“Are you still smoking?”
“No. That was just a bet.”
“Stupid bet.”
“Yeah. I guess it was.”
“You really scared me breaking the window like that,” she said with no real emotion.
“I got a splinter of your china cup in my eye,” I replied. Lying to her was becoming... second nature. “Had to go down to the company nurse to have her take it out.”
“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” was her apology.
I felt the stirrings of an erection. That and the lying brought about a thrumming in my heart. I turned to look at my wife. She was a new person, a whole Otherness, in the yard that I had never, ever sat in before.
“What?” she asked of my expression.
“My dick is hard,” I said in wonder.
“I hope you don’t think that I’m going to do anything about that.”
“Of course not,” I said, in a falsely reassuring tone. “You asked, and I’m telling you that my dick is hard.”
“Stop saying that.”
I stood up in front of the mother of my children, my pants displaying the outline of the modest erection. Marguerite stared in wonder. I was sure that she’d thought I was lying. Seeing it, a confused look twisted its way across her face.
“I’m going upstairs to jack off,” I said.
I rolled against my marital mattress thinking not of sex, not exactly, but of the conversation Holly and I had at lunch.
“You broke the window?” she asked, interrupting the long and somewhat banal tale.
“She wouldn’t let me in.”
“And that was just because I gave you that cigarette?”
“No,” I said again, as I pressed my groin down against the thick wadding of the mattress. “It was because you said that thing about people not living their lives. You said it about everybody else, but I was thinking about me. I am not living my life. I needed that cigarette to live, and Marguerite blew up without even asking why. She thought I was trying to kill her, not save myself.”
“No,” Holly assured me, or maybe she was trying to convince herself that she wasn’t somehow complicit in an attempted murder-by-nicotine.
“She lives in mortal fear of death,” I said, knowing the truth as it came out of my mouth. “Dread like that has no room for half measures.”
“And what are you going to do now?” the pretty, chubby, and young mocha-brown office gofer asked.
“I’m told that I have a fully matured life policy with BI and a settlement of one hundred and ninety-six thousand dollars for my retirement fund. I want to go to Rome in the next month or so. Would you like to come with me?”
I was thumping down hard on the mattress when remembering the question.
“Like your girlfriend?”
“Like anything you want to be. I just need the company.”
“And you’d pay?”
“Of course.”
“How long?”
“You tell me that. I don’t even know how long I’ll be there.”
“Sure, I’ll go,” Holly said. “I might even like you enough to stay.”
I groaned in expectation of the orgasm; that groan turned into a shout. I could hear Marge’s footfalls on the stairs, but the door was closed and I knew she wouldn’t come in. I was sweating and so happy that a young woman would fly with me across the ocean to the site of an ancient empire that once conquered a world.
“Jare!” Marguerite shouted through the closed door.
“Don’t come in!”
“What’s happening in there?”
“Don’t come in, Marguerite,” I said again. “I’m just getting used to what’s happened.”
All that was seven years ago. The divorce was civil if not amicable, because I agreed to share all of my money and Marguerite finally consented to buying me out of the house.
I live in a studio apartment in downtown LA and work for myself. I incorporated under the name Big Bad Investments (BBI) and, doing business in that name, bought e-mail lists from BI and a dozen other insurance companies. I then sent out a broad blast to every policyholder saying that I was an expert on the devious ways in which insurance companies refuse to pay. I charge between two and five hundred dollars to review a policy before the claim is made, one thousand dollars plus expenses to dispute any refusal of payment.
I take a long walk every morning. Last week my left knee began to hurt halfway through the constitutional. This pain is new, and I pay close attention, as it catches on every other step.
My children with Marguerite have shunned me, but I still mark their birthdays and call them on Christmas.
Holly got pregnant on the Riviera under a crescent moon. She lives walking distance from my studio, 1,727 little stitches of pain away.
Our daughter is named Roma, and she entered first grade last week.
Holly has a boyfriend named Henry. He doesn’t like me, but I think he’s a fine young man.
Marguerite had a relapse of the cancer two years after we parted. I stayed with her for three weeks because our children were living too far away and she’s the only daughter of parents who were both only children. She blamed that cigarette for her condition. I accepted that. We didn’t talk much, and I stayed in Alexander’s room. Late at night I could hear her come to our son’s door, sniffing the air. She was still searching for a whiff of my infidelity, proof that everything she believed was justified.
Leading from the Affair
“Come in,” the graying blond woman said, after we made our introductions at the threshold. “Have a seat.”
Three padded blue chairs around a low triangular table made up the furnishings of the small office. No desk. No bookcase. The blinds were pulled down over the window. A nonintrusive tan and blue carpet covered the floor from wall to wall. The sounds of traffic could be heard quite clearly, as Dr. Quarterly’s room was on the first floor facing onto East Eighty-First Street.
Noting the hiss of tires racing on the wet streets outside, I took the chair set off a little to the right. She remained standing a moment.
Dr. Agnes Quarterly was maybe five eight and slender. In her late forties, she seemed older but not worn or unattractive. There was a gravitas to her bearing, in spite of the smile.
She wore a dark blue dress suit and a white blouse that buttoned up like a man’s shirt. Her shoes were dark, dark red with one-inch heels, the leather hard and shiny — almost like plastic.
She sat across from me, her spine erect, not resting against the back of the chair. This caused me to sit up a little straighter.
“So,” she began, “Mr. Lassiter, you’re looking for a therapist.”
“Yeah... uh, yes, I am.”
Her salt-and-butter hair was combed but only just. It wasn’t coiffed or done. There was a slight indentation on the bridge of her nose. I wondered where the glasses were and also where was the book or papers that she’d been reading before I’d arrived.
“Have you been in psychotherapy before?”
“No. Never.”
“So, what makes you feel you need it now?” She was watching my eyes, looking, I believed, for signs of depravity.
“It’s...” I said and then hesitated.
“Yes?” Her voice was mild, not commanding or insistent.
“I’m stuck.”
Slightest insinuation of a smile appeared on her lips.
“How are you stuck?”
“I...” My heart was beating fast, and I could feel my ears getting hot. I hadn’t expected this reaction. For a moment I thought I might be experiencing the beginnings of a heart attack.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. It’s just that, I guess I’m a little nervous.”
“There’s no need. Everything we say in this room is confidential. You are free to speak your mind.”
“And can I keep my secrets too?”