One Little Secret (ARC)

by Cate Holahan

  And now, like that first time, Jenny’s sense of self-righteous satisfaction had lasted only until the moment of Ben’s shuddering orgasm. Lying on the Suburban’s lowered back seat, her underwear tossed near her head, she felt only a deep disappointment. She’d cheated on her husband with Ben, a guy skeevy enough to sleep with his neighbor in the family car while his unsuspecting wife moped outside. In doing so, she’d become the kind of woman mothers warned their newly married daughters to watch out for, the one wives monitored at work functions, tracking their unnecessarily seductive movements as they worked the room in business-inappropriate attire. The woman pathetic enough to be the other woman.

  Jenny rolled into a sitting position. “Are my clothes behind you?”

  Ben sat up, rounding his stomach over his bent knees to keep his head from hitting the ceiling. He picked up the pile of crumpled fabric on his left side and passed it to her. “Do you want to go home? I can drive us home right now. At this hour, we can probably get back by three AM.”

  Jenny slipped her feet into her shorts and pulled them on, feeling her way in the near dark. “You’ve been drinking for hours. You can’t drive right now.”

  “You take the keys for the first hour. I’ll grab a black coffee on the road. We can switch once I sober up.”

  Despite the night’s charcoal filter, Jenny could discern the intensity of Ben’s gaze. She looked away. “I can’t leave with you.”

  “Okay. You’ll take a car service, then? Or the train? I’ll drive and meet you back home.”

  The urgency to escape that she’d felt thirty minutes earlier suddenly seemed unnecessary. Foolish, even. Louis had choked her for betraying his trust and sharing their private marital shame. In actuality, she was guilty of far worse.

  Ben cupped the back of her neck. She winced as the tips of his fingers grazed the bruised skin on her throat. “Jenny. You can’t stay.”

  Not forever, Jenny knew. Not if things didn’t change. She understood that a marriage where neither party consistently loved, honored, or cherished the other wasn’t sustainable. But she no longer felt that she had to leave as soon as possible.

  The physicality of the past twenty-four hours had drained her energy. She couldn’t imagine doing everything that needed to be done in her current state: moving financial assets, grabbing her clothing from the house, renting an apartment, hiring a divorce attorney. Telling Louis and Ally. She couldn’t have all those conversations. She could barely swallow.

  She pulled her blouse over her head and reached for her purse. The pills inside it would make her feel better. She could figure out her next move once her throat stopped burning and her head stopped pounding.

  She unzipped her bag and plunged her hand inside. She felt the rough canvas of her makeup bag. The smooth leather of her wallet. Her nails didn’t hit the plastic cylinders containing her self-prescribed abusive-husband treatment: Oxys and Ambiens. She had a vision of fixing her makeup in the bathroom. Her pain pills and sleep aids were on the bathroom sink.

  “I have to go back inside. My throat hurts.”

  “What?” Moonlight glinted in the center of Ben’s navy eyes. “You’re not going back to him. You said you were done.”

  “I need my pain medication.” Her voice cracked. “My throat is burning. My arms are bruised. And I’m so tired. I want to get some sleep and then—”

  “Sleep? Next to that asshole? Jenny. I am here and I can help. I can take you someplace safe. I can get you home.”

  Jenny felt a surge of anger at Ben’s misguided chivalry. The last thing she needed was another man forcing her to do something she didn’t want to do. They were sleeping together. That was it. She was Ben’s way of getting back at Rachel for treating him like a servant. And he’d never given her anything more than a temporary reprieve from her life with Louis.

  “You’ll take me home, huh? We’ll have sex again, maybe.” Bitterness sharpened her tone. “And then what?”

  Ben grasped her biceps. He didn’t dig his fingers into her flesh like Louis had earlier, but he held her firmly. “He’ll kill you one day. You know that, don’t you?”

  “He’s not a murderer, Ben.”

  “Not yet. You told me that after he gets rough with you, he’s on his best behavior for months.” He released her arms and raised his index finger to his face, indicating her bruise on his own cheek. “He gave you that shiner what, last week? It’s Friday and he choked you in a house filled with your friends. What do you really think he’d do if he found out about us?”

  Fear filled the hollows inside Jenny. Ben had never gotten this passionate with her before. Was he threatening to tell Louis if she didn’t leave with him? Would he betray her like that, knowing the consequences she could face?

  “A lot of men would do horrible things if they discovered their wife sleeping with their neighbor.” She spoke carefully, watching Ben’s face for signs of a threat. “That’s why we can’t ever let Louis know. It would be terrible for both of us.”

  “He’ll kill you even if he never knows, Jenny. He’ll kill you because you keep giving him another chance. He’ll kill you because you’ll let him.”

  Jenny closed her eyes, locking the building tears beneath her lids. In the darkness, she saw Louis’s hateful stare as he squeezed her neck. He’d looked at her like he’d wanted her to stop talking. To stop existing. She lifted the hem of her blouse and brought it to her wet cheeks. “I have Ally. What am I supposed to do?”

  Ben grasped her hand. “Ally needs her mother alive and well. You have to leave. Go home. Call a lawyer. File for divorce. You have your own money. You’ll get the house. You’ll have Ally. I’ll testify that I saw the bruises. Take photos of your neck. You can use them. No judge in the world will award custody to an abuser.”

  Ben made it sound so easy. Natural, even. But his fantasy didn’t feature Louis. She hadn’t married a man who accepted defeat.

  “Please.” Ben’s eyes shimmered. “Please leave him. Please. I love you.”

  Jenny averted her gaze, unable to see him lie to her face. He didn’t really love her. Ben enjoyed sex with her. He found her attractive. He liked talking sports with her, laughing at their awkward, self-deprecating jokes and discussing school activities. But love required more than some common interests and sexual compatibility. It demanded a willingness to sacrifice for the other person, to subordinate your own needs and desires. Jenny wasn’t sure Ben really loved anyone besides his children.

  “Please, Jenny. I’ll file for divorce, too. No one will know we were together beforehand. Louis will think he finally crossed the line and Rachel will think our fight was the final straw. After we’re both officially separated, we can start seeing each other again.”

  Jenny scoffed. “Think of what you’re saying. Rachel won’t let you keep that house, and she’ll fight you on alimony. You’ll have to stop writing and get a …” She trailed off rather than saying the offensive phrase on the tip of her tongue. Real job.

  “I don’t care. I’ll do anything to know you’re safe. I can get a sales job somewhere.” He chuckled. “Can’t you see me hawking vacuum cleaners door to door? ‘Excuse me, miss. Have you heard about the life-changing cleaning power of the Dyson ball?’ ”

  Jenny laughed in spite of herself. “I think that profession died with Willy Loman.”

  Ben’s strong arms wrapped around her torso. “I’m not worried about work. I can get a job. I am worried about you. I love you, and I believe that you love me too, Jen. Please.”

  Jenny wanted to return the sentiment, but she couldn’t—at least, not yet. She’d never let herself think of Ben as a truly romantic option. She did love being in his arms. She loved feeling protected and cared for and wanted by a desirable man; it temporarily erased the pain of being beaten by her husband and lessened the humiliation she felt about everything she’d allowed to happen. Ben even suppressed the gut-roiling, bone-shaking fear of everything that would come if she dared change the status quo. But Jenny knew Ben
’s arms could hold her pain at bay for only a little while. The chalky pills in her bedroom would keep it away for far longer. If she was going to do it—if she was going to really leave Louis—she’d need all the chemical courage she could get. “Give me ten minutes, okay? I need to get my meds.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE DAY OF

  Underwater lights turned the pool ominous. The supernatural glow spilled out onto the lawn, imbuing the whole scene with an otherworldliness befitting a sci-fi horror flick. Louis hunched over the table, one hand supporting his head and the other his drink. He looked like he might want to be alone, but Susan couldn’t respect that desire. Misery needed company, or at least alcohol. Louis could provide both.

  “Make it a double.” She pointed to the scotch on the table. “It’s been that kind of night, right?”

  He lifted his head from his hand and exhaled. Grabbing the bottle, he gestured to one of the half-dozen used glasses. “Nadal was drinking out of that one.”

  Susan pushed her husband’s empty tumbler toward her neighbor. He poured like an inebriated bartender, filling the wide glass to the halfway line rather than splashing in two shots. “The ice out here is all melted.” He stood to pass the drink to her as she sat on the bench across from him.

  Susan shrugged as though the lack of any water to cut the brown liquor wasn’t a big deal, even though she never drank whiskey, let alone straight up. As she brought the alcohol to her lips and inhaled its sharp aromas of burnt sugar and hair spray, she felt transported to her teenage years when she’d pretended to enjoy the cheap beers older kids smuggled into parties. I’m cool. I like this liquid that tastes like leftover pasta water and expired spices. She’d thought that, at thirty-seven, her days of feigning interests for friendships would be behind her.

  But she’d thought a lot of things that life was proving false, Susan reminded herself. Better not to think at all.

  She gulped from the glass. The liquid seared her throat, stripping away her senses of smell and taste. She chased the swallow with her own saliva to stave off a cough, telling herself that the taste was necessary for numbness. Enough of it and she would no longer feel like a car with a busted transmission, uncontrollably slamming into new emotional gears. Racing panic. Halting depression. Speeding anger. Stopping disappointment. She’d be able to lie beside her husband and, just for tonight, shut down.

  Nadal was probably already asleep. The man could pass out anywhere. A coach airline seat. A twin bed with a kid kicking him in the chest. Once, she’d watched him nod off in the corner at a bounce-house birthday party. The first year of the twins’ lives—when he’d needed to wake up early for work and help with tandem nighttime feeds—had trained them differently. She’d become conditioned to snooze rather than sleep, always ready to jump up in response to some cry from the kids. Nadal, conversely, had learned to drop into REM wherever and whenever he could.

  She could picture him exactly as he’d been all those years ago. His olive complexion, lined only at the corner of his eyes back then, and only because he’d been sleeping so little. They’d both been tired all the time. Each working all day and then coming home to play with the kids until the wee hours of the morning. They’d selfishly let the boys keep night and day confused. Better that they sleep with the sitter and really know their parents, they’d said. Every night, she and Nadal had stayed up with their babies, musing about what they would do with them when they got older. Rest is for the dead, they used to say, rolling around in their bed, with its smell of baby powder and Johnson & Johnson’s shampoo. They’d been so happy, then. Overworked. Overtired. And unbelievably, sickeningly happy.

  Susan’s eyes began to burn worse than her throat. She braced herself and swallowed a third of her drink. It went down easier this time. She could detect something like butterscotch mixed in with all the bitterness. People liked whiskey because it was a metaphor for life, she decided. A whole lot of shit with the occasional taste of sweet.

  “You’re quiet.” Louis considered her over the top of his glass. He raised his drink. “Eighty proof for your thoughts.”

  The alcohol had already worked its magic on her neighbor. Gone was the aggressive man who had knocked on her door an hour earlier and demanded that her husband share a scotch with him. In his place was the semi-charming, awkwardly inappropriate guy from dinner. Susan liked the latter Louis much better than the former, though she couldn’t say she really relished either version. Out of all the people in the house, she and Louis had the least in common. Most of what he discussed involved work, a subject she couldn’t weigh in on anymore, at least not in any way Louis would take seriously. With Jenny, Rachel, and Ben, she could commiserate about the kids or the school or town activities. But doctor Louis wouldn’t relate to her as a fellow parent.

  “Nice moon tonight,” she said.

  Louis looked over his shoulder toward the beach, perhaps just noticing the champagne-colored orb sparkling over the bubbling sea. Susan smirked at her mental association. Her analogies were already under the influence. Good. She sipped her whiskey again. It was opening up. She could taste an almost fruity flavor. Her sense of smell had returned, too. She inhaled the sea air perfumed with salt, the dusky scent of sand, and the green odors of the surrounding grass and scraggly trees. The mix reminded her of a men’s cologne. Something fresh and beachy—the kind her husband never wore.

  Louis stood from the bench, apparently sick of his near-silent company. The sight shifted Susan back into panic gear. Drinking with acquaintances was socially acceptable. Downing whiskey alone in an empty backyard was the mark of a problem. She struggled to think of some witticism or anecdote that might amuse Louis enough to remain with her until she finished her liquor. But her brain was too clouded with scotch and her memories of Nadal to invent anything original.

  Louis grasped the base of his shirt and pulled it over his head. “I’m going for a swim.”

  Susan leaned back onto the table edge, a druggy relief replacing her adrenaline. She found herself like the main character in A Clockwork Orange, stuck to the chair with her eyes unable to close, forced to stare at Louis’s long-legged stride over to the pool, to watch his skinny yet defined torso elongate as he curled his toes around the edge of the coping, swept his arms over his head, and dove into the water.

  He entered the pool with barely a ripple. Watching his smooth form, Susan could almost understand why Jenny had thought him a catch. Louis wasn’t handsome like Ben or sexy like Nadal, but he had a kind of boyish appeal coupled with brains and an arrogance that amplified his talents. People who truly believed they were great had a way of converting those around them.

  Susan suddenly felt like swimming alongside him. Not, she told herself, because she was anything like her weak-willed husband or the traitorous siren perched atop the jetty beyond, posed to wreck happy marriages. She wanted to swim because Louis made it look like it felt good. And, darn it, she wanted to feel better.

  Rustling snapped Susan’s attention to the side yard. A large figure moved along the scrub brush in the shadowed part of the property, beyond the reach of the pool’s underwater light.

  She sprang from her seat, ready to scamper into the house or scream. “Hello?” Though she felt sharp, the greeting came out slurred. “Hello?”

  A man stepped from the bushes—not into the illuminated circle around the pool, exactly, but at least into the moonlit area where she could better discern his outline. “Sorry to startle you. I’m heading down to the beach to talk with Rachel.”

  Only Ben. Susan stifled a relieved giggle. “Good luck!”

  She immediately regretted her response. Good luck was for business meetings and charity races. No one wanted to hear something so flip in response to a marriage falling apart. It sounded absurd. Moreover, she didn’t want to wish Ben luck making up with his whore wife. Rachel didn’t deserve to have Ben groveling for forgiveness when she’d slept with Nadal. She deserved to be shoved in the fucking ocean.

  “
Thanks.” Ben resumed his shuffling march toward the path. “I’ll need it.”

  “Wait!”

  Ben stopped. Your wife is sleeping with my husband. The words stuck in Susan’s throat, trapped by some self-preservation instinct preventing her from blurting out life-altering statements under the influence. She forced herself to envision how she’d follow up the accusation. There’d be a trip upstairs for Nadal’s computer in order to show Ben the evidence. Nadal might wake and want to know what everything was about, forcing her to confront him, again, in an emotional state—this time with Ben raging downstairs. Even worse, Ben might go after Nadal. What man wouldn’t get physical with the guy who had made him a cuckold? Oddsmakers would favor Ben in any fight against her husband two to one, easy. Ben had been a linebacker, whereas Nadal was a fit dad. She wanted her husband sorry and humiliated, not permanently brain damaged. Nadal was her partner and co-parent. She loved him, damn it. A one-night stand didn’t change that for her.

  Susan slapped the top of her head as though she’d forgotten what she’d wanted to say. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  Ben’s shadow turned back toward the path. Susan watched him jog down the sandy strip between the dune grasses out to the beach. He turned toward the jetty. In the moonlight, she could make out the shape of a person atop the rocks. Fabric flapped behind the figure. God, how she wished that Rachel would become stuck on that jetty, Prometheus lashed to the rock for stealing what didn’t belong to him. Forgiving Nadal would be so much easier if she never had to see Rachel again.

  Susan returned her attention to the backyard. Louis had ceased swimming to stare at her, probably ready to recommend some doctor hangover remedy. She looked away from him to the table. Greasy paper plates topped with uneaten bits of food invited vermin to a dinner party. She stacked them on her bare forearm and strode over to the outdoor bin, balancing the mess with all the confidence of a former waitress. They all had their secret skills, she thought. Some people dove into the water like gannets. Some people efficiently dispatched messes, despite being drunk. Some people expertly lied to their significant others. They were all so fucking talented.