If You Only Knew Page 14

  "Did you consider yourself that way?" she asks.

  "Yes!" He sounds surprised. He looks at me, sees my stupid, hated tears, and his face changes. He grabs the tissue box and hands it to me. "Oh, babe. Yeah. Just... I don't know. It's not even that I was bored, honey," he says. "That was a poor choice of words. It was...routine, I guess. And Emmanuelle, she...she's like a fantasy. It was porn sex."

  "And what do you mean by that, Adam?" Laney asks. I shoot her a dark look, because I for one don't want to know.

  "She was really aggressive and, ah, adventurous. And her body is amazing." I can see why Laney Shields has a panic button. The image of me punching Adam in the throat is deeply, deeply satisfying right about now.

  He must read my expression. "I mean, your body's great, too, Rach. But...well, you know what I mean."

  "You mean I bore your daughters in the three-for-one special because you had a low sperm count, and it took a toll on my body."

  "Right. Blame me for the infertility. Dr. Shields, I have a low sperm count. Apparently, my wife wants the world to know."

  "I just think it's unfair of you to talk about Emmanuelle's perfect body when having our children made mine less than perfect," I bite out.

  "Let Adam talk, Rachel," Laney says calmly.

  Adam shoots me a triumphant look, like the teacher just sided with him. "I guess that's it. Emmanuelle, she's like a porno movie. Rachel is like a wife."

  "Probably because I am a wife," I snap.

  This is the new me, courtesy of my cheating husband. Angry. Curt. Hostile. All things I'm entitled to be, and all things I hate.

  "How did you end things with Emmanuelle?" Laney asks.

  Adam sits up straighter and looks Laney in the eye. "I told her that I could not keep up an affair with a coworker when I love my wife. Because I do love Rachel. She's everything to me."

  "Except a porno movie," I say.

  "Do you have feelings for Emmanuelle?" Laney asks.

  He shifts. "Well, yeah. I mean...not love, but...lust. She's funny. She's smart. We operate in the same world."

  "How did she take you telling her it was over?" Laney asks.

  "She was fine with it," he mumbles. "I think she hoped for more, but--" his voice changes into his country-club voice, firmer and louder "--I would never leave Rachel and the girls." See what a great guy I am?

  "Why not?" Laney asks.

  "Because..." His voice breaks. "Because I love them. I love you, Rachel. You're everything to me. And the girls are, too. I just screwed up. I thought it wouldn't hurt anyone, because...because I didn't think you'd find out. It was never going to be long-term. I was stupid, I know. A kid who wants all the toys." His face scrunches up, and he looks so much like Grace in that moment that my heart gives an unwilling tug. "I love you," he whispers.

  "Yay me," I say, and we both laugh for a second, identical, surprised snorts.

  "Okay, Rachel, why don't you tell me how you're feeling."

  "Well," I say, and suddenly I feel more like my old self. Shy. Embarrassed at having to talk to a stranger. Horrified at the tides of anger and grief and shame that surge without my permission or control.

  Grateful for Adam saying what he just did. Grateful and limp with relief.

  He loves me. He's staying with me. She was just a fling.

  Yeah. Right. And he said you were boring and Emmanuelle is razor-sharp. No one has called you razor-sharp before.

  I stiffen. "I'm very angry," I say, and Laney nods and smiles sympathetically. "I...I don't trust him, because the first time I asked about this, he lied. He wanted to have porno sex with Emmanuelle, so he did. I had to get an STD screening last week. That definitely wasn't on my list of things to do. I told the babysitter I was getting a pedicure."

  "But you don't have an STD. I would never endanger you," Adam says.

  "You want a medal?" I look back at Laney. "It's hard to accept that screwing his porno dream was more important than nine years of marriage and three daughters and this precious, beautiful life we've built--"

  "You mean, you've built," Adam interjects. "Your life. Your vision of precious and beautiful."

  "Really? When did you ever want anything else before Emmanuelle and her vagina came along? Huh? You told me you wanted at least two kids. You were all for me being a stay-at-home mom. You bought our house without even consulting me! So don't give me this 'You've stifled my dreams' bullshit!"

  I seem to be yelling. Adam looks stunned, and my face burns, and my legs are shaking, and I can't sit next to him another second. I bolt to the other couch and can't bear to look at my husband.

  How did things get so, so wretched?

  Laney leans forward. "Do you want to stay married, Rachel? Even knowing that Adam's been unfaithful?"

  "I don't know," I whisper. Grabbing a tissue, I press it against my eyes. "I don't know. I kind of hate him right now."

  "Well, I love you," Adam says impatiently. "Sex and love are different."

  "Fuck you," I say.

  "Nice. You sound like your sister."

  "Don't you dare talk about my sister."

  "Okay," Laney says. "Adam, I want you to do something right now. Look at Rachel and tell her you're sorry."

  "I've told her that a hundred times since this happened."

  "Since I found out, you mean. You actually tried to guilt-trip me the first time I asked."

  "Tell her again, Adam. Really look at her."

  He turns to me, and after a second, his caramel eyes soften from irritable to...to love. "I'm so sorry," he whispers. "I really am, Rach."

  This is the hard part. The love. I stare back, feeling older than I ever have before.

  "That's all we have time for this week," Laney says. "But we're off to a good, solid start, you two."

  *

  For no reason that I can fathom, Adam is chipper in the car. "That went well. I had my doubts, but that went well."

  I don't answer. My head is killing me.

  "Think I can have my wife back?" he asks, giving me a sidelong smile.

  "What?"

  "Can we sleep together tonight? I miss you."

  "I don't think so, Adam."

  He sighs. Taps a finger on the steering wheel. "Then when?"

  "Whenever I feel like it. Which I don't." Listen to me. I do kind of sound like Jenny, who's always so quick and sharp.

  I miss the old me.

  "I meant what I said, sweetheart." Adam's voice is gentle.

  "About me being boring, or about you being so sorry?"

  "I am sorry. Do I have to chant it over and over?"

  "Maybe."

  "Then I will. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I love you. Forgive me." His voice holds a hint of amusement, and I'm too tired to be angry about it.

  The window is cool against my forehead. A soft rain taps against the windshield. The lovely homes of COH pass by in their tasteful colors, gray and white and yellow, dark green and Colonial red. Pots of pansies and wreaths of forsythia grace doorways, and the lawns are lush and thick.

  "Would you mind driving me to the cemetery?" I ask.

  "Sure, baby," Adam says. He's back to Considerate Adam, the Adam I love.

  He pulls into Eden Hills, the vast, rolling cemetery that serves COH and three other towns. I've always loved coming here. It's only a mile from home. My mother finds it agonizing, and Jenny hasn't come in years, but I visit a couple of times a month and tend Daddy's grave. Just last week, the girls and I were here. They know their grandfather is in heaven, but they haven't asked the difficult question yet--how did Grandpa die. Grace will be the first, I'm sure.

  "I'll walk home," I say as Adam pulls up to the gentle hillside where Dad lies.

  "You sure, sweetheart? It's raining. Well, you like the rain." He gives me a sad smile.

  "I do love you," I tell him. I can't help it. I do, and as Laney said, being honest is going to help. I was honest about the anger; I can be honest about this, as well.

  "I love you, too." His eyes
get teary again, and it's reassuring. And sad. "Take your time," he adds, clearing his throat. "I'll make sure the girls are tucked in."

  "Be nice to Jenny." I open the car door.

  "I will. Here. Take my jacket." He reaches back and hands me his windbreaker. "In case you get cold."

  I take the coat up to Dad's grave and watch Adam pull away, then spread out his jacket and sit on the wet grass, the coppery smell of rain against granite oddly reassuring. Some of the graves here date back to pre-Revolutionary War days; Mrs. Brewster's family, the Hales--as in Nathan--have a mausoleum, in fact. There are different sections connected by twisting roads, huge old trees, statues of angels. The entire cemetery is enclosed by an iron fence. When the girls are older, I'll bring them here to learn to ride their bikes.

  If we're still living in our house, that is.

  I brush off a few maple seed pods that have fallen on Daddy's headstone.

  I'm fairly sure my father would have been furious by all this; he would've punched Adam right in the face when he heard. Dad and Mom were that magical couple who never lost interest in each other, who still exchanged those private, smiling looks when they thought Jenny and I weren't watching, the ultimate united front. All I ever wanted in a relationship was to emulate my parents. To be as good a mother as my mom was before the shooting, to find a man who'd never tire of me.

  Mom and Dad were married for seventeen years, together for twenty. Twenty years together seems like an eternity to me right now.

  It sure would be nice to have my father right now. To get a hug from your dad makes you feel safer than just about anything in the world, and in his arms, you don't have to be brave or strong or selfless. You're daddy's little girl again, and just knowing he's there makes everything a little better, even if it doesn't really change anything.

  I hear a hissing sound and look up. A man is riding a bicycle down the cemetery lane, the wheels slicing through puddles. It's Leo, Jenny's super, who was so nice to me that night.

  "Hey," he says, slowing to a stop.

  "Hi, Leo. Kind of a wet night for a bike ride, isn't it?"

  "It's not so bad." He gets off his bike, puts down the kickstand and comes up to join me. Reads the headstone, which says Robert James Tate, Beloved Husband, Adored Father.

  "I'm sorry," he says, sitting next to me on Adam's jacket. I haven't been this close to a man other than Adam since... Heck. Since my obstetrician, and not counting him, since work, when Gus Fletcher, who had smiley eyes and flirted with every woman in the entire building, would lean down next to my computer and ask me to tweak a design.

  "Thanks," I say belatedly. "He was a great father."

  Leo nods. "Everything okay with you?" He gives me a sidelong glance. "Stupid question. Sorry."

  "I guess Jenny told you."

  "I kind of figured it out. How are your girls?"

  "They're fine. They're wonderful."

  "I hope to meet them sometime."

  "You're great with kids, I hear."

  His mouth pulls up. He has one of those faces that's not quite handsome--he's a little too angular--but is all the more appealing because of it. "I like kids."

  "Do you have any of your own?" I ask.

  "No."

  "And you're not married."

  "Nope. Don't fix me up with your sister, though. She's already half in love with me." He grins full-on, and I find that I'm laughing.

  "Why would that be a bad thing?" I ask.

  "Oh, I don't know. I'm not the most stable or serious of men."

  "Sounds like a line."

  "It is. But a sincere line just the same." He runs a hand through his hair, which is soaked. No helmet. Tsk.

  "Can I ask you a question, Leo?"

  "Sure."

  "Will you be really honest?"

  "You bet."

  "How pretty am I?"

  His eyebrows pop up. "Um...very."

  "On a scale of one to ten?"

  "At the moment, 8.75. When you're dry, 9.25. Your hair isn't great in the rain."

  I push the wet hair back. "True. That's generous of you."

  "No. Just accurate."

  "Where would Jenny fall on that scale?"

  "Three."

  "Oh, please. She's a ten." He shrugs, rather adorably. "You sure you don't want to date her?"

  "I don't want to date anyone. But thank you." He glances toward the gate. "Can I walk you home?"

  "No, thanks. I could use a little alone time." Alone time. It sounds so juvenile. Mommy needs some alone time, I often say to the girls when I'm in the bathroom, but they push right in and play happily at my feet as I do my thing. The bathroom has become very communal.

  "Okay, then." Leo stands up and offers me his hand.

  It's a nice hand, very big and warm, those long pianist fingers. "Jenny says you went to Juilliard," I say.

  "Yes. Piano performance and composition."

  "I'd love to hear you play sometime."

  "I'm really out of practice." He smiles a little, and I find that I like him a lot, even without knowing him. And I'm comfortable with him, which hardly ever happens with me and a man.

  Leo walks with me to the cemetery gate, asks me again if I don't want an escort on the mean streets of Cambry-on-Hudson. "I'm fine. But it was nice to see you," I tell him honestly.

  "You, too, Rachel." He gets on his bike and starts off. "Nine-point-two-five," he calls over his shoulder.

  "Wear a helmet next time," I call back. The mother in me.

  "Eight-point-seven-five in the rain," I murmur. Not bad for someone who'll turn forty soon. Yes, my sister is a ten with her shiny hair and well-deep eyes, that wry smile always ready to spring, her perfect skin.

  And that whore Emmanuelle, also a ten, though in a very different, more blatant way. She reminds me of a model in the New York Times magazine--slightly terrifying, perfectly beautiful, angles and spareness everywhere except for her big, juicy, hungry mouth.

  I don't hurry home. I want my alone time to last a little longer.

  Jenny

  "Don't judge me," Rachel says as soon as I pick up the phone. It's Monday morning, my day off.

  "I hate when people say that. It's like saying, 'No offense, but you're so ugly' or something."

  I'm drinking coffee by the sink and spying on Leo, who's got a pile of wood and a saw that he barely seems to know how to hold. "Hang on, Rach." I mute the phone a second and bang on the window. "Stop before you lose a finger!" He drops the saw instantly and smiles up at me, as if he was waiting for me to intervene.

  "I'm back," I tell my sister.

  "I need you to come with me somewhere," Rachel says. "But don't try to talk me out of it, okay? I'll be over in twenty minutes." She hangs up, knowing I'll agree. I admit, I'm curious. She's not usually so bossy. It's kind of refreshing.

  I go down my front steps and into Leo's courtyard. "Why are you trying to mutilate yourself?" I ask. "Wouldn't that hurt your career and all?"

  "Good morning, Jenny."

  Damn. He's just so...deliciously adorable. I want to feed him. I want to cuddle him. I want to kiss him for hours.

  The knowing eyebrow rises.

  "Just because you are a tool doesn't mean you should use one," I say before he can whip out the old "eye-fucking" line.

  "That's a good one." He's wearing what he wears most days, except when he goes to see his mom--jeans and a T-shirt. He has quite an array of T-shirts. This one is faded gray with faint blue letters spelling out Starfleet Academy. Such a dork. Then again, I know exactly what Starfleet Academy is, so I'm in the same dork boat.

  "What are you making? Or, more aptly, what aren't you making?" Upon closer inspection, the pile of wood resembles a triangle. A crooked, timid triangle.

  "It's a ramp for Loki."

  I glance at the dog, who appears to be dead. "A ramp to...heaven?" I suggest.

  "To my bed, which is kind of the same thing." Leo winks. "Or so they tell me."

  "And by they, you mean fou
l-tempered dogs?" I put my foot on the "ramp." It collapses.

  "I flunked wood shop," Leo says.

  "You don't say. Why can't you just lift him up on the bed?" I ask.

  Leo hesitates. "He has arthritis, and it hurts him if I pick him up." He looks away from me.

  I get it. He doesn't want to put the dog to sleep, even if Loki is circling the drain as it is. I try to think of something nice to say about the dog and come up empty, so I crouch down and pet his ear. He growls at me. "He's quite a character," I manage.

  "He's the best."

  Yeah. Well, I can't go that far, but it's kind of sweet, Leo's devotion to Old Yeller here. "My sister and I have plans today. Can I fix this later?" I ask.

  "That'd be great, Jenny." For once, he's not flirting or tragic, his two resting states. "Tell your sister I said hi."

  On cue, Rachel pulls up, waves, and off I go. "How bad is the crush on him?" she asks as I buckle in.

  "Oh, pretty bad," I say. "He's unfairly attractive."

  "I saw him at the cemetery the other night. Did he tell you? He was out for a bike ride."

  I've seen Leo go out on his bike. I haven't seen him drive, oddly enough. Then again, he may well go out when I'm at work, and when I'm home, he's got his students, tormenting me with "Three Blind Mice" and "Pop Goes the Weasel" and "Let It Go." He's already warned me that around Christmastime, I may want to buy some swords for seppuku.

  "So where are we going, Rach?" I ask.

  To hell, she doesn't say, but ten minutes later, I'm in hell. Or, as it's known, Monarca MedAesthetics & Youth Restoration LLC, part of a beautiful shopping complex on the edge of Cambry-on-Hudson.

  "You do not need this," I say firmly. "Rachel. Don't let Adam make you feel unattractive. Is that what this is?"

  "Don't judge me," she answers blithely, closing the minivan door. "I'm only here for a consultation."

  "You're perfect! You're beautiful! Rachel, you get carded when we go out! Everyone thinks I'm the older sister."

  "I'm feeling a little...frumpy, that's all."

  "So buy some green nail polish. You don't need anything done to yourself."

  She turns to me, and her face is unexpectedly furious. "I want to see the plastic surgeon. Okay? I thought it would be easier with you here, but if you're going to be a pain, then leave."

  Yikes. "I'm sorry. It's just that I love you and think you're beautiful."

  "I know. Thank you." She takes a deep breath, shoots me an apologetic glance. "Look. Obviously, my ego has taken a hit. I'm just...curious. My friend Elle had a little work done--"