The One Who Got Away

by Caroline Overington

  When I told Loren this, she kicked me in the shins. The next day, all of our sheets – I mean, every sheet in the house, except the Frozen sheets from the girls’ beds – were out on the lawn.

  The second time I took Lyric home was obviously more serious. She stayed overnight. Loren had long been planning to take the girls to Disneyland. She went with our nanny and I took advantage of that trip to make good on a promise to Lyric to spend a night in my bed.

  I don’t know what I expected, but Lyric brought fresh food to my house. She was an excellent cook. I had been complaining – in a joking way – about Loren’s shortage of skills in that regard, and Lyric was probably showing off. She made a lemon-and-chilli pasta. She brought wine. I’m not entirely naïve. Lyric was auditioning for the role of wife. She told me to relax and kick off my shoes. At some point, she called me into the kitchen. She was wearing only an apron and heels. I know what I was meant to feel: aroused. I felt guilty having sex in the kitchen, with the girls’ purple lunchboxes on the bench.

  Anyway, Lyric stayed the night, which was scary because she had long, dark hair and Loren’s hair was blonde. I was terrified of Loren finding a dark hair on the pillow. Lyric also seemed in no hurry to leave. Come morning, she made breakfast and brought it to me on a tray.

  I was dreading having to tell Loren these details, and I was right to be wary because as soon as I finished telling her, she went into the kitchen and emptied all of the cutlery into the trash.

  From that day forward, Loren became obsessed by the idea that I had been ‘test-driving’ Lyric for the role of Second Wife. Which was ludicrous, by the way, and the next time I saw Bette, I again raised my objections, saying: ‘How can this be good for Loren’s mental health? To go over the details of this affair in excruciating detail, night after night?’

  Bette was adamant that we continue. ‘Lies are no good for your marriage. Marriage thrives on honesty.’

  It wasn’t the lies, it was the detail that upset Loren. Why did she need to hear all the details? Why wasn’t it enough to say there was foreplay? But Loren supported the Busonne Method. She would cry out: ‘But what does that even mean – foreplay? That could mean anything. I want to know, David. I want to know everything that she knows.’

  Meaning she wanted to know everything that Lyric knew.

  But there was more to the Busonne Method than honesty. I also had to accept strict monitoring of my movements, and I had to endure arbitrary checks of my iPhone and iPad that reduced me to schoolboy status – let me see your Facebook updates – which meant meekly handing my devices to an angry Loren night after night.

  Flick, flick, flick.

  Loren had a unique way of using her thumb to scroll through my messages. She would question me about this message, or that message. She also had Find My iPhone installed so she could keep track of my movements during the day.

  She would say: ‘What was this trip for? Why did you go here, at that time?’ These were nightly questions: ‘What about this missed call? What about this anonymous number? Anything you need to tell me?’

  I am a grown man and occasionally took umbrage. ‘Please, Loren, I implore you. Let go of the leash. I’ve made you a promise. I will not break it. I’m now faithful.’

  Loren shot back: ‘You cannot be trusted.’

  Bette was completely on her side.

  I said: ‘Please, Loren, trust cannot be rebuilt when one partner is constantly checking up on the other.’

  She said: ‘Well then, you should leave. Leave, and watch us both go broke. Leave and watch the girls leave their friends at Grammar. Leave, and watch the realtor come and hammer a For Sale sign in our front lawn.’

  And then, slam. She would slam down the phone, or slam the door.

  So it was rough going, and then, after five or six sessions of Busonne Method, Bette told me that I had to initiate sex with Loren. No, I’m not kidding. She ordered me to have sex with my wife.

  ‘You need to resume sexual relations. Energetic relations. Passionate sex,’ she said.

  Privately, I thought, is there something about this old pervert who just wants the details?

  I said: ‘I would be delighted, but shouldn’t we ask Loren?’ Who was in fact sitting there.

  Bette folded her reading glasses and stood up as if dismissing us. ‘No talking tonight,’ she said. ‘Only sex.’

  I’ve never been ordered to have sex before. But did we give it a go? Sure we did. Was it awkward? Of course it was.

  We started on the sofa. I put my hand on Loren’s knee. She started to cry. I tried to comfort her, saying: ‘This won’t work if you cry.’ I wiped her tears with the side of my thumb. She sat up straighter and we tried again. It was difficult. She said something like: ‘You’re not even aroused,’ and I joked with her: ‘I’m not as young as when we first met.’ Which was a mistake. Because then she started with: ‘I’m sure you had no trouble with your mistress.’

  I put my finger against her lips. No talk. Just sex. They were our instructions. We tried again. Loren went to kiss my face – a quick peck on the cheek – and I turned quickly and she hit my lips. She laughed. So that was good. Laughing was better than crying. We were getting into the groove.

  Loren said: ‘This feels ridiculous,’ but Bette’s instructions were for Passionate Sex, so off we went.

  I undressed my wife. From what I could tell, Loren had been shopping. She had new lingerie. I complimented her, and she laughed about how silly she had felt in the change room at Victoria’s Secret because everyone else had been a teenager. I told her she looked great and eventually, we got things done. And afterwards, Loren said: ‘That was a disaster,’ and then we both looked up, and holy hell, there was Peyton!

  ‘Honey!’ said Loren. ‘How long have you been there?’

  Peyton was standing with her thumb in her mouth. She had a giant teddy under one arm. I grabbed a sofa cushion. My boxer shorts were still on the floor. Loren gathered up the throw and wrapped it around herself, saying, ‘What are you doing out of bed?’

  Peyton looked so sleepy. I’m quite sure she hadn’t been there all that long, but it was one of those whoops moments that you have as parents.

  Peyton said: ‘I heard a noise … like pigs,’ and I couldn’t help myself. I burst out laughing.

  Loren smothered her own smile, saying, ‘Well, there are no pigs here,’ and off she went to tuck Peyton back into bed, turning halfway down the hall to wink at me, making me think, Okay, wow, that worked. We’ve turned a corner.

  * * *

  They hadn’t turned a corner. Less than a week after David and Loren resumed their sex life, Loren ran into Lyric, outside the Bienveneda Gym.

  ‘I’d been dreading a confrontation between them,’ David told me during our interview, ‘and when it happened, it was every bit as bad as I’d feared.

  ‘Lyric worked out at Bienveneda Gym at least four times a week. Loren generally didn’t go to the gym. It was Bette’s big idea that she start going to classes, exercise being a part of the Busonne Method. Loren had said something like: “He [meaning me] finds me revolting.” I’d said: “I do not find you revolting.” Bette had butted in with: “But you do think Loren is out of shape, don’t you?” I’d shrugged and said: “Sure, but aren’t we all?” Bette had made some kind of mark on her clipboard and said: “I have a new prescription for you, Loren. Physical exercise. You are to start a gym class. Tomorrow. Not for David. For you.”

  ‘There are three gyms on Bienveneda’s High Side, and for some reason, Loren chose the gym that Lyric attends. Two days into her new program, they ran into each other. The way I understand it, Loren pulled into the car park, jumped down from the SUV and strode towards the sliding doors, apparently reading a message on her iPhone. A woman coming the other way said: “Well excuse me,” because Loren had bumped her.

  ‘Loren and Lyric had walked right into each other. And I copped it from both of them. Within seconds – literally seconds – I was getting texts from Lyric to
say what a bastard I was, and calls from Loren, saying: “I hate you.”

  ‘Lyric called to accuse me: “You sent her to confront me!”

  ‘I said: “No, Lyric, I did not. Our couples counsellor advised Loren to join a gym.”

  ‘Lyric was shouting: “And by chance she joined mine?” I had to move the phone away from my ear she was shouting so loudly.

  ‘I left the office immediately to find Loren at home, hugging a pillow. “No wonder you liked her,” she said. “She’s so pretty.” So we were back to square one, with Loren saying: “You love her,” and me saying: “I don’t even like her, Loren. I love you.”

  ‘And that was when Loren said: “I want to kill her.” And I was shocked. I said: “What did you say?” And she said it again: “I just want to kill her. I mean it, David. When I saw her there, I wanted her to die.”’

  * * *

  ‘Your wife and your mistress ran into each other quite by chance?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And your affair with Lyric resumed in that same month?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  David and I were well into our interview, and the time had definitely come to address the elephant in the room: his affair with Lyric was not over when Loren began planning their second honeymoon.

  ‘Tell me how it started up again,’ I said.

  ‘Well, she basically got in touch with me at the office,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t long after she ran into Loren at the gym. From memory, she rang me at the office.’

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘She said: “I need to talk to you.” I should have said: “No.” Instead, I said something like: “I will call you tomorrow.”’

  ‘But why?’ I asked. ‘Why did you say that you’d call Lyric? Because you knew perfectly well that you were not supposed to be in contact with her.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said David, sighing. ‘And, as I said, it was a mistake. I should have said no, and yet I didn’t. And the next day, I called Lyric. She wanted me to go see her. I wanted to know why. She wouldn’t say. I got the very strong feeling that she expected me to turn up. Her tone was certainly not light. And so I went.’

  ‘You went where?’

  ‘I went to her apartment. I drove over there and shot my car into her garage, praying that nobody would see me. Lyric let me up and opened the door and she was in a very bad mood. She said there were rumours going around the town, about us, and her reputation was ruined. She hadn’t been able to get a new job, and that was apparently my fault. Yet from what I could tell, she still wanted to have sex with me! And I tried to back straight out of her kitchen. But she said: “You are not leaving.” And there was something about the way she looked at me that made me think she meant business. She wanted sex but she was angry. She mentioned the recordings. She mentioned my clients. And I formed the very strong opinion that if I didn’t give into her demands …’

  ‘You mean her sexual demands?’

  ‘Yes, her sexual demands, that she would perhaps do something to harm me, or my family …’

  ‘You mean, she might hurt Loren?’

  ‘No. Well, I don’t know. But I formed the very strong impression that Lyric was angry and that she had been thinking about making her recordings public. Which would be devastating for me, obviously, but it would also destroy the lives of others. Not just me. Of many people.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, bringing my hand up to my face for the classic, somewhat-sceptical-thinker pose. ‘And so you agreed to have sex with her again?’

  Did the cameraman guffaw? Maybe, but he was pretending that he’d coughed. David must have noticed, but he ploughed on.

  ‘Yes, I agreed to have sex with her again. Because I felt I had no choice. I was trying to save my marriage and here was somebody who was determined to wreck my life. I had to make a decision and I obviously made a very poor one. I resumed the affair with Lyric. And that was very, very difficult, because Loren was watching me like a hawk.

  ‘I had to source a new cell phone. I had to get it connected to a pre-paid service. I had to hide it underneath the spare tyre in the trunk of my car. And I hated myself for having to do all of that. But what choice did I have? I was under so much pressure at home, and so much pressure at work, and now Lyric was threatening some kind of blackmail. When I think about it now I can see what I was doing: I was trying to buy some time to find a solution.’

  ‘I’m sure it was hell, David, but I’m interested, how did the resumption of your affair fit in with the Busonne Method? Total honesty?’

  ‘Well, I had to give that away,’ he said, as if that should have been obvious. ‘How could I tell Loren that I had started seeing Lyric again? I couldn’t. And I know that plenty of viewers will be sceptical, but seeing Lyric again wasn’t fun. It felt dirty and scary. We didn’t text back and forth in the same type of way we had previously. The flirtatious element was gone: Lyric’s texts seemed laced with malice. And so, each time I saw her, I told myself it would be the last time.’

  I tapped my pen against the clipboard. ‘You did?’

  ‘I did. And then, I guess, after a few weeks of this I decided this cannot go on; that I’m going to have to man up and face the music. I just had to find the right moment. And that moment came when Bette Busonne ordered me to take Loren away for a second honeymoon. I thought: “This is my chance. I’ll tell Lyric the affair is over and I will go away with Loren. Lyric will be furious but I will be a thousand miles away and by the time I get back, maybe she will have calmed down, and maybe she’d be able to see that I had chosen Loren, and that I would always choose Loren.”’

  ‘So did you tell Lyric about this cruise?’

  David seemed uncomfortable. ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘And how did she react?’

  ‘She absolutely blew her top. She called me a bastard and every other name under the sun. What stunned me though was that she was also adamant that it would mean the end of things between us. She told me straight that if I went on a second honeymoon with my wife, the affair would be over. I wouldn’t be able to see her anymore. She said she’d tried to make me see that I was the right person for her, but that would be the end of it and she was sick of being used, and so forth. And I couldn’t have been happier. Because that was exactly what I wanted to hear. I wanted the affair to be over.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, ‘and so that’s how you left it? With Lyric furious with you?’

  ‘That’s how I left it, with Lyric saying, “I never want to see you again.”’

  * * *

  ‘David, do you know what this is?’

  I had produced a document from the pile under my chair and I was holding it up.

  David tilted his head as if trying to read it. His face flicked with recognition.

  ‘It’s the statement I gave to the Chief of Police after I returned from Mexico,’ he said grimly.

  ‘Could you take it from me?’ I said, handing the pages to him.

  David swallowed, but he took the pages.

  ‘I’d like you to read it,’ I said.

  ‘Out loud?’

  ‘Yes, out loud. I’d like you to read it for our audience. I’d like them to hear exactly what you told the police when you returned to Bienveneda after that cruise.’

  David rubbed the top of his right cheekbone, hard. He glanced at his image consultant from Sally & Sons, took a deep breath, and began to read:

  My wife Loren Wynne-Estes and I spent the evening before our planned second honeymoon to Mexico, together at our home on Mountain View Road.

  Our twin daughters, Hannah and Peyton, were not at home.

  Loren had arranged for them to spend the night with my parents and my sister, their Aunt Janet, as a special treat, since they would not be coming on vacation with us.

  Their absence from the house would also mean that we would have the evening to pack our suitcases and the morning to get going to the airport without the two of them crying about wanting to come too.

  L
oren prepared a meal for the two of us and we shared a bottle of wine, having several glasses each.

  Dinner concluded at around 9pm, after which I went into our home office to try to repair the wi-fi router, which had gone down for some reason.

  Loren went into our bedroom to begin sorting through the various outfits she wanted to take on the cruise ship.

  ‘Don’t take too many things,’ I said, ‘because if I have my way, you’re going to be living in a bikini.’

  ‘But I need some nice things,’ she said. ‘We will be going to the Captain’s Dinner.’

  ‘So shop your heart out when you get there. There are bound to be boutiques galore.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. I intend to shop,’ she said, not too seriously.

  ‘Don’t forget we’re broke,’ I said, also not too seriously because although we were facing significant financial challenges at that time, this vacation was about healing our relationship, and if Loren wanted to shop, she could shop.

  About an hour after I had sat down to work on the router I heard a noise and found Loren standing in my office doorway wearing a sexy new bikini.

  ‘What do you think of this one?’ she said, striking a pose like a model, with one hand on her hip.

  I could see what she was up to and since there were no children or staff in the house there was no reason not to step up to the plate. I stopped fiddling with the router and lowered Loren onto the floor of my office, where we made love.

  ‘If that’s a taste of things to come this is going to be a great vacation,’ I said.

  Loren laughed.

  I got up off the floor and went into the en suite to freshen up. By the time I returned, Loren had left the room.

  I called out: ‘Hey, thank you, that was nice,’ but Loren didn’t respond.

  I resumed fiddling with the router.

  I cannot say for certain how much time passed but I don’t think it was more than 30 minutes before I noticed that the house seemed to be very quiet.

  I called out: ‘Loren?’