Mommy Tracked

by Whitney Gaskell

  Alex crooked his eyebrows in a question, and for a brief, awful moment, Juliet wondered if he knew what she’d been thinking.

  Oh, God. Please don’t let him have seen me looking him up and down, she thought, averting her eyes quickly.

  But then Alex said, “What are you doing here so late on a Saturday?”

  “Is it late?” Juliet checked her watch. Five o’clock. How had she been there for four hours and not noticed the time passing?

  “Let’s go grab a drink,” Alex said. He tilted his head to one side casually.

  Juliet hesitated. They’d gone out for drinks before, but always with the whole team, usually to celebrate a big win. Never alone. And never on a Saturday night.

  “Come on,” Alex said. “You’ve worked enough for one day.”

  Maybe it was the fact that Alex wasn’t asking. Or maybe it was simple curiosity. Or maybe it had something to do with the excitement that skittered through her stomach whenever Alex’s eyes rested on her.

  “Okay,” Juliet said. She stood, remembering only then, as she leaned down to pick up her briefcase, about her dinner plans with her family. Shit. She glanced up at Alex, who was leaning against the doorway, his pale eyes alert. “Just give me one minute. I’ll meet you down by the elevators.”

  Alex nodded and left. Juliet picked up her desk phone—and then put it right back down again. Instead, she pulled out her cell phone and typed in a text message to Patrick:

  WRK CRISIS. RUNNING LT.

  And then, on legs shaking with nerves, Juliet walked out of her office, switching off the overhead light as she left.

  The Sands was a newish hotel on the beach. It had been built in a modern style—all glass and chrome on the exterior, and slate-gray floors, Lucite chandeliers, and dark wenge wood accents on the interior. The hotel bar was quiet and spare, with sleek black leather chairs set around round metal tables and dimmed lights. Soft jazz music played in the background.

  Alex and Juliet sat at a corner table, away from the other patrons, and ordered vodka tonics from the waiter. He placed the drinks and a white dish heaped with shelled pistachios in front of them before discreetly withdrawing.

  Juliet held her glass with both hands and waited for Alex to say something. But he’d been unnervingly quiet since they’d arrived. She finally broke the silence.

  “Are you still covering those depositions in the Patterson case on Monday?” she asked. She stirred her drink with a plastic swizzle stick, mostly to give her hands something to do.

  Alex took a sip of his drink and then shook it gently, so that the ice cubes tinkled softly, before he finally spoke. “If I’ve learned one thing over the years, it’s this: It never pays to tiptoe around an issue. If you want something from someone, you should just ask for it, straight out. Some people find that a bit”—he waved his hand—“strident, I suppose. But in my experience, being straightforward saves a lot of time and avoids misunderstanding.”

  What the hell is he talking about? Juliet wondered. But out loud she said, “I agree.”

  “Do you? That’s good,” Alex said. And then suddenly he leaned forward and lightly grasped Juliet’s hand. “Because there’s something I want from you.”

  Juliet looked down at the table, watching as Alex turned her hand over in his and trailed his fingers over the inside of her wrist. Goose bumps sprang up on her arm, and she shivered.

  “I very much want you to go upstairs with me,” Alex continued, his voice low. “But I don’t want you to feel obligated. Whether you say yes or no, this won’t affect our working relationship or your future at the firm.”

  For a moment, Juliet couldn’t move. Or breathe. Or think. All she could focus on was the gentle pressure of his hand against hers, as the meaning of his words sank in.

  He’s asking me to sleep with him, she thought. Alex is asking me to sleep with him. Is this really happening?

  When she looked up at Alex, she saw that he was gazing at her intently. For a moment she felt pinioned by his pale eyes.

  “What do you say?” Alex asked.

  Juliet hadn’t been aware that she was holding her breath until she spoke.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Juliet finished her drink, trying to steady her shaking hands, while Alex went to get a room. As she sat, the cold warmth of the vodka sliding down her throat, she felt oddly disembodied, as though she were on the outside of herself, watching the evening unfold with a detached interest.

  What am I doing? she suddenly thought, as a sharp jolt of fear hit her, grounding her back in reality. But then Alex was suddenly there, reaching out for her hand, guiding her up and out of her seat, and the moment of indecision was lost.

  He kissed her for the first time in the elevator, as soon as the doors slid shut. Alex reached for her, cupping one hand behind her neck and pulling her toward him, pressing his mouth onto hers. There was nothing remotely soft or romantic about the kiss; it was all heat and need.

  When the elevator stopped and the doors slid open, they broke apart. Juliet felt almost dizzy and unsteady on her legs. But Alex’s hand was firm on hers as he half-led, half-pulled her down the hall.

  The hotel room was expensively spare—the furniture was all dark wood and low to the ground, and an enormous round paper lantern hung from the ceiling, suffusing the space with a soft light. The platform bed was dressed in a stark white duvet, and a gray cashmere blanket was thrown casually over one end.

  Things happened quickly. Alex pulled Juliet’s striped boatneck shirt up and off and reached down to cup her breasts. Her nipples hardened at his touch and jutted out through the thin white nylon of her bra. Alex leaned forward and kissed them through the fabric, then reached behind Juliet to unhook her bra. Juliet, still standing, heard herself gasp as heat flooded down and out through her limbs. His excitement fueled her own, and she tugged at his sweater, wanting it off, wanting to feel the warmth of his skin pressing against hers. Alex helped her pull off his sweater, and then pulled her down toward the bed, rearing up over her as he slid his hand down over her bare stomach, toward the zipper of her jeans. Juliet sucked in her breath and closed her eyes.

  An electronic rendition of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony rang out. Juliet’s eyes popped open.

  “My phone,” she said.

  “Ignore it,” Alex murmured. He lowered his head again, trailing kisses down over her breasts and stomach, his hand reaching down to unbutton and unzip her jeans.

  Juliet gasped as his hand slid down under the waistband of her panties, and she tried to ignore the still-ringing phone. Finally, it stopped. And then, almost immediately, it began to ring again.

  “Wait,” she said to Alex, her breath coming in quick little puffs. “I have to check that. It might be important.”

  Alex rolled onto his back, lacing his hands behind his head, and watched Juliet as she scrambled off the bed, trying to get her briefcase open. She grabbed the cell phone and flipped it open, just as it stopped ringing. The screen read: CALL MISSED, 5:45 P.M. PATRICK.

  Juliet stared down at the phone. It let out a beep, and then the message icon began to blink.

  Patrick.

  Patrick—who was home with the twins.

  Oh, God, the twins. Home.

  What the hell am I doing? Juliet wondered. I’m in a hotel, about to fuck my boss, while my family is home, waiting for me to go out to dinner with them. How did this happen? How did I let this happen?

  She shivered, this time from fear. No, it was more than fear: It was revulsion. Juliet wrapped her arms around herself, all too aware of her nakedness.

  “I have to go,” she said, her voice wooden.

  “Now?”

  Juliet turned to look at Alex, who was now sitting up on the bed, staring at her incredulously. He looked incredibly sexy, his muscular bare chest covered with a swirling pattern of reddish-blond hair. Shirtless was a good look for him, Juliet thought, and she felt such a wave of wanting that she hesitated.

  Alex, sensing her e
quivocation, got up and moved toward her, ready to pull her back onto the bed with him.

  But Juliet took a deep, steadying breath and stepped back out of his reach.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, turning to retrieve her shirt from the floor. “I have to go.”

  Juliet sat in her car in the driveway for a few minutes, examining her face in the rearview mirror. The skin on her neck was red, rubbed raw by Alex’s stubble.

  Maybe Patrick won’t notice it, she thought. And if he does, I’ll just tell him I must have gotten some sun today at the fountain park.

  Juliet closed her eyes briefly, hating that she had to sit here thinking up cover lies, hating herself for sinking so low. It took several long moments for her to work up the nerve to go inside. It was only when she was halfway down the front walk that she realized the minivan wasn’t in the driveway.

  Did Patrick park in the garage? she wondered. Odd. He didn’t usually.

  “Who’s ready for spaghetti and meatballs?” Juliet called when she walked in the door. Her voice sounded oddly shaky to her, and she took a minute to draw in a deep breath and steady herself.

  Just keep it together, she thought.

  But then it occurred to her that the house was unnaturally quiet. She couldn’t hear the girls laughing, or the blare of the television, or Patrick’s heavy footsteps upstairs. “Patrick? Emma, Izzy?”

  Juliet kicked off her shoes and walked from room to room, but her family wasn’t there. The girls weren’t in their bedroom or playing in the den; Patrick wasn’t at the computer, browsing through the online news. She frowned. Did they go to the restaurant without her? If so, why wouldn’t Patrick have mentioned that in his voice-mail message? All he’d said was to call him back. But when she’d tried to reach him on his cell phone, it had gone straight to voice mail.

  Juliet padded into the kitchen. There, on the counter, next to a neatly stacked pile of mail, was the latest issue of Mothering magazine. And next to it was a note written on one of her yellow, lined legal pads, in Patrick’s cramped scrawl:

  I took the girls to my parents’ house. I’ll call you later. Patrick.

  Juliet stared at the note. What the hell was going on? Patrick’s parents lived all the way down in Boca. Patrick did occasionally take the twins down there for weekends—Juliet was usually too busy with work to go with them, not that she minded missing out on quality time with her in-laws—but it was always something he made plans to do in advance. He’d never just upped and driven down there without even telling her.

  Something’s wrong, Juliet knew immediately. Patrick’s mother, Trish, had breast cancer a few years back. Was she sick again? Or was it his father, Sean, who knocked back three martinis every night and then insisted he was sober enough to drive everyone to dinner?

  Juliet immediately reached for the phone and dialed her in-laws’ house.

  Trish answered. “Hello.”

  “Hi, Trish, it’s Juliet.”

  There was a weird pause. “Oh…hello, Juliet,” Trish said. Her voice sounded strange.

  Juliet pressed her lips together in annoyance. She and Trish had never gotten along. Trish disapproved of Juliet working while Patrick stayed home and never let the opportunity pass to comment on it. In fact, Trish never missed the opportunity to talk, period. The woman was verbally incontinent.

  “I got a note from Patrick saying he and the twins were headed down there. Is everything okay?”

  Another pause. “Yes, they just got here. I’ll, uh, let you talk to Patrick.”

  Juliet frowned. What the hell was going on? Surely, if Trish or Sean were sick, Trish would have told her.

  “Hey,” Patrick said, taking the phone. He sounded odd, like he was upset but trying to contain it.

  “Patrick, what’s going on? Is everything okay?” Juliet asked. Her concern made her sound more irritated than she felt.

  “No. Everything is not okay,” Patrick said flatly.

  “What’s happening? Why did you take the girls down there? When are you coming home?”

  Patrick sighed deeply. “I’m not coming back,” he said. “At least not right away.”

  Juliet felt an almost electrical shock of fear.

  “What do you mean you’re not coming back? What are you talking about?”

  “We need to take a break, Juliet. We’ve needed that for a long time. And I need to…well, to decide. Where I want to go from here.”

  Oh, God, Juliet thought, with a great, nauseating lurch. He knows about Alex. He must have found out somehow.

  But how? How had he found out? It was a two-hour drive down to Boca. If Patrick and the twins were already there, they had to have left home while Juliet was still at the office, before she’d left to go to the Sands with Alex, long before she’d almost—

  Almost. That was the key word, Juliet thought. She’d almost cheated. But she’d stopped it in time. Well. Almost in time.

  “Patrick, I don’t know what’s going on, but you can’t just leave like this,” Juliet said, trying to keep her voice steady.

  “Yes,” he said. “I can.”

  Juliet blinked. He sounded so angry. What was going on? She understood what Patrick was saying, but it didn’t seem real. Surely at any minute the twins would come tumbling through the door, shrieking with delight to see her, and Patrick would be there, his lips curled up in a familiar grin, and everything would go back to normal. A dinner out, bath time, a DVD rental. Just another normal Saturday night.

  Juliet suddenly wanted that normalcy with such a fierce longing, she had to grip the edge of the counter for support.

  But the door didn’t open. Instead, the house stood silently around her, until it seemed that the quiet would swallow Juliet whole. She noticed that her hands were shaking.

  “But…what about the twins? What did you tell them?” Juliet asked.

  “Nothing. At least, nothing yet. Just that we were going to surprise Gran and Pops.”

  “Look, I’m coming down there. We obviously have to talk,” Juliet said decisively. She grabbed her keys off the counter.

  “Please, don’t. I know we’ll need to talk—eventually. And that you’ll of course want to see the twins. I wouldn’t keep them from you, or you from them. But I’d appreciate it if you could give me a few days before I see you. I need to think things through,” Patrick said.

  “Think things through?” Juliet whispered. What was he thinking through? Had he somehow sensed her infidelity? Should she tell him that she didn’t cheat? That although she’d walked right up to the edge, she’d stopped and turned back before it was too late? “Look, there’s something I think you should know—” Juliet began.

  “You’re not going to tell me that you didn’t say those things,” Patrick said, his voice suddenly cold.

  Juliet frowned, confused. “What things? What are you talking about?”

  “The article?”

  “What article?”

  “The magazine is right there on the counter. The one we were photographed for,” Patrick said.

  Juliet’s eyes fell on the copy of Mothering magazine. The headlines of the articles stood out in white print against the aqua-blue cover, which featured the picture of a beaming pregnant actress, sitting with her legs crossed in a yogalike position: ARE PTAS A THING OF THE PAST? GO FROM MATRONLY TO HOT MAMA! CAN ANY WOMAN REALLY HAVE IT ALL?

  She stared at the magazine for a few minutes, wondering why it had been sent to her—she wasn’t a subscriber. Then it clicked. Oh, right! Chloe’s article. Is that what Patrick was talking about? But wait. It still didn’t make any sense, it didn’t make any sense at all.

  “You left because of an article?” Juliet asked.

  “You haven’t seen it yet?”

  “No,” Juliet said. She flipped through the magazine, until she found Chloe’s byline under an article entitled MOMMY TRACKED. At first, all Juliet saw was the photo accompanying the article. It was one of the pictures from the photo shoot. In it, the twins were in the basket
of the shopping cart, Izzy sitting and Emma standing at the end, on the verge of jumping out. Patrick was behind the cart, pushing it, grinning and looking adorably rumpled. Juliet was in front of the cart, one hand behind her, as though she were pulling it after her. In the photo, she was looking fixedly ahead of her, unsmiling and cold. She looked—well, God, she looked horrible. And so distant from the rest of her family. Juliet dropped the magazine back on the counter, recoiling from it.

  But still. Patrick wouldn’t have walked out because she looked lousy in a picture. Juliet leaned forward and skimmed the first few sentences of the article. There didn’t seem to be anything particularly damning about it.

  “Patrick. Look. I have no idea what’s going on. And if you want to visit your parents for a few days, that is, of course, your choice. But I don’t understand why you’re making this all sound so…dire. You act like you’re leaving this marriage.” Juliet let out a frustrated noise, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh.

  There was a pregnant pause. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m considering.”

  “But that’s insane! Nobody leaves their marriage over a magazine article!”

  “It isn’t just the article. I’ve been unhappy for a really long time. I’ve tried talking to you about it, but you haven’t been receptive. And then when I read that article, when I saw what you really think of me, it just clarified the situation for me.” Patrick sighed heavily. “Look. Just give me a few days to think about things. I’ll drive back up later on this week, or early next, and we’ll talk then.”

  It wasn’t the words that worried Juliet, it was the way he was saying them, with such a cool detachment. It was as though he’d already made up his mind.

  “May I speak to the girls?” Juliet asked.

  “They’re swimming in the pool right now. I’ll have them call you when they get out, okay?”

  “Fine,” Juliet said.