The Affair (21 page)

“S
hit. Shit. Shit. She didn’t waste any time.”

Robert slowed as he turned off Columbus Avenue. Kathy’s car was parked outside Maureen’s house. He remembered the row house well; when R&K had pitched a reality makeover show to FOX, they’d used Maureen’s home for the pilot. She’d gotten a very nice conservatory out of it. He hoped that she and Kathy were now sitting out in that conservatory at the back of the house, rather than in the living room watching him drive by. He glanced at the bouquet of flowers on the seat beside him. He had planned to drop in on Maureen unannounced, just to “see how she was” and give her a Christmas bonus, a check for one thousand dollars. He had planned to be very careful to explain that one of the reasons he could pay the bonus was because of the work that Stephanie had brought them. Well, Maureen wouldn’t be getting the money or the flowers today. He accelerated past the house, desperately resisting the temptation to glance over and look in.

It took him another half an hour to get from Mission Hill into the city, and he eventually parked the car in the Boston Common garage where, after fifteen minutes of circling, he finally found an empty space on the bottom level.

Pulling on his heavy tweed jacket and wrapping a wool scarf around his neck, he hurried through the park. The temperature was hovering around zero, but Boston looked glorious in the crisp December light. It was one of those rare winter days when the sky was cloudless and the low sunlight painted the streets in gold and shadow. All across the city, bells were tolling as the bell ringers put in some practice for Christmas Eve, and, with his breath pluming in the air before him, he felt the first touch of Christmas spirit.

This had never been his favorite time of year. There were too many bitter memories from his youth; his parents’ constant arguing and his mother’s drinking—exacerbated by his father’s icy temper—made holidays, or indeed any time they were forced to spend together as a family unit, difficult and uncomfortable. When his parents had finally divorced, he ended up spending Christmas Day with his mother, listening to her bitch about his father, and then New Year’s Eve with his father, listening to him rant about his mother.

He didn’t want that to happen to his children, forcing them to choose between parents. He didn’t want to place them in that position. . . and yet, his actions had certainly made that a very real possibility. When he’d first slept with Stephanie, he’d never imagined the potential consequences. It was just a bit of fun, two adults doing what adults did, not harming anyone....

Except that it had. Even if Kathy and the kids never found out about his affair, it had damaged his marriage. He shook his head quickly; no, the affair hadn’t damaged his marriage. He had.

The drive into the city, however, had allowed him to come to one conclusion. He was determined to get through Christmas without having to make a decision. If he boxed cleverly, danced around questions, parried issues, deflected attacks, he thought he might just be able to do that. He just needed a little more time to think things through. A couple of days, a week, maybe a month or two to make a decision.

Coward,
something that might have been his conscience heckled. And he had to agree.

He cut through the Common. It was packed, and he battled his way through hordes of shoppers: teenagers wrapped around one another, mothers pushing carriages, fathers carrying children in their arms or dragging older children along behind them. Who in their right mind brought children into the city a couple of days before Christmas? But when he looked closely at the children and parents, none of them seemed to be upset. They were smiling, happy, and he remembered that when Brendan and Theresa were young, he and Kathy had taken them into the city to see the lights strung across the streets, window shop, and enjoy the festive atmosphere. They had been happy then, just the four of them; they’d laughed a lot, as a couple and as a family. He tried to remember when they’d stopped doing that. There was no one moment. It had just happened; things had changed. The children had grown up, he’d started working harder and harder to support a particular lifestyle, and he and Kathy had just drifted apart.

He ducked into the entrance of the AMC Theatre on Tremont, pulled out his phone, and hit the speed dial for Stephanie. The call went for ten rings before it was finally answered.

“Where are you?” she asked without preamble.

“In the lobby of the movie theater.”

“Stay there. Don’t move. I’ll find you. It’s chaos here.”

Robert ended the call and stood nervously in the foyer. He was feeling exposed; this was probably one of the most visible spots in Boston, with crowds of people milling around. He’d already caught glimpses of a couple of neighbors.

He turned away from the crowds and focused on a poster for a WWII film he thought he’d like to see, but knew he’d end up watching it on TV. He peered at the director’s name on poster, and a hole opened up in the pit of his stomach. Robert had gone to film school with him. The kid was talented, but it had been Robert who had won all of the awards, who had shown the greatest promise. Now, this guy was directing a holiday blockbuster and Robert was . . . Who was he anymore?

And then suddenly Stephanie was standing beside him. She was bundled against the chill air in a bright red ski jacket, black jeans tucked into woolly-topped boots, wearing a bright red woolen ski cap on her head. With the bulky clothing disguising her lithe body and only a tiny section of her face visible—eyes, nose, and mouth—the similarity to his wife was startling.

He leaned forward to kiss her, a quick peck on the cheek, and then caught her arm, easing her away from the doorway. “Where did you leave your toboggan?”

“Parked it upstairs alongside the sleigh.”

Robert hurried her across the road, back toward the center of the Common. From within the park came the sound of “Away in a Manger,” clearly audible above the noise of the traffic, the rattling of the T, and the drone of the massed people. “So, Christmas carols?”

She shook her head. “The choir is loud but not good, and the park is jammed. Let’s walk around and look at the art.”

A huge, open-air art exhibition was taking place near Frog Pond. Dozens of artists were exhibiting their works, the younger artists standing nervously alongside their paintings, talking to everyone who stopped to look, the older, more experienced exhibitors sitting on chairs, allowing their art to speak for them.

“Left or right?” Stephanie asked brightly.

“Right,” Robert said, leading her to the right, away from the crowds.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he began.

“So am I,” she said immediately. “I should have told you that our relationship had been discovered. But I knew you were under so much pressure; I simply didn’t want to add to it.”

“It might have been better if you had. When Jimmy dropped it on me last night, I started to have a panic attack.”

Stephanie glanced at him curiously before stopping to look at a spectacular abstract oil, vivid in green and gold, slashed across with daubs of red and violet. She leaned forward, toward the painting. “Tell me,” she murmured, so softly that Robert had to lean close to hear her. “Do you love me?”

His instinct was to snap a quick “yes,” but something about the apparent casualness of the question stopped him.

When he didn’t answer immediately, she turned her head to look at him. “That’s a mighty long pause.”

“What? No. I suppose I was just surprised that you had to ask me.”

“I want to know, Robert.” She moved away from the painting, and he followed her. “I want to know how much.”

“I’ve told you often enough.”

“I know that. But have you shown me?”

“I’ve given you presents. . . .”

A flash of annoyance in her dark eyes shut him up. “What is love, Robert?”

“Love is . . .” he floundered, “. . . well, love.”

“You’re such a typical man!” she snapped. “Think about it, Robert: What is love? You tell me you love me. What does that mean?”

“It means . . . it means I want to be with you. That I love being with you.”

“So, you’re saying that love is commitment?”

He suddenly saw where the conversation was going, but had no way to change it. “Yes. Commitment,” he agreed.

Stephanie stopped to peer at another painting, a tiny, delicate watercolor of a single daffodil. “And are you committed to me?” she continued.

“Yes.”

Stephanie straightened. “Okay. So, how do you show that commitment?”

Robert was about to answer, but the overeager artist, a young woman with huge glasses and a streak of cobalt blue in her hair, came forward. “We’re not interested,” Robert said, before she could utter a word. He caught Stephanie by the arm and led her out of the park. “If we’re going to talk, then let’s talk and leave the art for another day. What do you want from me, Stephanie?”

“The truth,” Stephanie said. “I told you that last night. Just tell me the truth.”

“I’ve told you I love you. That’s the truth.”

“And I believe you.”

Her response stopped him in his tracks. She walked on a couple of paces, before turning to look back at him. The path was busy, and for a moment he lost her in the crowd, and there was the temptation simply to turn his back and walk away. When the path cleared, she was standing in the same position, waiting for him.

“If you have something to ask me, then ask me straight out,” he said.

Stephanie dug her hands into the pockets of her jacket. Her eyes were glittering and her cheeks were red, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or emotion.

“You tell me you love me. You tell me you want to be with me. You seem to enjoy my company. You certainly enjoy my body.” She stopped and took a deep breath. “I need to know if there is more. If there is going to be more.”

“More?”

“More of us. Together. Not snatched half-hour lunches or one-hour dinners, not fumbles in your office or dirty weekends away. I need to know if we’re going to be together. As a couple. Openly.” She looked away from him, across the park, which was bright with people. “That’s all.”

The answer he gave now was going to determine the rest of his life. All the thoughts of the previous night, his rambling notions had revealed nothing, had not prepared him for this moment. He could try and be cold and calculating, try and choose between the two women, choose the security that Kathy represented, or the uncertain future that Stephanie promised. He could refuse to make the decision and lose Stephanie, but in doing so, might force her to go to Kathy, and then he would lose her too. Jimmy Moran was right: Everything had a price.

“I’ve had plenty of relationships before, Robert; you know that. I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you. I love you. I need to know if you love me. I need to know if you love me enough to do something about it.”

They walked out of the Common together. An Old Town Trolley tour drove by, passengers snapping pictures and shouting Christmas greetings; neither Robert nor Stephanie turned to look at them.

Robert was watching Stephanie out of the corner of his eye. When they had first been falling in love, but before they had made love for the first time, they had walked. They had spent weekends together, walking through the streets of the city, along the Charles, around Jamaica Pond, through the Arboretum, walking side by side, not touching, not holding hands. She was fitter than he was; there were times when he struggled to keep up. Later, he understood what had been happening. They had both been so full of energy—nervous energy, sexual energy; this was how they had channeled it. Once they started making love regularly, they had stopped walking. Now they were walking again, but with a different energy, a different motive. Their steps were slow, grudging.

“You want me to commit to you.”

“I don’t want to be your mistress anymore. That was fine for a while, because I wasn’t sure if you were the one.”

“The one?”

“The one I loved. And I allowed myself to fall in love with you—even though you were a married man—because I believed that there might be a chance for us. A future.” Stephanie took a deep breath, and Robert realized that his heart was hammering. “My girlfriends have gone away for Christmas to be with their families, but I’m going to be spending Christmas alone, because I wanted to be close to my lover. But my lover is spending time with his family. It was that way last year too; I don’t want it to be that way next year. I feel so foolish, Robert. So incredibly foolish.”

“Stephanie, I—” he said quickly.

She held up a hand, silencing him. “If there is no future for us, then just say so. I can handle it. It will hurt, but I’ll get over it. I’ll survive. And I’m not going to be stupid about it. I’m a big girl. I won’t make a scene. I won’t tell Kathy, if that’s what you’re worried about.”