He kissed her again, harder this time and with even more force as if he didn’t want to let go. And this time she was no less surprised, but she remembered to kiss him back. She remembered what it was like to kiss someone, really kiss someone, back. And when they parted this time, he stayed very near her mouth, very near her face, as if to watch how she might react again. She smiled, warmth growing over her like a blanket.
“Cara, I’d like you to come back to my flat. Can you do that?”
Leah’s words hummed in her head like a warning: Don’t go to bed with him, don’t go to bed with him, don’t go to bed with him. She pushed them away, annoyed at the intrusion.
“I, um, well, I’m not sure I should . . .”
“You don’t have to stay. You can leave in a bit if you’d like. But I’m not quite done with you for the evening. And I’d hate to send you away just now.”
Cara didn’t want to leave. She laced her fingers in David’s and let him lead her toward his apartment the way she would have if she’d been in college, at the university. He paused only one time before they climbed the stairs that led to the front door of his Victorian, and she had a fleeting thought that maybe he had changed his mind, but he hadn’t. He held her by the hand tightly so that she couldn’t get away, even if she wanted to, and led her up the stairs slowly, patiently.
Cara couldn’t quite remember being kissed like he had kissed her, full of passion and selflessness. He had given her that kiss, like a gift, and asked nothing in return for it. She felt as if she owed him nothing, but wanted to give him everything. She remembered what it was like to be kissed by someone for the first time, the intense pleasurable feeling that rushed over her, leaving her dizzy. Jack’s kisses—infrequent, quick pecks that were both rehearsed and mundane—hadn’t been that enjoyable in years. She began to miss Jack less and less. He drifted away from her as if he was being carried down a river by the current.
David’s apartment was spacious and sprawling. Intricate molding circled the ceiling in every room; chair rail ran the length of the grand front room. The wide cedar wood planks had been refinished and covered with gorgeous area rugs. He shared the entire house with her, taking her by the hand and flipping the lights on and off so she would know her way around. David was a minimalist. To no surprise, he had impeccable taste, far from the way her suburban home had been thrown together. She swallowed hard, thinking what he would make of her worn plaid furniture, the book bags and tennis shoes that lined the entry hall, askew in every direction, the stuffed animals and piles of books, the beanbag chairs sprawled across the floor, dishes stacked in the sink, piles of laundry, stacks of mail. She pushed her other life far away from her forcibly, filed it all away in another section of her brain where she didn’t have to think about it.
He poured them both port in precious crystal glasses he told her his mother had brought him from Paris. He set these down on the petite table that sat between two angular chairs, then pulled her to her feet and walked her to the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city and bay bridge from the south end of the room. When he pulled back the paper-thin sheers that covered the windows, she gasped; the view from his parlor was spectacular. He cranked the side windows open just a small bit and stood next to her, letting the cooling city air force its way into the room. His world was too perfect, painted like a portrait that at first you find beautiful until you stare at it too long, then it becomes without fault, unreal.
Cara pushed Leah’s voice from her head, the warning her friend had repeated over and over again, and let David take her by the hand and lead her down the long corridor to his bedroom.
They went to bed together quickly. David made love the same way he seduced a client, slow and methodically, purposefully. It was as if he realized it would take Cara a while to make up her mind about what she was doing and rather than let her come to her own decision, he was going to help her make it. Surely he must have known he was the first man she had slept with in a long, long time.
For her part, Cara let everything slip away from her. Her failed marriage; the countless years of sex with Jack even when she knew he was failing her miserably and cheating on her daily. Barbie’s pregnancy. She let go of her children, her job, her friends, even the admonishment from her mother who thought she hadn’t done enough to save her marriage. She let it all run out of her mind, away from her body, off the ends of her fingertips until there was nothing left of her. When she was void of everything that had consumed her, only then did she allow David to begin to fill her back up.
He started slowly until her body responded to the way he moved on top of her, to the places his tongue wandered across her belly, down between her legs. She arched her back in response to him, rose up on her heels and rocked and rocked with him, squeezing him with her hips, with her knees. He held her tightly, so tightly that she thought she might break, and then he eased off her, bringing her back down and allowing her to level off. He did this to her, with her, for an immeasurable time, until finally he let her have the pleasure that she longed for, the unbelievable release that she had so badly needed to let burst forth.
When he was finished, he cupped her breasts gently, kissing each of them over and over again, tracing her nipples with his tongue. Together they were sweaty and sticky and a tangle of parts, but he didn’t move far from her, and she didn’t want him to go. There was very little time between him bringing her to climax, and the point when they started over again.
David understood that Cara had been imprisoned in some way, that she needed to be unlocked. He had no interest in hearing what, or, more aptly, who had done the damage, but he was aware of his responsibility in untying the knots and he readily took on the challenge. They made love twice again that night until she finally called it good, and told him she couldn’t go on. When she begged him off, he dropped to her side and smiled without saying a word.
She showered and walked the half block back to her car alone, despite his protests about her leaving to find her way alone in the middle of the night. The ends of her hair were damp and she pulled the collar of her wool coat tightly around her at the neck to keep the wind from blowing down inside her coat. During the forty-five minutes that it took her to get from the city to the Peninsula she never turned on the radio, never checked the messages that were on her cell phone, never even looked in her rearview mirror. She didn’t want a single thing to interrupt what she had done, where she had been. She stayed very present and concentrated on the road ahead of her, the curve of the freeway that ran against the bay, lit by a full moon that danced off the water. She breathed slowly, in and out, in and out, until she regained the upper hand on the order that had been upset, the chaos that had been created.
She couldn’t quite believe what she’d done. It was as if she’d become someone else, someone she hadn’t ever met, someone she wasn’t entirely sure she liked. And yet not someone she disliked, either. She didn’t think less of who she was; certainly she was free to do whatever it was she pleased. But it wasn’t as if she’d expected this type of behavior from herself. Surely Cara Clancy, devoted wife and mother of four, would never have done something like this, not in a million years. But maybe that was the point.
Cara had never had a one-night stand. Not in college, not afterward, certainly not in recent years while she had been married to Jack. A one-night stand was completely out of character for her, something she had sworn she would never do, something she had gossiped about when it came to other people, disdain crossing her face as she shook her head back and forth. It was something she had lectured Mel about, time and again.
She longed to call Mel. Mel would have been her first choice in confidantes. Mel would have calmed her down and told her that what she had done wasn’t something to get completely sideways about. Mel would have understood what she had done, even if Cara didn’t understand or accept it herself. Cara knew this intuitively.
Leah had waited two days before she called Cara. When she did, and Cara answered the ph
one, Leah said to her, “You slept with him, didn’t you?”
“No.” She had been practicing the lie, the tone of her voice and the measured weight at which she would answer. But even as the word sprung from her mouth, she knew Leah wouldn’t believe her.
“Cara.” She paused, waiting on her friend to crack. “Tell me the truth.”
“No. No, I didn’t.” Cara let the guilt seep into her skin like moisturizer. She couldn’t do it, couldn’t fib to Leah no matter how badly she wanted to. “Okay, fine. Yes. Yes, I slept with him.”
“Oh, Cara.”
“ ‘Oh, Cara,’ nothing. I did it. That’s all there is to it.” Cara hadn’t felt particularly guilt-ridden about it. She’d spent the last two days wondering about it, letting David creep his way back into the recesses of her mind every now and then, but she hadn’t poured over every little detail or let it weigh on her like heavy fresh snow.
Cara expected a full-blown lecture, but Leah waited only a minute before she answered. “Feel any better?”
“I don’t know. Am I supposed to?”
“Well, Christ, Cara. If you’re going to sleep with him, let’s hope you at least got something out of it. Who the hell wants to start having sex with a man who can’t frigging please you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“So?”
“Pretty damn great, Leah. Pretty fucking amazing. It had been too long . . .”
“Well, hallelujah for that.”
Cara laughed. From behind her desk, she pushed her rolling chair back and put her head down on her desk and laughed. She didn’t know what had come over her. What bit of insanity had caused her to temporarily lose sight of who she was. “God, Leah, I don’t know what I was thinking. What was I thinking? I mean, never, never, never would I do this. You know that about me. I can’t figure out what’s come over me. I really can’t. It was as if I needed something from him, some sort of rite of passage. Like I felt I had to get it out of my system.”
“I hate to say I told you so, but . . .”
Cara didn’t let her finish. She wasn’t interested in a ten-minute dissertation about sex with a younger man. “It was pure rebound, Leah. Just a one-time thing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Positive,” Cara answered her, confidently.
“What was the morning after like?”
“I wouldn’t know. I left the night before.”
“And at the office?”
“He’s gone. He’s been gone ever since. He’s away on business all week.”
“Hmmm . . .”
“Trust me,” Cara said, lowering her voice so that her officemates couldn’t hear her. “David Michel isn’t interested in a relationship with me.”
“How can you be so sure about that?”
“Come on, Leah. He’s ten years younger than I am. He’s single, very single. I don’t think he’s the marrying kind, quite frankly.”
“Who said anything about getting married, sweetie? That doesn’t mean you couldn’t have more than one great night of sex with him, you know. He might be very interested in you. Look at you, Cara. You’re beautiful, smart, energetic.”
“I live in the suburbs and I have four kids, Leah. It’s like a death sentence for someone like David Michel. What? He’s going to drive down from San Francisco so we can order pizza, rent a movie from Blockbuster and sit on the couch with Claire between us? Forget it, Leah. We’re worlds apart.”
“Okay, Cara.” Leah wasn’t convinced, but she let it go.
Cara paused a minute, waiting on something Leah might add. When Leah said no more, Cara added quickly, “Not a word of this to Mel, understand?
“Cara. You and Mel have to patch up this thing between the two of you, you know that, right? It’s ridiculous. You’re both being ridiculous.”
“Talk to Mel, Leah. Maybe you can get her to take a look at her life, the decisions she makes. I mean, how do you think that made me feel, Leah? All this time she’s been ripping Jack a new asshole about his affair, and she’s been off playing the role of the other woman. For God’s sake, Leah, she must have been laughing her ass off at me all the while.”
“Highly unlikely, Cara. Even I don’t believe that. And I don’t think you do, either. Come on, you’ve had your arguments before but this one takes the cake. Can’t you just let it go? Can’t we all just move on?”
“Are you saying that I should be okay with the fact that Melanie is having an affair with a married man? That I should just look the other way like it isn’t going on?”
“No,” Leah admitted quietly.
After they hung up Cara stared out her office window at the stream of people who ran in and out of the ferry building below. Tourists, businesspeople out for a quick bite to eat on their lunch hour, lovers meeting to sit in the sun at the café and catch up. She watched them circulate through the building, in and out, in and out, until the color of their clothing, their skin blurred into one large maze.
Cara and David came face-to-face the following Monday afternoon just after lunch. Up until that point there had been no calls, no sweet e-mails, no sign that anything further might develop between them. And Cara had settled into a funk that had left her feeling rejected and undesirable. The more she tried to convince herself that David Michel was not someone she was interested in, the more he slipped into the back of her mind.
Neither one of them spoke right off, other than to mutter hello to each other and make their way around one another. David smiled broadly at Cara, and Cara smiled a lopsided grin back before they criss-crossed each other’s paths and went their own way.
He meandered into her office later that afternoon, and slunk low into the leather-backed chair opposite Cara’s desk.
“Would you like to have dinner with me, Cara?” he asked her openly.
She rested her elbows on her desk and studied him. It was the last question she had anticipated.
“Can’t. I’m afraid I’ve got the kids tonight.” She breathed deeply, grateful for the commitment at home. It spoke volumes about the differences in their lives.
“Ah, right. The kids.”
“Ah, yes, the kids,” she said again, with emphasis. She was intrigued that he had asked, but she felt it was her responsibility to remind him that she couldn’t come and go as he did, her life wasn’t nearly as flexible.
“Another night then?” he asked her, innocently enough, and she could tell that he meant it. He was testing the ground between them, looking for weak patches in the ice.
“David?” she asked. “Do you think it’s a good idea? I don’t want to sound cliché, but we’ve got work, the office, the agency, all the rest of this to contend with.”
He smiled at her, calmly and confidently. “All the rest of this?”
“Well, certainly, my kids. And for that matter, my impending divorce. I’m not entirely sure you want to get wrapped up in any of that.”
He laughed openly at her, his eyes dancing mischievously. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”
She sighed, exasperated. She hadn’t expected him to understand. How could he? But at the same time, she didn’t appreciate being laughed at. “David,” she started, “I’m not entirely sure you could comprehend what my life is like. The kids are a bit, well, um, how can I say this, demanding? They require quite a bit of my time, as you might imagine.”
He sat with one leg crossed over the other, his hands clasped at his mouth, watching her. Not just looking at her, not in any way frightened by what she had told him, but watching her intently as if he was studying her, as if he wanted to know more, not less. He lingered in the chair, spreading his long legs out in front of him and lacing his hands behind his head. His scent was delicious, sweet and powerful, and it filled her office the same way his lanky frame did.
“So?” he asked, waiting on her. “When will you not have the kids?”
She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Wednesday,” she said to him. “The kids have dinner every We
dnesday night with their dad.”
“Wednesday, it is.”
She had warned him.
13
Katie knew all the words to the Serenity Prayer by heart. She must have said it no less than a half dozen times a day.
God grant me the serenity
Her mother was due for a visit, any minute. On the weekends Cara liked to come early, after breakfast but before their first session of the day. It wasn’t during regular visiting hours, but because Katie was a minor and because, when it came to her daughter, Cara was willing to push the envelope, Cara was afforded a more lenient schedule than were other visitors. Cara had managed to befriend the head counselor, a woman named Abigail, who was willing to look the other way when Cara needed an extra visit, or a few more minutes, just to feel close to her daughter.
To accept the things I cannot change;
Cara liked to make Katie’s bed. She liked to pull up the sheet, tuck the corners under the mattress and smooth out the wrinkles. She hated the way the thin bedspread felt in her hands, cheap and fraying, but she pulled that tight as well, and then laid the quilt she’d brought from home over the top of it.
Courage to change the things I can;
“Mom,” Katie said, “you don’t have to do that. I’m supposed to be responsible for my own surroundings. It’s part of the program. Besides, I’ve already made the bed once this morning.”
“It just needed a little bit of a touch. You’ve got enough to worry about, honey. I can do this.”
Katie was sitting in the only chair in the room, a short, square hard-backed chair with vinyl cushions. Her roommate, a nineteen-year-old single mother who had left her two-year-old with her mother when she checked into the facility for the second time, sat on the bed opposite Katie’s, watching Cara and Katie as if she was watching a debate. They lobbed niceties at each other like they were lobbing a badminton birdie over the net, lightly and easily.
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