Surface (30 page)

C
HAPTER
37

T
he mountain hotel was quaint and welcoming with its whimsical eaves and blue-striped awnings. Claire barely recalled the drive, but there she was, mired in fresh turmoil, handing her bag to the bellman and giving herself over, body and soul, to this place of rejuvenation. She hoped it would help.

She checked in and confirmed an appointment for a massage at six o’clock. That left her a little over an hour to relax, but she knew that her mind would not allow her any peace when it was too busy obsessing over what Taylor looked like, and how Michael could have been such a snake. So she put on her favorite 2004 Bolder Boulder 10K T-shirt and, running her fingers over the faded lettering on the shirt, remembered how lovely life had seemed then. Nicholas hadn’t yet gotten sick and Michael probably hadn’t started cheating on her. As far as she knew. She headed for the gym before the memory sucked her will away. Maybe if she ran long and fast enough, she might find herself in a place with a better view.

After three miles in under thirty minutes, Claire entered the ladies’ changing area of the spa, where a young woman gave her a silk-lined terry bathrobe, slippers, and a key. She glanced around the softly lit room where women lolled in nearby hot tubs and uniformed staff delivered herbal teas to the guests as they lingered in this relaxing cocoon. How good it was to be there, she reminded herself, to be shielded, if only temporarily, from the detonation of any more bombs.

The scent of eucalyptus drifted from the steam room across from Claire’s locker. She stepped in and the door sealed behind her like a vacuum. Adjusting to the dim light, Claire saw that she was alone in the fog. No unwelcome chitchat, no examining eyes. She laid a towel down on the marble tiled bench, stretched her naked body out along its length, and closed her eyes. But within seconds, unbidden and unwelcome, the vibrancy of distant memories snuck up on her and she saw herself with Michael in the steam room of the Georges V in Paris for their honeymoon, drunk on champagne and making fast, silent love on the slick marble. It was so powerful, this Proustian sensorial moment, that Claire tried to physically expel it. She coughed forcefully and waited for the steam to do its detoxifying best and rid her of the sensation.
Bastard,
came the familiar refrain. Why had she chosen someone with such an inability to be forthcoming and at ease with his life, and her? The fog grew denser. Ten minutes crawled by, and she felt about as soothed as she was going to get.

After showering, she curled into a plush chair in the waiting area, feeling more mired than ever in the noxious soup of anxiety about the future and, now, her husband’s extracurriculars. A man called her name softly. Claire looked up through heavy eyes to see a uniformed therapist with dark hair and a sincere face. He greeted her and led her down a moss-colored hallway to her treatment room, where he left her to undress. The room was warm and smelled of vanilla and hot cider. Letting her robe fall to the floor, Claire climbed onto the massage table and covered herself with the sheet.

A moment later a knock came at the door and the massage therapist returned. He dimmed the lights and asked if she had any areas that needed extra attention.

“My psyche,” she replied. Catching his raised eyebrows, she tried to steer things back to a more impersonal level. “My neck and shoulders. I tend to carry my stress there. And I’ve got a bit of a sinus headache as well.”

He gently rearranged Claire’s hair off of her forehead and neck. “Let’s see what we can do to get rid of all this stress.” He stood behind her and cupped her head in one palm, and, alternating between firm strokes from her shoulder to her temples and gentle acupressure on her ears and scalp, he began to free the pressure behind her eyes. His fingers and knuckles expertly unleashing endorphins, his hands releasing tightly wound knots. “Just close your eyes and try to relax.” Her breath slowed to the pace of his strokes, and Claire focused on the healing energy she felt in his touch. He moved on to her neck, kneading with his elbow and forearm. There was something special about the way he gripped her skin and muscles, so knowing and intense, and yet completely nonthreatening. She drifted into a welcome state of calm as a knot at the base of her neck seemed to unclench like a baby’s fist.

He entwined her fingers with his own, and raising her hand upward, massaged her palm, her arm, her armpits. Her flesh prickled as he moved along the side of her rib cage and breast. When he lifted her other arm, she could feel his breath on her skin, could sense his proximity and energy. She let her arm go limp under the strength of his grasp, allowing herself to drift, weightless. And all the anguish she’d been holding on to began to recede. He placed a folded towel over her breasts and slowly inched the massage sheet down so that her stomach was exposed to her hips. The sliding motion of the crisp linen across her torso and the nubbiness of the towel caused her nipples to harden. His fingers touched down on her belly, and her muscles contracted. But he massaged her stomach in a soothing circular motion, causing more layers of tension to evaporate like a fine mist.

Pinning one hand over the sheet on her left hip, he uncovered her left leg with his free hand and tucked the sheet under the length of her right thigh. In shielding her nakedness, he grazed a hair from her untended bikini wax, sending a shiver through her. The alternating sensations of relaxation and stimulation were surprisingly arousing. She pretended she was someone for whom reminders about appropriateness were not legion and ingrained, and further melted into the fantasy that life was wonderful and steady, heartbreak-free. He began massaging the balls of her feet, then the arches, all the right pressure points, slowly and thoroughly.

As Claire reached a new level of surrender, he raised her leg perpendicular to her torso, and with a firm, deep grip worked each muscle group up to her buttocks. He moved to the side of the table and placed her ankle on his shoulder so that her legs rotated away from each other. The cool draft she felt whisk between her legs was in dramatic contrast to the heat she’d felt emanating there just seconds before. And instead of feeling vulnerable in this position, Claire reveled in the liberating freedom of the moment. She let her lips part, wetting them with her tongue. Her body grew warmer and she didn’t care that her breathing was perceptible and quick. Gently, the therapist placed her leg back on the table and cloaked it under the sheet.

When he uncovered her right leg, he didn’t tuck the sheet under her other thigh as he had done before. Instead he immediately set to work massaging the acupuncture meridians of her feet, then moved slowly upward with long, deliberate strokes. Calf, quadricep, hamstring all releasing. Her skin became one large exposed nerve, charged by the slightest contact. When he lifted her body to reach under her buttocks, his hand lingered for a second, and then worked its way around to her inner thigh. This time he must have felt her growing wetness, heard her soft moan, and he allowed his fingers to wander and explore as she let her knees fall open. And with that tacit permission, the sheet cascaded to the floor where the towel that had covered her breasts already lay.

Claire floated naked in a quiet ecstasy, wondering through closed eyelids what name it was she’d seen embroidered on his polo shirt. But the only name that came to mind, inexplicably, was Richard’s. She squeezed her eyes tighter and focused on the improbable thing that was happening to her. He ran his hand down her leg again and then, almost teasingly, stroked her from her ankle back to where she, just as improbably, desired his touch the most. His fingers became Richard’s fingers, moving rhythmically around, and then inside her. Faster and more powerfully he stroked her, and she responded with appreciative gasps. She tried to shut out the image of her friend’s face and her shocking fantasy. But this man had found her buttons, her cadence. And there, in that room, next to other rooms where facials and sports massages were being given, he brought her to an astounding orgasm. At the height of her climax, she let out a transcendent sigh of satisfaction or, more likely, payback—but most definitely release. After it was over, Claire lay there in the soft light, her forty-three-year-old body and spirit utterly exposed before this intimate stranger. Tears rolled from the corners of her eyes as she exhaled.

“Are you okay?” the therapist asked her after a moment. His voice was kind and gentle, and he rested his hand on her thigh.

Claire kept her eyes closed. “Yes.”

Before the moment could become awkward, he asked if she would like to finish the massage on her stomach. She nodded and rolled over, her body still trembling, her brain still playing catch-up with reality. He covered her below her waist with the sheet and began to work on her shoulders. Safe from possible eye contact, Claire finally allowed her eyes to open and look down through the face cradle of the table. He wore white leather tennis shoes and white cotton pants. And a very noticeable erection.

“You know,” he said, “you had a black energy field around your head when you first came in. But now your chakra’s a beautiful shade of red.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “I think you have a very colorful aura when you allow it to shine through.”

“Oh,” was all she could say. She had no idea how to respond to such New Age earnestness. But in a bizarre way she felt understood by this man, seen. Unblocked. And if he could distinguish colors around her body, then maybe he had helped, strange as it seemed, to strip away some of the layers that had been suffocating her. As Richard had with all of his prescient advice and dependability. “Thank you,” she whispered through the hole.

He pulled the sheet up over her shoulders. Claire cleared her throat, swallowing pieces of her disbelief. And when she inhaled, a sense of serenity swathed her.

“I hope you’re feeling better now.” He ran his fingertips up the length of her body through the sheet. “How are those sinuses?

“Um, better, thank you.”

“I’m glad I could help. I’ll leave you to dress and meet you outside.” The door clicked shut.

Claire found it difficult to move. Her legs felt like spaghetti, freshly boiled and buttered. She gripped the side of the table to steady herself as she stepped down, laughing at the inconceivability of the whole situation. How would she face him out there? There were no signposts, no protocol. Stunned and still flushed by her unexpected submission, she put on her robe and slippers, and inched out into the hallway where he was waiting for her.

She stepped past him and hesitated, then turned and inclined her head in a gesture of thanks. And again he rescued the moment from silence. Placing his palms together in the sign of prayer, he bowed to Claire, and uttered three words that took her by surprise. “God bless you.”

Claire smiled in his direction, and walked away. “No, God bless you,” she said to the walls. She felt his gaze on her as she headed to the locker room, but she never looked back, never caught his name.

As the hot water of the shower washed over her, she reached between her legs to touch the traces of her arousal, and she wondered: Did all his female clients receive this treatment? Or just the obviously tormented, black-energied ones? And how did he know she would respond to him so positively? Perhaps she was just special. Claire laughed to herself again, still incredulous, but sensing that he, like Richard, had been placed on her path for a reason. She dried off and checked the mirror for a red halo. What she saw was a sense of relief.

At the spa reception desk she signed the tab for her massage, leaving a fifty percent gratuity.

C
HAPTER
38

T
he next morning, Claire called Ray on her way down from the mountains to check on Nick’s schedule for the rest of the day. And there was another matter she could use his help with, she’d mentioned, testing the limits of his willingness to oblige. To her relief, Ray responded with a cheerful
how can I help
? So as nonchalantly as possible, she asked him about the timing of Berna’s trips to the grocery store. He told Claire that Berna was putting together Costco and Whole Foods lists for later that afternoon. “She likes to watch
The Doctors,
which is over at two,” he’d added.

“You’re the best, Ray. I’ll come by when you and Nick get back from Craig,” she said, running her hastily cobbled plan through her head again, and thinking she might just have a shot at success.

“Well, before you fall in love with me, I need to talk to you about our field trip to the mall earlier.”

He proceeded to explain that Nick did fine finding his way to the food court, that his eye contact with the cashier was appropriate, but that he got confused counting out his money to pay for his food, which resulted in a minor outburst. Snow had begun to fall on I-70, and Claire watched for black ice as Ray continued with the short list of Nick’s other failed tasks.

“This is not to say that he won’t be able to accomplish these things,” he added. “We just need to help him build more self-awareness and compensation strategies. I can talk to his team at Craig about this if you’d like.”

“Yes. Please,” she said. “How frustrated is he?”

“He wasn’t very happy with me, but he didn’t tell me to take a hike when we got back to the car. Which was nice.”

“So you’re probably saying we should give up on the idea of college for next year?”

Ray paused before responding. “I still think we need to help Nick readjust some of his goals for the short term.”

Claire understood that Ray was also referring to her own goals for Nicky, and Michael’s. And she knew that the longer it took for him to feel comfortable with simple tasks, the longer he would put off reconnecting with his friends. Which scared her even more. With everything else about to get less predictable, she had held on to the hope that Nicky would find comfort in his progress, and eventually his friends.

“Do you think bringing in a tutor is a good or bad idea? I’ve made some preliminary calls, but Michael wasn’t impressed with their philosophies. Not aggressive enough.”

“I think the right tutor could really help Nick. I know a great woman who works with TBI patients and has had success in helping some kids mainstream.”

A knifing wind kicked up on Vail Pass, and Claire finished the call and gave the road her full attention. Which required more effort than usual, given the latest developments. Who else, she wondered, could possibly be going from learning her husband was a deceitful miscreant, to a much-needed (as it turned out) “release” at the hands of a stranger, to the commencement of a domestic espionage operation in the course of two days? The evolving etiquette of her circumstances was getting harder to keep up with by the hour.

 

Claire idled on the street outside the house, waiting for Ray and Nick to return from his art therapy class, her shoulders inching up her neck as she began to second-guess the whole caper. At 1:30 Claire saw them turn the corner onto the street, and she drove through the gates just ahead of Ray’s Honda.

“Hi, Nicky,” Claire said as she watched her son get out of the driver’s side. “Did you drive all the way from Craig?” She looked quizzically at Ray.

“Yeah. We practiced a bunch this morning. They let me . . . participate in the driving clinic. And then Ray let me drive home.” Nick wore a broad grin.

“He did a very nice job. Smooth as silk. We took side streets mostly,” Ray said with a thumbs-up.

“Wow, Nicky!”

“It was sweet.” Nick handed her a folder and ambled toward the house. “Bathroom,” he said, by way of explanation.

Claire opened the folder to find three charcoal drawings. They were all architectural, with precise lines and angles. She could see several jags where his hand must have seized, but the overall quality was excellent, and completely different in style from the interpretive landscapes he’d favored before the accident. “So, he liked the class?”

“He didn’t want to leave,” Ray responded. “I think he’d been nervous all this time about his abilities.”

“These are great. Totally unlike what he used to draw, though.”

“That happens. Maybe he’s approaching things with new eyes.”

Claire stopped to consider this, liking the possibility from all viewpoints. After a distracted moment, she noticed the rear of Berna’s station wagon jutting out from the open garage. “Listen, Ray,” she said, snapping back to the situation at hand. “I’m hoping Berna’s still on schedule to go to Costco?”

“Let’s go and find out.” He started walking toward the garage.

“If she’s still leaving around two-ish, maybe you and Nick could go to the park for some exercise just after that?” Her palms began to sweat and she shoved them into her pockets. “There’s a, um, situation that I need to get sorted out, and I could use a little privacy here,” she said hopefully.

“Come on,” he said.

Claire followed him into the kitchen, where Berna was eating a sandwich in front of the TV. The plastic surgeon from
The Doctors
was discussing a new varicose vein procedure, and she didn’t seem to notice them walk in.

“Excuse me, Berna?” Ray said.

She looked up at both of them, and Claire busied herself examining Nick’s sketches. Berna carried her plate to the sink. “Can I help you with something?” she responded. Her voice was softer than Claire had remembered it, less severe.

“If you’re still going to Costco today, there are a couple things that Nick could use. Can I jot them down for you later?”

She picked up a notepad with a long list already penciled in, and handed it to him. “I’m leaving in fifteen minutes.”

“There’s no one better than you, Miss B,” he said with a wink. Berna gave him a satisfied nod, and he wrote down a couple items before pausing. “You know, they may not have the resistance bands we need at Costco,” Ray said, scratching his chin. “If you don’t find them there, Sports Authority would definitely carry them. I’ve written down the exact brand and specifications.”

Berna furrowed her brow, ready, it seemed, to balk.

“We’ve got some evaluations we need to work on this afternoon, and then I promised Mr. Montgomery I’d show him some new exercises with the bands tonight for Nick.”

“And you know how disappointed Mr. Montgomery would be if he didn’t have the proper equipment,” Claire added, crossing her arms across her chest with a commanding smile.

Berna grabbed the list from Ray and walked into the pantry. Claire watched her scan the shelves—either in an effort to see what other items she might have missed on her list or, more likely, to avoid acknowledging her. Claire stepped in behind Berna’s thick frame, close enough to smell her no-nonsense antiseptic scent. “You know,” she said, picking up a bottle of mustard just out of Berna’s reach, “it might be a great exercise for Nick to help you organize all of the soups and sundries in here when you return.”

Berna looked over her shoulder, and Claire could see the woman’s annoyance fighting a reasonable facsimile of anticipation.

When the house was finally empty, Claire sat down in front of the computer in the study and pushed up the sleeves of her sweater.
Okay, Sara Lee, let’s go.
She hit the space bar on the keyboard and held her breath. The login and password prompts appeared on the screen. She looked for a password hint, but there was none. Unfortunate, but not unexpected. In the past when she’d rolled her eyes at what she’d deemed unwarranted home security protocols, it never occurred to her that they were there to protect more than sensitive investment data. She ran through her hastily scribbled list of likely passwords. She tried “Nicholas” and all variations of his name in combination with other significant numbers and dates, but the obvious, as she suspected, were clearly all too obvious. She searched through the drawers of the desk, checking for sticky notes or other papers that might bear some clue. But the perfectly organized drawers revealed nothing, and Claire racked her brain for the umpteenth time for names or songs or movie titles Michael might have chosen. Scanning the room, she looked for signs in their collected books, photos, and artwork; each failed guess serving only to substantiate her husband’s inscrutability. After a handful more of what seemed like clever stabs—Michael’s eating club at Princeton, dorms at Andover—her early, albeit meager optimism over her ability to carry out her Operation Mikey-Leaks plan was skidding toward oblivion.

She glanced at her watch and estimated that she had just over an hour left to crack the password and copy the files onto her freshly purchased external drive—no small feat, she fretted, for a neophyte hacker. She opened the French doors to the backyard to hear for any cars pulling up around the front of the house. All was quiet, the breeze from the garden, chilly and damp. And she sensed that the snow would be in Denver soon. Impulsively she grabbed her phone from her purse and Googled “password recovery software.” A host of options appeared, all of which would take longer than she had hoped or planned. But she was swinging blindly at a piñata, and getting nothing but air.

As Claire read through the instructions of what looked to be the easiest recovery tool, the possibility that she might disrupt something on the computer, or worse yet, lose data, gave her pause. She sat down and leaned back into the chair, pondering other options. Maybe she could find an IT expert—someone hungry enough to sneak into the house with her under some yet to be determined cover, and hack into the files—which seemed about as practical as any of her present alternatives. She stared at the walls, reminding herself that the whole scheme had been fanciful at best, while still hoping for some kind of illumination.

And by some miracle, she found it. The dial of the antique radio console near the door glowed orange in the waning light of the room, and her thoughts veered to the old-time radio comedy spoof Michael and Nick used to listen to. Something about a private eye. They had loved that show, and imitated the characters and their gumshoe vernacular over the years with howl-inducing accents and embellishments.

The title of the program escaped her, but there was a provocatively named woman—the PI’s assistant—whom they just couldn’t get enough of and had joked about incessantly. Like Pussy Galore, only with an M.
Margie something? Margie Boobofsky?
She typed both names into the prompt, separately and together. No dice. It was a long shot, she knew, but she tried different spellings, hoping she might be onto something. Still no luck. She tried every M stage name she could think of.
Mercedes, Melon, Maxi,
feeding the monikers into the computer like quarters into a slot machine. And then, amid the reels of misses, it hit her.
Moxie. Moxie Bubofski.
She could hear Michael and Nicky taunting each other with, “I’m looking for Miss Bubofski, Miss Moxie Bubofski.” She laughed out loud at the idiocy of men and their obsessions with elementary-school boob humor, as she typed
Moxie
into the login prompt, and watched with astonishment as the screen opened up to her.
Jackpot,
she whispered.

Delighted with her own moxie, she plugged her USB drive into the computer and began the process of copying the hard drive, just as the technician at the computer store had instructed. The room dimmed further as a pall of clouds obscured the sun from the patio. Claire pulled her sweater tight across her chest and said a silent prayer to the gods of good timing as the progress indicator marked the early stages of the transmission. The threat of Berna returning early or, God forbid, Michael, toyed briefly with her composure. But she was feeling the adrenaline rush of the spy game, and felt confident that all would pan out with just a little patience. The insane hailstorm that was her life had suddenly taken on a thrilling twist. She pictured herself later that night with the copied hard drive plugged into Gail’s laptop, exposing the mysteries of her husband, and instead of feeling dread at the prospect of more shattered images, Claire felt a sense of power. An intense, internal strength born of all the wreckage, and additionally fueled by the possibility of finally gaining the upper hand. Of finally taking a stand. She perked her ears and listened for cars, voices, or footsteps, and heard only the murmur and hum of the computer spilling its secrets.

After plumping all the pillows in the room and flipping through old
W Magazine
s and
Vanity Fair
s, Claire gave in to her mounting impatience, deciding there was no point in waiting any longer to get to the bottom of those secrets. She opened Michael’s e-mail and began a search for all the correspondence relating to Janus. Her hands shook as she typed, and she felt the same clamminess and nausea that had overcome her the last time she’d peered through those particular curtains. She hit the return button. But nothing appeared. Hastily she searched his sent box, his drafts, and then the trash. Her jaw tensed. She typed in “Mac Kessler.” And again, no e-mails surfaced. Everything she had glimpsed the other day was . . . gone. Vanished. Her heart sank. She clicked around the toolbar in a panicked search for answers, only to discover that the trash had recently been emptied. And was not recoverable.