Chapter Forty-five
O
f course, Doug apologized again for not being able to meet me Monday evening. I didn’t doubt his sincerity. We made plans to meet at his office at six on Thursday for—for whatever we pleased.
At five minutes to six I walked through the lobby of the Prudential tower and toward the reception desk.
“Hi, Mac,” I said, in my artificially bright, don’t-come-too-close greeting voice.
“Miss Weston,” Mac answered, properly cowed. “Who you here to see?”
I busied myself signing in. “Mr. Spears and I have a meeting.”
“No, you don’t.”
My head shot up.
“What?”
Mac reddened. “I shouldn’t’ve said it that way. It’s just that Mr. Spears didn’t come to work today. Didn’t his secretary tell you?”
No, she had not. Neither had Doug. Obviously, he’d forgotten about our date and so had given Janey no instructions for canceling it.
“Well,” I said, forcing a laugh, “I’ll certainly have to speak to him when he returns. To think I could have been home by now, eating dinner.”
Mac smiled conspiratorially. “I like an early dinner myself, Miss Weston.”
“Well.” I looked down at the registry. “Guess I should cross out my name, huh?”
Mac did it for me. “Have a nice evening, now,” he said.
I forced a smile this time but I don’t think it convinced even Mac. “You, too, Mac,” I said. “Bye.”
When I got home a half hour later, Fuzzer was there to greet me. And there was no message from Doug.
I dialed his office number and left a carefully worded message I hoped he’d find first thing in the morning.
He did. At nine-fifteen, the phone rang.
“Meet me for lunch?” he said.
“Where?”
“At the Boston Harbor Hotel.”
The last time we’d been there Doug had given me the pink-and-purple Lucite heart-shaped ring.
I said okay and hung up.
I arrived at the hotel at one o’clock. Doug was already there, waiting for me on the terrace.
I didn’t want to start a big fight. All I wanted was an apology. At least, I told myself that was all I wanted.
He suggested we get a table. I told him I wasn’t hungry. We walked down to the water’s edge.
“Why didn’t you let me know you hadn’t come into the office?” I demanded.
Doug sighed. “I’m sorry, Erin. Honestly, I forgot. Both kids were sick and Carol needed some sleep and between cleaning up vomit and taking temperatures, it was all I could do to remember to call in at all.”
Let alone remember to tell your girl on the side that the date was off. On Doug’s list of priorities, I came after wife, kids, and work.
I’d always known that, hadn’t I? Well, hadn’t I?
Suddenly, I was furious. The fury had come upon me again like a cramp. I didn’t know what to do with it. I thought it would kill me.
“I looked like an ass!” I screamed. Doug jumped, startled. “I’ve never been more humiliated in my entire life.”
“Erin, don’t yell.”
“I’ll fucking yell if I want to yell,” I yelled.
Doug turned away from me and stared out at the water.
“Nice. Just turn away like I’ll disappear or something. Is that what you do with Carol?”
God, I was treading on such dangerous turf but I couldn’t stop myself. What was going on with me? Why was I always so angry? Why was the anger so vitriolic?
Still, Doug said nothing.
“This—this whole thing,” I sputtered, “it’s bullshit, it’s just a lot of crap.”
Doug turned and looked dead at me.
“Do you want to end it?” he asked calmly.
I felt the blood throbbing in my temples. Did I? Did I want to end it?
“No,” I blurted.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then will you let me apologize?”
“I can’t stop you.”
“Yes, you can. If you don’t stop talking I’ll never be able to say I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” I spat.
“Yes. I’ve already said it. And if I weren’t sorry, I wouldn’t be standing here taking this abuse.”
“Abuse?”
“When you scream at me it’s abusive.”
You always hurt the ones you love, I thought inanely. What sort of monster was I becoming?
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “And I accept your apology. I’m sorry.”
The tears started to roll down my face. Because we were in public and because it was the middle of the day, Doug couldn’t comfort me.
Even if he had wanted to.
Chapter Forty-six
A
fter the latest wrong episode with Doug, I was determined to have fun with the girls. I certainly didn’t seem to be having much fun with Doug those days.
“What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done to meet a man?” I asked.
“A particular man? Or just a man.” Abby.
“Does it matter?”
“I’m out of this,” Maggie said. “But go on. I’m curious.”
“A woman in my office,” I said, “was crazy about one of the guys in the building but she never had the nerve to talk to him in the elevators. So, one day she overheard him talking to someone from his office about sailing and how he had his own sailboat and all, so she signed up for sailing lessons at Boston Community Boating, down on the basin. I guess she figured she’d run into him there.”
“And?”
“And during the first lesson she slipped and somehow managed to break her leg. Needless to say, she didn’t feel so crazy about Elevator Guy after that.”
“Once, in high school,” Abby said, “I waited outside the boys’ locker room after a big game for a guy I had a crush on to come out.”
“Wild. You crazy woman. What happened?”
Abby blushed. “Well, it didn’t go very well. When he came out and saw me there, well, he and his friends kind of—laughed. It turns out he was dating some gorgeous cheerleader for our rival’s team.”
“He was a traitor. You deserve better.”
Abby blushed. “Besides,” she said, her voice low, “I heard later that he wasn’t circumcised. Ew!”
“Has anyone ever seen an uncircumcised penis?” I asked. “I haven’t. Up close and personal, I mean.”
JoAnne shuddered. “Like Elaine Bennis said, no personality.”
“I can’t believe you’re quoting a TV character,” Maggie said. “Again. Do you ever read? You know, like, books?”
“I’ve heard sex is better for the uncircumcised man,” Abby said.
“Nice. It’s always about the man!”
“It’s like Viagra being covered by insurance,” JoAnne said, “but, at least in most cases, not birth control.”
“Someone please tell me the logic in that!”
“There is no logic but that of the All Mighty Dick,” Maggie pronounced. “It’s a classic Dick Issue.”
“Again, to quote Elaine: How do they walk around with those things? And yes, I do read,” JoAnne said haughtily. “You know, like, books. Medical journals. Patients’ charts. It’s just that I find sitcoms a good form of relaxation. And they’re funny. Sue me, I like to laugh.”
“Speaking of laughter ...” I murmured and nodded to the left. A Britney Spears wanna-be and her Christina Aguilera buddy had just taken seats at the bar.
“I think it’s sad,” Abby said with conviction. “Those girls have no self-esteem. They don’t even know who they are!”
“And they’re at least twenty-five,” Maggie added. “Old enough to know better.”
JoAnne made a face. “Leave them alone. Who cares? You want to date the kind of guys who’ll ask them out? Not me.”
Abby frowned and I snuck another look at the bimbos.
Suddenly: “Has anyone read any of the
Left Behind
series?” JoAnne’s question hung in the air like a bad smell. All thoughts of Britney and Christina were expelled.
Finally, I said, “Oh, no. Please don’t tell me you’ve read that trash.”
JoAnne shrugged. “I admit to an occasional bout of sheer morbid curiosity.”
“But when you buy one of the books you’re helping to support those Rapture nutbags,” Maggie said, her tone uncharacteristically fierce.
“Didn’t Debbie Harry do a rap song called ‘Rapture’ ?” That, of course, was Abby.
JoAnne made a face. “Who said I spent any money? I read the first installment in the bookstore. It’s not exactly serious literature. Basically, the writing is juvenile. And the authors have no idea how to write a female character. None. But there is something bizarrely fascinating about people believing so literally in the fantasies of the Bible.”
“Don’t get me started on the born-again Christians,” I said, my tone not so uncharacteristically fierce. “I barely survived the regular ones.”
“Catholics are not the same as Christians, Erin. You know that.”
She had me there.
Abby’s expression became dreamy. “I bet Satan is cute. You know, all manly and dark and brooding.”
Here was an interesting twist to the conversation. I knew I would regret it but ...
“Okay, Abby. I’m going to ask. Why do you think Satan is a hottie? Aside from his living in eternal flames.”
Abby didn’t seem to get the unintended pun. She rarely did. “Well, Satan is supposed to be the Anti-Christ, right? Anyway the opposite of Jesus. And paintings of Jesus always make him look so—girly. Effeminate. Like he’s a whiner.”
Maggie hid a smile behind her bottle of Tremont Ale.
“Er, you know paintings have nothing much to do with any historical Jesus, right?” I said. “They’re about the artist and his time.”
Abby shrugged. “I know. Still, every time I think of Jesus I think of those pictures where he’s sad and morbid and skinny. Who’d want to go out with him? I need a man with a little more—oomph.”
“Oomph?” Maggie repeated, no longer bothering to hide her smile. “You think the devil has oomph.”
JoAnne gave me the eye. “Ah, yes. The appeal of the bad boy. Something we’re all supposed to outgrow.”
“Does anyone, ever?” I challenged.
JoAnne took me up on the challenge. “Honest opinion? No. Does everyone continue to act on those urges? Also no.”
“I think good boys are sexy,” Abby said. “Some of them. The ones with oomph, like your father, Erin.”
“I don’t think any boys are sexy,” Maggie said, happily. “Not anymore.”
I was having fun with the girls.
That night, in spite of the good time I’d had with my friends, I couldn’t sleep.
Three o’clock saw me settled on the living room couch, staring blankly at a rerun of E!’s Mysteries and Scandals. Somebody was having an affair. There were drugs. And an angry, gun-toting wife.
It got me to thinking. A person wouldn’t cheat on his soul mate, would he? That would be a horrible violation of trust, the absolute worst.
How can you grade violations of trust? Reason wondered.
What was Reason doing awake at 3
A.M.?
Doug’s cheating on you would be worse than his cheating on Carol? Reason went on. You both love him. How are Doug’s actions any less immoral?
Okay, I see, I shouted. It does sound stupid, but ...
But Doug would never cheat on me, I knew that as clearly as I knew my own name. How could he? When there was an all-encompassing intimacy, one that brought joy and passionate satisfaction, there was no room or reason for anyone else.
Reason snorted. If you say so.
Sounding a little cynical these days, aren’t you, I retorted.
Comes from working with you. Let me ask you this: Isn’t Doug’s sleeping with his wife while he’s having an affair with you cheating on his soul mate?
I cringed. It wasn’t the first time I’d wondered if Doug was still having sex with Carol now that we were together.
Oh, he’d never do that, Romance cried, suddenly awake. I’m sure the thought of sex with anyone but you, Erin, is abhorrent to him. No, I’m sure he refrains from sex with Carol. After all, she doesn’t love him in the way he needs to be loved. He told you that himself.
Of course he has sex with Carol, Reason shot back. For several reasons. One: To keep up his cover as a loving, devoted husband. Two: He’s a man. Men want sex in a different way from women. They want it more often. They’ll say and do practically anything for it.
That’s sexist thinking, I protested feebly.
Why don’t you just ask him, Reason suggested reasonably. You’re an adult. You said you knew what you were getting into. You said you could handle the truth.
I got up to go back to bed.
I was wrong, I thought. I can’t handle the truth.