Nocturne (40 page)

She shrugged. “Not that it mattered.”

“How did this come about? Madeline said something about a fertility specialist? She wasn’t aware that I didn’t know.”

Jesus Christ.
As soon as I asked the question, her eyes went red and started to run with tears. Naturally that was when the waiter showed up with our food. Karin quickly wiped her eyes and face, and then made a comment about allergies which I’m sure fooled no one. The waiter put our food down and politely asked if we needed anything else.

“Another round of drinks, please,” I said.

So we sat in strained silence for another ten minutes while our food and then drinks got situated. I toyed with my food and sloshed the ice in the bottom of my glass around. When the waiter finally returned with the second round of drinks, I tossed half my gin and tonic back in one gulp.

“Tell me about the fertility specialist.”

She tossed back half of her own drink. Then she said, “I went to the doctor in March.”

“That’s why you finally talked to me?”

She nodded. “I knew you’d eventually see the bills. From the insurance company.”

I can’t imagine why she thought that. I never looked at them. She could have been seeing a hundred doctors and I would never have known it.

“So you went to the doctor. And what happened?”

She didn’t look me in the eyes. At all. “As it turns out, I’m infertile. Completely. I cannot have children.”

As she said the words, she stared at the floor somewhere to her right. And she began to shake. Violently. I leaned forward, utterly conflicted. What the fuck did I say to her? Was I sorry she’d been unable to trap me into being a parent? Did I express sympathy? I was sympathetic to her pain. I think? Actually I didn’t think I’d ever been so confused and conflicted in my life. About anything.

When I didn’t move to her, didn’t move to comfort her, she buried her face in her hands and began to sob, silently. I sighed, furrowed my eyebrows, and thought. Hard. I was her husband. I should comfort her. But honestly I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to touch her. I didn’t want to give her any out. I didn’t want to give her any impression that I could forgive her for what she’d done.

But who was I to judge? Who was I to not forgive her? I’d spent the last several weeks committing adultery. And I had no intention of stopping. Whether she let me say the words or not ... I was in love with Savannah Marshall. So I sat there, impassive, paralyzed, and unable to respond with a touch or any words of comfort or anything at all as my wife fell apart three feet away from me.

Right there, at that moment, is the closest I’ve ever come to hating myself.

In between sobs, she looked up at me, her expression desperate. “Can we go somewhere else? Please?”

I waved down the waiter, and said, “Can we get the check please, right away?”

Five minutes later we were standing at the doors to the elevator. Karin turned her back to me, arms folded across her chest, looking out toward the front door of the hotel. I stood there feeling exposed at the bottom of the seven story interior atrium. From where I stood, Karin and I could be seen from the doors and windows of virtually every room in the hotel.

Savannah was on the sixth floor, and I could see her door from here. Could she see me? Was she wondering at this moment what was passing between Karin and me?

I didn’t want to think about that. My life was segmented out, compartmentalized, and the part of me that performed in the tour, the part of me in love with Savannah, had nothing to do with Karin. Having them both in the same place was beyond disturbing ... it set my entire body on edge with tension that I felt deep in my gut.

I jerked a little when the doors opened. We stepped in and stood on opposite sides like strangers. The door closed, the bell rang, and the elevator began to move.

Finally the excruciating, painful wait was over and I was unlocking my room. A room, which, thankfully, I’d not shared with Savannah. Because while I might be a complete bastard, an adulterer, a liar … I still couldn’t conceive of them sleeping in the same bed. The idea of it, the secrecy, the lies … they made me ill.

The bellman had placed Karin’s bags in the corner. I stood near the window, which overlooked the darkness outside, pacing, as she slipped into the bathroom to prepare herself for the night. My eyes darted around the room. Looking for anything incriminating. Condoms. Anything that belonged to Savannah. I knew there wasn’t anything; we’d not shared this room.

But I couldn’t slip my guilt into a drawer and hide it. I couldn’t erase the stain of lies and manipulation. The rage I felt over her betrayal was real. But not as real as my own betrayal.

I sighed, staring out the window.

I thought it all through. What would happen if Karin and I divorced? Savannah and I could be together when that happened. But would she ever be able to trust me? After all ... I’d cheated on my wife. Would she ever be able to trust that I wouldn’t do it to her? Did a relationship founded on a lie stand any chance of surviving?

My heart told me yes. My heart told me that Savannah and I were meant to be together. But in the back of my mind, doubts screamed at me that I’d doomed our love from the start.

I jerked when Karin opened the door and stepped out of the restroom. She’d dispensed with her long t-shirt nightgown, instead wearing some sheer silky thing.
Crap.
I felt my mouth dry, instantly. There was no doubt what she had in mind as she walked toward me in her bare feet, eyes meeting mine.

I coughed and then muttered something about going to brush my teeth. Then I slipped by her, into the bathroom and closed the door. I turned on the water, all the way, and leaned on the counter. What the fuck was I doing? How did I end up in this place? In a hotel room with a woman I was married to, while the woman I loved was one floor, a thousand feet and a million miles away from me?

I closed my eyes, because I didn’t like who I saw in the mirror. I didn’t like it at all. Then, finally, I slipped out of my outer clothes, brushed my teeth, and slid on a heavy bathrobe.

When I opened the bathroom door, the lights in the room were off. I could hear her breathing. I walked toward the bed. She would be on the side closest to the window, so I slid off the bathrobe and got under the blanket.

Karin was three inches away from me and I wanted to flee.

As soon as I was under the cover, she slid over toward me.

“I missed you,” she whispered.

Another stab of guilt. Because the truth was, I hadn’t missed her at all. Then I froze, because she put her lips to my neck and a hand on my stomach.

“Gregory, why won’t you touch me? You’re my husband. I’m so sorry ... I’m sorry I lied. Forgive me.”

Jesus.
Forgive
her?
If she only knew what she was saying.

“Kiss me,” she said, and then her lips came into contact with mine. I responded because what the fuck else was I supposed to do? But it was the most uncomfortable kiss of my life. She moved closer, and her right hand worked its way down my stomach until she was touching my penis, and God help me, but of course it responded instantly, even though the rest of my body was rigid, uncomfortable.

Her kisses became almost frantic, and the next thing I knew, she’d brought her lips to my neck again, as she raised to her knees, her fingernails raking lines in my ribs.

“I want you, Gregory. Please.”

Her pleading made me want to run away and hide. To sneak under the bed. My stomach was in knots as she frantically pulled at my underwear. I winced and closed my eyes, because she touched me again, but I’d collapsed, flaccid, completely impotent.

My body had revolted, announcing in no uncertain terms what my confused mind hadn’t made clear.
No. Fucking. Way.

She froze. Then turned away, flinging herself to the far edge of the bed with her back to me.

I stared at the ceiling. Humiliated. Nauseous.

She shook with the beginning of a sob then whispered, “Do you really hate me that much?”

I couldn’t answer. Instead, I lay there, silently, alone, as my wife cried herself to sleep.

 Savannah

“S
avannah, that’s an A-flat.”

“Huh?” I whispered, turning to Nathan.

“It’s an A-flat.” He took his pencil and helpfully circled the offending note for me. “You’ve missed it like every other time we’ve gone over that line. There’s a key change in measure thirty-six.”

Sighing, I grabbed his pencil from his hand and put a star over the key change. “Well, what the hell? This is a march for Christ’s sake, who writes this many key changes into a march?”

Tim elbowed me from the other side.

“What?” I snapped. He just nodded toward Joseph McIntosh, staring down at me from his conductor’s stand expectantly.

“I said, Ms. Marshall, that I want the flutes to ease up on the staccato on that run of eight notes starting at thirty-six. The way he’s written them is too choppy. Still accent them, just not so forcefully. And, in the correct key, please.”

My cheeks heated as my eyes drifted over toward Gregory. I rarely messed up, and I was waiting for him to shoot me a condescending gaze, as if my messing up was somehow a billboard that the two of us were having sex in our private time. He just nodded and mouthed:
you’re fine
.

The past few weeks had been a whirlwind. Gregory and I were granted the gift of privacy a few hours a week due to practicing our duet. We’d played the Assobio piece a few times and worked a few other pieces into the rotation. I savored the hours we spent practicing. Playing. Immersing ourselves in the craft that initially attracted us to each other.

It was a turn on to watch him practice. To work note runs over and over, studying them behind his furrowed brow. When he stopped, satisfied that he’d worked over the measures enough, he’d look in my eyes, and I could never stop myself from setting my flute down and grabbing him into a kiss. He always kissed me back with greater intensity than I’d seen him use to study the notes on the page. So much so that one time in Houston, we got so carried away in the practice room that we’d taken each other’s clothes off before taking stock of our surroundings. Thankfully, no one caught us.

Caught.

I hated that what we were doing was something that someone could “catch.” There would be no release from that.

We rarely talked about the future. Or even the present. Karin … his wife … had come out to visit him for two days. A visit that ended inconclusively for them. And left me hanging, twisting in the wind. He’d told me nothing of their discussion when she was here. But sometimes I could see it in his eyes. The stress and confusion and anger, and occasionally, deep melancholy.

At first, I’d been concerned that his desire to be with me for the summer was purely driven by physical need. The more time we spent together, however, the less that was a concern. He loved me. That was evident in the soft growl that came from his throat as he softly bit my earlobe, and the way he watched me as I moaned beneath him. It was the way he always stood at the end of the song and slid his fingers around the back of my neck before kissing me and telling me how beautifully I’d played, and how beautiful I was. It was the look in his eyes when he said it. They always widened slightly, as if he was trying to remind himself that this was real. We were there, in that space, just loving each other.

I still didn’t let us say that to each other.

Love.

That was my limit. My singular request in this wildly irresponsible situation. I loved him, madly. And I know he loved me, too. I just knew myself well enough to know that I couldn’t hear him tell me that every time we were together and be able to keep my head on straight. He was married. And, at the end of this tour, he was going home to his life and I would go home to mine. We would always have the memories of the summer we toured together.

And that would be that.

“Where’d you go?” Nathan elbowed me as we stood by ourselves in the elevator of the Downtown Lexington Hilton.

“Huh?” I cleared my throat and glanced up at him, finding him scrutinizing my every move. I hesitated over the
7
, which was Gregory’s floor. Nathan knew I was on the ninth floor. Reluctantly, I tapped the
9
with my knuckle and leaned against the wall of the elevator car.

“Today. That shit with the key change.”

“It was just one key change, Nathan. Jesus. Sorry.” I rolled my eyes and stared at the descending numbers on top of the elevator doors.

“It’s not just today, Savannah. You’ve been wicked focused in performances, but it’s like during rehearsals you’re somewhere else. You’re off. Something’s going on. What is it?”

Shit.

I’d taken Nathan’s possession of a Y-chromosome for granted in hopes that he’d never find out about Gregory and me. Certainly, I’d thought, as long as I showed up and did my job, no one would notice that what I was really doing was barely holding on to reality. Tightly.

“It’s nothing, really.” I shrugged and offered a half-assed smile.