Leigh practically ran out of the house at that moment. Her dress was in order, as was her hair. It was only the wild look in her eyes that seemed out of place.
“I feel sort of too drunk,” she said, her voice skipping along at an unusual pace. “Let’s go home.”
Jeremy’s heart soared at this flustered loyalty. He took her hand and they walked briskly past the other attendees, waving goodbyes and making watery excuses for leaving.
“Oh,” Jeremy said. “Your dish-” he started to turn toward the table.
“Leave it,” Leigh said.
She tugged him around the house and down the street.
*
When they got to the house, Leigh let go of his hand and moved quickly through the foyer and into the kitchen, where she retrieved a glass and poured herself some water.
Jeremy followed her.
The walk back to their house had been so brisk, and his mind had been swirling with so many thoughts, that he hadn’t come up with any good ideas about what he should now, now that they were home.
But as he watched Leigh disappear into the kitchen, it occurred to him that he should probably just wait for her to say something. In fact, he was a little curious about Leigh and what she would do.
From his perspective, watching the scene that had unfolded in the hallway, Leigh had been both uncomfortable, but not entirely unwilling. This meant that she must have some kind of attraction for Craig.
And while he knew it wasn’t fair of him – given that Craig had basically told him what he was going to do, and Jeremy had stood there and watched and made no effort to interfere, basically giving him permission to do it – he still wanted to know if Leigh would be compelled to tell him what had happened. And if she did, how much would she say?
“You feeling okay?” he asked, leaning on the kitchen doorframe and folding his arms.
Leigh waved her hand frantically as she gulped water from the glass. It was actually a little unseemly for her. She set the glass down with a loud thunk and breathed loudly.
“Leigh,” he said. “Are you okay?” He was actually worried now that something might be wrong with her.
She held her hand to her head, and gave a shake that swung her ponytail. “No, I’m fine. I just… had too much to drink.”
Jeremy felt his gut twist. “That’s it?”
Leigh looked up at him, and for a moment her face looked desperate. She opened her mouth as though she wanted to say something, and Jeremy half-expected a full confession to come tumbling out.
But Leigh seemed frozen. No words left her mouth. She looked back down at the glass.
Jeremy waited. There was something intensely erotic about the tension in the room. Memories of the way Craig had touched his wife swirled through his mind, and the waiting for what Leigh would do next only heightened the pain of it.
“You sure left in a hurry,” he said, finally, unable to wait any longer for Leigh, who seemed to have stopped in time. “Are your sure you’re okay?”
Leigh’s chest rose and fell in a little huff.
“Leigh?”
Jeremy had an urge to go over to her and put his arm around her, but he stopped himself. It felt disingenuous, since he had let the whole scene with Craig take place, gotten off on it, and maybe even provoked it in his own way.
He suddenly didn’t like the feeling of having this – what was it? It wasn’t really a lie, just a… disparity – between the two of them. If his wife had been looking so distraught under any other circumstances, he would have gone over to hug her. It seemed strange not to do it now, yet doing would feel a little wrong.
“I have to tell you about something,” Leigh said quietly.
Jeremy felt a wave of relief.
“Me, too,” he said.
Leigh looked up at him, confused. They looked at each other for a moment, then Leigh waved her hand impatiently. “Me first.”
She exhaled sharply. “I don’t really know what to make of it, um… so Craig, you know, he said a few things to me tonight that make me feel like he’s, um… hitting on me. And he sort of...” Leigh looked up at the ceiling. Her features were contorted into a very strange expression. She was really having trouble getting it out. “Like, I don’t really know how to describe it -”
“I know about it,” Jeremy blurted.
Leigh dropped her eyes and her face went white. “What?”
Jeremy moved closer to her, his hands in his pockets. It was a habit of his when he was in stressful or confrontational situations: he put his hands in pockets and gestured with them. It seemed to put people at ease, probably because it made him look a little sappy.
Whatever worked.
“I sort of had a conversation with Craig today that, um… well, it made me think I needed to follow you. When you went in the house.”
Leigh’s eyes widened. “What?” she repeated.
“So, I saw the… exchange you had with him. At the bathroom door.”
Jeremy couldn’t know for sure, but it looked to him like Leigh’s heart went into free fall. Her jaw fell open slightly, and she stared at him.
“So, what… why didn’t you… say anything?” she said, finally. Then, with a note of anger: “What do you mean, you watched?”
Jeremy put a hand on hers. “Leigh, that’s not exactly fair to get mad -”
“What?”
“Well, from what I saw, you didn’t exactly slap him and tell him sternly to get his paws off you.”
Leigh’s face went bright red instantly and she dropped her eyes again. She drew her lips into a tight line.
It wasn’t really the reaction Jeremy had been hoping for, or the way he had wanted the conversation to go. In fact, it didn’t make any sense at all for anyone to be mad.
“Leigh,” he said. “Here’s the thing. Let’s… don’t be mad, first of all.”
Her eyes flew open and she glared at him.
“Seriously. Being mad about this is silly. Think how silly it is.”
Leigh shook her head and made a face. “What are you talking about?!”
Jeremy shrugged. “Look… you obviously didn’t feel the need to stop him. It’s pretty clear that you didn’t have a… let’s say, saintly, reaction to what he did -”
“I told us to leave right away!” Leigh snapped. “And then I told you about it!”
“That’s true, and I think that’s -”
“You’re the one who… I don’t know. Set me up!” she said furiously. She turned and put her glass in the sink.
“Leigh, all I’m saying is… you obviously didn’t hate it. And I obviously didn’t either -” he stepped into Leigh’s path to keep her from storming out of the kitchen. “So, what’s the big deal?”
Leigh bumped into him and took a step back. Her eyes were wild, but he could tell she was giving it some thought.
“You… you… no, this is… get out of my way!” she said.
Jeremy reached for her arms. “Let’s just talk about this -”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to have a conversation about.. about… this.”
Jeremy took a step back, which surprised her into halting. “Why not?” he said.
Leigh’s tense posture crumpled. Her face even softened a little, confusion washing over it.
It was a good question. Jeremy took a moment to admire his skills of negotiation.
“Because it’s preposterous.”
“Why?”
Leigh blinked. “You’re talking about… you’re talking about cheating, here. This is our marriage and you’re like, talking about… I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“Okay,” Jeremy said. “So it’s something new. But can’t we just talk about it?”
Leigh looked at him. He could see that the idea was making its way slowly through her mind, and she was embracing the possibilities. But Leigh was never one to do risky things – not in a conversation or real life. She shook her head. “I don’t even want to talk about th
is.”
“I think we have to,” Jeremy said.
She shook her head.
“Well, then,” he said. “Hear me out, at least. Because I feel bad about what I did.”
Leigh pressed her lips together and folded her arms, waving one hand to indicate that she would, begrudgingly, listen.
Jeremy exhaled. Where did he start?
He found himself starting in a completely unexpected place. “Leigh, things have been sort of stale in our marriage lately. I think you know that.”
“What about…?!” she protested. He knew she was referring to the other night, when they had fucked on the counter.
“Yeah, what about that?” Jeremy said. “You and I both know that had something to do with… you know, our neighbors.”
“No,” she said. “It had to do with the… book covers, and the...” She frowned. Her body deflated and she let her hands hang at her sides.
“I don’t see why this has to bother you so much,” Jeremy said, taking a step toward her. “It’s something that we both obviously like. So… why don’t we just stop pretending it’s not something that turned us on, and just -”
“Turn into swingers and fuck everyone in town?” she shot at him. “Is that what you want?”
“Well,” Jeremy said, a little taken aback by her sudden outburst. “I was going to say ‘talk about it.’ Can’t we do that?”
Leigh hugged herself.
Jeremy stepped closer to her and rubbed the outsides of her arms. “Why does talking about it bother you so much?”
Leigh shook her head. “I don’t know. I just don’t… I don’t want to be that kind of person, you know? I don’t want our marriage to be like… everybody else’s. Where we have to do something like that just to keep things interesting. And… ugh. No. I don’t want to have this conversation.”
Jeremy looked at her.
He had found, over years of marriage, that it was usually best to let Leigh go her own way when she shut down like this. The conversation would come back around, and usually sooner rather than later.
“Okay,” he said. He pulled her close to him. “Okay. If you don’t want to talk about it, we don’t have to.”
He hugged her, and she put her arms around him reluctantly at first, then hugged him back tightly.
“Okay,” she said.
But there was a tone of uncertainty in her voice.
They’d definitely be back to this topic, he knew.
He just had to be patient.
5: A DIFFERENT KIND OF MODEL
[Billie Oswald]: Come shopping with me. I know u have the day off because I stock u.
Leigh stared at the text message from Billie, unable to hold back her grin. Billie’s spelling error was hilarious by itself, but it was also funny to imagine Billie standing still behind her curtains, looking out the window, stalking her neighbor. Leigh had to laugh in spite of the troubled feelings that had been plaguing her since the barbecue.
Billie weighed heavily on Leigh’s mind. She really liked her, and because she had such a sweet face and smile, and crop of sporty hair, Leigh felt even guiltier if she had somehow instigated something with her husband.
As usual, Leigh felt compelled to set the record straight, but was really afraid of doing so.
She sighed, and set the phone on the counter to make herself a cup of coffee and think. She found herself picking it up again before she had even finished the preparations or started the coffee.
She started a message and then deleted it.
She started again.
What could she say? Billie was right, she didn’t have anything to do today. Her car was in the driveway because she had moved it to give Jeremy more room to get the lawnmower out.
She could say she was sick.
The thing was, she really wanted to get out of the house.
Why would Billie be texting her now?
Leigh’s stomach sank: what if she knew?
Then she felt a prickle of fear.
She felt bad about doing something that betrayed Billie, and Billie’s nice smile and cheery demeanor inspired an extra amount of guilt.
But the woman was Bulgarian, and even though she was small, she had that feisty look like she might jump on you and break your neck, Hollywood-style. Also, she was as direct as a knife to the heart.
Leigh tapped away on the phone and deleted her excuse again.
She could just say she didn’t get the message.
She set the phone down and finished making the coffee. As she did, she thought about it, and realized that in all likelihood, Billie would just come over to get her in her car, and there would be no way out.
She might as well be actually dressed for it.
She might as well face the music.
She typed:
[Me]: when? I still need a shower
She waited. She still didn’t know if she should say something to Billie or not about what had happened with Craig. She didn’t want to – and there were many layers of complication to that story – but she also didn’t want to do the wrong thing.
Her phone buzzed.
[Billie Oswald]: im not even out of my bed. Ill come to you at 12
Meekly, Leigh typed: okay
This gave Leigh more than two hours to get dressed and think.
And think she did.
She spaced out in the shower so long her fingers turned to prunes.
The right thing to do would be to tell Billie what happened.
Every time she had that thought, she felt a drop in her heart.
She liked to tell herself that it made her feel bad because it would ruin her friendship with Billie.
But Leigh knew that the real reason was much more insidious than that. The real reason she didn’t want to rock the boat had to do with Craig.
The night of the barbecue, she had gone to bed and lain awake, pretending to be asleep. She hadn’t wanted to talk to Jeremy, and since there was nothing else to do, she let her mind wander. And it wandered and wandered, to all sorts of fantasies that she couldn’t make herself stop thinking about. She began with little vignettes between her and Craig, in neutral enough settings. More barbecues, more of him cornering her in hallways and bathrooms. Pushing her into empty bedrooms and holding a finger to his lips, then sliding those hot fingers down to her thigh and under her dress, up the length of her leg, right into her panties…
She would snap awake from the daydream with a shudder.
After all, she didn’t really like Craig. Who did he think he was? He was so full of himself, so arrogant, so sure he could just seduce the next-door-neighbor just because he had hard biceps and stubble on his square jaw that would feel like sandpaper against her inner thigh -
No.
And then she thought about Jeremy. He was right, things had been stale in their sex life. But whenever she brushed up against that thought she recoiled from it like from a hot coal. She didn’t want that to be them. She didn’t want it to be true, and as long as she didn’t want that she wouldn’t think about it. And if she didn’t think about it then she didn’t have to think that there was a need to do anything about it.
And what the hell with Jeremy? When she thought of him just watching another man swipe up chocolate from her breasts, her face got hot.
She was so angry when she thought of that.
But that wasn’t true, either, and she knew it.
She knew it because sometimes, when she had her daydreams about Craig, and he was slipping his fingers under the fabric of her panties… sometimes, she lifted her eyes, and Jeremy was there in the window, staring at her. His face was absorbed by a cold rage, a wild hunger, and she could almost feel the sinking, painful heat in his chest as Craig slammed her against the wall and slid his cock between her thighs…
Leigh closed her eyes in the shower.
Jesus. This was all so… wrong.
She shook her head and dipped her dark hair under the water.
What was she going to tell Billie
today?
Anything?
Nothing?
She wiped the condensation from the shower mirror and looked herself in the mirror until more steam made her face disappear.
Honesty is the best policy, she thought to herself.
But as she rinsed shampoo from her head, she found herself indulging in a fantasy of another kind.
*
Billie was prompt, which surprised Leigh, and also delighted her. She climbed into her car: a Mercedes E-class Cabriolet, a convertible, which she of course had the top down on.
Leigh grimaced. She had not put any sunscreen on.
“What is it?” Billie said. “Please don’t tell me we have to put the top up, I hate that.”
“I just forgot sunscreen.”
Billie looked over at her. “You know, if you just got a really bad burn as a child then you wouldn’t have these problems. That’s how we do it in Bulgaria.”
Leigh stared at her.
Billie laughed and dropped into an accent. “I make joke with you,” she returned to her normal voice. “There’s sunscreen in the glove box, actually.”
Leigh took out the sunscreen and applied while Billie drove outrageously fast to the highway. She was feeling guiltier about what had happened at the barbecue with every passing second, because Billie was so sunny and fun to be around.
“I meant to ask you,” Leigh said, “What do you do?”
“Like for a job?” Billie said. She looked over at her with a smile. “I am a professional golddigger. This is my job.”
Leigh stared at her.
Billie waited, and then used her false accent again: “I am making joke.”
Leigh smiled, nervously.
“I do taxes,” she said. “It’s very boring. But I only work three months of the year.”
“Oh,” Leigh said, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“In the winter I am a dogsledding guide,” Billie added.
She looked over at Leigh, who did not know how to respond to that. Billie nodded and grinned. “Ah, see? That’s interesting. Okay. Hold on to your hair, we’re going fast now.”
Leigh Uncovered: A Wife Sharing Novel Page 9
