The Life List (The List Trilogy) (19 page)

I opened the garage door, inched my car inside, and waited nervously for Kurt to come barreling out demanding to know where the hell I had been. But he didn’t. I unlocked the door to the house and tiptoed inside. All I wanted to do was make it to the shower before he saw me, and it looked like I was gonna get my wish because miraculously, the dog was the only one to greet me, and discernibly, my crotch. But instead of high tailing it to the bathroom, I became paranoid of my luck. Just like the stupid curious chick in a horror movie who decides to leave her bedroom after having been chased into it by a mask-wearing, knife-wielding lunatic, I called out Kurt’s name. No answer. I ran to the window to look for his car, it wasn’t there. I assumed he had gone out to search for me, so I hurried to the shower and scrubbed off the proof of where I had been.

The story that I decided to tell Kurt was that I stopped by my office after dinner with my friends to catch up on some work and fell asleep at my desk. I know, it’s a totally lame excuse, but it was all I could come up with. But he never came home for me to try it out and, as the clock ticked away, I became very worried about him being very worried. And despite enjoying the various forms of worship Leo and I shared earlier, with every minute that passed, I became very sorry for my conduct unbecoming of a married woman. During the hour of waiting and pacing, I became re-committed to therapy and to figuring out why I’m making such a mess of things. At three o’clock in the morning, I finally decided to call Kurt and tell him to come home. That’s when I remembered my cell phone was still turned off. I ran to it, turned it on, and fretfully waited to confront the plethora of anxious and angry messages, but there was only one.

“
Hey babe, Geoff from work wants to go on a last minute fishing trip up to Hat Creek, so I’m on my way to pick him up. Gonna stay for the weekend. The dog’s been fed. Probably won’t have cell phone reception where we’re going, so don’t expect to hear from me. See ya Sunday
.”

Not that I deserved it, but there was no “I love you,” no “call me when you get home so I know you’re okay.” NADA! Just a “see ya” and a click. My God, I could’ve been car jacked, dead in a ditch somewhere, or worse,
having sex with another man who I was falling in love with
. But thoughts like that don’t cross Kurt’s mind. Nope, everything’s
always
great. That’s how it’s always been, and it’ll never change.

Since Kurt didn’t care where I was, what I was doing or who I was doing it with from Friday until Sunday, I decided to finally put love for
my
recreational activities ahead of my love for him and spend every single minute of my free time with Leo. On Friday morning, I called in sick to work, asked my neighbor to babysit my dog, and surprised Leo at his apartment with bagels and coffee. He blew off his classes, told the rock yard to fuck off, and we hopped into his jeep and headed west to Mill Valley, where I was certain nobody would recognize me.

Once we got to Mill Valley, we held hands while we window-shopped. We ducked into every alcove and alley-way and made out like sex-starved maniacs. We looked at real estate fliers while sharing our thoughts of living together one day. We drank a bottle of wine and ate a late lunch at Piatti’s while we ripped on every single person who walked by, except our waiter of course, because doing that would be service suicide. Then, after lunch, we hit up all the stores. While I was looking at rings at Banana Republic, Leo slipped one on my finger and made a comment about the huge rock he planned on buying me one day. He said he wanted the diamond to “shine from a mile away to keep guys from even
trying
to make a move.” I thought about the huge one I had on the night I met him and how size doesn’t matter if you hide the damn thing. Leo bought the little metal ring for me and told me not to take it off until he can replace it with the real thing.

After lunch, we walked to the famous Sweetwater Saloon where musicians like Bonnie Raitt, Santana, and Boz Scaggs have been known for their impromptu performances. We found a cozy table in the corner and sat there for hours drinking Corona’s, eating popcorn, and overtly adoring each other.

Too tipsy to make the drive home, we checked into the Mill Valley Inn where we made love, lots and lots of love, until we fell asleep in each other’s arms. Well, Leo fell asleep, and I dozed in and out of consciousness. Sometimes I woke feeling blessed, and sometimes I woke feeling cursed, always wondering which I would end up feeling for life and overwhelmed with the responsibility of the looming choice. The next day I returned home to pack a fresh bag of clothes, pat the dog on the head and check the answering machine. It was empty.

Two hours after leaving Leo, I arrived back at his apartment where he had dinner waiting for me. He spent whatever amount of money he had on a couple of chicken breasts, some prosciutto, fontina cheese, red wine, and candles, and we ate our meal on a blanket on the floor. I’ve eaten in the finest restaurants in Tokyo and Hong Kong, the best steak houses in New York and Chicago, and watched Kurt incessantly curse at the stove, at me, and at the world to make a perfect meal, but the simple, no spice, no utensil, no nothing meal Leo made for me was the best I’ve ever had. After dinner, just as we were getting cozy on the couch for some bwamp chicka bwamp bwamp, the phone rang.

“Aren’t you gonna get that?”

“You’re the only one I want to hear from and you’re here.”

I thought that was sweet, but I really wanted to know if a girl was calling him. Granted he’s done nothing to make me think he’s fooling around behind my back, but
he
thinks
I’m
genuine and LOOK AT WHAT I’M DOING TO HIM!

“Answer it.”

“Why?”

“Just answer it. I wanna know who it is.”

“No! Come here.”

Just as he was about to put his arm around me, I jumped up from the couch, picked up the receiver, and handed it to him. If I wasn’t his dream girl, I’d be scared shitless of the glare he gave me as I placed the phone in his hand.

“Hello? Yeah, I was meaning to call you. No, not about that. Did you run into Chrissy a while back?”

Holy shit! It’s Megan!

“Uh-huh. Interesting, that’s not what she told me.”

Oh boy.

“And I believe her, so that means you’re lying to me. I don’t like liars…”

Uh oh.

“Look, I really don’t care, and don’t call me anymore. Stay out of Chrissy’s life, too. I mean it.” And then he hung up on her. I sat there astonished at Leo’s ruthless ability to cut someone out of his life.

“Are you really never gonna talk to her again?”

“That’s what I said.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“I’d do anything for you, but I did that mostly for myself. I might’ve cut her some slack if she told me the truth, but she lied, and I don’t want that in my life.”

His words repeated over and over again in my mind after I left his apartment. What in
THEEEEEE
hell is the guy gonna do to me when he finds out the lies I’ve told?

Three nights ago I thought going home to Kurt after having sex with Leo was the most despicable thing I had ever done, but I’m not so sure anymore. Let me see…I just spent the last three days talking about a future with a guy who’s falling in love with me, and oh yeah, he doesn’t know I’m married. I’m four days away from attending a marriage-saving therapy session with a husband who’s only going with me to pacify what he thinks is a bump in the road of our relationship. My therapist believes me when I tell her I love Kurt and that I haven’t spoken to Leo since the day after I met him four months ago. I’m fairly certain that every day, with every lie, my life gets more and more despicable.

Sham

April, 1998

As despicable as it is, I’ve created some kind of weird normalcy out of my revolting life. I exercise early in the morning, have a quick cup of coffee with Kurt, and then call Leo on my way to work to tell him I miss him. Sometimes when I call, I tell him I’m on a business trip so there’s no pressure to see him right away. Trust me, I want to spend every waking minute of every day with him, but it’s just not feasible. Whenever it is possible to see him, we meet at The Marriot after work for a quick drink and some flirting, and then I rush off to a make believe work function when, in reality, I’m getting home just in time for Kurt to force-feed me dinner. Every so often I shake things up a bit and tell Kurt I have to work late so I can surprise Leo at his apartment. But no matter what lie I’m living, all my days end with a long bath (
huge
fan of those now) or I work on the computer until Kurt falls asleep. Eventually I slip into bed, careful not to wake him, and dream about Leo until I wake up and repeat the viscous cycle. But every so often, before my thoughts turn to Leo, I stare at Kurt in his peaceful slumber and I cry for us.

I remember at one of my very first sessions with Dr. Maria, she mentioned how easy it would be for someone to go nuts if they kept all of their thoughts and true feelings to themselves. And no doubt, I went coo-coo for cocoa puffs by not being authentic with Kurt for so many years. I mean look…being a fake drove me all the way into the arms of a twenty-two-year-old guy! But the multifarious lies I’m telling to Kurt and Leo make my old days of hiding my hatred of sky diving and well balanced meals seem like a walk in the park. I’m seriously going CRAZY! I feel like I need to be strapped to a table and have an intravenous drip of truth serum jammed into my arm to shake me out of my love coma and stop any and all future damage I might cause to these men. A rehab, so to speak.

So yes, at that session, Dr. Maria did an excellent job of rationalizing my one little slip up with Leo when she explained the side effects of not being authentic. But obviously she did it in the context of me working on a relationship with one man, my husband. For pity’s sake, that’s what I told her I wanted to do after all. But I’ve become a pathological liar so that I can work on a relationship with Leo. I know I could easily get snapped out of my love coma if I came clean to either Dr. Maria or my best friends. You know, check myself into rehab. But they would only force me to choose a man and I’m not ready to do that yet.
I can’t strap myself to the table
!

Desperately needing to share my dirty little secrets, but not with my therapist or my best friends, I confided in Slutty Co-worker. She’s was with me the night I met Leo. The hooker even saw how much fun I was having talking to him and convinced me to keep on doing it! Of course telling
her
about my life as an adulterer is like a heroin addict consulting a meth addict for guidance, but I had to tell someone about my affair before I exploded. And as a woman who sleeps with married men and makes no qualms about accepting expensive tokens of their appreciation, Slutty Co-worker was completely non-judgmental and totally supportive of my situation. In fact, she said I could use her as an alibi
and
use her apartment to rendezvous with Leo until I sorted out my life. It’s ironic how I used to think she was a complete whore, but in one conversation she went from being Linda Lovelace to my Mother Theresa. Funny how fast things can change. Slutty Co-worker’s doing the opposite of what those who love me would advise me to do. But like I said, I’m an addict, and right now I’ll use anyone that’ll help me get what I need.

I’m just finishing up listening to a message from Leo when I pull into Dr. Maria’s parking lot. Tonight’s the big therapy session with Kurt… and there he is.

“Hey, babe! So this is where you come to talk about how unhappy you are? Ahhh, stop looking at me like that. I’m kidding!”

I almost feel bad about what I’m about to put him through. That is, until he starts cracking jokes about what a waste of time and money this is gonna be.

Sad Frumpy Lady is sitting in her usual spot but instead of keeping her head buried in her book like she usually does, she lifts it up to get a good look at Kurt. Holy moly, she
almost
looks delighted.

After we’re beeped in and introductions have been made, Dr. Maria invites us to sit down, but not directly next to each other. She has an L shaped sectional couch that we sit on in the middle, near the part with the crack that forms the actual L, so our knees are almost touching. I’m tense. I’m not sure if I want Kurt here to work on the marriage or if I want him here to understand my reasons for ending it. Until I’m clear on which one, should he even be here at all? I look up at him; he has a big ol’ smile on his face.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Kurt. I’m glad you could join us. As I’m sure you know, Chrissy’s been feeling sad for some time now.”

His hand moves to my knee. It’s a move I would’ve craved seven months ago. Now it bothers me.

“We’ve discussed her sadness in some detail, and…well…seems like a lot of it is about you.”

Smile’s gone.

“Can you tell me why you reacted the way you did to Chrissy’s miscarriage?”

Oh no she didn’t! I DID NOT think she was gonna drop that bomb! Oh my God, he must be so uncomfortable. I’m uncomfortable! I can’t bear to watch him stumble through this. I want to save him! Should I save him? No, no, no I can’t. I have to see where this goes. I have to see what Kurt does when he’s forced to feel, or worse…realize he’s incapable.

He clears his throat.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“Didn’t Chrissy tell you she had a miscarriage in October?”

“She said she did.”

“You don’t believe her?”

“I believe her but…how can we really know for sure?”

“Well, she took a pregnancy test at home and told you it was positive and you never had a baby.”

“Those things can be wrong.”

“Sure they can, but I believe her and she’s not even my wife.”

I think that was meant to shake him up, but it was me who felt the punch in the stomach. After a long look at her notepad and a noticeably irritable shift in her mood, she finally looks up.