The Woman Inside

by E. G. Scott

  The top picture is a redheaded bombshell whom I’ve never seen before, but judging by her hairstyle on top and below had been photographed in the late seventies and predated me. The photo below is of his first wife. I’ve only seen her a handful of times, and only in photos mistakenly mixed in with the belongings of his that were carried over from their life into ours. She and I couldn’t be more different physically; her icy blond bob was an echo of Debbie Harry, and her zaftig body curvy and luscious against my small breasts and narrow hips. The next nude is someone I know immediately, even though this version of her existed twenty-five years before I met her: Sasha. This one cuts me the deepest, and I wonder how recently and how often he’s looked at this one. She was as stunning then as she is now, something Paul has said out loud more than once. I flip the picture over, the sight of it bringing on a wave of nausea. There is no picture of Sheila, but I know that is only because of advancements in technology. I’ve seen those pictures on his phone. The last one is of me. I guess I’m glad I made the cut, but still disturbed by the collection.

  I flash back to the night Paul plied me with a joint and Miles Davis. I was bashful and self-conscious, but he was convincing. He wanted something to look at when we couldn’t be together. He told me that it was a first for him to take a picture like that as much as it was my first time to be photographed. Clearly, that was not the case. I pause on the picture of my twentysomething-year-old self momentarily to marvel at the beauty of my own young body, and regret not appreciating it while I had it.

  I’m almost too distracted by the photos and pills to notice the black notebook camouflaged by the black felt lining the box. I lay the Polaroids in a line across the surface of the desk and place the bottle of Viagra right side up next to the pictures. With trembling hands, I extract the Moleskine and see that there is a thick envelope tucked inside, its edges sticking out just slightly. I open that first, my heart racing with anticipation of its contents. I lift the flap and liberate the folded paper inside. It is a multiple-page letter with Dear A written at the top of the page in Paul’s hand. My phone convulses loudly on the desk and a text with Paul’s name floats to the surface. I refold the pages and tuck them back into the journal.

  Love you. Miss you.

  Hate sleeping without you.

  Sweet dreams.

  Out of all the possible alibis, Wes is perfect. But of course my husband is not at Wes’s house. And he may be sleeping without me, but I’m doubtful that he is alone.

  I return the Polaroids into their envelope and into the drawer. Before I return the ring to its hiding place in the drawer, I take a picture. I keep the letter and the journal. I have all night to read uninterrupted.

  In the kitchen I pull the kettle from the back burner to the front and listen for the flame to catch. As the slow build of the kettle goes from a slow whistle to shrieking, I lay the journal to the side, unfold the letter, and start to read.

  six

  PAUL

  Before

  IT ONLY TAKES that one slip.

  Any relationship is a high-wire act. Maintaining an affair is like walking a greased tightrope with a gorilla hanging off your back. If things go wrong, the destruction can reverberate catastrophically. Which is why I had to cut things off with Sheila when she did what she did.

  * * *

  BY THE TIME I’d had my mistress in the bed I shared with my wife, the cracks in my affair were starting to show. I had sensed from the get-go that Sheila was a little nuts, but that had been part of the turn-on. In hindsight, I think the desperation we were each wrestling with had the effect of bringing us together in this insane whirlwind of raw, unbridled chemistry.

  Every relationship is governed by its own particular rhythm. The rhythm of my relationship with Sheila was an uneven one and proved to be our undoing. Things had been humming along steadily for about a year, with Rebecca and me becoming increasingly estranged as Sheila and I continued to hold on to each other for oxygen. I can venture to imagine how things would have shaken out if we had continued along that same trajectory. But then the phone call came.

  Wes reached out just in time. It has since occurred to me that Rebecca might have contacted him on my behalf, though I’d never give either of them the satisfaction of acknowledging this. Deep down, I think I only took him up on it because I could sense what awaited me if I stayed on the path I’d been careening along, and the thought of one more pitying glance from my wife decided it.

  The ascension began quickly, and with it came a big adjustment in perspective. I began to feel my former confidence seep in. I had purpose again, and I could feel the dynamic with Rebecca shift back into place. In fact, I think I only grasped the full measure of how far things had slipped when I was able to look at us anew. Two people can only truly challenge each other when they stand on equal footing, and we had been steadily slipping away from each other for quite some time. But now we were back, and I’ll tell you that I’ve never had a partner who measures up to my wife.

  I stand in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee, soaking in the morning sunlight through the sliding door. I hear Rebecca’s footsteps approaching from behind. I can smell a faint trace of her perfume.

  “How’s the ol’ Wes-and-Paul smile-and-sell game looking for today?” She wraps her arms around my stomach, lacing her fingers together, and rests her head on my back.

  “Promising, Madoo. Showing a plum spot on the ocean out in Amagansett, then a rental a little farther up the island. Wes likes the two guys looking at the ocean house.”

  “As in, Wes thinks he can get them to cough up some serious dough?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Wait, two guys?”

  “Yup.”

  “A couple?”

  “That’s right.”

  She unclasps her hands and starts working them up toward my chest. “Well, well. I think you two dreamboats got this one in the bag. Just flash those pearly whites. And, um, maybe get a little closer . . .”

  I turn around in time to catch her winking at me. The old spark of trouble is back in her eye. I only now realize how much I’ve missed it. I put my mug down on the counter and wrap my arms around her waist. “Oh, I didn’t realize that sort of thing turned you on.”

  “You know what turns me on.”

  I hike her up onto the counter. I move close to kiss her but hesitate an inch from her lips. “But, babe, you’re going to be late.”

  “Not if you’re quick.”

  All of this came with consequences, of course. As the passion was being rekindled with my wife, it began to take a back seat with my mistress. Funny that my marriage should start to take cues from my affair. And the steadily widening gulf between Sheila and me magnified the physical cooling off. Whereas my relationship with Rebecca was built on climbing the ladder together, my relationship with Sheila had become all about the dynamic of decline. And here we were: she continuing her slide, and I was on the climb. So I understand what pushed her to such a rash move, but I certainly could never condone it.

  * * *

  WHEN REBECCA AND I FIRST got together, we were both traveling light. Part of the allure was the chance to build a life together, and neither of us came into the marriage with much in the way of material possessions. I was more than happy to leave most of the furniture with my first wife, and my second wife seemed practically nomadic in her lack of attachments. One of the few things that she brought into our life together was a pair of ceramic Chinese lion bookends.

  “You like these up here, babe?”

  I turn toward the cockeyed bookshelf to see the ornate matching blue-green lions staring at me. They lend an exotic air to our modest space. “Where’d you turn those up?”

  “Trip to China . . . town.” She winks as she says it.

  “Oh, let me guess. ‘Finding ourselves,’ were we?”

  She offers me an overly earnest
look. “I wasn’t found until I found you, Paul.” Then she sticks her tongue out at me.

  I try to hold a straight face but can’t keep it together. I break into a grin. “I love you, babe.”

  “Yeah, yeah. You just don’t love my decorative sense.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll learn to.”

  The bookends accompanied us from our apartment to our home on Long Island, where they took up watch on either end of the mantel above the fireplace. It was after Sheila’s last visit that I noticed one was gone.

  Physically, she and I had cooled off noticeably. The seams were showing in our relationship. She was becoming much more clingy and much less attractive. And I couldn’t quite pinpoint it, but something suspicious had taken shape with the story of her husband. It was nagging at me. The details didn’t quite jibe.

  Things were going in a different direction for me, and the truth of the matter—as I was finally recognizing it—was that I could only be in the proper headspace at any given time to maintain one of my relationships. There was no way to juggle both without the bottom dropping out.

  One morning, as I was heading downstairs from a shower, I heard noise coming from my office. Startled, I grabbed the poker from next to the fireplace and approached the office door with a light step. I suddenly remembered that the pistol I keep in the house for protection lived in the desk drawer in my office, and I prayed that whoever was rifling around in there hadn’t yet found it. I took a deep breath, flung the door open, and found Sheila sitting in the leather chair behind my desk, wearing nothing but one of my neckties and a smile. She had one leg flung over the armrest and was biting her lower lip. She slid the desk drawer shut as she stood up and circled around to the front of the desk.

  “What the fuck are you doing rooting around in my—”

  “Trying to get your attention,” she purred. “It’s been hard to get your attention lately.”

  “Yeah, I, umm . . . ,” I stammered.

  She eyed the poker in my hand. “What are you going to do with that?”

  I dropped the poker to the ground as she slid herself onto the desk and reclined, one hand gripping the edge of the mahogany.

  “So, do I have your attention now?”

  * * *

  WHEN WE FINISHED, I went to the bathroom to give her a chance to dress quickly and let herself out. When I came downstairs a few minutes later, she was still sitting in the living room, staring out the window in silence. Annoyed, I made my wishes very clear with some terse words. She stood up, hugged me for a very long moment, and kissed me hard. She grabbed her handbag off the sofa and walked out without a word, tears welling in her eyes.

  It wasn’t until later that day, when I went to replace the poker next to the fireplace, that I noticed one of the bookends missing. Honestly, I couldn’t even remember the last time I paid those things any attention, between their being permanent fixtures in the background of our daily lives and me having been largely distracted for the past year. But suddenly, there it was. Or, rather, there it wasn’t.

  The absence was glaring and sent my mind in all sorts of directions. Though the theft could almost be seen as sweet on the surface, a way for Sheila to hold on to a piece of what we had, I couldn’t ignore the diabolical underpinnings of her actions. Did she take the bookend in a moment of pure emotion, or had it been more calculated than that? Was it completely impetuous, or had she sensed this moment coming and figured out a way to stick it to me?

  I thought back to the moment when she left. I imagined her walking away, a sly grin spreading across that tear-soaked face of hers. Clever, really. She must have sensed that the bookends belonged to Rebecca and that the absence of one would therefore be noticed. She had of course reasoned that I might not notice the theft and would be stumped when Rebecca brought it up. Just think of her now, amused at the thought of me scrambling on the spot for an explanation. Or else she thought that I would notice and would have to concoct a story to explain the absence or else just sweat it out, hoping that Rebecca wouldn’t notice. God, what a conniving little girl she was.

  Ultimately, this turn of events made things easier on me. Whatever soft spot or shred of sympathy I may have held for Sheila was erased by her sad, childish excuse for a power move. It made it easier for me to exit the situation without holding on to any looming guilt. And it was necessary for me to move on from that dark stretch of my life and get back to doing what I do best.

  I will admit, however begrudgingly, that Sheila’s little ploy was effective. I concocted a whole explanation for the missing bookend, a story that was not only plausible but managed to cast me in a good light. To my surprise, I never had the chance to use it. Rebecca never inquired as to the fate of the ceramic lion, and so it became just one more thing that was never discussed. One more thing that sat, silently, untouched by two people living under a single roof. It loomed larger in my mind because of the omission, and I suppose this is where Sheila enjoyed a small victory.

  But there was something I kept in mind during this time, a thought aimed squarely at this underhanded little girl who I let into my home and my bed. A thought that kept me warm at night, and it was this: You want to play games with me? Well, you have no idea who my regular sparring partner is.

  It only takes that one slip. For everything to come toppling down.

  seven

  REBECCA

  Before

  AT FIRST IT was just sex.

  Paul’s marital situation wasn’t conducive to more. We grabbed time when it worked for him. Fucked in nearly finished houses, in his car, in bathrooms. My life became about waiting. Waiting until the next time I heard from him. Waiting for him to sneak away for a few delicious hours. At best it happened once a week, at worst once a month. I became antsy when too much time passed and I didn’t see him. Our phone calls between seeing each other became the only thing that mattered. The rest of my life melted away.

  We didn’t discuss the big relationship topics. At that point, I had no ideas about his views on children. We never spoke in terms of him leaving his wife or talked about what a possible future together would look like. There was an invisible fence around any topics that could lead to commitment, and I stayed outside of it.

  My infatuation grew furiously. Being completely at the mercy of him and his life, I eventually reached a breaking point. I’d always prided myself on being the kind of woman who could be breezy, uncomplicated, and undemanding. But that was only because I’d never had a relationship quite like this one. It was bringing out a new needy side of me.

  Paul was so good at keeping me on the hook, I never considered a pattern of behavior. I just believed our love was different and we’d figure it out as we went. I didn’t focus on the red flags scattered about the perimeter of our situation. There was the obvious issue of his marriage, but there were other little things. I chose to ignore the way he looked at other attractive women we’d encounter, or his flirtatious way he called them all “sweetie.” I didn’t question him when I could tell that he was lying, when little details would change from one day to the next. He was hard to pin down and sometimes seemed to be somewhere else when we were together. There were a lot of little cuts that might have added up to a larger wound if I started focusing on them, so I didn’t. I thought if I changed for him, he’d do the same. I became the model “other woman,” the woman I believed Paul wanted me to be. I reasoned that it was his lie to tell, his marriage he was stepping out of. I was living my own life, the way I wanted to. So I subtly pumped him for clues about what he wasn’t getting from his wife so I could give those things to him. But he said very little about that piece of his life, so eventually I stopped asking him about it. I contorted myself to his needs because I believed if I did, he would pick me. I figured, become a man’s fantasy, and he will have no defense against it.

  * * *

  THE CONVERSATION WAS eternally “next time.” We went back and for
th building each other up, turning up the pressure. What we were going to do to each other. How we would pleasure the other. That stopped turning me on after a while. I craved for him to tell me that he loved and only wanted me. I wanted substance and real intimacy. I wanted him to tell me about what he pictured for us long term, but he never spoke about anything other than the moment we were in.

  One night, around the time I’d gotten my first prescription for antianxiety meds, I decided to push things. I took twice the dose the doctor had prescribed. I felt ballsy. I also felt desperate.

  “Paul, I keep thinking about how much we don’t know about each other.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. What have you been hiding from me?”

  I was fed up, but I couldn’t pinpoint about what exactly. He wasn’t doing anything differently. It was me. I’d thought all of our sexual chemistry would evolve into a relationship. I never wanted to be someone’s perfect mistress. I was tired of sharing him.

  “I’m serious, Paul. You have done sexual things to me that there aren’t even names for, but you don’t really know anything about me.” My voice was serious and steady thanks to the drugs.

  His cadence shifted quickly to cautious; he was married, after all, and knew what a trap sounded like. “What don’t I know about you, babe?”

  “Like what my childhood was like. You don’t know what I’ve been through.”