he got there. The packed suitcases told her the main theme, but when he arrived she wanted to know the details.

  All he would say was that Becky had found out about her and there had been a terrible scene. He offered no further explanation and would only answer her questions with a yes, no, or a noncommittal shrug. His attention would frequently wander; sometimes he looked shell-shocked, sometimes sick to his stomach. He looked puzzled and apprehensive when she asked him if he wanted something to eat. It was as if he had forgotten that food was a necessary adjunct to life. Things were looking very bad. Too nervous to sit, he was pacing like a condemned man awaiting execution from the dining room table to the window and back when turning and almost tripping over his suitcases he stared vacantly out the window and muttered to himself, “Well, it’s over, it’s over.” It was the first glimmer of hope she saw. It meant that the weight of deceit, ambiguity and doubt had been lifted and he was beginning to sense the possibility of freedom.

  Truth to tell, she had been growing very impatient with him. Other lovers had left their wives to find refuge with her, and the result had led to good times, nights of wild sexual celebration. His moroseness promised no such denouement, and she was forced to try to soothe him. It wasn’t a role she was used to, but when he uttered those words that promised a future, she grew excited thinking that maybe being motherly could add an entirely new dimension to her sexual repertoire. She would soothe his pain, nurse him back to health, and his gratitude would lead to a new kind of sexual pleasure, tenderness combined with passion. She had the distinct impression she was growing and learning, and for the first time in her life the thought of marriage was seriously entertained, not as something that would happen when she was over thirty but right now when she was at her sexual peak in her mid-twenties.

  The first thing she thought of to soothe him was the philosophical observation she had shared with him on his first visit to her apartment. “Remember I told you once that love was never easy and that time would sort it out. You’re here now. Something has been sorted out. Right now you feel awful, but you won’t always feel this way.”

  He took it well, grimly nodding and pursing his lips, and in his eyes, barely discernible, shined the glint of hope. She was able to get him to eat something after that and to speak more calmly about routine things. He said that if he stayed he would want to pay for half of every-thing. He was duty-bound to pay for the mortgage on his house and support for his kids and wouldn’t have much money, but he could do half of the expenses.

  No sex occurred that night—he was still too upset. Nor did he sleep much so that Friday night after an apparently terrible day at work where he had fouled up some account, he continued to be noncommunicative and was so tired he fell asleep in his chair. So a second night passed without sex. But before she fell asleep that night she formulated a plan. There would be tenderness, but first he needed something to jolt him out of his misery and make him remember that the sun still shined and life was there for the grabbing.

  On Saturday morning she got up early and made scrambled eggs and toast while he slept. Turning the eggs to low, she crept by the bedroom and tiptoed to the closet in the exercise room to get a costume she’d used only once about three years ago. In the kitchen she removed her T-shirt and panties and donned the costume, which didn’t take long since it consisted of a tiny apron that just barely covered her crotch and a large red bow tie that fastened around her neck with Velcro and bore on the two bows the name of a Las Vegas casino. She turned the eggs up to complete the cooking, poured a small glass of orange juice, and buttered the toast. Putting them on a tray, she went to the bedroom door and knocked. The door was open, so she carefully hung back in order to make a dramatic entrance once he was awake.

  When Bill sleepily said, “Yes? Marilyn?” she walked in and said in an official voice, “Room service, sir.” She really had to concentrate not to smile. His eyes were wide open and staring at her.

  She walked over to the bed. “Eggs and toast just as you ordered, sir.”

  He sat up and grinned broadly for the first time since he’d been in the apartment. It was going to work, though to be really effective she had to continue the illusion.

  She leaned down, letting her breasts brush against his shoulder and arm, and placed the tray on his lap, which she also brushed in an accidental manner. “Eat your breakfast, sir. Coffee will be available later, and at this hotel the management also offers a special breakfast dessert, but you must eat first.”

  “Please sit down, maid,” he said, patting the bed beside him. She followed orders, primly keeping her legs pressed together.

  He ate the eggs and toast, though he had a great deal of trouble concentrating on the food, while she made dutiful remarks such as “Do you require salt and pepper?” and “I hope you are enjoying it, sir.”

  “It’s fine,” he said, “though I find I’m thinking more of the dessert than food.”

  She stood when he finished and maneuvered herself so that her breasts brushed against his face as she removed the tray. “I must warn you, sir, that management has a strict policy. I must never remove my clothes in a gentleman’s room.”

  He reached over and flipped up her apron. “I can live with that rule,” he said huskily.

  So it was that well over an hour later when they were having coffee and reading the morning paper he was a happy and contented man and she was a very happy and very contented woman. Their lovemaking had been torrid and yet tender. Her patience and motherly concern had been a complete success.

  After that morning they went through a period of establishing routines and making adjustments to each other. They ate at home about half the time, at restaurants on other nights. This was partially because Bill didn’t cook, but when they did eat at home she discovered he had been well trained by his wife to do the dishes and clean up after a meal. They both vacuumed and dusted on weekends, and Bill took care of the waste disposal. The adjustments they made were fairly evenly distributed, with Marilyn perhaps bending a bit more. Bill was in the habit of picking up the phone whenever it rang, while she always let the machine screen calls unless she was expecting one, and after a week or so he deferred to her, even though he would hover by the phone and listen to the message. His propensity to bury himself in the sports page at breakfast was at first a minor annoyance. She liked to have her men pay her all their attention, but not generally used to having a man about the house on weekdays, she soon grew accustomed to this foible. And while she wasn’t neurotic about it, she disliked clutter around the house so that Bill had to make a conscious effort not to leave his jacket, shoes and the like about. Apparently his little wifey-wife had picked up after him in the past. W
hen she made it clear she wouldn’t, he got the hint. Her least favorite sport was football. When during the fall she happened to be home on a weekend afternoon, she would look for a soccer match to watch or even a track meet, never voluntarily football. But Bill was a Patriot and a college football fan, and so she pretended to be interested in the sport whenever he watched, though always hoping for a one-sided game because on those occasions he could be persuaded to desert the television and indulge in her favorite sport in the bedroom.

  Over time she learned that there were a few topics he did not want to talk about. His wife Becky was one. He didn’t like to have her and Marilyn in his mind at the same time. Since she didn’t like his wife and had no desire to talk about her, it was easy to respect his wishes. The second person he didn’t want to talk about was Lowell. She had heard enough about their childhood together to know that emotionally he regarded Lowell as his father, and knowing that his brother disapproved of Marilyn, he felt guilty as if he had betrayed a trust. Marilyn thought Lowell was a sanctimonious puritan. She was very glad Fiona had found love, but sometimes she wished it was with someone else. Fiona was one of the few people in the world she really loved. Not being able to see her she regarded as a real sacrifice. But with Bill looking as if he had swallowed vinegar whenever Fiona’s or Lowell’s name was mentioned, for the time being she was willing to forgo her cousin’s company.

  Once the ground rules were understood and adjustments made, they lived together a reasonably comfortable life through the fall, even while various complications arose. The principal problem was Bill’s weekly visits to see his sons. On his return he would be either manic, talking excitedly about something his older boy had done or learned or said, or—and this was more often his state of mind after seeing his boys—he would return subdued if not downright depressed. At such times she discovered that sex was of no use and that to bring him out of his funk she had to nurture him just as she had the first night he came from his wife. She used various techniques. Sometime she merely listened to him patiently for what seemed hours on end talking about his kids while doing her best to hide the boredom she felt—boredom because she was only interested in being motherly to the extent she didn’t actually have to be motherly. Other times she would distract him by talking about things like a movie they had seen or were about to see, about something Tara or someone else had said, or by getting his help with some household chore or errand that had to be done. Eventually he would come out of his funk, and as time went by it even became easier to get him from dwelling on his sons and family. Here, though, it may have been that he simply was learning to hide his thoughts. Several times when she thought he was in perfectly good shape mentally and they were reading or watching a television show, she would make a remark or ask a question only to discover that he was a million miles away. He’d look up panicky and disoriented momentarily, then ask her to repeat what she had just said. Sometimes she would not be able to repress the surge of resentment she felt, and they would have sharp words if not exactly an argument. Mostly she would remember that he required mothering and merely repeat her remark.

  The fact that the times when she discovered his entire attention wasn’t focused on her did not lead to any serious arguments made her realize things were different with Bill. She never tolerated such behavior with other men she had lived with. Many times Bill would show his appreciation of her with flowers or special attention. These were good signs, and because to be whole he needed her, needed her love even more now that he was isolated from his family, she began to think that this is what love was. All the other men she had had protracted relationships with were self-contained; it was because they didn’t need her anywhere but in bed that they stayed together. She saw that she had been missing something vital, interesting, and intensifying when affection was not present. It wasn’t that sex wasn’t enough; it was that sex was better when this need was present. She knew that she didn’t need him in the same way he needed her, but still she thought it might be love that held them together, That’s why thoughts of marriage came to her mind unbidden. When he didn’t think of his wife and kids and lived in the present, he was very appealing, her fair-haired all-American boy. He had a certain boyish charm and enthusiasm, an earnest naiveté the very opposite of the cynical manipulation and selfishness she saw in most men, a puppylike desire to please and a fear of causing pain—all this, and he was good in bed too. These qualities made him special.

  She saw Bill at his best at Thanksgiving. At first a crisis appeared to be in the making, but that was averted by her clever idea. A week before the holiday he began brooding more than usual. He knew it was impossible to be with his wife and kids—they were in fact driving upstate to be with Becky’s parents—but he couldn’t help feel a remorse and regret that even she could understand. Then Lowell called to invite him and Marilyn to the cottage, but she heard Lowell’s voice on the answering machine and could tell that he really wished to have Bill alone. After saying that their mother would be there and that the dinner would be a christening of the cottage as well as a Thanksgiving dinner, he said, “I hope you can make it for this family celebration. If you can come, ask Marilyn too.” It sounded innocuous, but his voice modulated at the end of his statement in a way that was unmistakable. Even Bill caught the implication. He looked at her and shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. Their other choice, to go to her mother’s house, had no appeal. Even when unencumbered by another, her visits to her mother were awkward and unpleasant. It looked as if they were going to have to rely upon themselves. For the next several days Bill was not the only one who brooded; she did too. The prospect of being with him when all he could think about was his family was galling and even painful. She looked about for an escape, and just when she was beginning to conclude that she should send him on his way to Lowell and his mother, she saw an advertisement for a ski resort in Maine offering a Thanks-giving special. Bill had skied in college, and she skied once or twice each winter, but neither were very proficient. They used the beginning slopes at first and the intermediate on the third day, but skiing was only a small part of their escape. With the clientele comprised mostly of young people, either coming as couples or groups of singles looking for action, every night there were parties and dancing. Bill was too busy to brood, and they had a wonderful time, the best time they had ever had together. Freed from the social constraints of home, Bill was wonderfully at ease and partied like a college boy. She was so happy she seriously started thinking about marriage again. Though she kept the thought to herself, never even hinting that she entertained a long-term commitment, she was more and more convinced that he was the one. When they drove back from the mountains, they sang along with the rock songs on the radio, laughed easily and smiled every time they exchanged glances.

  But it didn’t last; the magic of the getaway weekend dissolved within three days. They might have built upon its foundation, she was sure, and the closeness and spontaneity would have continued and grown, were it not that the Christmas season followed immediately after Thanksgiving and reminded Bill again of his family. On the Wednesday night after they returned they were walking to a restaurant about five blocks away and talking gaily about the ski trip when they came upon a Christmas tree business in a lot that was usually vacant. Bill looked at it and without thinking said, “We usually go upcountry and cut our own” before he stopped suddenly. Even in the dark of a late November night she knew his face turned red. She could feel it. Hers did too—with a flush of anger. “Who’s ‘we’?” she asked sharply, and when he didn’t answer she too reverted to silence. When they began talking again in front of the restaurant they were both matter-of-fact and determined to let the remark be forgotten. And they did have other good times, particularly in bed, but never again did they share the spontaneity and joy of the ski trip.

  As Christmas got closer and Bill grew more morose daily, Marilyn ceased trying to be motherly and nurturing; she had grown tired of the effort and had given up think
ing about marriage. While she wasn’t yet ready to give up on the relationship completely, she followed her own advice and was letting time sort things out.

  She had already reluctantly agreed that he should spend Christmas morning with his sons and was feeling misused when she made her traditional Christmas visit to Tara and Meg on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. She had called ahead and had already heard that Tara was suffering from a cold, so she was not surprised to find her red-nosed and puffy-eyed lying on the couch with several pillows propping her up. She wore an old sweatshirt, and a blanket covered her legs. Meg had placed a box of tissues within easy reach on the coffee table and a small wicker wastebasket on the floor for the used tissues, which Tara tossed without much concern for accuracy, judging from the number of tissues littering the floor beneath her. On the TV was one of the innumerable college bowl games that littered the airwaves from Christmas to New Year’s as randomly as Tara’s tissues. Tara had interpreted the advice to drink plenty of fluids when you had a cold to mean beer. She was working on her second one when Marilyn first arrived. When she remarked about the choice of beverages, Meg rolled her eyes and put up her hand in a stop sign as if to say, “Let us not discuss that.” First they opened the gifts they had gotten each other. Marilyn bought a baseball digest for Tara and a pair of gloves for Meg. They gave her a workout outfit and a basket of fruit. They talked about Tara’s cold and Meg’s difficulties as the nurse to a difficult patient, and then Tara said, after blowing her nose with a sound reminiscent of the mating call of a walrus, “We’re going bowling next week. Want to join us?”

  “Will Phoebe Waite be there?”

  Tara shook her head emphatically. “Nope. Now we’re her enemies too, it seems. She was heard calling me a fat pig, if you can believe that.” She started laughing, which brought on a coughing fit.

  Marilyn tried not to show how much she savored this good news. “She’s grown pigheaded, I’d say.”

  “Yeah,” Meg said, “we hear she’s having trouble with George too. They aren’t getting along well. It started that day at the lake.”

  Marilyn, remembering how George was ogling her in her bikini and Phoebe’s frowns, experienced a deeper moment of satisfaction. Don’t get even, get revenge, as the saying had it—and best when you didn’t have to exert yourself.

  “How about you and Bill? You two doing okay?” Tara asked.

  Meg looked uneasy, as if she thought this was an unwise question.

  Feeling a little defensive, Marilyn said, “Yeah, okay. You sound doubtful. Any reason?”

  Tara shrugged. “No, just that I hear things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Just stupid rumors,” Meg said as Tara blew her nose loudly again.

  Ignoring Meg’s caution and casually tossing the tissue aside where it floated by accident into the wicker wastebasket, she went on, “Oh, you know. Bill misses his kids. He’s ashamed of himself.”

  The first was undeniable. The second squared with what his behavior told her sometimes, and while she always resented the idea she could at least understand it. “He’s had to make adjustments. From marriage to me, you know, and none of his friends give him much support.”

  Tara nodded, though Marilyn noticed it was a rather noncommittal gesture, neither agreeing or disagreeing, merely acknowledging that she heard it. “I also heard that when Becky threw him out of the house, Bill—”

  “—Wait a minute. Did you say his wife Becky threw him out?”

  Tara’s eyes narrowed; then she looked down and appeared embarrassed. She turned to Meg, who was staring at the floor, not daring to look at Marilyn. “That’s what Fifi told us, right, Meg?”

  Meg answered that she wasn’t sure and said she had to go to the bathroom.

  Tara watched her walk out of the room, then drained her beer. “What does Bill say?”

  Bill had never said anything about it, but Marilyn, not liking to be surprised, equivocated. “He doesn’t say that.” She felt her face go red, but if it was from embarrassment it quickly changed to anger. She remembered all the times Bill was evasive, all the times he didn’t want to talk about Becky, the times his mind would be a million miles away. They only made sense if what Tara said was true. Did she and Meg see her as the second choice? Or even worse, was she Bill’s second choice? She struggled to control herself.

  Luckily Meg returned from the bathroom, and Tara said, “Hey, Meg, get me a beer, would ya.” With Meg’s and Tara’s attention deflected, she had time to compose herself.

  From the open refrigerator Meg called to Marilyn. “Want another beer, Timber?”

  “No thanks, Meg. I’m still working on the one I’ve got. I can’t keep up with Tara.”

  “Nobody can,” Meg said with a sigh as she handed the beer to the invalid.

  Tara grinned, pleased with what she took to be a compliment. “Drink ’em as fast as I throw ’em in softball—that’s my motto.”

  Neither she nor Meg showed any inclination to continue the conversation about Bill. Instead they talked for another fifteen minutes about their plans for Christmas Day. They were going first to Meg’s mother’s house and then later to Tara’s brother’s place for Christmas dinner. Because of the information she had received, Marilyn’s plans were now up in the air, but she talked about her mother and her sister, who was coming home for Christmas.

  Driving back to Portland, she went over in her mind all the signs of Bill’s reluctance to be with her. She particularly thought about the times he would be disoriented and panicky when jolted out of a reverie. Now she knew exactly where his thoughts had been, and by the time she got home she was in a high fever of wounded pride and resentment.

  He was watching ESPN when she walked through the door. He looked up and said, “Hi, babe. How were Tara and Meg?”

  She put the gifts from Tara and Meg on the dining room table, removed her winter coat and hung it in the closet without answering his question. Calmly she folded her arms across her chest and faced him. “Would you mind turning that thing off.” She pointed with her chin to the TV.

  He gave her a puzzled look, then shrugged. He picked up the remote and clicked the TV off. “Well?”

  She walked the few paces across the room towards the window until she was sure she was in perfect command of herself. Again she turned and looked at him.

  “I’ll tell you what I think. You didn’t walk out on Becky—she threw you out. I also think you’ve tried to get back with her several times since that night you came here, but it was her who kept saying no. Do you know what that means?”

  He listened to her with a stricken look on his face. He grew edgy and nervous, sure signs of guilt. “It doesn’t matter who did what,” he started to say, but she cut him off.

  “I asked you if you know what that means?”

  He glared at her. “No, I don’t know what you mean.” For the first time his voice expressed hostility.

  She turned her back on him and, her arms still folded across her chest, looked out the window. A pickup truck was backing into a narrow space across the street, and a woman was signaling to the driver how much space he had. She held up her hands about a yard apart. “It means I’m your second choice.”

  She heard his chair creak as he shifted his weight. “That’s not the way to put it. When you’re married and have kids, it’s not the same. I grew up without a father, you know. What kind of a man would know how that feels and not care about his sons? I don’t want to let them down.”

  As she listened she searched his words for signs of contrition and hints that she was his first choice. She found nothing. Deflecting attention away from Becky and her to his kids was sneaky, dishonest, manipulative—that was her quick conclusion. She turned and looked at him. Body language, always more reliable, told her he was guilty and evasive. He looked down, scratched his knee, then rubbed his eye. He was tense, leaning forward, not relaxing into the padded back of the chair.

  “Bill, let me ask you another question. And I want
an honest answer. Are you happy?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked defensively.

  “I mean exactly what I said. You’ve left your wife and are living with me. Are you happy about that?”

  “Yeah,” he said with patent evasiveness, “I’m as happy as can be under the circumstances.”

  “What circumstances?”

  “Well, okay. As I said, I do miss my boys. That’s honest.”

  It was like pulling teeth. “But what about Becky? Do you miss her too?”

  He didn’t answer, which in itself was an answer.

  “Bill Paine, you’ve been playing me for a fool. I’ve been patient with your moods—more than with any other man I’ve ever known. And what do I get for my trouble? Being used, that’s what. We both know you’ve tried to get back with your wife. You’d have left me on a dime if she was fool enough to have your sorry ass back.”

  “You don’t know anything about it, Marilyn. Being used”—he repeated it with a nasty curl of the lips. “I like that. Isn’t it more realistic to say I’ve been used being your boy toy? You’ve been manipulating me since that softball game last summer.”

  Without a word, Marilyn walked over to the closet by the front door. She opened it, moved a few items, then located his two suitcases. One after the other she seized and threw them out of the closet without looking. They crashed into the dining room table and tumbled to a stop.

  “There’s your goddamned luggage. You know what to do with them.”

  And with that hostile remark came the end of their affair.