Lies You Wanted to Hear

by James Whitfield Thomson

  I got up with Nathan in the middle of the night, then slept in the spare bedroom. The next day Lucy acted like nothing had happened. Everything back to normal, if not more so—bacon and eggs on the table for breakfast, a kiss before I left for work. I obsessed about it all day. I kept thinking about the rage and jealousy and unbearable physical revulsion I would feel if I knew she had cheated on me.

  Then I finally realized she already had. It was the night she’d gone off with Griffin and left that note tacked to her door. She’d fucked him, knowing she was pregnant with our child. Fucked him and lied about it. I’d had the same thought back then but quickly put it out of my mind. I was too much in love and believed what I wanted to believe. Now I felt as much revulsion with myself as I did with her. How could I have been such a fool?

  It took me a long time to calm down. Maybe she hadn’t lied about that night with Griffin, but I still couldn’t understand her reaction to my supposed infidelity. I wanted more than a pout and a shrug. I wanted all those crazy, conflicting emotions that love brings. The anger that comes from being betrayed.

  In the end, I wasn’t sure who had been hurt more, her or me.

  ***

  When the plane landed I got our bags and took the twins through customs. Hector was not at the gate. A woman called out their names and hurried toward us, high heels clicking on the terrazzo floor. The girls ran to her shouting, Tia, tia. She introduced herself to me as Hector’s sister Alma. She said there had been a crisis at one of their factories. Hector had gone to Zaragoza yesterday and wasn’t sure when he’d return. Alma told me she was taking the girls to see their grandparents in Castellón for the weekend, but I was welcome to stay at Hector’s villa. The cook was there. Arrangements had been made for me to play golf at Hector’s club.

  The idea of being there alone did not appeal to me, and I politely declined. Pan Am had a flight leaving for Boston in an hour. I was disappointed that Hector had to cancel, but maybe it was all for the best. Lucy had taken Sarah and Nathan to her parents’ house for the weekend. I could fly home and catch up on my paperwork. It wasn’t easy trying to balance work and family. When I wasn’t traveling, I liked to get home by five-thirty so I could take the kids off Lucy’s hands. Even with Brenda’s help, it often seemed like she was about to unravel.

  It was four in the afternoon when the plane arrived in Boston, a balmy Indian summer day. My car was in the airport parking lot. (I still owned the T-bird but rarely drove it. Now I had a Volvo.) Traffic was light. I breezed through the tunnel and got on Storrow Drive. My office was in the back room of Javi’s flower shop in Brookline. I collected a bunch of paperwork from my desk and headed home.

  I did a double take when I saw Lucy’s car parked in the front of the house. She had said she and the kids were leaving for her parents’ yesterday. I felt my pulse quicken, my thoughts whipsawing between suspicion and dread. There weren’t any messages from her with the answering service. Maybe Lucy had gotten into one of her classic battles with Amanda and cut the visit short. I parked across the street and got out of the car. The sound of Lucy’s laughter stole through an open window in our bedroom on the second floor. For a minute or two I stood on the sidewalk, trying to decide what to do next. I wanted to believe my wife was at home with our children, but I couldn’t hang on to that illusion.

  Our front door opened into the foyer. There was a staircase on the right and a long hall to the kitchen straight ahead. Lucy was coming down the hall in a silver-blue kimono I had never seen before. She had a green beer bottle in one hand and a glass of red wine in the other. For an instant, I found myself thinking what great legs she had.

  “Matt, you’re home,” she said, trying to sound casual.

  “Yeah, Hector had to cancel our weekend.” I put my bags down. “Are the kids here?”

  “No, they’re still with my folks.”

  “Is that beer for me?”

  She looked at the bottle, then handed it to me. “Yes, perfect timing.” Her voice was giddy, her eyes glassy and filled with fear.

  “Let’s go upstairs.”

  “Matt, we have to talk.”

  “We can talk upstairs.”

  “Please, Matt, let’s just—”

  I lifted my chin. “Go!”

  She didn’t move. I grabbed her upper arm, and wine spilled out of the glass and made a dark stain on the front of her kimono.

  “Please,” she said. “Please don’t do this.”

  I squeezed her arm tighter and led her up the stairs. The staircase rose half a flight and turned left. Griffin was standing on the landing at the top in bare feet and blue jeans with the tails of a white shirt hanging out.

  “You must be Griffin,” I said.

  “I am.” He had the same stoned eyes as Lucy.

  I gave him the beer. “I think this is for you.”

  Lucy said, “Please, Matt, let’s all go downstairs and talk.”

  “Sure, okay.” I eased past Griffin. “I just want to check out the crime scene first.”

  They followed me into the bedroom. The sheets on the bed were rumpled; Lucy’s black panties lay on the floor. On the nightstand was a bong, a bottle of baby oil, and a hairbrush with a thick, smooth handle. I looked at Lucy and back at the nightstand. I clutched my stomach and bent over double and let out an anguished cry.

  “Matt!” Lucy rushed over to me. She put her hands on my shoulders and started rubbing the back of my neck.

  Her touch felt repulsive, but I didn’t have the strength to move away. I was gasping, unable to catch my breath. Lucy said something, her face near mine, but I couldn’t make out the words. I knocked her down and grabbed a fistful of hair and slapped her twice.

  “Matt, stop!” she screamed, her arms flailing as I tightened my grip on her hair.

  “What’s the matter, honey?” My face was close to hers, spit flying as I spoke. “I thought you liked it rough.”

  I saw a flash of green out of the corner of my eye and felt a burst of pain in my left ear. I let go of Lucy and staggered and fell to one knee. Griffin was standing over me, still holding the broken beer bottle. He tried to kick me, but I caught his foot, and he lost his balance and went down hard on his back. I lunged for him, but he crabbed away from me. Bits of glass dug into my palms. I stood up but was having trouble keeping my balance. Strobe lights flashed behind my eyes. Warm blood ran down the side of my face and under the collar of my shirt. I thought for a second I’d gone deaf, no sounds whatsoever in my head. Then there was a loud crash as Griffin knocked over the fireplace tools and scattered them across the hearth. Lucy was slumped against the bed like a discarded doll. Her eyes were filled with terror, her face and chest freckled with blood. Her kimono had come undone. I could see the umbrella tattoo and the dark triangle of hair between her legs. When I turned back to Griffin, he was holding the poker from the fireplace in his right hand. My eyes locked on his.

  “Bad idea,” I said. Then I reached under my sports coat and pulled out my gun.

  Chapter 19

  Lucy

  “Nanda! Mommy!” Sarah said. “Watch me. Watch!”

  She was riding her Big Wheel like a scooter, one foot planted on the seat, the other pumping the pavement of the driveway to pick up speed.

  Amanda puffed on her cigarette. “Be careful, sweetheart.”

  Sarah turned her head to make sure we were watching and stretched her leg out behind her like a bareback rider; then she steered the Big Wheel past the rhododendron onto the lawn, dove and rolled over a few times, and came up laughing.

  It was Saturday morning. I had driven down to New Canaan with the kids yesterday afternoon to spend the weekend. That was the ploy, anyway. I told Amanda I’d called the answering machine at home early this morning and gotten a frantic message from Tillie saying she needed me at the restaurant. Amanda knew I was lying but didn’t question me. Sarah did another
trick with the Big Wheel.

  “I have to get going,” I said. I was holding Nathan on my hip, an overnight bag at my feet.

  “Go. I’ll be fine.” She hesitated for a moment. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “I trust you, Mom. You’re great with them.”

  “Thank you. But that’s not what I meant.”

  “Don’t worry. You taught me well.”

  She pursed her lips. “You’re right, I’m no one to talk. But you’re swimming in dangerous waters, honey. People get hurt.”

  “Sounds like you have some regrets.”

  “Oh yes, bushels full.” She handed me her cigarette and took Nathan in her arms. “Guess you have the right to collect your own.”

  “Are you disappointed or envious?”

  “Little of both, I suppose.” She smiled. “You look like you’re glowing at the moment. Depends on how it all works out.”

  I picked up my overnight bag and put it in the back of my station wagon.

  “I’ll call this evening to check in. Oh wait, I almost forgot.” I unhooked Nathan’s car seat. “Do you want me to put it in your car for you?”

  “No, I can do it.” She took the car seat from me and set it on the ground.

  I kissed Nathan, then called out to Sarah to come say goodbye. “You be good for Nanda. Help her take care of your little brother, okay?”

  “I will,” Sarah said.

  I gave her a hug and a kiss. When I got in the car, I rolled down the window and said to Amanda, “If Matt calls…”

  “I’ll give him your love,” she said, being snide and protective in the same breath.

  It was quarter to eleven, leaving me plenty of time to drive back to Boston and meet Griffin at two. I stopped at a service station for gas and cigarettes and got on the Merritt Parkway. Tommy Tutone was on the radio, singing Sarah’s favorite song—“867-5309”—impossible not to sing along. I wondered how many thousands of prank calls it had spawned, kids dialing the number in every area code across the country. Prank calls were a rite of passage for Jill and me back in junior high. We’d call the homes of girls in rival factions, boys we had crushes on. 8-6-7-5-3-0-ny-ay-yine.

  A horn blared as I started to change lanes. I hadn’t seen the car in the blind spot on my left and had to swerve to avoid a collision. The driver gave me the finger as he went by.

  I missed Jill. The old Jill—mischievous, irreverent, blunt—not the one with the perfect house, perfect husband, three perfect kids (and hoping for more). We still spoke on the phone a few times a week but didn’t see each other much. Jill had a way of talking about the world that put me in a silent rage. She couldn’t understand why everyone wasn’t living a perfectly happy life like her own, as if mistakes and misfortune were acts of will, something that only happened to people who were stupid or careless or selfish. She tried to be supportive when I fell into my black hole of depression, but I couldn’t shake the notion that she believed I was being self-indulgent. God knows what she’d be saying now if she knew about the affair with Griffin.

  It was hard to keep my composure the first time he called. I hadn’t heard from him since the night we fled my apartment in Cambridge nearly five years before. He had been on my mind from time to time, but mostly it was a matter of curiosity, wondering where he was and what he was doing, wondering if he’d settled down and gotten married, wondering if he ever thought about me. Our first conversation was short. I agreed to meet him in Quincy Market for breakfast the following Monday morning.

  He was standing outside Faneuil Hall in a gray suit, checking his watch.

  “Lucy,” he said softly, almost shyly, when he saw me. He took both my hands and kissed me on the cheek.

  I smiled. “Hello again.”

  He stepped back, still holding my hands, looking at me with those ice-blue eyes, and I had that same dizzy, Tilt-a-Whirl feeling I got the first time we met, no joint to blame it on this time around. We went into a restaurant and sat down; the waitress brought a pot of coffee to the table and filled our cups.

  “You cut your hair,” Griffin said. “It looks terrific. Everything about you…” He shook his head, one of the few times I’d ever seen him stuck for words.

  We ordered our food and ate and talked. I told him about my job at Garbo’s, about my depression and Matt’s career change, showed him pictures of Sarah and Nathan. I asked if he was married, and he said no, never even came close. He told me his father had died a few months after I last saw him. At the funeral, he ran into an old friend of the family who was putting together a deal to build a luxury retirement community in Key Biscayne and talked Griffin into coming on board. Things had gone exceedingly well, and they were able to replicate their business model in Annapolis; now Griffin had moved to Boston to lay the groundwork for their third facility.

  He said, “Tell you honestly, I wasn’t too keen on the idea of coming back to Boston. I couldn’t stand the thought of living around here and not being with you.”

  “Some things never change,” I said, scoffing at his bullshit but loving the kick it gave to my ego.

  “No, they don’t.” He gave me a grin. “And aren’t we glad?”

  I laughed, reaching for his hand across the table, and I felt like myself again—the person I liked, the one I used to be—which defied all logic given my tortured history with Griffin. Half an hour later, we were going at it in the darkened stairwell of a parking garage, my skirt hiked up around my waist. Some so-called experts say that having an affair has nothing to do with sex; the physical stuff is simply an expression of some deeper longing. But it sure feels like something you need. You love the rush, and when it wears off, all you can think about is how and when you can get it again.

  Griffin and I met once or twice a week. It was easy to arrange, especially with Matt’s business trips. The guilt I felt had more to do with the kids than Matt, but I needed to talk about my affair with someone. I called Carla and said I wanted to come in for a tune-up. My last session with her had been shortly after Matt and I were married.

  Carla had gotten her teeth fixed; otherwise, everything was the same. I spent the first fifteen minutes in her office chattering nervously before I told her about Griffin

  Carla nodded as if she already knew. “How long have you been seeing him?”

  “About a month.” It was closer to three.

  “And you don’t want to stop?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Carla picked a few pills of lint from the sleeve of her sweater and weighed them in her hand. “Lucy, what do you want to come of this? How do you want things to work out?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m here, so you can help me figure it out.”

  “Let me ask you a simple question: Do you see yourself staying married to Matt for the rest of your life?”

  “I love him, Carla. He’s a good man, a terrific fath—”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  I shrugged. “No, I guess not.”

  “Then the only issue is how and when to end it.”

  “I don’t want to hurt him. I really don’t.”

  “Please, let’s not get on that merry-go-round again. Do you really think you’re going to find a nice way to break his heart?”

  “He cheated on me too. It was a couple months ago, with some woman he met in San Francisco.” I told Carla about the earring I’d found but not about the fight afterward, Matt raging at my indifference, scrabbling for some proof of my love.

  Carla suggested he and I go see a marriage counselor and get everything out on the table. I asked if she could take us on, but she said that wouldn’t be appropriate—she preferred being my advocate.

  “You mean you’re on my side?” I said, kidding her.

  She smiled. “You don’t make it easy, Lucy. Some of the choices you make.” She made a funny sucking sound with
her new teeth. “You have a way of…”

  “Fucking things up.”

  “You’re very good at it.”

  “It’s a gift.”

  ***

  I stopped at the service area on the Mass Pike. When I came out of the stall in the ladies’ room, there was a girl about twenty-five standing barefoot by a sink in a bra and panties, a pair of jeans and a brown T-shirt folded neatly on the floor by her feet. The girl splashed water on her worn, once-pretty face and ran her fingers through her greasy blond hair. She had the firm, slender body of a runner, but her back and thighs were scarred with cigarette burns, several of them still pink and raw. The other women in the bathroom pretended to ignore her as they traded sidelong glances of pity and aversion. The girl stoppered the drain with a wad of tissues, filled the sink with water, and began to lather her underarms with liquid pink soap from the plastic dispenser. I stood at the sink beside her and washed my hands.

  “Long journey?” I said.

  Her eyes met mine in the mirror. “All the way from hell.”

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  She gave me a crooked smile, as if to say, You must be joking.

  I said, “Is he waiting for you outside?”

  “Please, leave me alone.”

  “I could give you a ride somewhere.”

  She seemed to consider it for a second, then shook her head. She lifted one dusty foot and put it in the sink, turning the water brown as she scrubbed between her toes. I dried my hands with paper towels, unable to get her to meet my eyes again. I started for the door then went back.

  “I mean it,” I said. “I’m going to Boston. I know a women’s shelter where I can take you.”

  “What?” the girl said, raising her voice. “You think me and you can just waltz out of here and drive away? No way he’s gonna let that happen. Even if we got lucky and gave him the slip, I guarantee you he’d chase us down. Run your car off the road and kill all three of us.”