She’s read that pregnancy can increase body temperature. Hers feels like it’s gone up ten degrees. Bridget fans herself with one hand as she scans her closet and decides on a pink summer dress, something innocent and light.
She checks her profile and rubs her stretching belly. She used to think that pregnant women who caressed their stomachs were just seeking attention, but now she believes it’s one of those instinctual things, sort of like monogamy, that’s good for the baby and the family. Although Michael sure as hell didn’t get the fidelity gene.
Most of the red dye in her hair has washed out. She’s back to black. Her combat boots clash with the pink dress, but she likes the look.
Today is their second meeting with Joe Ramirez, the man who will be conducting the polygraph, an ex–FBI agent. He looks like he’s around her father’s age, and the first time she met him, she had a fantasy about him beating the shit out of Michael. Lately, she finds herself constantly daydreaming. Sometimes it’s about the baby, about how the three of them will be a happy family. Sometimes it’s about her kicking Michael out, and him begging her to let him stay. She imagines moving to New Hampshire, buying a small piece of land where she’ll keep goats and chickens. Five minutes later, she’s picturing herself in Hawaii, living on a beach. One second she sees herself engulfed in Michael’s arms, the next second she’s dumping his stuff on the street.
“You ready?” Michael calls from downstairs.
She glances at herself again, crunches her wavy hair, and thinks she’ll never be ready. Not for this. But she’s not about to back out either.
They take his truck, which has been baking in the sun. As she puts her feet on the dashboard, her dress slips down so that her legs are almost entirely exposed. He tries not to stare, but he can’t help it. Although she’d never admit it to him, she’d wouldn’t mind if he found some deserted street where they could have sex.
She takes a few papers out of her purse, leans her head back in a provocative pose, and fans herself. He takes the bait and slips a hand down the front of her dress.
She closes her eyes and moans softly.
“You are one sweet thing,” he says, keeping one hand on the wheel, and one on her.
Her feet, still resting on the dashboard, move apart slightly, just enough to show him what she wants.
“I know someplace we can stop,” he says.
“On the way home,” she replies. It will be a reward for getting through their appointment. Yes, she said she would never have sex with him again, but what the hell? He’s willing to take a lie detector test. That should say something good about their marriage.
She opens her eyes, unfolds the paper in her hands, and tries to act like he’s not making her hot. Then she reads the questions that she’s written for their session today. She’s no longer in the mood. She pushes his hand away and drops her legs.
Before the actual polygraph, they have to meet with Mr. Ramirez three times to talk about the procedure. It’s nothing like what they show on TV. There isn’t a list of fifty questions. No surprise attacks. You get one topic to focus on, and the questions need to be worded in a way that the answers all converge and address the major issue. At first Bridget thought it was crap that Michael got to review the questions. That way he could prepare—practice keeping his heart rate down and his breathing calm—but Mr. Ramirez assured her that’s not the way it worked.
“So, want to know what my first question is?” she asks.
“Joe said we’re supposed to wait until we’re with him.” Now he has both hands on the steering wheel and is watching the road, as if he can’t be distracted when he’s driving, which is such bullshit. He’s just avoiding the subject.
She reads from her paper. “Since our marriage date, August 12, 2007, have you had sexual intercourse with more women than the two you’ve told me about?”
“Bridge, I’m not answering until we get there.”
“What the fuck difference will it make if you tell me now or when we’re in his office?”
He slows for a light. “How the hell do I know? But what if it does? What if I answer now and somehow that affects the results and makes me look like a liar when I’m not?”
She sticks her hand out the window, hoping for a breeze. There is none.
“But you are a liar.”
“Look, say what you want to me now, if it makes you feel better. But I’m not answering any of the questions until we get to the office.”
The light turns green. The tires screech, and she stuffs the papers back in her purse.
Ramirez’s office is a bland beige. She smiles, trying to show him that she’s ready for this, and she can deal with whatever she might learn. Once again, he spends fifteen minutes explaining how to word questions, how long the test will take, and how important it is that they both have contingency plans if the results don’t come out as they expect. Finally he asks her for the list of questions she’s prepared for today. He puts on a pair of wire-framed glasses and nods as he reads. His hair is glossy black, probably from some gel people used to use in the eighties. It’s his eyes that convinced her to return. They’re reliable.
“Okay,” he says. “We still need to narrow this down. It seems unclear to me, Bridget, if you want to know if Michael has had intercourse with other women during your marriage, or if he has feelings for any of those women.”
“I guess I want to know if he has feelings for them,” she says.
Michael shakes his head. “I’ve told you I don’t. Plus, Joe has explained you can’t have such open-ended questions. I mean, of course I have feelings.”
“You make no sense.” She leans forward, wanting to get in his face. “You just said you don’t, and then you said you do. Which is it?”
He sits back. “I don’t have loving feelings. But I’m not a robot. So I have some feelings.”
Ramirez coughs. If he didn’t have black hair, he might blend in with the decor. His pants and shirt are also beige. “Michael, you bring up a good point. Asking about feelings can be vague.” He looks at Bridget. “You may want to think about wording the question something like, Has Michael ever told any of the women that he loved them during the period in which you two were married?”
“That’s too specific,” she says. He may have told them lots of other things that imply love, or lust or like. “Does he still think about having sex with them?”
“That’s also a little tricky. It’s better to stick with concrete actions.”
She looks at Michael. “Do you still think about having sex with Vivian?”
“No.”
“Never?” she asks.
“No, never.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Michael says.
“Right,” she tells Ramirez. “So I guess I’m just going to stick with the questions about whether he had sex with more women than he told me.”
“All right.” He jots a few notes. “So, Michael, are you comfortable with my asking you if you have had intercourse with more women than the two you have told Bridget about?”
He scratches his head.
“It’s not a difficult question,” Bridget says.
He crosses his legs, then uncrosses them. “It’s just that I can’t remember all the time, and I’m worried if I say I can’t remember, it will come out like I’m lying.”
“If you really can’t remember and that’s the truth, the test will validate that,” Ramirez says.
Bridget grips the arms of the chair. “How can you not remember?”
“Maybe I was drinking.”
She looks at Ramirez, who’s watching her like she’s some sort of porcelain doll. She’s not going to fucking break. She just wants the truth. “So if he can’t remember because he was drinking, then how do you ask?”
“It’s something we have to consider. I don’t know how much Michael drinks, but do you want your focus to be on that?”
“No,” she answers without hesitation.
“All right, so I think we should stick to asking if he’s had intercourse more times than he’s told you. Remember, this is only the first polygraph. We can focus on other issues in later sessions.”
“No fucking way,” Michael says. “I said I’d do one. What’s this about more?”
“The literature I gave you strongly suggests sex addicts have a polygraph once every three months. I have clients who do it for themselves, not for their partners. It actually helps them stay sober. You can think of it like someone who has a weight problem needing to stand on the scale to remind themselves of their goal.”
“He didn’t read any of the pamphlets you gave us,” Bridget tells Ramirez.
“I didn’t have time,” Michael says, glancing away.
“But you have time to play the guitar and watch baseball.”
“Maybe you both need more time to think about this,” Ramirez suggests.
“He’s just trying to get out of it. I knew he would,” Bridget says.
“I wouldn’t be here if I was just trying to get out of it. I’m doing it for you.” He’s about to comb his fingers through his hair but stops himself. She’s told him it makes him look nervous. “For us,” he says.
She crosses her arms. “Fine. Then we’ll just stick to the question about whether you had sex with more people than you’ve told me.”
His work boot taps the floor. “Um…” He runs his hand through his hair.
She feels like her heart is a pebble thrashing around in a tin can.
“There have been, haven’t there?” she asks.
“I swear I didn’t remember it until we got here. I guess I sort of put it out of my head. Is that something people do?” he asks Ramirez.
“It happens, yes. There are people who compartmentalize, and until they are forced to confront certain events, they are capable of forgetting. We normally see this sort of thing with post-traumatic stress disorder.” He brings his pencil to his mouth. “With dissociative disorders too.”
She wants out of this beige nightmare. Her heart hurts. She really thought this whole polygraph thing was going to help, to prove to her there weren’t more lies. She’s been so fucking delusional.
“Bridget,” Ramirez says, “you look pale. Are you sure you’re all right?”
He sounds so far away. The pebble is thrashing. She wants to go back to that hotel on Huntington Ave and turn the air conditioner on high until the only thing she can feel is cold.
“I want to know if he ever brought any of the women flowers,” she finally says.
Ramirez writes that down. “That’s certainly something we can find out. May I ask why that might be important?”
“It would tell me if he cares about them. If he brings them flowers, then he does have feelings.”
But she knows, as soon as she’s spoken, that it’s stupid what she’s asking. Stupid and pointless. She told herself she’d leave him if there were more lies, and now she’s sitting here in her pink summer dress knowing full well there were more, and she’s still contemplating a way to rationalize staying with him. If he didn’t bring them flowers, if it was really all about the chase, and the conquest, and not about love or caring, then maybe … But—no.
She can’t. She can’t take it anymore. She gets up and walks out, right to the parking lot. Heat radiates from the blacktop. The afternoon light is unforgiving.
Neither of them says a word on the ride home. Michael parks the truck in front of the house. Bridget hops out and hurries to her car in the driveway. No way can she be with him. He holds up his hand for her to stop and talk. Now? Now, fuckhead, you want to talk? She gives him the finger, backs out, and drives to the hotel on Huntington Ave.
At reception, she asks for a room on the first floor.
“I have two-thirty-four,” the woman says.
“Is that the first floor?” Bridget asks.
“Yes, it is, ma’am.”
That someone just called her ma’am and that a first-floor room is in the two hundreds is just the cherry on top of this day.
Bridget crashes onto the bed, yanks a pillow from under the cover, puts it over her face, and screams at the top of her lungs. When she’s done, her stomach feels like it has butterflies, but she’s not nervous and she doesn’t feel sick, even if she should after all the crap that happened today. She places a hand on her belly. It’s there again, the gentle flutter—the baby moving.