An alarm is beeping somewhere close to my head. I feel around under the pillow, find my phone and silence it. Why did I pick 7 A.M.? I have eleven missed calls from my mother figures. I also have a new text message from Will:
—Check your e-mail.
I write back:
—go fuck yourself
I toss the phone onto the nightstand and roll over. Freddy is lying next to me.
“You’re really addicted to that thing,” she whispers.
“I’m sorry I was mean to you last night,” I whisper back.
“No worries, love.”
“Where are we?”
“My room. I kicked Nicole out.”
“My life is over, Freddy.”
“No it isn’t. You just need a makeover. You look like the girl who crawls out of the television set in The Ring.”
“What’s the point? And anyway, I don’t have time.”
She strokes my hair. “That’s okay. We’ll do a makeover montage.”
She’s already made me appointments at the hotel spa. I slowly get dressed. All my anger is gone. Now I’m just sad. Profoundly sad.
We’re about to head downstairs when my phone pings.
—I think I’ve figured out why you’re so upset.
—It’s not because I lied. It’s not because you feel like you don’t know me.
…
—You must think what we do is wrong. You must feel guilty. I want you to know I understand.
That thing about me not being angry anymore? I’m over it.
—you understand, will? gosh, what a RELIEF! i feel SO much better. i dont fucking hate your guts anymore!!!
—Read my e-mail, Lily.
My phone rings as Freddy and I get into the elevator. I answer. “Leave. Me. Alone.”
“I’m in Javier’s room,” Will says. “Let’s talk this out.”
“I should meet you why?” I say heatedly. “So that you can lecture me about how I’m the last person in the world who should be throwing stones right now? So that you can tell me all about the ‘guilt’ that I supposedly feel? Do you torture all your women like this?”
“Lily. Please.”
“Explain Monday morning,” I say. “Explain our first three days together. And then explain all the other times. How sex with you was amazing and mind-blowing one moment, and then completely boring the next. Were you spent? Were you holding back? Seriously, Will—I’d like to know.”
Silence. At last, he says, “It’s complicated.”
I laugh. “I bet it is.”
“Why didn’t you say anything before now?” he retorts. “Why didn’t you ever bring it up?”
“Nice try, but we’re not talking about me right now. We’re talking about you.”
“We’re talking about us, Lily. You didn’t speak up because it made you uncomfortable, right? You didn’t want me to know the real you. The one who really loves to have sex. Because you were ashamed.”
It’s infuriating how little he understands. “I’ve never felt ashamed about sex, Will. I only felt guilty about lying to you.”
“And you lied to me because you thought what you were doing was wrong! But it’s not. We’re not bad people. What we do is normal. We’re perfect for each other, Lily. We’re practically the same person. Don’t you see that?”
That is about as much as I can take. “I don’t want to marry myself!” I shout. “I want to change!”
There’s a long silence.
“If you don’t feel ashamed,” he says at last, “then why do you want to change?”
I end the call. Freddy stares straight ahead, pretending she didn’t hear anything. I guess she’s playing it safe after last night. I start to dial Will’s number again. I want to tell him he doesn’t get it. That I misspoke. I don’t want to change, exactly. I want …
To hell with it. I don’t have to justify myself to him.
We leave the elevator, cross the lobby and enter the hotel spa. The woman behind the sleek, minimalist bamboo desk has a wide pink smile and skin as smooth, plump and flawless as a newborn’s ass. She inclines her head graciously and greets us with a not-at-all pretentious “Namaste.”
I immediately turn to go, but Freddy takes my arm. “Trust me. You’re going to feel better.”
Doubtful. Namaste leads us to a dressing room, where we change into fluffy white robes. She returns and shows us into the main waiting area, a hushed, dimly lit room where dippy Eastern music trickles out of hidden speakers and low sofas are arranged around a fountain.
Lounging on several of these sofas are Mom, Jane and Ana, swathed in spa robes and sipping green tea.
I turn to Freddy. “Are you serious right now?”
“They were worried!” she says defensively, sidling among them and sitting down.
“You weren’t returning our calls,” Jane adds. Her hair is wrapped in an enormous white towel, and she already has some toxic-looking orange goo smeared all over her face.
Ana slips her phone into the pocket of her robe. “We finally got in touch with Freddy. She told us what happened.”
I walk over to a side table and pour myself a glass of water with a few slices of cucumber floating on top. “Then you all know that congratulations are in order. You won. I’m not getting married.”
“That’s why we’re here, honey,” Mom says. “We’ve changed our minds. We think you should marry Will.”
At which point my head explodes, splattering all over the nice teak walls and embroidered Indian pillows.
“We didn’t think you really loved him,” she explains. “We were concerned that you were deceiving him, and that you would both be horribly unhappy when he found out the truth. But it turns out that you do love him, and he knew everything, and he still loves you. So …”
I look around. “Where’s Gran?”
Ana frowns. “She refused to come. She thinks spas are unhygienic.”
Namaste is passing through the room with a stack of towels. She pauses, looking affronted, then disappears into a treatment room.
Ana gazes after her. “Does anyone else find something unsettling about that woman’s skin?”
“She’s extraordinarily well hydrated,” Jane says approvingly.
I pour myself another glass of water and settle onto a sofa opposite them.
“Let me make sure I understand,” I say. “A bunch of divorced women—who are each currently carrying on an affair with a married man, a man to whom they were each married, and whom they divorced because of his chronic infidelities—these women are now counseling me to get married?”
They exchange a glance.
“Women who know me better than anyone else,” I continue. “Women who know everything about me. These are the women who are now urging me to pledge my faith and fealty to one man—a man I have repeatedly cheated on, and who has repeatedly cheated on me? This is what’s happening right now?”
“Pretty much,” Ana says.
“You have to understand something, darling,” Jane says. “Infidelity in a marriage is inevitable.”
Mom looks taken aback. “I don’t know if that’s true.”
“Of course it is,” Ana says, glancing at her phone.
“It’s inevitable and irrelevant,” Jane continues. “Cheating wasn’t the real problem that each of us had with Henry. It was basic incompatibility.”
“Your mom was a homebody,” Ana says. “She wanted to stay in Key West, while your father longed to travel the world. I wanted to go into politics, and Henry was not going to be the kind of spouse I needed. Jane was socially ambitious, and Henry is anything but. You and Will are in the same place in your lives. You love your careers. You want to be in New York. You enjoy doing the same things.”
“Obviously,” Jane murmurs.
I lean back on the couch. “Infidelity is no big deal. That’s what you’re saying.”
“It is a big deal, because it’s universal,” Ana says. “Think about it, Lilybear. Why is it that everybody in this country claims to hate cheating, to find it horrifying and wrong, but at the same time everybody in this country is screwing around, or dreaming about screwing around, or screwing around on the phone, or the computer, or in their heads? Men, women, colleagues of mine in Congress—in the most sick and demented ways—celebrities, ordinary people, newlyweds, the elderly. Everybody,” she concludes. “Everybody cheats, and everybody lies about it.”
“That’s a little extreme,” Mom says.
“We’re animals,” Ana says. “We need to accept it and get over it. There’s so much more to marriage than sex. People let it get in the way of otherwise healthy relationships.” She glances at her phone. “Why, thanks for responding, you useless bastard!”
“Put that thing away,” Jane sighs. “We’re in a spa, for God’s sake.”
Namaste is leading a client into a treatment room. She puts a finger to her lips. We ignore her.
“What if I want to be faithful to one person?” I say. “What if I want to change?”
“You want to change?” asks Ana.
This has been nagging at me since I blurted it out to Will. I must have had a reason for saying it. “Maybe ‘want’ is a strong word. I feel like I should.”
“That might not be a bad idea,” Mom says.
“Why should she change?” Ana demands.
“The population of Manhattan is shrinking,” Jane observes, gazing at her gleaming nails. “Eventually she’s going to run out of men.”
“Lily doesn’t need a man to complete her,” Ana says. “Nobody does. We’re all proof of that.”
“I worry about my little girl,” Mom says. “Her lifestyle is so … unconventional.”
Freddy perks up at that. “Unconventional? Is that code for ‘wrong’?”
“No!” Mom cries. “I mean—”
“Seriously, Mom,” I say. “You’re one to talk. What I saw going on Tuesday afternoon was pretty unconventional, wouldn’t you say?”
“Let’s stay focused,” Jane says. “Marry Will now. You can change your mind later if you want.”
Mom looks affronted. “He’s not a pair of shoes. She can’t just return him if she changes her mind.”
“Why not?” Ana says. “That’s what each of us did.”
“Ladies!” Namaste cries, exasperated. “Spa voices, please!”
We turn to her slowly. She looks frightened and backs out of the room.
“Let me ask you all this,” I say. “What is the purpose of marriage?”
“Love and family,” Mom says.
“Partnership and companionship,” Ana says.
“Wealth and social legitimacy,” Jane says.
“You guys need to get your stories straight,” Freddy remarks.
Mom clasps her hands and leans forward. “I saw how you looked at each other when you walked into the restaurant last night. You two love each other.”
“You’re both smart and successful,” Ana adds.
“He’s so tall,” Jane says.
“All reasons why he’d make a good boyfriend,” I say. “But are they reasons to marry him?”
Nobody responds.
“Lily?”
Namaste is standing at the door.
“Your masseuse is ready for you,” she says.
As I follow her out, the room erupts in passionate argument.
Over the next three hours I am exfoliated, peeled, steamed and wrapped in seaweed. I am Reiki’ed and biotherapeutically drained and craniosacrally realigned. I am weighed down by hot stones. It does make me feel better—but just barely.
The alarm on my phone beeps, and I pull it out of the pocket of my robe. The deposition starts in an hour. I check my e-mail. Maybe the plaintiffs have agreed to a postponement. Maybe Philip has had a miraculous recovery, or some other partner is riding to the rescue.
No such luck. The only message in my inbox is an e-mail from Will, sent at 5 A.M.
I Am Not A Scumbag, And Neither Are You.
Catchy. I drop the phone into my pocket.
Back in the room, I get dressed for work. Freddy is sitting on the bed. “I need a favor,” I tell her. “Call it off. Officially. Get in touch with Mattie, and my parents, and just … stop the wedding.”
Her face is full of concern. “Are you sure, honey?”
I nod unhappily. “I’m sure.”
It’s raining when I leave the hotel. So much for Mattie’s promises of sunshine. Poor Mattie—she’s going to be disappointed about a hell of a lot more than the weather today. But I don’t have time to worry about her, or the wedding, or Will. I need to focus on work. I spent some time thinking about the deposition while I was in the spa. I came up with one minor procedural argument for postponement, but I’m afraid plaintiffs’ counsel will laugh in my face if I bring it up. And if I demand that we call the court and ask for an adjournment, the judge will surely deny me—and be furious that I even raised it. I need a substantive reason for stopping the deposition, but so far I’ve got nothing.
I pull up in front of Gran’s house and run to the front door. I find her in the kitchen reading the paper, her hair in foam rollers.
“I need you to second-chair a deposition,” I say. “I’ll explain everything in the car. But you have to hurry.”
The paper’s on the floor and she’s headed upstairs before I even finish speaking. I have nothing better to do while I wait for her, so I start reading Will’s e-mail.
There are many things about me that you don’t know. That’s my fault, and I want to correct it. I’m hoping that if you get a better understanding of who I am, and why I am the way I am, we can fix this.
Please read all the way to the end.
Some of these things I’ve never told anyone.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve adored women. My dad says that when I was three I would regularly confess my love to waitresses in diners and women at bus stops. I had my first girlfriend at four—we would walk around the playground together, holding hands. I loved how women looked and how they moved. Their hair, their voices. My kindergarten teacher was an elderly woman named Mrs. Echternach. She was short and stumpy, with a hairy upper lip. But such beautiful blue eyes. I thought she was a goddess.
Unfortunately, I was no god. As I got older, I went from cute toddler to awkward adolescent. I had braces, bad skin, played French horn—you name it. I became shy—painfully so. I still admired girls, but from a distance. Remember how I told you about the library and all the time I spent there? I remember one book in particular—a study of Greek and Roman sculpture. When I was feeling low I would pull it out and pore over all those lines and curves, those necks and shoulders and breasts and faces. All representations of beauty, real beauty, that once existed in the world.
Was I sexist? Was I viewing women solely as objects? I suppose. But I was a kid. I didn’t know what “objectification” was, or why it might be bad. Ultimately, I knew that what I thought or didn’t think about women and their bodies didn’t matter. I didn’t have a prayer of ever being with a real one. So I looked and worshipped, convinced that I would never touch.
Or so I thought. Over the next few years—
Christ, this is a dissertation! How long would his vows have been? I hear Gran clomping down the stairs. She appears in the doorway in a navy suit and some nifty orthotics, a handbag the size of Rhode Island dangling from her arm. I drop my phone in my bag, and we head out to the car.
Will can’t help himself. He’s always been this way. How original. I forgive him for everything.
On the way to the EnerGreen office on Flagler, I fill Gran in on what we’re facing.
“This deposition is part of the Deepwater Discovery oil spill litigation,” I tell her. “You’ve probably read about it—it’s the class action arising from the drilling platform that exploded in the Gulf two years ago?”
“Of course,” she growls. “Those incompetent bastards.”
“Those incompetent bastards are now your clients, Gran. Our witness is an accountant who wrote some terrible e-mails that appear to implicate EnerGreen in a massive fraud—basically, they suggest that EnerGreen used the costs of the oil spill to hide huge financial losses. Helpfully, our witness is also a complete idiot.” I describe the e-mails and tell her about the prep.
“Jesus,” she says. “Can he explain why he wrote them?”
“Unfortunately, yes. He was telling the truth. The fraud is real. And it’s huge. If the plaintiffs put those e-mails in front of Pete and he testifies about them, EnerGreen will lose the case. Even worse, the SEC and the DOJ will find out about the fraud. The entire company will go down in flames.”
“Then there’s no question,” Gran says. “You can’t let him testify.”
“I don’t know how to stop it! I’ve racked my brain, but I’ve got nothing.”
“In that case, you’ll just have to contain the damage. Sometimes that’s the best you can do.”
“I know, Gran, but that means I’m screwed. I’ll be the scapegoat for all the awful things that are going to happen at this deposition. The firm is likely going to fire me—to placate the client, if nothing else.”
“Why is all this up to you?” Gran demands. “Where’s the partner in charge?”
As quickly as I can, I explain about Philip’s heart attack. I expect Gran to be flabbergasted, astounded, furious at Lyle’s outrageous behavior.
Instead, she says, “Philip? That’s his name?”
“Uh-huh.” I keep my eyes on the road, but I feel her snappy black eyes boring right through me.
“What are you hiding?” she says. Her voice is quiet. Dangerous.
I shake my head vigorously. “Nothing.”
“You’re sleeping with him, aren’t you.”
“Oh, Gran!” I try to laugh, but it doesn’t come out right.
“Lillian Grace Wilder!” Gran cries. “For shame!”
“It only happened a few times! It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Oh, fine!” She throws her hands in the air. “As long as it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Will you please focus on what’s important?” I turn into the lot in front of the EnerGreen subsidiary on Roosevelt and park the car.
“And what is that?” she asks. “Given all that you’ve told me, I’m not sure how I can help you.”
“I don’t know. Just … back me up. Give me moral support. Stop me from doing anything blatantly stupid. Beyond that, I’m not sure there’s much you can do.”
We get out of the car and head inside. A receptionist directs us to the conference room where the deposition will take place. The court reporter, a young woman with green nails and a mouth full of chewing gum, is already setting up her equipment—a stenograph machine connected to a laptop that will translate her shorthand into a running transcript. The videographer, an older man with a long grey ponytail, is readying his camera and microphones. The plaintiffs’ attorney, Daniel Kostova, is seated at the table, organizing his documents. We all smile and shake hands and exchange pleasantries.
And I think, this is right. The plaintiffs are going to win. And they should. They’re the good guys. Just look at this one. Kostova is a schlubby, Pooh-looking guy in his mid-forties, with frazzled hair, a bad suit, papers flying everywhere. Passionately devoted to environmental causes. He’s spent his entire career suing polluters and toxic waste dumpers, and winning a lot of the time. Sure, he’s made a pile of money doing it, but he’s helped a lot of people. He’s good, too—all southern courtesy and razor focus. I wouldn’t be able to stop him if I tried.
“I’ll go find our witness!” I say brightly.
As I walk down the hall, I get a text from Mattie.
—I jsut had an extremely disturbing convrsation with your maid of honor. Could you call me?
Not a chance. I step into a vacant office, where Pete is waiting. He jumps up from his seat when he sees me.
“Boy, am I nervous!” he says. He’s already sweating.
“It’s going to be fine,” I tell him. “Just remember everything that we talked about on Tuesday. Listen to the question. Answer only the question that’s asked. If you don’t understand the question, ask for clarification. Pause before answering, so that I have time to object. Got it?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He nods vigorously, then stops. “Could you repeat that?”
I do. He leaves to use the bathroom. I check my phone, and I can’t help it—I open Will’s e-mail.
Or so I thought. Over the next few years, things changed in a big way. Puberty hit. My appearance improved. Girls began to notice me. I was so shy I never would have dared to walk up to a pretty girl. Fortunately, I didn’t have to. Don’t get me wrong—I know I’m no movie star. But I think they were responding to something I was giving off. My reverence, I guess you could call it. My adoration. I didn’t lie or flatter them. I wasn’t a pig or a pickup artist. And I’m not now, either. Women come to me, Lily. And they’ve taught me a lot. Like what you can do with bodies that’s even more amazing than looking at them.
Pete returns. “I think I’m all set.”
I drop my phone in my bag. “Let’s go.”