Searching for Sylvie Lee (25 page)

Estelle made a graphic gesture with her fingers. “Sex. And a box also refers to a woman’s—”

“Ah,” I said.

It was Estelle’s turn. Her white-blond hair had not changed since we were kids. If only I could have had her with me for all the intervening years. Her turquoise silk tank top shone like her eyes as she drawled, “Horse dick.”

“Horse penis polisher.”

With a triumphant smile, Estelle said, “Easter bunny pubic hair collector.”

Now I almost fell off my stool from laughter. “You are just making these up.”

In unison, they both protested, “No!”

A man with a ruddy face and straw-like stubble who had been hovering behind us said, “I called my boss that yesterday.”

Estelle winked at the guy as Lukas deliberately turned his back on him. This was not the first man who had tried to join our game tonight, much to Lukas’s annoyance.

“Oooh!” Estelle cried. “Dancing!” It was late and the crowd was drunk enough that a few people had started swaying and jumping in the middle of the room—and another small group tromped around doing the polonaise in a line with their hands on each other’s shoulders, singing loudly out of tune. In most countries, this could not really be called dancing. “Come up.” Before I could protest, she dragged me off to join them.

“No, no, I cannot. I really cannot,” I protested, but it was too late. The polonaise line had tromped off to the other side of the room. We stood among the tiny dancing group as Estelle sashayed around me. I groaned and tried to claw my way back to the bar, but Lukas now stood before me, moving to the music. He looked good. Estelle turned so that her butt was pressed against his front and started to undulate, her hands gathering a cascade of pale hair above her slender neck. A bolt of jealousy struck me in the chest. They probably did this all the time, all the years I had been gone.

Above her head, his eyes met mine and he smiled, teeth white in the dimly lit bar. “Do not go. Dance with us.”

Dutifully, I tried. My hips did not sway. I marched up and down in place like a robot. Although I had learned to find the beat, I did not understand what people meant when they said I had to “feel the music.” What was there to feel?

Lukas’s mouth slackened.

Estelle paused her sexy swinging. “Sylvie!” she screeched. “What. Is. That.”

“Dancing,” I retorted. I was a terrible dancer in a land of terrible dancers. Even here, I was unusual. But this was what they wanted. I marched harder.

The ruddy man from before came shimmying up beside me. “Looking good to me, little treasure.”

“You are too drunk to see anything,” Lukas snapped. He took my hand and pulled me to him, swinging us around so the man was hidden behind his broad back. Then, slowly, he lifted my palm to his lips and kissed it. My skin throbbed. I stared up at him with my lips parted. Then I remembered: Estelle.

I peeked around him, but she was dancing with two other women with her back to us. Thank goodness. She had not seen. Lukas’s head swiveled to follow my gaze, his expression pained.

“I need to get some sleep, especially if we are flying to Venice tomorrow.” Was that my voice? So breathless.

He leaned down and said, “Do not go yet. Or let me come home with you.” I shivered at his breath against my ear. He had wrapped my hand in both of his and imprisoned it against his heart.

Heat rushed through my body. Now Estelle was turning toward us. I pulled my hand out of his grasp before she could notice. She was heading our way.

I made myself sound assured and breezy when she arrived. “No, of course not. I am not made of doll poopie. I am heading to bed and I can manage the little bicycle ride home. You two enjoy yourselves and I will see you tomorrow.”

I kissed Estelle and then Lukas three times on their cheeks, breathing in Lukas’s scent of sweat and ginseng, then made my way past the red-faced man, who blew me a kiss as I left.

I
had only drunk one glass of white wine, yet still swayed a bit on my bicycle. I sobered quickly, though. Lukas and Estelle were probably dancing, entwined around each other, back at the bar. The weather had turned bitter and cold these past days and the night wind wrapped her empty arms around me. I passed living room windows. Something else I had not held on to: open curtains everywhere, bare of obfuscation and gray areas. There, a middle-aged couple watching a game show on television, a man ironing a pile of baby clothes while his wife worked on a laptop at the table behind him, an old woman sitting alone in her armchair, staring into the darkness. It was hard to watch Grandma worsen by the day, gasping for air, her skin turning gray, fading while still clutching at life. Was that how it ended for all of us? Everything was slipping away from me, walking out of my hands.

Rest continued to elude me most nights. I simply could not bear too much happiness, even when I was with Lukas and Estelle and Filip. Even small amounts of light peeking through my curtains in the morning had started to irritate me. I was not used to companionship, and like a dog that had been abused as a puppy, I shied away from it. Joy was no longer something I could trust.

I locked my bike by Lukas’s apartment and walked up the path to the main house. The moon hung low and full, caught within the tangled branches of the birch tree. The tree’s white bark gleamed in the light. As I approached, I saw that it was pitted and scarred, peeling to reveal the wounded wood underneath. The sharp wind whipped my hair against my cheeks, merciless and blinding, and the lights inside the house had been put out like eyes.

I fumbled for my keys beneath the outside wall lamp and then stifled a scream as a low voice said, “Sylvie.”

A bulky form emerged from the shadows, then a light mop of hair and I realized it was Jim. It took me a moment to switch into English. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.” He reached out and trailed his hand along my cheekbone. He looked tired and disheveled, but his touch was familiar, dear to me. For a moment I leaned into his warm fingertips, until I remembered to draw back.

I still loved him and gods, it still hurt. “Why didn’t you wait until I came back to New York?”

“I wasn’t sure you would be coming back. A part of you always wanted to return here, didn’t it?”

Despite everything, Jim did know me. What could I do with him now? I could not just send him away. I might wake up Helena and Willem if I brought him inside. Then all sorts of awkward questions would follow. Lukas was not home yet and who knew? Maybe he would not come home at all tonight. I pressed my lips together. “Come this way. My cousin lives here and we won’t be disturbed.”

I led him to Lukas’s place, opened the door, and took him upstairs to the small living room and kitchenette.

“I like it,” Jim said. “Efficiency infused with a careless insouciance.”

As he wanted me to, I laughed. He seemed to me two different people: the man who had cheated on me, and my Jim, whom I still loved. Despite everything, it was good to see him again. If only we could erase the past year. I leaned back against the kitchen counter, weary all of a sudden. He took a seat on the sofa. “Where are you staying?”

“With family in the Hague.”

Oh, right. Jim had an uncle who worked for the International Court of Justice there. “You shouldn’t have come. I’m not ready to talk to you yet.”

He looked up at me, his face filled with regret. He stood slowly, as if afraid to spook me, and came closer. Reaching out, he touched me on the elbow. Although my mind revolted, my body remembered only that this was my husband. I closed my eyes and took his hand in mine. He threaded our fingers together, as he always did. “You’ve been avoiding me for months. I am so sorry, Sylvie. Please give me another chance.”

“It’s not that simple.” I stared at the tiled floor. “I wish none of it had happened.”

He bent his head until we stood forehead to forehead. “I would give anything to undo what I did. I love you.” He lifted my chin to kiss me.

His lips were soft and firm. I tasted salt and realized I was crying. As we drew apart, he wiped my tears with his thumbs. A wet shimmer clouded his eyes as well. “Sylvie. I was so, so wrong. It’s your birthday this weekend. Let me take you away. Let’s start afresh and we can have our lives back, both of us.” His voice was so earnest, convincing.

Why not? To undo everything that had happened these past few months, like reverse animation in a movie. I saw all the pieces of my life fly backward and fit together to form the perfect picture it had seemed before. Back to the way it had been before I returned to the Netherlands—before Grandma, Lukas, Filip, and Estelle. I drew a shaky breath and pulled away. “I can’t. I’ve changed. It’s like there’s been a shell around me and it’s finally starting to crack.”

He clenched his jaw and his eyes narrowed. “You’ve met someone.”

I clutched the counter behind me, still silent.

He stepped closer, looming over me, feet planted wide. He stuck his face in front of mine. “I’m too late, aren’t I? Who the hell is he?”

I lifted my chin, though my stomach clenched. “I’m going to Venice for my birthday. But not with you.”

“With whom? Alone?” His voice grew deceptively soft. His eyes blazed with hurt and anger. “Tell me his name.” He had looked this way that night at Princeton, when he had thought I was flirting with that guy at the party. The same animal fury, the dizzying flash of white behind my eyelids when he hit me, the reddened face and curled lip as he pushed the other guy through a window. We broke up for a few months after that, but he was so sorry, repentant, swearing over and over he would never do it again. He even went to therapy. Afterward he decided to study psychology.

Beads of sweat formed on my lip. My knees were locked and my hands trembling so hard I could barely grip the counter. This. This was why I was separated from this man. My fear washed over the tenderness he had rekindled, leaving only cold ashes behind. I set my palms on his shoulders and shoved him hard; he stumbled backward a step. “Fuck you, Jim. You have no rights to me anymore.”

Half-crouched, he looked like a predator ready to pounce. His voice was hoarse with fury. “You’re still my wife. If that bastard touches you, I’ll—”

“What?” I said coldly. “Hit him the way you did me?” I had been stunned when he struck me the second time, during our initial screaming match about his affair, worrying about the neighbors hearing, not smart enough to be afraid of him, on the floor, sobbing, as he stormed out. By the time he returned, I had already changed the locks and thrown all his stuff out on the curb. That was the last time we had spoken to each other, though he had sent a steady stream of apologetic emails and flowers.

As if in slow motion, Jim’s face crumpled. He straightened and reached his arms out to me, imploring. “I’m so sorry, Sylvie. I was afraid and I lost my temper. I don’t deserve you. I’ve done everything wrong.” He tore at his hair with his hands, his voice frantic. “I’m always pretending to be a nice guy, but in the end, I’m a selfish asshole. You’re the best thing that’s ever come into my life. Please don’t throw it away.”

“Like you did when you had an affair with a sixteen-year-old student?” I had been trying to forget, but there, I had said it. It was true. There were not two Jims. How I wished there were. My voice was crisp, crackling with unshed tears. “I wonder if you truly regret the things you did, or if you’re sorry our marriage is over, or if you’re just scared shitless about what will happen if this gets out and the holy Bates name is tainted.”

His arms dropped to his sides. His voice was a whisper. “Sylvie, don’t do this. My mom and dad . . . it would ruin our reputation.”

Still only thinking about himself. What a selfish bastard I had married. “And what about that poor girl?”

He snorted. “She wanted it. She’s been after me all year, wearing low-cut shirts and miniskirts and hanging around my office. It was completely consensual. If you could see her, she looks like a full-grown woman.”

The blood pounded in my ears. “You disgust me.” My vision blurred. I bit down on the inside of my cheek so hard I could taste the blood. This man could see a splinter in someone else’s eye but missed the wooden beam in his own. “You were the adult in this situation. She trusted you and you abused her trust.”

He laughed, bitter. “She’s a slut.”

I slapped him in the face, hard. His head snapped around, blind fury in his eyes, and he grabbed me by the shoulders so hard I knew I would bruise.

I almost cried out from the pain and my toes were nearly lifted off the floor. I hissed, low and fierce, “We’re never going to agree about this, so let’s talk legal terms. Under the age of seventeen in the state of New York, a minor cannot give sexual consent in the eyes of the law. Whether or not she consented is completely irrelevant. You are guilty of statutory rape, a Class E felony which is punishable by up to four years in prison and a five-thousand-dollar fine. Yes, I looked this up. You have a hell of a lot more to worry about than your precious Bates name. Now hit me again if you dare.”

He released me so abruptly I staggered and almost fell. I caught myself with one hand on the countertop. He held his hands up in the air. Innocent Jim. “She won’t tell anyone. It’s completely over now. No one else knows.”

“Except me.”

He pressed his palms together, beseeching me, blond hair glinting in the overhead light, dark blue eyes limpid and sorrowful—a beautiful praying angel. He spoke softly. “Sylvie, please don’t do this. I made a terrible, stupid mistake. I’ve learned my lesson. We don’t need to get a divorce. Everything will be like it was.”