22
Do Over
IN MY adult life I could only recall a handful of times when I would actually go as far as to define my current state as one of "exhilaration." For me, that kind of euphoria was usually observed in others and not normally experienced firsthand.
This morning was one of those rare moments when I was... dare I say it... happy.
Daniel Miller was my first "pass" in over two months, and that was cause for celebration. Well, not a real celebration. Like with champagne and those little paper coil things that expand when you blow into them. A little personal celebration, in my head.
I poured myself a large bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and plopped down on the couch to enjoy my carb-o-licious breakfast. As I crunched on a spoonful of honey-sweetened Os, my feet on the coffee table, the bright, warm sunshine seeping in through my white satin curtains, I felt like I was in a cereal commercial.
With the help of this nutritious breakfast, I was ready to take on the world.
All that was missing was the little Honey Nut Cheerios bee buzzing into my living room to graciously pour the milk into my bowl and giggle when I poked him in the stomach. Or was that the Pillsbury Doughboy? I get all of those cartoon spokespeople confused.
It was a beautiful day. And it was about to get even better. Because in only a few short hours I would be making the long, winding drive to Sarah Miller's house to deliver the good news personally. If there was anything better than a proven faithful husband, it was informing the dubious wife of the fact.
And to be honest, unfortunately, it's not news I've been able to deliver very often in the past.
Only nine times, to be exact.
And I know that doesn't sound like a lot. It may even seem downright depressing. But here's the way I see it (or at least the theory that I've invented to keep myself from jumping in front of an eighteen-wheeler on the 405): Nine men out of around two hundred is
4.5 percent. And yes, that is a depressing statistic. But you have to figure that the pool of two hundred men I'm dealing with is not an accurate sampling of all men. These are not the husbands, boyfriends, and fiancés of normal, trusting women. These are not the husbands, boyfriends, and fiancés of women in healthy, trusting relationships. These are the husbands, boyfriends, and fiancés of women with reasonable cause for suspicion. And if you give women's intuition the benefit of the doubt, then these two hundred men were pretty much doomed to fail from the start.
It's not to say that 95.5 percent of all men will cheat given the opportunity. I look at it as 95.5 percent of all women are correct when they get the "feeling" that their men are capable of adultery.
And that's why I do this. Or at least, that's how it started out. To give these women the opportunity to confirm or deny their suspicions.
But today was a different day. If there was ever a suspicion that you'd want to be wrong about, I suspect this would be it. And I was more than certain that bringing this good news to Sarah Miller, no matter how strange a person she was, would be the highlight of my week. And hopefully, the highlight of her century.
Not even the thought of my upcoming fidelity inspection of Sophie's fiancé could get me down right now. In fact, I don't even know why I was so reluctant to agree to it in the first place. He would obviously pass.
Friday night would be a breeze. Eric would barely even look at me twice. Why should he? He has an amazing, sexy, sweet, intelligent fiancée waiting for him at home. What the hell would he want with me?
And then a disturbing thought hit me. My chewing slowed from a crunchy chomp to a soggy, cowlike gnaw. What if he didn't?
What if he took the bait, flirted, bought me drinks, stared at my cleavage, kissed me, unzipped the back of my dress, touched my...
I suddenly felt nauseous. I placed the bowl of cereal down on the coffee table with a loud clank.
This was the love of Sophie's life. And I was about to throw myself in front of him with a low-cut top and a face full of sultry eye makeup?
Had I lost my mind?
What kind of a friend even does something like that?
I picked up the phone and dialed Sophie's number from memory. Her number was stored in my speed dial, but somehow, punching in all the digits felt more dramatic. More proactive.
She answered after one ring. "What's up?"
"Are you sure you want to go through with this?" I kept my tone light and casual, as if this was a common courtesy call I placed to all my clients on the Tuesday before their scheduled inspection. Just part of the proper fidelity inspector protocol – make sure your clients are fully onboard before you throw yourself into the wolf's playground dressed as a sheep.
Sophie sighed loudly into the phone. It came through sounding like a muffled Darth Vader breath. "Yes, Jen. We've been over this. I need to know."
"I can tell you right now what you need to know." I could feel desperation seeping into my voice. I tried to filter it out. "He's going to turn me down. He's going to pass. So there's really no point in putting yourself through this."
Or me, I thought.
"Well, if you're so sure," she began sensibly, "then it should be no big deal for you to go down there and get it over with."
Damn it. She was using logic. I hate it when she does that.
"But after he passes, don't you think it will be a little weird when he finally meets me for real and suddenly realizes that his fiancée's best friend had just happened to be at the same bar as him before the wedding and pretended not to know who he was?"
I could almost hear Sophie's gears turning as she thought about this for a few seconds. "Well, I guess we'll just have to deal with that when the time comes, won't we? It's more important that I know the truth. And besides, you owe me."
"For what?" I asked insistently.
"For keeping your entire life a secret for the past two years," Sophie said matter-of-factly.
I fell silent. "Oh, that."
She laughed. "Yes, that. And now is your chance to repay me. And I must admit, the punishment fits the crime pretty damn well, don't ya think?"
I muttered some type of agreement and hung up the phone.
So much for getting out of that one.
Let's just hope I'm right and my cheater radar isn't giving off false hopes.
LATER THAT morning I pulled into the Millers' driveway and stepped out of the car. Just as I placed my finger on the doorbell, the front door swung open. Sarah Miller stood in the entryway, smiling ear to ear with an unnatural look about her. But this time it was something I had prepared myself for.
"Fresh-baked cookies?" she offered me as I sat down on the couch.
What kind of wife offers a fresh-baked cookie to the woman who might have successfully seduced her husband into bed? True, he hadn't, but she couldn't have possibly known that for sure. Because if she had, what was I even doing here in the first place? I thought this lady had spent a little too much time in front of an open oven.
"No, thank you," I declined politely. I vowed to remain completely professional and curb my own enthusiasm about the assignment's positive outcome.
Sarah smiled and took the seat across from me. "My husband got home fairly early last night. You're quite efficient," she said with a creepy wink.
"Well, Mrs. Miller," I began, ignoring her unsettling attitude. "This is how it works." I launched into my usual pre- results speech about giving her the opportunity to hear as little or as many details as she feels comfortable with.
She nodded eagerly. "Yes, yes. I understand. What happened?"
I took a deep breath. "I'm happy to inform you that your husband passed the fidelity inspection."
Wow, it sounded even better out loud than it did in my head. I watched her anxiously, anticipating the sigh of relief. The tears of joy. The deep breath that she had been waiting to exhale for nearly five days. And maybe even an appreciative hug to go with it.
But it never came.
Sarah Miller looked at me with a baffled and somewhat di
scouraged expression. "What do you mean, he passed?"
I assumed she simply didn't understand the terminology, and was fairly confident that once it was explained, I would get the response I was looking for.
"I mean," I began willingly, "your husband did not engage in any actions that would imply his propensity toward unfaithful behavior."
Her face remained a blank page, with perhaps one of those confused emoticons that people use in their instant message conversations. The one that looked like: :s. Pasted smack dab in the middle of the blank page.
"I don't understand," she said. It almost sounded like she was arguing with me. Like she was questioning my results. "How could he have passed?"
I wasn't quite sure how to proceed from here. I never thought that a "passed" inspection would get this kind of scrutiny. Apparently, when describing an assignment's outcome, the word positive is a subjective term.
"Well," I stated warily. "He, um—"
But she didn't let me finish. "You must have caught him on a bad day," she speculated accusingly.
My mouth dropped open. She couldn't possibly be serious.
"I mean, did he seem distracted?" she continued. "There has to be a reason. I'm very convinced that my husband is a cheater. I kindly ask that you retest him."
She didn't even flinch. It was as if she were standing at the counter of McDonald's simply saying, "I ordered this Quarter Pounder with no mustard. I kindly ask that you remake it."
"Um, Mrs. Miller," I attempted. "I don't think retesting your husband will change the results. I stand by my assessment wholeheartedly. He was clearly uninterested in any type of extramarital activity."
But she wasn't satisfied with this response. She clasped her hands tightly together in her lap, and I could have sworn I saw her knuckles go white. "Yes, well, if I recall, he came home that night very tired and preoccupied. He wasn't himself. I think, given the circumstances, a retest is in order. He'll be down at the docks on Saturday afternoon. You can bump into him there."
"But..." I protested.
"I'm sure he'll be more than willing to invite you onto that boat of his. You being as pretty as you are."
I couldn't believe what was happening. I bring this woman the best news you can bring a suspicious wife, and instead of being overjoyed and breaking open champagne, or running out to buy some new, sexy lingerie at Victoria's Secret to reward her faithful husband, she simply demands a recount?
I tried to get myself out of it. "I honestly don't think that will do any good, Mrs. Miller," I said as gently as possible.
"I will pay you for a second inspection if that's what you're worried about," she said immediately. "Same fee as before." And with that she was up, off her seat, and back in front of the wooden secretary in the corner. I watched again with fascination as she counted out large bills from the same white envelope, and then walked over to me and shoved them into my hand. "For Saturday afternoon," she clarified.
I studied the equally large, second stack I was now holding. The amount was staggering. I could barely fathom what was going through this woman's head. And before I could say another word, or give it another thought, she was literally hustling me to the door.
"Well, I have tons of housework to do, so I guess I'll speak with you next week."
And that was that. The next thing I knew, I was standing outside the house, wondering what the hell had just happened inside.
"YOU ABSOLUTELY have to let me come!" John gushed the moment I told him about my mysterious "do over" of Daniel Miller's inspection. We were sitting on the floor of my living room, sharing a take-out dinner from the Indian restaurant down the street while half-watching Talk Soup.
I suddenly wished I had chosen Zoë to vent to instead of John. "Are you insane? Of course you can't come. Why would you even want to?"
"Because I've been dying to watch one of these things ever since I saw your face on that Web site."
"Ugh," I said, taking a bite out of a piece of naan. "Don't remind me. Yesterday the link was forwarded to me in an e-mail from someone I went to high school with, asking if this was really me. I was mortified. I've literally become afraid of e-mail now. And trust me, this is not the day and age to be afraid of e-mail. Every time my Treo beeps with an incoming message, I instantly start to panic. I'm convinced that this is the one, the one that's going to break me. From my mom, or Jamie...or my fifth-grade teacher maybe."
"Gotta love viral marketing."
I shook my head. "Well, I guess that answers my question of whether or not I'm going to go to my ten-year high-school reunion."
John laughed. "Jennifer Hunter, voted most likely to sleep with married men for a living."
"For the last time, John, I don't sleep with them!"
"C'mon. Just let me come. I want to learn the biz."
"What do you think this is, Take Your Gay Friend to Work Day?"
"I'm serious!" he whined. "I love going down to the docks."
"You just like saying 'the docks.'" I licked the last of the chicken tikka masala sauce from my fork and stood up to bring the plate into the kitchen.
"Pleeeeeease." He pulled himself onto his knees in front of me and pleaded with his eyes.
I rolled my eyes at him. "Fine."
"Yes!" John jumped up and celebrated with an over-the-top victory dance in the middle of my living room.
"But you have to be inconspicuous. I can't have my cover blown. Especially since this will already seem suspicious enough... bumping into him for the second time."
He rubbed his hands together eagerly. "Oh, don't you worry, little missy. My disguise will be so good, even you won't recognize me."
I shot him a warning look. "John, do not go overboard."
He gazed at me innocently. "What? When do I ever go overboard?"
THE CLOCK hadn't moved in what felt like two hours. But that didn't stop me from staring at it.
9:13 P.M.
I silently willed it to fast-forward to midnight, like a Cinderella hopeful in reverse, knowing full well that at midnight it would all be over: the coach would turn back into a pumpkin, the dress would disintegrate into rags, and I would be once again alone, in my bedroom.
Unlike me, Cinderella actually wanted to go to the ball. She wanted it so badly that a fairy godmother magically materialized to grant her wish with the wave of a wand.
And if I knew there would be a Prince Charming waiting for me at my destination this evening, I would have wanted to go, too.
But tonight wasn't about Prince Charmings. Not for me, anyway. For me it was about charming somebody else's prince.
Somebody I cared dearly for and would have done anything in the world to keep her safe and happy – even this, apparently.
The clock flipped to 9:14.
Exactly fourteen minutes ago Eric Fornell, the love of Sophie's life, should have entered a local bar merely minutes from my house with a group of friends he hadn't seen since college.
In exactly forty-six minutes, Ashlyn would be, coincidentally, entering the same bar. Or at least that was the plan. Leave the house at 9:45 P.M. so I could arrive at the bar at ten o'clock, which would give me ample time to determine whether or not Eric was the cheating type and then get the hell out of there. After that I would call Sophie at midnight with the long-awaited results.
Until then she would be waiting by the phone.
Nine-fifteen P.M.
I sighed loudly and pulled my eyes away from the digital clock on my nightstand. I stood up and walked into my bathroom to start on my makeup.
"Nothing too dramatic," Sophie had instructed me yesterday. "Eric likes girls with natural beauty. But be sure to show cleavage. He's a textbook boob man. Although he'd never admit that to me, but a girl can just sense these kinds of things."
I stared at myself in the mirror and adjusted my cleavage-maximizing bra until my breasts pressed against each other to form a perfect crease down the middle of my chest. I opened my makeup drawer and fished around for my earth-toned sh
ades.
"And don't play dumb with him," she continued earnestly. "Eric likes well-read women who have something to contribute to the conversation, not just pretty faces."
Part of me wanted to do and say the exact opposite of whatever Sophie had instructed me: dramatic eye makeup, the flattest-chested shirt hanging in my closet, and a conversation filled with comments that made me look like a complete airhead. Such as, "If this is a German beer, why is the label in English?"
But I knew that would be dishonest.
If I were really going to go through with this, I would do it right. No shortcuts, no skipping ahead in line, no cheating the potential cheaters. I would give Sophie the same dedicated focus and work ethic that I offered to every other client.
9:34 P.M.
God, I hate that clock.
I sat back down on my bed and refocused my eyes on it.
This is ridiculous, I thought to myself. Just get up and walk out the door. It's very simple. You open the door, you walk through it, you close it behind you. What's so freaking complicated about that?
9:40 P.M.
But my body wouldn't move. The backs of my legs were cemented to the white down comforter. My feet were melded to the floor. My eyes were fixated on the clock.
9:42 P.M.
Get up!
I tried to tell myself this would be an easy night. Quick and simple. I'd probably be out the door in a matter of minutes. I'd walk in, order a drink at the bar, and upon locating the subject in question, I'd flash my flirty eyelashes, keep my breasts in his eye line, and then do my best to cram witty and intelligent quips into what was sure to be a short, five-minute conversation – if that.
Sophie could finally rest easy tonight – and every night for the rest of her life. And I would once again feel the rush of adrenaline and satisfaction that had inspired me to start this job in the first place. Knowing that I had just helped someone.
9:45 P.M.
Okay, it's time, I told myself. This is what you do. If you can't do this for Sophie, then what's the point in doing it at all?
Fidelity Files Page 29
