by Paloma Meir
“You were on a walk,” Anja prompted.
“Yes,” She yelled out as if in great pain, “And I bought a lottery ticket, and won. We have millions of dollars.” She leaned back in the chair, dejected and full of despair.
The girls began to laugh, very hard.
“Why are you laughing? It’s not funny.” She asked as a smile broke through her maudlin mood.
“Only you would say that as if it were the end of the world.” Anja said.
“Is that why you’ve been acting so strange and buying us so many things?” Ines asked, “Anja and I thought you were having an affair.”
“What? An affair?” Faye sat up in her chair. She felt as if she were about to throw-up, “ Why would you ever think something like that?”
“Relax Mom, we know you would never do that. You and Dad have been having the greatest love affair of all time for our entire lives,” Ines said.
“It was like all of a sudden, you were so pretty again, like when we were little. Does Dad know?” Anja asked through a sneeze.
“No… I’m telling him tonight. I wanted to get the finances organized before—
“I know Mom, you didn’t want him to waste it.” Ines said to the great surprise of Faye. She had always tried to keep her financial and marital problems away from her daughters.
“No that wasn’t it,” she protested, protecting her husband. She shrugged, feeling the futility of the marital loyalty. Her kids weren’t stupid, and she was tired of being dishonest, “Yes, that was it, but don’t think poorly of him. He’s had a hard life in some ways… We all have our —
“Faults?” Ines asked.
“No, not a fault. Please don’t speak about your father that way.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, sorry.” Ines said.
“Forget all of that,” Anja sat up in her bed as if suddenly feeling well, “What are we going to do with all the money? We’re rich!”
“Can we go to Croatia this summer? Please, please?” Ines and Anja yelled out simultaneously, and then both spoke so quickly with travel plans that Faye couldn’t hear them anymore.
“Girls, girls, girls…” She laughed, “We’ll talk about the money when you come home for the summer… I don’t know about Croatia… I don’t think we’ll ever be able to talk your father into going…” She suddenly felt sick with the thought that Adam might leave her over her indiscretion with Nick. She had never considered it before. “I have to return Cassandra’s call before your father comes home. Keep hydrated Anja. I’ll talk to both of you tomorrow. I love you.” She closed the chat window and buried her head in her hands, wishing she could fall into a deep sleep.
Like the trooper she was at heart, she picked up the phone and called Cassandra, “Hello Cassandra, how are you?” She asked in the calmest tone of voice she was capable of speaking.
“Faye… Now you take an interest in my life?” She laughed, “You haven’t asked me one question about myself in months.”
“I’m so sorry,” Faye grimaced into the phone, holding it tightly in her hand.
“Oh stop… My life is fine, everything is moving along without any bumps. We’re allowed to be a little selfish every now and then if we’re in a friendship for the long haul. So… tell me about your adventures. Your life is more interesting than one of those Latin telenovelas I can never quite understand with only my high school Spanish to decipher them. I do try though…”
“I have been stuck in my head, running around, chasing my own tail so to speak. I’m so sorry. Have you been seeing anyone? Has work been going well?”
“Again everything in my life is fine and we’ll catch up as soon as your hurricane-style life dissolves into the sea. Spill, now. What’s going on with you and the boy?”
“Is that even a proper metaphor? Do hurricanes dissolve in the sea? I thought the ocean is where they built their energy?” She laughed in spite of herself.
“I have no idea. We live in California. We have earthquakes not hurricanes… Spill, Faye, the boy?”
“He’s hardly a boy… Okay,” She sighed heavily into the phone, “He broke my heart but now we’re friends again. Unfortunately it’s all coming to an end. Dario saw us together at the Third Street Promenade and issued an ultimatum. I have to tell Adam, and I don’t think I’ll be able to see Nick anymore, or maybe Adam will just leave me.” Her voice caught on every word.
“Oh Faye, don’t cry. Maybe you and Adam don’t belong together anymore. Your girls are grown… It happens to a lot of couples when the kids go off to college. Not that I think you belong with the boy, but maybe he’s what you needed to break away.”
“I want to be with Adam. I love him as much now as the day I met him… I just don’t want to lose Nick. We’re only friends now… I really should never have allowed the relationship to progress the way it did… I was the adult.”
“Why do you need a friend like him? I don’t think you’re being honest with yourself.”
“I don’t know… I feel like his mother and then as if he’s my high school boyfriend… I don’t want to talk about this anymore. My head hurts from it. I was calling to tell you that I’ve told the girls about the winnings and I’m going to tell Adam as soon as he comes home. I’m going to have to tell him about Nick too. I’m scared he’s going to leave me. I can’t believe the mess I’ve turned my life into…”
“You were due for a shakeup—
“Faye,” she heard the front door slam shut, “Where are you? Let’s go out to dinner. I’m craving a steak. Let’s drive into town, go to The Grill.” Adam called out.
“Adam’s home. I’ll call you later.” Faye quickly and with shaky hands ended the phone call. “I’m in the office, Adam.” She called back to him as the pit of her stomach soured.
“Sweetheart,” Adam swept into the office and fell to her feet in the way he had been doing for the previous week. “I missed you today,” he took her hands in his and kissed her knees. Faye stiffened.
“I have to talk to you…” Her voice creaked with a trace of authority.
“At dinner, I’m starved,” He sat up on his knees and gazed into his wife’s eyes, “Town is too far. Let’s go to Gjelina.”
“No. Adam,” The thought of ever going to Gjelina again with Adam was too much. The restaurant had become irrevocably tied to Nick in her mind. “There are some things I’ve been keeping from you and you’re not going to like it.”
“What have you been keeping from me?” he gently laughed to her, “Have you bought a puppy?”
“No,” She tilted her head in great confusion that her husband had never considered her capable of a mistake. So much faith her had in her. The faith felt crippling. “Not a puppy. I’ve been un— Her voice froze.
“Unfaithful?” His eyes tore into her, frightening her.
“That and many other things.” She managed to say.
“I don’t believe you Faye,” He stood above her, crossing his arms defensively.
“Believe what you want to believe… This isn’t how I wanted to start this conversation.”
“You’re trying to hurt me? Make us even with lies?”
“A few months ago I went for a walk, and impulsively bought a few lottery tickets,” She reached into her desk drawer and retrieved her brokerage account statement and checkbook. “Here,” She handed him the statement and turned away from him to write a check.
“What?” He stared down at the page in his hands, “This is wonderful Faye. We’re rich.”
“Well, we’re comfortable for the rest of our lives. I wouldn’t consider us rich by Los Angeles standards.”
“You won thirty-eight million dollars. We’re rich by anyone’s standards.”
“No… That was a few months ago… I’ve dispersed it, and here’s your share.” She handed him the hastily written check.
“I’ve set up trust funds for the girls, bought us a house in Laguna, fully furnished in a style I know you’ll appreciate. Mostly from B&B Italia,” She took a
sharp intake of breath and knew the furnishings like the restaurant Gjelina would only ever remind her of Nick forever more. The pain of the constant reminder would be her well-deserved punishment, she thought to herself.
“250,000 dollars?” Adam asked, “Out of thirty-eight million?”
“I took the lump sum, taxes took almost a third, and as I said, I dispersed it… to charitable causes. Mostly the homeless. That was your suggestion.” Faye spoke in a flat tone of voice she didn’t recognize.
“You didn’t want me to waste it… You didn’t trust me.”
“No…” She protested and instantly saw the folly of her false protestations, “Yes.”
“I’m sorry I went through your father’s money,” He stared directly into her eyes, his face tight, holding back emotion, “Will this make us even now?” He held the check out to her as if it were radioactive.
“It’s not about being even…”
“Your father worked his whole life, you save the way your mother did, even though we never needed to live that way.”
“Of course we needed to live that way. Money is water in your hands.” She sat up high in the chair and spat out at him.
“You’ve never wanted for anything, ever.”
“I wanted security. I wanted to know we wouldn’t be a burden to our daughters in our old age.” Her anger surprised her.
“I would have worked until my dying day to take care of you Faye. I would die before allowing us to be a burden to Anja and Ines.”
“We’re very different Adam. You’ve been fighting a battle that hasn’t been real since you were a boy. You make things so hard, pushing the extremes.”
“I won’t argue it, Faye,” He shrugged, drained of his vitality, “I pushed you away and held you close. I’m not blind to myself. I knew what I was doing with those other women. Keeping myself safe, never wanting to get too attached to anyone… Knowing doesn’t help.”
“You could have spoken to me. You could have gone for counseling. There were many different choices you could have made.”
“There were, and I’ll make them in the future. You showed me. Lesson learned.”
“I wasn’t trying to teach you a lesson—
“Well, it’s what you did. But now tell me, are we even? Have you forgiven me?”
“Adam… I did have an affair. I wasn’t lying about that. And no, none of this was about getting even.”
“You stuck it to me good, Faye,” He stood up, and smoothed his lined pants, “Are you still having an affair?”
“It was just one night, but he is my friend.” She looked down at the patterns on the rug, “I don’t want to lose him.”
“Your friend?” She watched his feet move across the room to her and felt his hand on her chin. He forcefully held her face up towards him, “You don’t want to lose him?” He tore his hand away and banged it on the desk, frightening her.
“You make me sick Faye. The only reason I’m not leaving you, and when I leave it’s for good, is because I’ve done this to you so many times. It’s a stabbing pain in my chest. You tear my heart out, and I know I deserve it.”
“My God Adam, nobody deserves anything. Why do you even think like this? Did you deserve to be abandoned by your mother, forced to fend for yourself and your little brother? Tell me Adam what did you do to deserve that? And when will this debt be paid off?”
“Faye,” He fell to his knees again, his head on her lap. Heaving sobs rocked through his body as Faye ran her hands through his hair, whispering sweet words of love.
…
They woke the next morning entangled in one another as they had woken up most mornings of their lives. Faye sighed heavily as she looked onto Adam’s sleeping face. His eyes were swollen and red in the same way she suspected hers were.
She had held him up the night before as they stumbled up the stairs. The emotional breakthrough she had always wanted from him spilled out. Unfortunately, she wasn’t in a frame of mind to support him in the way she had always imagined.
He spoke, the words pouring from him in a mix of English and Croatian. Faye had never learned more than the most basic conversational phrases of his mother tongue. But she instinctively knew the most painful parts were being said in the language she could not understand.
She had been tense while comforting him and found it hard to fall asleep. Adam thrashed around in the bed beside her, occasionally shouting out in his slumber. She held him tighter, whispering warm words, until she too finally drifted off.
“Adam,” She spoke softly, “I have to get ready for my day. Would you like me to make you breakfast before I go?”
“Are you still seeing him?” He opened his widely and stared up at the ceiling.
“I’ll be saying goodbye to him today.”
“Do you love him?” He grunted.
“I don’t know how to answer that.”
“It’s a simple question Faye.”
“He’s much younger than me, not much older than our girls…”
“Older woman who chase after younger men, it’s undignified, desperate.”
“I didn’t chase after him, we fell into one another.” She disentangled herself from him, too tired to be angry, but still a touch offended, “You seem to be living under a double standard, all the women you’ve been with were around the same age as Nick.”
“And you claim you didn’t do this to get back at me.” He laughed.
“Think what you want,” She got out of bed, and pulled her robe tightly around her, “I’m going to make coffee. Would you like a cup?”
“Faye, I didn’t mean it. I’m angry… I want us to be right again.”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
“Are you saying we’re over?”
“No,” She sighed and stared out the window, “But I don’t think in our emotional state this conversation is going to be productive. I’ll go make us coffee.”
“I love you Faye,” He called out as she exited their bedroom.
“I love you too.”
…
She forced herself to eat a banana as the coffee percolated in her new Bunn Infusion brewer. The fruit was bland and heavy as she dutifully chewed. Swallowing was difficult, her body stiff.
She glanced at the clock as she poured the coffee into the elegant simplicity of her new Fortessa coffee cups. The mugs were sturdy and with delicate curved handles. She did not regret purchasing the cups, but questioned why she had bought forty-eight of them. They had never had more fifteen or sixteen people in their home at one time and she didn’t think her eventual new life in Laguna would be much different.
“Lottery madness, so happy it’s coming to an end,” She mumbled to herself as she saw it was 9:00 A.M. “Time to get ready.” She trudged back up the stairs to Adam.
Chapter Sixteen
Faye sat slumped in the chair across from Serge. As much as she tried, she could not sit upright. Her clothes felt ill-fitting and her hair limp. She twisted her hands in an attempt to connect with her surroundings.
Serge shuffled through her hastily scrawled notes, making comments every so often. She nodded her head as if she were keeping up. His speech was more echoes than fully formed words to her racing mind.
“Who’s Nick Andrews?” He asked with a trace of frustration in his voice.
Faye shook her head loose of trailing thoughts and focused on the man she remembered finding attractive many months before. He was still a very handsome man but she could not imagine him or anyone else sending her into the giggling fits she had experienced at their first meeting. “He’s a friend...” She replied with all the effort her body would allow.
“He’s a friend you want me to hire a private investigator for and trace in order to give him 20,000 dollars annually for the next twenty years? What kind of a friend can’t you keep track of yourself?” He asked without his usual amusement.
“It’s best if we don’t communicate but I need to know that he’s all right.”
; “He’s your hookers, drugs and guns?”
“What?” She shook herself awake, in an effort to understand what he was talking about.
“Hookers, drugs and guns. You were worried about them when you first came to see me. The curse of the lottery? It seems as if you invited it in yourself.” He sat back in his chair and ran his hand through the dark tousle of his hair.
“No it wasn’t like that.” She dismissively waved him away.
“It’s pretty clear something happened between you and Mr. Andrews. Something that’s left you in the rag doll condition you’re in now. I would say something of a romantic nature. I’m sure it was all very dramatic, a lot of highs and lows?”
“I suppose… but not in that way exactly.”
“I’ve had many relationships in my life… some that are or should I say were hard to let go of, some where the partner found it hard to let go. But none where either party felt the need to track and financially care for the other for the rest of their lives.”
“You don’t understand… He’s very young… and destructive, to himself, not to others… Well not so much to others… petty theft, that kind of thing.”
“You found yourself a devilishly charming criminal?”
“It’s not what you think.” She leaned forward in her chair and clutched the edge of the table.
“Tell me how it’s different.”
“We’re very connected—
“Faye… You set everything up so well to avoid this kind of mess, but again, in the end you invited it in.”
“I told him that one day I would tell the story of the two us and the listener wouldn’t hear it any other way than what you’re describing—
“And what did he say to that?”
“I don’t know I fell asleep.”
“Sleep of true love I’m sure.”
“No, he was much younger than me… It really wasn’t like that. We were always friends first.”
“Well… you’ll have memories to last a lifetime. That’s what they should remain, memories. Go back to your real life Faye. Let the boy go. He’ll be fine. People like him always are.”
