I slip my bag out from under the seat to grab a novel I’ve got stashed in there. As I ease the book out, I see it’s got a Post-it attached to the cover: I’m ready to hold your hand.
It’s from Peter. It’s always been a teasing point/pet hate of mine that he’s never held my hand. I’d go to hold on to his and he’d bat mine away. Embarrassed, I guess. It used to upset me. My parents always held hands anytime they left the house. I just thought it was normal—what married people did. And then eventually I got used to not having my hand held and just stopped bringing it up. There were bigger problems to solve. Now he says he’s ready to hold it. He’s asking for another chance. He’s kind of saying he’ll do it right this time. He’s saying he’s ready to be a man, to be a real husband. Maybe I’m reading too much into one sentence. Nevertheless, I’m instantly swamped with guilt.
What am I doing here?
CHAPTER 23
Two days of pure luxury later, and I’ve remembered exactly what it is that I’m doing here. I’m getting more of that glimpse. And I’m starting to see how it could all be mine.
When Matt and I first got together, we spent two whole weeks in Barbados. It took us about twenty minutes of island time to realize we loved everything about the place: the transparent bright-blue waters, the Old World architecture, the modest lushness of the countryside, the easy nighttime breezes. All we talked about, in the spaces of time when we weren’t frenetically “doing it,” was how amazing it would be when we had a place of our own here one day. This, of course, was the “one day” when we’d have tons of money. Well, that fine day certainly came around for Matt Colburn, because his place is spectacular. Apparently, we’re nestled away somewhere on the west side of the island. That’s all I really know about our location and all I really care to. When we pulled up outside this place—inside his “Blu Sofisticato” Maserati GranCabrio—he told me he bought this house thinking about me and hoping that he’d bring me here one day. However, I suspect that was actually a big pile of pig shit. This house has all the markings of “Kimberly bought it,” or if not her, then some impersonal global real estate agent twice removed from any real thoughts on what Matt actually wanted in a beach property.
Don’t get me wrong, this house is beautiful. Extremely decadent, and I’m sure it was very expensive, but not a thing about it says “Matt.” It’s nothing like his house in LA. The only way I can think to describe the décor is “fussy French,” and the place is just so, so big; I’ve no idea why they bought a house this size for just the four of them. The dining table sits sixteen! It’s just too large. If you’re about to step into the pool and suddenly remember you forgot your sunglasses back in the bedroom, you are screwed. Well, not screwed, obviously, but you are looking at a good seven-minute round trip to go and retrieve them.
No well-meaning-but-marble-and-granite-loving designer has had their way with the gardens and patios, thank God. They are more or less neutral in décor, just some white floating linens and loungy-style furniture, and that’s where we’re spending most of our time, bobbing along in what I’ve been told is an infinity pool. The water in the infinity pool is somehow exactly the same shade as the turquoise sea, so if you stand a little ways back from the edge and squint a bit, you can’t tell where the pool ends and the Atlantic begins. It’s truly magical.
The last forty-eight hours have been somewhat hard work considering that illicit extramarital affairs are supposed to be at least a little bit fun. However, I’d say we’ve probably reached the point where perhaps around seventy percent of the magic of our past relationship has been recaptured. Maybe sixty-five. The crux of the issue is that I’m just not one of those carefree types who can temporarily forget about the larger picture. I can’t just close my eyes and enjoy the ride without constantly analyzing what we’re doing. I’m not Kimberly. This gets Matt a little worked up—he’s completely content to not think about the reality part of it at all, which you can go ahead and file under “Definitely Ironic.” Let me give you an example: I am no longer using the living room, not even to walk through on the way to the kitchen. Matt, however, continues to use it and thinks I’m completely nuts for not doing so. When we first arrived and Matt was giving me the grand (grand) tour of the place, we walked into the living room and on top of the piano, inside kid-decorated frames, were photos of Kimberly and the kids. They weren’t a bunch of perfect professional shots like Kimberly has on her Facebook profile. (Yes, I friended her for nothing more than the purpose of having a good dig. If I’m going to be a villainess, I may as well embrace it.) They were literally snapshots of family vacations. The kids decked out in snorkel gear looking like dorks, everyone standing at the foot of a stunning waterfall, Matt and Kimberly smiling over ironically flamboyant cocktails. Knife-in-the-heart kinda stuff.
It’s not unusual for someone to have pictures of their family in their vacation home, of course, and there’s no logical reason that Matt should have hidden them or got someone to take them down before we arrived, but seeing those pictures rattled me. And when Matt went to put the pictures away, that upset me even more. How disloyal is it that he would hide pictures of his perfect family because they bothered the woman who was potentially going to rip that family unit in half? I told him as much, to which he said I was being “overly dramatic,” but the pictures remained in position—and ever since then I’ve avoided that room. It’s not that great a hardship, as there are plenty of other places to hang out in this McMansion of the Caribbean, but it must be said, every time I go in the kitchen via the dining room rather than the living room, I feel a stab of guilt.
The other major issue has been the pretty-much-continuous stream of work calls, texts, and e-mails. He even has a fax machine in the kitchen that somebody sent part of a script through the one time he didn’t respond quickly enough for their liking. We had a talk and he unplugged the fax, shut down his laptop, and agreed to only check his phone once a day. He let me know he wasn’t happy about it, and I told him that as I’d left my family behind for a week to look at what was happening between us, he should respect that and give this situation his full attention. I could tell that no one had spoken to him like that since we were last together. I’m not sure whether he loved it or hated it.
And so finally, at two days in, with work and family distractions forcefully pushed to the background, we’re getting some time to figure out “us.” So far that’s consisted of a lot of peripheral discussion whilst coyly wrapped around each other like a two-headed octopus floating in the shallow end of the pool. There has been no sex. That was my idea. But just because no one’s taken their clothes off yet doesn’t mean we aren’t intimate. Our brains are getting slowly back on the same wavelength. Tuning back in to “Matt and Amy.” We’re starting to chatter again, just like we always used to. Matt’s an expert at small talk, always happy to come join me on one of my whimsical “but what if” rambles. With Peter, it’s all big-scheme planning and full-on discussions about life, kids, work. I’ve missed silly chitchat. The idle patter of two people just speaking their own internal monologues out loud. No filter. We dropped the filters sometime yesterday.
“Would you offer up the grounds for communal farming purposes or would you barricade the gates and just try to survive off your own vegetable patch?” I ask.
“Communal farming purposes, probably. It depends.”
“What does it depend on?”
“What the other people on the island have to trade for the use of the land.”
We’re earnestly discussing hypothetical survival tactics in the event we were stuck on the island of Barbados forever. Our completely plausible backstory is that there’s been a massive global earthquake, the island of Barbados has become untethered from its roots, and has floated off into the middle of the Atlantic. There’s no point in trying to get home, because California is now an apocalyptic wasteland and everyone we know is dead, plus all the pilots and yacht captains on the island have died after an outbreak of typhoid fever. It’s
incredibly sad, but we’ve made our peace with it.
“Trade for, like, a cow or something?”
“Exactly. Or women.”
“Women? What would you need women for?”
“Repopulate the island, of course.”
“What about me? Can’t you repopulate the island with me?”
“I would if you’d let me,” he says, running his hands firmly around my butt and down the back of my thighs. Oh Lord, I have no one to blame but myself for that segue. “We could start right now. I might actually be able to think straight about our situation here if we just got the mating part out of the way.” He slides his hand into the bottom of my bikini. I pull it out again. And now there’s a rather unsubtle lump in his swim trunks. I’m torturing him. I’m torturing both of us. I gently nudge my arm under his and bring it back up to the surface of the pool.
“I’m concerned that I might not be glamorous enough for you,” I say, hoping that a sudden distraction works as well on adult men as it does on children.
“Amy, you’re beautiful.”
“You know I don’t have even basic feminine-grooming skills. I’ve no idea how to use a heated eyelash curler, and honest to God I don’t know where people go to buy fancy event dresses that don’t look like they were designed for drag queens.”
“You know how to do high-end when you want to. You were all dolled up the other night for our dinner. You looked great.”
“I had help. A lot of help. What if I had to come to a premiere or a viewing with you? People would wonder why you were bringing your landscaper along.”
“A viewing?”
“You know, when people view the movie before it comes out.”
“Do you mean a screening?”
“Maybe.”
“I don’t care if they think you’re the gardener. I’ll tell them all you do a great job trimming my bushes,” he says, kissing my neck rather hard and grabbing my hand and pulling it down toward his trunks. Distraction hasn’t worked. This is definitely edging toward something here, and unless I get out of the pool right now, I don’t think I’m going to be able to muster the willpower needed to halt it.
“What about your mother?” I say.
“My mother?” Matt instantly breaks away from me.
“Yes, your mother. She loved me the first time around, but I’m sure she’ll despise me now that I’m gearing up to make her grandchildren play parental ping-pong.”
“So what do you want? Should we get back on the plane and forget any of this ever happened, because of what my mother might think? What are you trying to do here, Amy?”
“I’m trying to slow this down,” I say, backing away. “It’s not that I don’t want to get physical, Matt. I actually really, really want to do that.”
“So let’s do that,” he says, moving through the water toward me again.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because of science.”
“Because of science?”
“The moment we have sex, my hormones are going to make my body pledge eternal allegiance to yours and I’m not going to want to let go, ever. That’s how the female body works.”
“Baby, I won’t want to let go of you ever either.”
“It’s no big deal. It’s just oxytocin, but the minute those compounds get released into the bloodstream, I won’t be able to make clearheaded decisions anymore. My body will be making them for me.”
“Such a romantic way of putting it.”
“I still don’t know how you feel about me. We haven’t talked about any of that. I haven’t heard the words from you.”
“What words?”
“Those three words, Matt. They’re not that uncommonly spoken.”
“It’s a bit soon for ‘I love you,’ isn’t it?”
“A bit soon for ‘I love you’? Why would I put my entire life at risk for anything less?”
From underneath a towel on one of the loungers comes the chirp of a distractingly loud cricket. Matt glances over, bothered.
“What’s that noise?” I ask. Something’s not lining up quite right here. The loud cricket chirps again.
“Sounds like a cricket or something,” he says. He looks guilty. We independently bob around in the pool for a few seconds or so, both lost in our own thoughts. Slicing through the silence, the obnoxious cricket sounds again, twice.
“I need my hat. My scalp is starting to get burned.”
“So go get it,” he says.
“It’s in the kitchen. You get it for me,” I say. I’m not sure what’s going on here, but the second he’s gone I’m checking under that towel, as I’m pretty sure that what’s under there is not a loud and repetitive insect.
“Okay, I’ll get your stupid hat,” he says with a faux sigh, and starts making his way toward the edge of the pool, incidentally in the same direction as the chirping towel.
“Other side of the pool, buddy boy.”
“What?”
“I want you to leave via the other side of the pool. And then I want you to go inside and get my hat.”
“Ballbuster.”
“Philanderer.” He doesn’t laugh at my joke, just takes off at a not-that-relaxed pace toward the house.
The second he’s inside I launch myself out of the pool, run over to the lounger, and throw back the towel. There lies his phone. The chirps must have been text messages. He’s supposed to have this thing switched off. I pick it up. The last two texts were from Kimberly. It’s a series of emoticons, which I’m guessing are supposed to symbolize love and general satisfaction within a relationship. I type in the PIN Matt used for everything back in the day. Still works. His bank PIN is the reverse of mine. I took it to mean that we were meant to be—at one point. I’m beginning to think that I read too much into things. I scroll back to where it seems that the current conversation kicks in.
Kimberly: How’s the biz trip going?
Matt: Up and down. Missing you guys. How was fat camp?
Kimberly: Shit. I only lost two pounds. I’ve got to lose at least ten.
Matt: Why?
Kimberly: Because I’m overweight.
Matt: Says who?
Kimberly: Dr. Tawa.
Matt: She’s full of crap. To me, you are perfect. ;)
That’s his last text: to me, you are perfect. And after that the onslaught of emoticons from Kimberly. I instantly sort the upset in my head into four specific sections:
“Up and down.” What’s that supposed to mean? Is he complaining about the chaste and complicated nature of our affair to his wife, even though she doesn’t know it? That’s just inappropriate.
“To me, you are perfect” is what he said to me just before he gave me the Kiss That Changed Everything. How could one person consider both Kimberly and me to be perfect? We are complete and polar opposites. And also, if he’s even considering leaving his wife for me, why on earth would he be telling her that she’s perfect? Obviously, he must think she’s defective in some pretty substantial areas or else why is he here with me, trying to get my bikini off in the infinity pool?
Seeing “To me, you are perfect” written out has just reminded me that this is not in fact some romantic line that Matt created in the moment, inspired by nothing but the strength of his emotions for me and the soft white candlelight. No. It’s from a movie we watched together a decade ago. It’s what some guy flashed on a cue card at Keira Knightley on her doorstep while stating that he was too honorable to consider having an affair with her. Again, I’m pretty sure this falls somewhere on the irony spectrum.
The winky face. He stole a line from a movie, used it on two women, but the worst crime of all is the stupid winky face at the end. It just lowers the tone. What does it even mean?
I agreed to come on this trip, was persuaded, purely because of the strength of his passion for me. Because of what he said about me being perfect to him. I thought that I was going to be able to truly and absolutely connect with another human being in
a way that I hadn’t in years. But now I see it in HDTV clarity: I’m just a symptom of his middle-aged crisis. He doesn’t want me. He wants twenty-seven-year-old me. He’s not looking for something real, he just wants to escape from his own reality. Jesus Christ.
Just for kicks, I check the next text down. It’s from an unnamed number. It simply says: Dinner when you get back? I click on the message and am confronted with a headless image of a pair of awkward, tiny breasts. I am instantly so mad I feel the entire top of my body rush with angry, warm blood. Whose boobs are these? There’s nothing else in the message chain. I look closer at the pic. It appears to have been taken in a harshly lit bathroom. Just at the bottom of the image there’s a thin line of blue waistband. I know that blue. That’s JetBlue Cabin Crew Blue. He fucked that flight attendant. That’s who was banging in the first-class bathroom: August and Matt.
Right.
Matt’s coming back from the house now. He’s marching pretty fast with my hat scrunched up in his right hand. He can see I’m reading his phone. He’s furious. Well, I’m about to top it.
“Looking for this?” I say as he gets within earshot, and deftly drop the phone into the pool.
Life After Coffee Page 21
