Infidelity (11 page)

( CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO )

A few evenings later Ronnie called Charlie on his cellphone. She spoke before he even had a moment to say hello. “Charlie. Charlie. I miss you.”

She called from a filthy bathroom at a bar on Bloor, where she stared at a piece of black-markered graffiti that said, “You're much better than you give yourself credit for.” Ronnie never called Charlie late in the evenings—it was too dangerous—but she had had enough whisky shots to break this rule.

“Where are you?” he asked quietly.

She leaned up against the wall, watching the room tilt ever so slightly and things get fuzzy. “I know I'm not supposed to call . . . because of your wife . . . but I am at a bar by myself,” she said quietly. “I am drinking and you are so close to me. I'm not angry, Charlie. I'm too tired to be angry. You are not far away. You should come watch me drink.”

“Ronnie.”

“Charlie. I don't think I can get home by myself.”

“Don't move. I'll be right there. Okay?”

Even though they were still technically in an argument, even though she dropped a platter of cookies at his feet and threatened to bring out “the caterer,” even though he had been pawed at by girls half his age and he remembered thinking,
Fuck Ronnie, she's not worth it
, he couldn't stop himself.

He told his half-sleeping wife that he was inspired and was going to the office to write. She moaned a response and barely stirred. He put on his parka, scarf, and boots and walked to the bar on Bloor Street to watch Ronnie drink whisky shots in a shitty student bar with shitty students.

When he arrived he scanned the room and found she was seated at the bar by herself. She was wrapped in an oversized brown cardigan, her mascara smeared and her hair dishevelled. She threw her arms around him dramatically, clinging to him with a desperate surrender that made her body limp in his arms.

When she finally pulled away, she spoke without prompting, weeping while she did. “I don't care about the twenty-year-old girls you spend your time with. I don't care that you could have them all if you wanted. You're so smart and funny and famous it's no wonder they all want you—”

“Ronnie, stop it. It's not like that.”

“But you are. You're smart and funny and famous and—”

“Shhhh. Honey.”

Charlie rummaged in his pockets to find a Kleenex but came up with nothing. He grabbed some cocktail napkins from the other side of the bar and passed them to her. She blew her nose noisily and continued crying. “Considering what we're doing I can't judge you. How can I judge you? You can do whatever you want. All I care about is having you. I don't care how I have you. I don't care who else has you.”

“There is no one else, Ronnie. There will never be anyone else.” He cupped his hand on the back of her neck gently, resisting the urge to pull her in for a kiss. Despite the emotional display, they were still in public. It wasn't ridiculous to assume that one of his students could be sharing a ten-dollar pitcher a few tables over. Up until this point Ronnie could be disguised as an unstable student destroyed by a failing grade.

“Has there ever been anyone else? Ever?”

“No. Only Tamara. Up until now only Tamara.”

With this knowledge, despite the fact that it was exactly what she wanted to hear, her eyes again filled with tears. “Oh god. I'm a terrible, terrible person. I should die. I deserve to die,” she spluttered.

“Of course you're not. And no you don't. Don't talk like that.”

“Do you think I act like a child? Do you think there's something wrong with me?”

“God no, Ronnie. You're perfect. Why would you even say that?”

Their conversation continued, and with slurred speech she talked about destiny and soulmates, and about her own mortality. She talked a lot about death. Charlie listened to her speak about a vague something that was wrong, saying nothing, just listening. What something she was talking about he failed to figure out entirely, no matter how hard he listened. Her words were a tangled, nonsensical mess as the whisky shots continued.

“Charlie, what are we going to do? What can we do?”

“There's nothing to be done. We'll just love each other, okay?”

“I'll be gone soon. When I'm gone, things will be easier.”

“What do you mean?”

Ronnie didn't offer an answer. She hadn't told Charlie about the doctor's visits and the potential diagnosis, and despite her level of drunkenness had no plans to. When Charlie finally realized he would never figure out what she was talking about he drank some more whisky to help him understand, but things just got fuzzier and made less sense the more whisky he drank.

And then she told him, with certainty, that she loved him.

“I love you too, Ronnie. So much, I can't explain it.”

Instead he explained the twenty-year-olds. Explained that they meant nothing and that he wanted only her. And after a few more whisky shots he explained he couldn't live without her.

I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you

When the bar closed they were kicked out into the street, and they smoked and swore and went to his office and had sex on his desk. Because it was past three, Ronnie was encouraged to be as loud as she wanted and she was. They forgave each other by taking things out on each other.

“Will you really write a book for me?” she asked.

“Of course I will.”

When they were finished, he asked her how she was, and she said nothing. She simply slipped on her clothes in silence and left him there, naked in a desk chair.

Charlie assumed nothing from her behaviour. He was simply pleased that they were speaking again. Even if they weren't actually speaking.

Charlie got dressed and slept on the couch in the office, the smell of her all over him.

( CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE )

“You know, Veronica, I know this really great fertility specialist that totally helped Aaron's sister-in-law. She had some of the same problems you're having, and she was even older than you are, and now she has twins. Can you believe it? Twins.” Aaron's mother delivered this piece of information without making eye contact, wiping a non-existent crumb from the corner of her mouth with her white fabric napkin.

Ronnie did not make eye contact either, but instead watched as Aaron's father methodically carved a thin slice of roast beef from the great hunk of meat in the centre of the table, watched as the blood pooled in the bottom of the silver platter, unable to speak as Aaron's mother turned Sunday dinner into a critique of her fertility.

Aaron was visibly uncomfortable. “Mother, please. Not the time.”

“Oh Aaron, honey. Sometimes women just need a little help. It used to be in my day that a woman really focused on getting pregnant. Took care of herself. But now it seems they just expect it to happen when they're busy with all these other distractions.”

“Mother.”

“Well, it's not as if I'm not saying anything that anyone at this table hasn't already considered,” she offered, ignoring his protest. She adjusted the pearls around her neck, satisfied she was speaking for the good of everyone at the table.

“Actually, we haven't established whose problem it is yet,” Ronnie finally said, not looking up from the roast beef even after Aaron's father had abandoned his carving and was refilling his wineglass.

“Oh dear, it's always the women. Never the men. And certainly not Aaron.”

“Mother, stop it.”

“No, Aaron. That's fine. I'm sure your semen is perfect,” Ronnie conceded.

Aaron's father choked on his wine and descended into a coughing fit that lasted a good forty seconds.

“Veronica, I would appreciate it if you wouldn't discuss
those things
at the dinner table,” Aaron's mother said disdainfully, returning to her napkin and the non-existent crumb.

“
Those things?
You mean Aaron's semen?”

“Veronica! Please. We're eating.”

“Oh, I see. But my wasteland of a uterus is just fine dinner conversation? Well then, pass me some more roast beef so I can fuel up for this discussion of my barren womb.” Ronnie reached toward the roast beef platter and plunged her fork into another hunk of meat, dramatically slapping it onto her plate, its juices splattering onto the white linen tablecloth.

Aaron reached over and put his hand on Ronnie's knee. “What's gotten into to you?” he asked quietly.

With this Ronnie stood up and tossed her napkin on the table. “Aaron, honey, if you need me I'll be in the car. Enjoy the rest of your dinner. Thank you for the advice.”

“Oh god, Ronnie, please don't.”

Ronnie grabbed the car keys from the front hall and ran into the driveway with Aaron trailing after her. She managed to get into the driver's seat and to lock all the doors of their Volvo station wagon before he approached.

“She didn't mean anything by it. She's just trying to help. Don't be like this. Please,” he said through the glass.

“Just once. Just once, I'd love it if you actually defended me to them. Instead of being a fucking coward like you always are.” She was crying now, the heat of her rage filling her face, her fists gripping the steering wheel as though she might take flight.

“I'm not a coward. I just don't see the point. They are the way they are. They're not going to change.”

“The point is that you don't know how to be a man. A partner.”

“Can we have this conversation inside? The whole neighbourhood is going to hear us.”

“Oh god. Who cares if the neighbourhood hears us?” With this she leaned on the horn multiple times, numerous porch lights down the dark suburban street flickering on in reaction.

Aaron wandered away from the car, hands on his head while he paced the length of the driveway. Silence descended on the street, and Ronnie noticed that his parents had blown out the candles on the dining room table. She slowly rolled down the window, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her sleeve.

“It's all too much. It's just too much,” she said.

“I know, honey. I know.”

He finally leaned in through the window and kissed her on the forehead in a way that suggested he understood.

“I guess we'll tell them we're getting married some other Sunday dinner,” he said.

( CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR )

Charlie and Ronnie met for their afternoon pint at a bar tucked away on a side street in the Annex. Afternoons were safer, simply because everyone in the world seemed to have something to do but them. Regardless of the locale, usually decided via email, they would meet up at the bar, their only witness a bartender with the unlucky privilege of working the low-tip daytime shift.

Ronnie arrived looking much like she usually did lately, tear-streaked, sullen, and puffy. Nonetheless, she smiled as she sat down at the barstool next to Charlie and ordered her first pint, and his anxiety was thankful for that smile. She touched the side of his arm tenderly, her expression suggesting he shouldn't ask what was wrong.

“It's so nice to see you,” she offered.

She seemed to be crying more often now, but Charlie refused to pry. “How are you?” he asked, hoping for a lie.

“I'm okay. Now I'm okay,” she said after taking the first sip.

She didn't want to taint their time together with her endless complaints, or accidentally reveal that Aaron had proposed. She knew she would have to tell Charlie eventually, that the ridiculous game of removing her ring and returning it to her finger when she left was growing tired, but for now she preferred the solace of him being unaware.

As the wedding plans unfolded with colour choices, expensive stationary, and elaborate menu items, Ronnie became increasingly withdrawn from Aaron and closer to Charlie. She was supposed to be fantasizing about her life with Aaron and instead she was wondering how she could escape it.

Aaron seemed blissfully, perhaps deliberately ignorant of the fact that Ronnie would cry quietly in the bathtub, when she was not touching herself and thinking of Charlie. There were occasions when she would touch herself and cry at the same time. And Aaron was oblivious to it all.

Charlie preferred not to think about what went on in the confines of Ronnie's west-end apartment, didn't want to know precisely why she was streaked with tears when she arrived. Her smile was so transparent at times, the kind of smile that failed to conceal the profound unhappiness that fell just below the surface. And although he longed to fix it for her, longed to assuage the frustration of constantly seeing her suffer, he instead smiled the same meek smile in her direction until they both had had enough wine, beer, or whisky to pretend that there was no “what went on.”

And while his anxiety was thankful, his love made him wish that at least she would show up without the longing look of a girl with such profound loss, such profound unhappiness, the kind that is so boundless that feeling mediocre becomes a real goal.

Charlie wanted to believe he was the kind of man who could rescue a girl like Ronnie from her life, but he knew he could not. He would never be the hero. He was an overweight, sedentary ne'er-do-well, a man who couldn't support his family let alone manage the emotions of his mistress. So instead he provided her with a place where she could lie to him about her happiness until it was time to leave.

They exchanged pleasantries through the first pint, and then expressions of yearning through the second, and when the bartender turned away from them to polish glasses he put his hand on her knee.

“So, do you have anywhere you need to be this afternoon?” he asked.

“No. Only places I'm pretending to be,” she said, smiling.

“My wife is at work and thinks I'm with students, and Noah is with Amanda at the museum, so I thought maybe you'd like to try something new.”

“I didn't know there was anything new for us to try,” she said and laughed.

“I thought you might be tired of the desk, so I got us a reservation at a hotel.”

“Wow. Really? Are you sure it's my dislike of furniture that prompted this?”

“I just thought it would be nice. Romantic,” he lied.

“Charlie. I don't believe you.”

“You deserve better than a desk.”

“That I'm sure of. But I'm also sure that's not why we're going to a hotel.”

“Sarah called. She left a message. After the party. After the cookies.”

“Of course. I hadn't thought of that. Aren't you worried about putting a hotel reservation on your credit card? That your wife will see it?”

“I'll pay cash.” Charlie was a novice at this, but he'd seen enough movies to know exactly how the philanderer gets caught.

“So this is what it's like, then.”

“What it's like?”

“An affair. I'd always wondered.”

Ronnie poured back the remainder of her pint and took Charlie by the hand. “Let's go, then.”