Who You Know (23 page)

AVERY

M
onday morning I was so nervous, it took me an extra-long time to get ready for work. I seemed to move in slow motion, forgetting what I was doing, distracted and jittery. When I finally got to the office just after eight, Jen was already there.

“What are you doing here so early?” I asked.

“Are you kidding? I'm dying to see Art and your expression when you finally get to see him.”

I'd wanted to have the big moment to myself, but Jen rolled her chair across the floor so she could get a good look, and I knew it was a losing battle. I took a deep breath and logged into my account.

I stared at the icon at the bottom of the e-mail that indicated he'd attached a graphic.

“Finally, we get to see what this guy looks like!” Jen said.

I clicked on the attachment. We waited for an interminable length of time as the picture downloaded. When it finally did, Jen and I stared at it in silence.

“Holy shit,” Jen said at last.

I couldn't say a word.

“I don't believe it. What a creep. What a cheating sleazebag creep,” Jen said.

Lydia's husband, Dan, smiled out at us from the computer screen.

JEN

I
t was a slimy, conniving, cruel coincidence worthy of one of the soap operas I'd once been so addicted to: Avery's digital paramour was married to a coworker.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“I think I'm not going to think about it for a while. I think I'd like to forget this ever happened.”

“You're going to tell Lydia, aren't you?”

“No, I'm not going to tell a six-month pregnant woman that her husband is getting his kicks with women he meets through the Internet. I don't believe this.”

“If your husband was cheating on you, wouldn't you want to know?”

“He hasn't cheated that we know of. Maybe he just wanted some attention, a little harmless flirtation.”

“We have to find out so we know for sure.”

Avery said quietly, “You know what? Except for one glaring thing, I don't think he lied about anything. He is a painter. He did live back East somewhere before moving here. He and Lydia do have dogs. I can't remember if their names are Holden and Phoebe, but I'm sure they are. He probably has been fixing the house up for a certain ‘relative' who will be ‘visiting.' With his talent, it's probably a beautiful nursery. You've seen his paintings. Remember? We saw them when they had that dinner party for Dan's birthday? There were two watercolors and that oil painting. They were really good.”

I didn't know what to say. Then an idea occurred to me. “Have you ever told him what you look like?” I asked.

She thought a moment. “No.”

“Not even how tall you are or that you have blond hair?”

“No.”

“I have an idea. Dan has never met Rette. We could send Rette in your place. If he puts the moves on her, we'll have to tell Lydia she's married to a sleazebag. If he's just looking for some attention, we don't have to tell Lydia a thing, and our consciences will be clear.”

“I don't think that's a good idea.”

“Why not? Come on, my plan is brilliant. We just have to convince Rette.” I picked up my phone and dialed Rette's extension.

“Are you busy?” I asked.

“Extremely.”

“This is an emergency. Avery and I need you in our office right away.”

“What is it?”

“Just get down to our office.”

When she got to our office, I closed the door behind her and told her the whole sordid story.

“I don't believe it,” she said. “What a creep. And when she's pregnant. Avery, I'm so sorry, you must be so disappointed.”

“Dan's always seemed like such a nice guy,” Avery said.

“So you see our dilemma. We have to figure out if he really intended to cheat on Lydia, or if he was kind of bored and this was just a relatively harmless cyberfling,” I said.

“How are you going to do that?” Rette asked.

“Well, he's never met you. Avery's never told him what she looks like. We can send you in her place. If he puts the moves on you, we'll tell Lydia what kind of guy she's married to.”

“And break up a marriage? That's a great plan,” Rette said. “I can't believe you want me to seduce another woman's husband. That's ridiculous. It'll never work. Anyway, did you forget I'm engaged?”

“Like I could forget. No! It's not like you have to sleep with him or anything. A few kisses. Maybe let him get in a grope or two,” I said.

“No way, absolutely not.”

“But Rette,” I began.

“No, no, no. I'm going back to work.”

“It's for the best,” Avery said after Rette left. “I'll tell him I've met someone else and stop e-mailing him, and we can forget this ever happened.”

“Just hold off on writing him back. We'll talk her into it, you'll see. We'll scan in a picture of her, and if he still wants to meet her, believe me, she'll change her mind.”

“I don't know . . .”

I didn't let her think about it. I grabbed the picture I kept of me and Rette from my desk and ran down the hall where the graphic designers, and thus the scanners, were. I smiled sweetly at Joseph.

“Could I use your scanner for just a teeny little second?”

He grinned and looked at me stupidly, which I took as a yes.

“Thank you so much. Actually, I don't know how to use the scanner. Could you help me?”

The picture was from my freshman year in college, just before we were going to hit the clubs together. Rette and I had done a few shots, and Rette looked relaxed and really happy. The picture captured her long hair and stopped just below her ample cleavage, mercifully leaving her thighs well out of sight.

Joseph e-mailed me the picture, and I cropped myself out of the photo (finally, a reason to use the Photoshop poor Tom had reinstalled four times!) and convinced a reluctant Avery to e-mail Dan asking if he was still interested in meeting her. A few hours later, he wrote back that he was “very interested” in meeting “such a beauty.”

When I told Rette what we'd done, she responded predictably. She pretended to be outraged, but being called a beauty, even by a lying cheating scumbag, was flattering. Eventually, I broke her down, and she agreed to do it.

Wednesday night, Avery and I helped get her ready for her “date.” Avery brought a small microphone that we taped in Rette's bra so we could listen and record their conversation.

“It itches. It's poking me,” she complained.

“Sorry. But isn't this exciting?” I asked.

“A little,” Rette said.

Avery had been the technical adviser for the spying part of the plan, but when it came to the beauty consulting, I was entirely in charge. I did Rette's makeup and hair and dressed her in a low-cut crushed-velvet blouse and black jeans.

“Don't you think this is a little too revealing?” she asked. I stood behind her, brushing her hair, watching her looking worriedly at her image in the mirror. “I've never had so much cleavage exposed in my life,” she griped.

“You've got it; we're flaunting it.” I watched her give her reflection the slightest smile. Good. We needed her to feel like a gorgeous temptress to make our plan work.

Avery had given Rette copies of all her and Dan's e-mail so Rette would know everything Avery knew about Dan, at least according to what he had written.

We told Rette that her goal was to get him to reveal if he routinely cheated on his wife, in which case we were telling Lydia about this for sure. The other possibilities were less clear cut. If he wanted just a one-night stand, our action was uncertain. “Just be as trampy as you can be, and we'll decide what to do later,” I said. Rette looked queasy.

“Are you sure you're up to this?” Avery asked.

“No. This is never going to work. I'm going to say something that'll give me away or the microphone will fall out or . . .” Rette said.

“Could you ever try to consider the bright side of things?” I asked.

“No,” she said. She sat in the chair in front of the mirror awkwardly, her hand covering her chest.

“Stop hiding your cleavage. This is no time to be shy!” I said.

Avery and I borrowed Avery's mother's SUV and got to the restaurant early. Rette was driving her own car to make things look legit. Avery and I parked the truck and got into the back, hiding on the floor so no one could see us through the windows.

Avery turned on the volume to the receiver that was connected to Rette's microphone. All we heard was a sound like wind through a tunnel.

“Is it working?” I asked. “This is great. Probably all we'll hear is the sound of Rette's tits sweating.”

“We tested it at home. It's going to work.”

Just then, we heard a high-pitched noise that sounded like a mouse hiccupping. Then we heard Rette whisper, “He's here! He's parking his car. Shit!”

“Hi,” we heard Dan say a minute or so later. “It's nice to finally meet you.”

“Hi. It's nice to meet you. I've been looking forward to it.”

“Wow. You know, you look familiar. You look like someone I know.”

Avery and I both stopped breathing for a moment. Rette and I did have the same shaped eyes and the same unusual shade of hair. Why hadn't I thought of this before?

“Really?” she squeaked.

“We've never met?”

“No, I'm sure we haven't.”

“Huh. Well, anyway, ever been here before? It's good, I think you'll like it.” We heard the door swing open.

Dan requested a table for two. There was some shuffling, some mumbling I couldn't make out.

“Do you like wine?” Dan asked.

“I love it.”

“How does a bottle of Merlot sound?”

“Perfect.”

“The duck here is quite good. And so is the filet mignon,” he said.

“Filet mignon!” I said. I hadn't eaten all day and I was famished. I wanted to be the one in there getting wined and dined.

“Shhh!” Avery whispered, as if we had any reason to be quiet.

I made a face at Avery, but she didn't see me. She was listening too intently to notice me.

We listened to them order. After the waiter left, Dan babbled on and on about how much he'd enjoyed her e-mail and how intelligent she was. I was squashed uncomfortably on the floor of the SUV between the seats, my legs crumpled beneath me as they talked. Rette tried to keep him talking, asking him all about himself. When he asked her what she'd do if she weren't working in marketing, she stuttered, “Well, I . . . love dancing and romance novels. I do crafty kinds of stuff.” She was sighing deeply as if her life depended on her response. She was way too hyper. Always had been. Fortunately for her, Dan was also into artsy-craftsy things, and he launched into some story about this desk he'd made and all the challenges that went along with making it.

“The wine is so wonderful,” Rette said as she poured herself more. “Should we get another bottle?”

“Absolutely.”

“I'm starving!” I complained.
“I
want the autumn harvest salad with jicama and pine nuts and a flavorful sauce.
I
want the duck a l'orange. She's not getting him to admit anything, she's just scamming a free dinner!”

“Would you be quiet! Listen,” Avery said, more huffily than was necessary.

For about a million years, all we heard was Rette eating a very loud, crunchy salad and them discussing how good the bread was and how delicious the wine tasted.

By the time their dinner arrived, I was salivating over the thought of getting home to a bottle of wine myself. They chatted endlessly about nothing, and soon I was spacing out, not hearing anything much amid the clinking of silverware and the hum of conversation. Suddenly, Dan said something interesting enough to catch my attention.

“I've really enjoyed writing you these last couple of months. You are even more beautiful then I'd imagined,” Dan was saying. “You really are gorgeous. It's amazing that someone like you hasn't landed a husband by now.”

“Funny you should mention that. I sort of, listen Dan, I sort of have a confession to make. I'm engaged.”

Avery and I looked at each other, horrified. What the hell was she doing?

“Engaged?” Dan asked.

“I'm not looking for anything serious. I love my fiancé. I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with him. I guess I just wanted one last fling. You know, when you're with someone for a while, they stop taking you to fancy dinners. They stop calling you beautiful and gorgeous. I guess I kind of missed that. Do you think I'm horrible?”

Neither of them said anything for a moment. Then Dan said, “No, I know what you mean.” There was a long stretch of silence. Shuffling. Breathing.

“What? What's going on?” I asked. “She's blowing it. That's it. It's over.”

“Rette, I'm married myself,” he said.

“Really?” she said.

“I hadn't intended on cheating on my wife, in fact, I still . . . I guess my wife has been a little preoccupied with her work and some other things . . . I just sort of put that ad up there, not as a joke exactly, out of boredom really. Only one other woman responded, but her e-mails just weren't interesting at all, so I told her I'd started dating someone. But you, I don't know, I really enjoyed e-mailing you. You are smart and funny and insightful. You're really something. I hadn't intended to meet you in real life, but then . . .”

I looked over at Avery. She was crying. I reached over and took her hand.

“Do you ever miss kissing anyone else?” Rette whispered. “Do you ever wonder what it's like to sleep with someone else?”

He laughed. “Yes. Definitely. But I don't regret marrying my wife. Not for a second.”

“Do you want to go somewhere tonight? Just the two of us?”

My eyes nearly popped out of my head. I was dying to hear what happened next, but the next thing we heard was the waiter asking if they wanted coffee or dessert.

“Rette? No dessert? You're sure? I guess just the bill then,” Dan said. About a century and a half later, he finally spoke again. “Your offer is tempting. Very tempting. But I can't. I shouldn't have come here tonight. I don't know what I was thinking. I've been wracked with guilt ever since we started e-mailing each other.”

“You've never cheated on your wife?”

“No. Not once in seven years. I'll get this.”

“You don't have to . . .”

“I insist.”

After a couple minutes of silence, Avery and I listened to the heels of Rette's shoes clicking against the floor, then the pavement.