by Joy Fielding
“How would you feel if you found out she’d been with another guy and hadn’t told you?” Suzy asked.
“I don’t know.” Surprised, more than anything, Jeff thought. Maybe a little hurt. And something else, he realized. He’d be relieved. “Did you know that Dave paid a visit to the Wild Zone yesterday?”
“What?”
“He hit on Kristin, gave her his card, told her to give him a call.”
“I don’t understand. Why would he . . . ?”
“You know how a dog marks his territory by peeing over another dog’s scent? I think your husband was doing essentially the same thing.”
“Interesting analogy,” Suzy remarked.
“What are we going to do about him?” Jeff asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you going to leave him?”
“He’d never let me go.”
Jeff nodded understanding, said nothing for several long seconds. “My mother’s dying,” he said finally.
“I’m sorry.”
“According to my sister, it could be any day now. She wants me to come home to Buffalo.”
“Will you?”
“No,” he said.
“Why not?”
“My mother handed me over to my father when I was eight years old. She said I looked too much like him and that basically looking at me made her sick. I saw her infrequently over the years, and then not at all. She didn’t feel any particular need to see me when she was well; I don’t feel any particular need to see her now that she’s sick. I guess that makes me pretty callous.”
“Hey, I’m the one who said she wished her husband was dead,” Suzy offered with one of her sad smiles.
“We make a great pair.”
“I think we do.”
Jeff reached over to brush some hairs away from her cheek. “So do I.”
“I think you should see her,” Suzy said.
“What? Why?”
“Because I think you should tell her how you feel.”
“Tell a dying woman I loathe and despise her?”
“Do you?”
Jeff shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“I think you should see her,” Suzy repeated. “Find out.”
“I think you should leave your husband.”
Suzy smiled. “How can I do that?”
“I’ll think of something,” Jeff said.
KRISTIN WAS CHANGING the bedsheets when she heard the door to the apartment open and close. “Will?” she called out. “Is that you?”
“No, it’s me,” Jeff said, coming into the bedroom, surreptitiously sniffing his fingers to make sure he’d washed away all traces of Suzy. “You see my wallet anywhere around? I thought I left it on the dresser.”
“Will has it,” Kristin said, a puzzled look filling her face. “He was supposed to take it to you at work. Didn’t you see him?” Was it her imagination, Kristin wondered, or had she just seen Jeff flinch? She pushed her hair away from her face and tucked her blue-striped shirt into her cutoff jeans, waiting for his answer.
“I wasn’t at work,” he admitted after a pause.
“You weren’t?”
“No.” Another pause. “I lied to you. And to Will. And then to Larry. I told him I was sick.”
“Why?” Kristin asked. “Where were you?”
Another pause, longer than either of the previous two. “I was with Tom.”
“What? Why?” Kristin asked again, studying Jeff’s face. She could almost see the mechanics of his brain working, ticking behind his eyes like the inside of a clock. She listened as he explained his earlier lies with what she recognized immediately were more lies, something about Tom freaking out and having to go over to calm him down, talk him out of doing something crazy. And then more lies about not telling her or Will the truth because he hadn’t wanted to worry them. “You don’t usually lie to me,” Kristin said, her voice soft, betraying nothing. “You’re surprisingly good at it.”
“I’m really sorry.”
Kristin nodded as she absorbed his false apology. Did men really believe women were so gullible or did they just not care? “How is he?” she asked, deciding to play along. “Were you able to calm him down?”
“Yeah.” Jeff sighed with what Kristin understood was relief that his story had been so easily accepted. “Took half the morning,” he continued, embellishing his account unnecessarily, as liars often did. “He was literally bouncing off the walls when I got there. He’s really upset about this shit with Lainey.”
“She was here this morning,” Kristin told him.
Jeff’s body instantly tensed. “Lainey was here? Why?”
“She wants you to talk to him.”
“Well, there you go.” He forced a laugh from his throat. “Mission already accomplished.”
“You really think you got through to him?”
Jeff shrugged. The shrug said, “Who knows?”
“You don’t think he’d actually do anything, do you?” Kristin asked, the feel of Lainey crying in her arms still fresh.
“Like what?”
“Hurt Lainey or the kids.”
“No. Of course not. Tom’s all bluster and bullshit.”
“He wasn’t all bluster in Afghanistan.”
“That was different.”
“Tom’s the same.”
“He’ll be okay.”
“He has a gun.”
“No,” Jeff said. “We have his gun. Remember?”
Kristin pictured Tom’s gun lying in the top drawer of her nightstand. So it’s still there, she thought. “He said he has others.”
“Tom says a lot of things.”
“Most of which scare the shit out of me,” Kristin said.
“Which is exactly why I didn’t tell you where I was going.”
Kristin walked over to Jeff, put her arms around his neck, and raised her lips to his. “You’re very sweet.”
Jeff kissed her lightly, then backed out of her embrace. “I should get going. I told Larry I’d try to make it in this afternoon.”
Oh, no you don’t, Kristin thought, catching the faintest whiff of expensive perfume clinging to his skin and batting her eyes seductively as she reached for him again. You’re not getting out of this as easily as that. “You sure you don’t have a few minutes?”
“I wish I did.”
“I just changed the sheets. They’re nice and fresh.”
“Sounds very tempting, but I can’t.”
“We could do it standing up,” Kristin teased. “Save time. Do it right here against the wall.”
“And if Will comes home and finds us?”
Kristin smiled. “Guess we could ask him to join in.”
Jeff laughed, backing into the hallway. “Rain check?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice a singsong as she began undoing the buttons on her blouse. “It might not rain for some time.”
“Ah, come on, babe. Don’t do this to me. I really have to go. You don’t want me to lose my job, do you?”
Kristin plopped down on the freshly made bed. “Okay. Be a spoilsport. Go to work. But you owe me.”
“I do, indeed.” Jeff returned to the bed, planted a delicate kiss on Kristin’s forehead. “See you later.”
“See you,” Kristin called out as Jeff left the room. Seconds later, she heard the front door close.
She remained sitting at the foot of the bed for several minutes, trying to digest what had just happened, to understand exactly what everything meant. Jeff had lied to her, which was unusual in itself. He’d also lied to his brother and his boss and only confessed when confronted. That confession had consisted of even more lies, although kudos to him for coming up with something even vaguely plausible under the circumstances. It wasn’t every man who could think on his feet like that when cornered.
Just as it wasn’t like Jeff to turn down an offer of sex, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how great the risk to his job. Hadn’t he lost his last
job because he’d gotten a little too chummy with a client?
Which left only one possible explanation for the deception: He’d been with someone else.
A woman.
And not just some woman he’d picked up at the gym or in a bar, a woman to be used and discarded, like an old tissue. Not just another notch on his belt, another conquest to boast about with the boys. This one was different. This one wore expensive perfume and was worth lying about. Which meant their encounter went beyond mere sex, that Jeff actually felt something for this woman, and that was the reason he hadn’t told her the truth.
The reason he hadn’t told his brother was also easy to deduce, since it only confirmed what Kristin already knew.
The reason’s name was Suzy Bigelow.
TWENTY-TWO
JEFF DECIDED TO WALK the dozen or so blocks to work. It was a beautiful day, sunny and hot to be sure, but slightly less humid than in recent weeks. And he was feeling great. Not that he’d enjoyed lying to Kristin. He hadn’t. But he was relieved she’d accepted his story about Tom without question, and he rationalized that there was no reason to tell her the truth, not yet anyway, at least until he knew where things stood with Suzy.
“Suzy,” he said aloud, enjoying the feel of her name on his lips. When was the last time he’d felt this way about a woman?
Had he ever?
At first he’d assumed his ardor was stoked mainly by rejection, by her seeming indifference to his easy charms, her stated preference for his brother. The fact that she was married had only added to her allure. And yet she’d proved too complicated for simple seduction. As tough as she was vulnerable, she’d wrapped herself around his brain as tightly as an Ace bandage. As late as this morning he’d assumed that by getting into her pants he’d finally get her off his mind. But if anything, the opposite had happened. She was even deeper inside his head than before, etched like hieroglyphics into the side of his skull. Her presence infiltrated his every thought. He couldn’t take a breath without feeling the subtle rise and fall of her breasts against his chest.
He was being ridiculous, he knew. He’d known her less than a week, for God’s sake. Five days! How could a woman he barely knew have managed to consume him to such a degree? Yes, they were good together in bed, better than good, he amended quickly. Maybe even great. But what was that old saying? Even when sex was bad, it was good?
Except it hadn’t been just sex, Jeff realized. He hadn’t nailed her, screwed her, fucked her. Whereas the sex act was usually all about him— his pleasures, his needs, his satisfaction—everything he’d done with Suzy had been for her pleasure, her needs, her satisfaction. From the minute they’d entered that motel room, everything he’d done had been done for her, not to her. They’d actually made love, he realized, stopping dead in his tracks, for the first time beginning to understand the meaning of that phrase.
So what exactly does it mean? he wondered, pushing one leg in front of the other, forcing himself to keep walking. Did it mean he was falling in love? “Don’t be ridiculous,” he told himself, stopping again, catching sight of his reflection in the large front window of a local travel agency. Who are you? he wondered, staring the stranger down. What have you done with Jeff?
How can a man who’s never been loved possibly understand what it means to love another human being? his reflection asked.
I don’t know, Jeff answered silently. I just know that if loving somebody means thinking about her twenty-four hours a day, then I love her right out of my mind.
“Shit,” he said out loud. What was happening?
“Can I help you with something?” a woman mouthed from inside the front window of the travel agency. She stepped into his reflection, her large frame all but obliterating his already tenuous presence as she pointed to a handwritten sign offering a number of trips at a deep discount. He could fly to London for less than seven hundred dollars, Rome for just under nine. There was a seven-day, all-inclusive trip to Cancùn for only four hundred and ninety-nine dollars. “A steal,” he heard her say through the glass.
Jeff shook his head, waved the woman away, although the thought of spiriting Suzy off to some exotic locale was unbearably tempting. But while he might have been able to persuade Larry to give him some time off work, while he might even have been able to convince Kristin that he needed some time away by himself, he doubted Suzy would be able to come up with any kind of story that would convince her husband to let her take off for a week without him.
Unless Dave Bigelow was no longer in the picture.
Yeah, right, Jeff thought, hurrying away from the window and picking up his pace. What the hell was he thinking now?
I have such terrible thoughts, he heard Suzy say. He’ll be sleeping, and I’ll think about going into the kitchen and getting one of those big, long knives and stabbing him right through the heart. Or setting fire to the mattress. Or running him over with my car. Sometimes I imagine how wonderful it would be if an intruder were to break into the house and shoot him.
Could he do it? Could he burst into the man’s house and gun him down in cold blood? Jeff wondered, breaking into a sweat as he turned the corner, the bakery beneath Elite Fitness popping into view. “No way. You’re out of your fucking mind,” he said out loud, pulling open the door and staring up the steps leading to the gym.
“Hey, you,” Caroline Hogan said, appearing at the top of the landing, loud rock music blasting behind the closed gym doors. “Where were you this morning? We missed you.”
“Touch of food poisoning.”
“Yuck. Well, fortunately Larry was able to find someone to fill in for you,” she said, touching his arm as she ran down the steps. “He was actually pretty good. Anyway, feel better. Gotta run.”
“Have a good day,” Jeff muttered over his shoulder as he headed up the stairs.
Melissa was at his side the minute he entered the gym. “I believe this is yours,” she confided, handing Jeff his wallet. “Some guy brought it in this morning, seemed quite upset when I told him you’d called in sick. He might have aroused Larry’s suspicions.”
“It’s okay,” Jeff said. “Don’t worry.”
“Are you all right?”
“Fine. Much better,” he amended as Larry approached.
“Perfect timing,” Larry said. “Your next client is due any minute. He called about ten minutes ago to make sure you’d be here.”
“Sorry about this morning,” Jeff apologized, preparing to elaborate. But Larry was already walking away. “Who’s the client?” he asked Melissa.
“Somebody new.” Melissa was checking her appointment book as heavy footsteps bounded up the stairs. “I think Larry said he’s a doctor,” she said as the door opened and Dave Bigelow stepped inside.
WILL HAD BEEN walking the streets of South Beach in a fog for the better part of the morning. He’d narrowly escaped being hit by a young man rollerblading down Drexel Avenue, only to walk smack into a woman with a cane coming out of the Espanola Way Art Center. She’d sworn at him in Spanish and raised her cane into the air, as if about to strike him down. A new variation on the old expression “raising Cain,” he’d thought, laughing as he’d headed toward beautiful Flamingo Park. There he spent ten minutes absently watching the joggers along the scenic pathways, then another five staring at a bunch of shirtless guys in tight blue shorts playing basketball on the practice courts. When one of the players stopped and asked him if he’d like to join in, Will had demurred and continued on his way, stopping minutes later at the Olympic-size open-air pool to watch a group of giggling adolescent girls butcher an impromptu synchronized swimming routine.
He’d then trailed a bunch of bicyclists to the Art Deco District, its single square mile chockablock full of art deco homes, hotels, and assorted buildings constructed in the 1930s and ’40s, most of them repainted a variety of Miami Vice pastels during the 1980s. Eventually he’d made his way over to Ocean Drive, where he stood for several minutes outside the Mediterranean-style former mansion of
Gianni Versace, staring at its elaborate architectural flourishes and brushing away the dragonflies that buzzed around his head like a bunch of miniature helicopters. A herd of tiny gecko lizards accompanied his every step, racing along the sidewalks and darting between his feet as he continued on his desultory way, ultimately disappearing into the spectacular, if haphazard, display of palms, ferns, and flowers that sprouted along every available surface. South Florida was just a jungle after all, he reminded himself.
You are entering the Wild Zone.
Proceed at your own risk.
Eventually Will found himself back on the corner of Espanola Way and Washington Avenue. He lingered awhile in Kafka’s Cyber Kafe, leafing through a number of obscure international magazines, although he spoke neither French nor Italian nor German. He thought of e-mailing his mother on one of the numerous computers available at the back, then decided against it. What would he say to her, after all?
That she’d been right about Jeff?
Is she? Will wondered, hearing his stomach rumble and realizing he’d missed lunch. “Don’t forget to eat,” his mother had warned him, practically the last words she’d uttered before he took off for Miami. Not “Say hello to Jeff.” Not even “Don’t do anything foolish.” No. It was “Don’t forget to eat.” Advice you give a child.
Was that how everyone saw him?
“I’ll have a double espresso,” he told the young man behind the counter at the Cyber Kafe.
He’d been wrong to come to Miami, he decided. Wrong to seek Jeff out, to think he could reestablish a relationship with the brother he hadn’t spoken to in years. Wrong to think he was actually making headway, that he was more than just a mild curiosity, more than a pesky reminder of an unhappy past, that he might actually mean something to Jeff, that they were friends now as well as family. And not just “half brothers” either, with all the unfortunate connotations that “half” contained, as if each brother was somehow lesser, as if both had been cut in two, the two halves never quite equaling a whole.
I was wrong to come to Florida, he thought, trying not to picture Suzy in his brother’s arms. Could Tom possibly be right about them being together?
