by Hazel Hughes
Her mother made a face. “I had to promise them something. Keenan, especially, was none too pleased to give up a birthday party to drive all the way up here.” She looked at her daughter, her clear green eyes intense. Elizabeth gulped, thinking, She knows. But Connie just patted her affectionately on the back and said, “Come on. If we don’t hoof it, we might have to sit near that infernal arcade.”
Elizabeth laughed, too loud in her relief. She felt like all the events of the past week were playing on a screen on her forehead for everyone to see. She felt like Hester Prin from Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the flaming A for “adulterer” pinned to her chest. Better get over that, she told herself. She grabbed Gwen’s hand, on autopilot, as the four of them crossed the street to where the car was parked.
“When does Steve get back?” Elizabeth asked, unlocking the doors of her familiar mint green minivan, marveling at the fact that for a whole week she had been a woman who rode subways and taxis and slim-hipped, beautiful lying bastards.
“Keenan, keep your hands to yourself,” Connie snapped over her shoulder as she climbed into the passenger seat. “He should be home by the weekend. Unless his trip gets extended again.”
Elizabeth didn’t so much as ignore the sarcasm in her mother’s voice as glaze over it. The weekend, she thought, calculating mentally. That would give her three days to forget New York and Sebastian and construct an alternate version of her trip. She could do that. She was a writer, after all. Fantasy was her trade.
*
Sebastian’s first email was waiting for her when she got online the next morning. She had finally managed to fall asleep at around 2:00 the night before, having spent several hours trying to distract herself by reading one of the stack of books she had lying on her bedside table. She read the first few pages of one, and then another, and then another, never making it to the end of the first chapter. She even picked up the weighty tome Steve had left behind, but she didn’t manage to make it past the first page of Orcslayer: The Sword of Justice, Book One. She snorted derisively as she read the title. She couldn’t believe there was even one entire seven-hundred-page volume of questing and slaying and calling up demons, let alone several.
Finally, she gave up. She switched off the light, laid her head back on the pillow that smelled of the eco-friendly laundry detergent she bought to assuage her guilt about the fact that the planet was going to hell in a hand-basket, and closed her eyes. She let the images flood her mind. Sebastian after a run, flushed and sweaty and panting. Sebastian on the crisp white sheets of her bed at the Mercer wearing nothing but a knowing smile. Sebastian with a towel wrapped around his waist standing behind Susan, the same expression in both of their eyes. Amusement.
Elizabeth endured the seemingly endless stream of memories, until at some point after 1:47, the last time she looked at her digital alarm clock, the cruel computer of her brain crashed. She slept until her alarm went off at 7:00, when she awoke feeling as if something impossibly heavy was sitting on her chest, suffocating her.
“Buddy,” she moaned, pushing the great heap of grinning chocolate lab off her. She could breathe again, but the heavy feeling remained throughout the morning.
She slotted back into the weekday routine as if on autopilot. Helping her mother make breakfast and pack lunches, loading the kids into the minivan, picking up Emily’s sons, driving to George Washington Elementary, kissing each smooth round cheek and sending them on their way. Mercifully, she didn’t see Nina, who was bound to be running late, as usual. She switched her cell off, just in case, though Nina knew the hours the kids were in school were sacrosanct writing time for Elizabeth.
When she climbed the stairs to the third-floor office Steve had carved out for her under the gabled-roof, and looked out the window, she was relieved to see her mother hard at work in the garden below, preparing it for the first crops of spring. Elizabeth wouldn’t have to speak to anyone until noon. By then, the concentrated effort of using Abbie’s glaring red comments on her first draft to polish and hone her story would have cleared out any lingering cobwebs of hurt and anger, she thought.
She decided to spend the first half hour of her morning catching up on all the emails she’d neglected during her trip to New York, instantly regretting her decision when Sebastian’s name leaped out at her from her in-box.
She stared at his name and the title he had given his message, her heart thumping audibly. “Please,” it said. She hesitated briefly before opening it, breath held in anticipation.
An image filled the screen, and Elizabeth glanced guiltily over her shoulder, even though she knew her mother was outside in the garden. It was a naked male torso. Sebastian’s torso. Elizabeth would recognize that pattern of dark hair and creamy tan skin anywhere. The picture showed just the top of Sebastian’s tattoo, his firm abs, sculpted chest and shoulders and the bulge of his Adam’s apple. The shoulder angled closest to the camera was bruised. She looked at it more closely. Not bruised. Bitten. With her teeth marks.
Elizabeth looked behind her again before reading the message below the photo. In it was a long and rambling explanation of what she had seen at the hotel the morning she left. Susan was an old friend. There was nothing between them. She had let Sebastian use her shower, nothing more. He had left to catch his flight to LA out of La Guardia minutes later. There was no one else, only Elizabeth. He loved her more than he had ever loved anyone, would ever love anyone. He missed her hair, her voice, her lips and all her other pink parts. He’d thought of her when he was in the shower this morning, his hand working his wet cock. Elizabeth blushed when she read that part. Was she thinking of him?
She read the email twice before deleting it. Sebastian was a terrible writer, she reflected, critically, one of those people who use “their” instead of “there” and didn’t know where to put a period, but he certainly was persuasive.
Elizabeth sighed, standing up and looking out the window to where her mother worked, red fleece bright in the rapidly graying morning. A fine mist had started to fall, shrouding the house in the comforting quiet of precipitation. Connie was building raised mounds of earth and spreading dried cocoa nibs and straw between the beds to keep the weeds down.
While she watched her mother work, Elizabeth mulled over Sebastian’s email. He could be telling the truth. His explanation was logical. Elizabeth had checked out of the hotel. Why would he check into another room just to take a shower when his old friend would let him use hers? And she could explain the amused look in Sebastian’s eyes by reasoning that he felt so secure in their relationship that it was obvious that nothing untoward had happened or was about to happen. But the look in Susan’s eyes? That was altogether harder to reconcile with Sebastian’s story. And if something were happening between Susan and Sebastian, that would certainly account for Susan’s antagonistic behavior toward Elizabeth on set.
Elizabeth gnawed on her thumb, eyes staring out the window unseeing. The fact was, some crabbed, dark part of her psyche had crowed when she had seen the nearly naked Sebastian in Susan’s room. It had just been waiting for something like this to happen. It said, “Duh! Of course you were just a pawn in some convoluted game of X-rated chess. Why else would someone like him be with someone like you?”
Elizabeth could almost hear the voice now, at once placating and sneering. “It’s for the best, anyway,” the ugly garden gnome of her soul said. “Now it’ll be easy to end it.”
It would have petered out naturally, anyhow, Elizabeth told herself. He lived in LA, she lived smack in the middle of small-town nowheresville. The nearest commercial airport was over an hour away. He had the demanding schedule of a network TV series. She had deadlines. And children. And a husband. Even contemplating how and when they would meet brought the impracticality of the whole thing into sharp focus.
It had hurt when she thought she had been duped, betrayed, played, of course it had. It had stung with the bitter rug-burn of humiliation. But that wasn’t why she had cried half the way home. Tha
t wasn’t why she couldn’t close her eyes without seeing him or why she sighed every five minutes, trying to shift the crushing wet weight in her chest.
No, she was hurting because she knew, whether he was lying to her or not, whether he loved her or not, she would never see him again.
Chapter 11
“Do you want to have wine?” Elizabeth asked Steve.
They were at their favorite table at Cafe Diodici, a short drive from Fairfield in the neighboring town of Washington. They had managed to fill the twenty-minute ride with chit-chat about the kids and the project Steve was overseeing at work, but, in Elizabeth’s mind anyhow, they had run out of small talk. Now they could either get into an argument or spend the next hour or so in near silence.
“Nah,” Steve said, running his hand through his hair, still thick and dark though he was forty. He patted his stomach. “It’s not on the diet.”
Elizabeth nodded. She had to admit that Steve was looking better. He’d been on his new exercise and eating plan for less than a month, but Elizabeth could definitely see the shadow of his former self emerging. Men, she thought, once they got the will-power piece in place, it was so easy for them. She could starve herself stupid and run laps around the block from sunrise till sunset, but she would never lose her ass.
“Do you mind if I have a glass?” she asked.
“Suit yourself,” Steve answered, eyes on the menu.
It had been two weeks since Steve returned from Arizona and almost three since her New York trip, and this was the first time they had been alone together, awake. Steve had been staying late at the office then going to the gym. He’d have a light supper, put the kids to bed and watch an hour or so of television before going to bed himself. Elizabeth would still be in her office, working on her second draft when she heard the light click off in their bedroom below her. That’s when she would open Sebastian’s emails.
He had sent one every day since she left. Sometimes they’d be pleading, romantic gushes, full of spelling mistakes. Sometimes they’d be nothing more than forwarded links to an article or photo from a celebrity gossip site. Sometimes they’d be photos, shot from the neck down, always nude, often erect. Elizabeth had to ask herself how he was taking them, or rather, who was taking them. She read them once, hungrily, twice, savoring whatever pleasure or pain they brought her, then she deleted them. Without responding.
Ostensibly perusing the menu, Elizabeth wondered what today’s email would be. Yesterday’s had been a link to a photo of Sebastian, slick and handsome in a tux, holding hands with a pretty brunette C-list starlet in a dress so short you hoped she’d worn matching panties. They were at some fund-raising event sponsored by Calvin Klein. There was no message, only the subject line: I’ll be thinking of you.
Just remembering it made Elizabeth’s cheeks burn with jealousy and desire. That bastard, she thought, shaking her head to dispel the negative emotions.
“Are you okay?” Steve looked at her questioningly.
“Oh, yeah,” Elizabeth answered, tamping down her guilt. “I just don’t know what I want to eat.”
“I’ll have the steak and a salad, no potato, no bread,” Steve said to the pretty but awkward teenaged waitress who had appeared at his shoulder. She had the typical small-town Iowa Sun-In blond hair and acne-scarred cheeks. Elizabeth felt a flash of pity for her, remembering that awkward stage of existence.
“I still don’t know what I want,” she said, apologetically.
“What about the seafood tagliatelle?” Steve offered. “You had that the last time we were here and you wouldn’t shut up about how amazing it was. Remember?”
Elizabeth stared at her husband, unsure whether to be upset by his word choice or pleased that he had remembered she’d liked it.
“Yes, I’ll have that. And a glass of rosé,” she said, smiling at the waitress. After the girl left, she raised her eyebrow at Steve. “If I wouldn’t shut up about it, it’s definitely worth having again.”
“Aw, Liz.” Steve inhaled deeply and rubbed his eyes in frustration. “Don’t start.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak, but Steve leaned forward so that his forearms rested on the table. His eyes pleaded with her. “That came out wrong.”
Elizabeth crossed her arms defensively, realizing as she did that she wanted to be angry with Steve. She wanted him to be uncaring and selfish and rude. It made her feel less guilty. But Steve wasn’t playing fair.
A smile twitched in the corner of his mouth and his eyes glinted with mischief. She had always loved those eyes. “What I should have said was, ‘You were practically orgasmic over it.’” He moaned, imitating her, his voice a high falsetto. “Oh, Steve, this is sooo good. Oh. You have to taste it.”
“Steve,” Elizabeth hissed, slapping his arm and glancing around to make sure no one was watching. But she was smiling.
“What?” Steve said, his eyes wide, but his smile still sly. He grabbed the hand she had slapped him with and held it. Elizabeth smiled but refused to meet his warm, teasing gaze for more than a microsecond. She didn’t want him to see the guilt in her heart.
“I liked it.” His voice was soft and sweet, like clear clover honey. “That’s why I suggested you order it.” She glanced up at him again. After a month of exercise and diet, the planes of his face were taking shape again, his strong jaw and wide cheekbones emerging. His eyes looked bluer. And there was something else. Since he’d returned from his trip to Tucson, he seemed more confident. Interested. Playful.
He rubbed her fingers between his. “It has been a while.” Elizabeth knew he wasn’t talking about the pasta.
They made love that night for the first time in months, giggling and whispering like teenagers, aware of Connie McCanna’s snoring presence two doors down the narrow second-floor hall.
Elizabeth insisted they leave the lights out and wouldn’t even let Steve light a candle. She wasn’t ready for him to see her tattoo yet. She rested her elbows on their high four-poster bed and looked over her shoulder at him, invitingly. He took her from behind, simultaneously rubbing her clit with his middle finger. Elizabeth came, almost crying with relief as the waves of sensation flowed through her. She had her eyes closed, picturing Sebastian.
*
As the ball slid between the keeper’s legs and hit the back of the net with a slam, Elizabeth groaned. She looked down the bleachers to the bench where Keenan sat slumped, watching the game with the avid yet hopeless intensity of a cat watching fish in an aquarium. He held his head in his sling-free hand in despair. Keenan’s coach insisted that all the players take turns playing different positions, but during the games Keenan always played defense. That was an easy goal, she thought, the equivalent of shooting a bull’s-eye at point blank range. If Keenan had been on the field there was no way he would have let the ball get that close to the goal. She knew Keenan was thinking the same thing.
“Oh my God, did you see that?” Emily nudged her. She was wearing her lime green Fairfield Flyers sweatshirt.
“Keenan never would have allowed that little rat near the net,” Nina hissed, indignantly.
Elizabeth muffled her laugh. The player who had made the goal was small and wiry with an unfortunate over-bite that did, indeed, make him look like a rodent. Elizabeth’s eyes sought out Emily’s younger son, Avery, and Nina’s only child, Paul, who were both running madly after the ball. Neither of them looked like rats. They were attractive little boys, Avery with his tousled hair and dancing eyes, and little Paul with Nina’s fine cat-like features, but neither could compare with Keenan. Elizabeth couldn’t count the number of times complete strangers had complimented her on him. With Steve’s blue eyes, Elizabeth’s blond hair and his own full lips, he looked like a miniature Robert Redford. It had never concerned her. In fact, she was secretly proud of it. But that was before she met Sebastian. Being beautiful wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Especially if you were a boy.
As if reading her mind, Emily said, “Hey, you’ve been back near
ly a month and you still haven’t really told us about your trip to the Big Apple.”
Nina nodded her head, glancing up quickly from the game. Paul had the ball now and was running full tilt toward the opponents’ goal.
“Um, there’s not much to tell,” Elizabeth hedged, grateful for the game, so she didn’t have to meet Emily’s piercing gaze. She had been busy since she’d gotten back. Abbie wanted her second draft ASAP, Gwen had been sick with the chicken pox and her mother had been away at a prayer retreat in New Mexico. But she had been deliberately avoiding Nina and Emily, at least until the NYC trip faded in importance, replaced by more current dramas. Emily’s awl eyes could see into her soul.
“Oh, come on,” Emily said, exasperated. “Like I believe that.”
“Of course she will tell us all,” Nina said, in her matter-of-fact way. “But now is not the time. We must meet for cosmos. Isn’t that what they drink in New York?” She winked at Elizabeth before turning her attention back to the game. “Dépêche toi, Paul!” she yelled at her son, who had lost the ball to the other team and was jogging after it.
“I have a better idea,” Emily said, with a sly smile. “The station got comps to Justin Timberlake in Chicago next week. Shall we make a weekend of it, ladies? A little shopping, a few platillos comidas, a little Justin?”
“Yes!” Nina shouted. Her son had just scored a goal. The three women cheered. Emily put her fingers in her mouth and blew a shrill whistle.
Nina turned to her friends, her face aglow with pride. “Yes. Let’s do it. Girl’s weekend in Chicago.”
“Awesome!” Emily said, smiling widely. “Liz?”
Elizabeth nodded. She could regale them with stories of the on-set antics on the car ride up, get Emily off her back about New York. And, just perhaps, this might be exactly what she needed to take her mind off Sebastian.
