Back home. Thank goodness. Frowning at the wilting plants in her garden—she’d been gone four days and they embraced the opportunity to humiliate her yet again in front of her green-thumb neighbors—Cindy Matterson jiggled her key in her back door lock until she found the sweet spot and could twist it open.
She stepped inside, experiencing the usual sick sense of loss when her beloved dog, Max—part Corgi and part who knew what—was no longer there to greet her. She dropped her overnight bag and glanced at the answering machine in the phone nook tucked into the back wall. The machine blinked, announcing the welcome-home message her husband always left. Cindy smiled fondly, pressed Play, and mouthed along with his deep serious voice. “Welcome home, honey, hope you had a good trip, I’ll be back by seven tonight.”
She didn’t leave town often, not like he did, traveling the world over for General Electric, but she sometimes went to visit friends, or in this case to visit her parents in Princeton, New Jersey, so they could make her feel inadequate about pretty much every way she’d chosen to live her life. Who could pass that up?
No, she wasn’t a history professor like her dad, or an art history professor like Mom. Nor did she have a career the narrow way people defined the word. Spending every minute in full-blown panic trying to keep up was not for her. Someday they’d find out the high rates of cancer and heart disease in this country were caused by people forcing themselves to do more than their bodies and brains were meant to do.
Cindy had made it through high school in Princeton and raised a wonderful daughter, Lucy, now a junior at—where else?—Princeton. She’d have liked more children, but Kevin wanted to stop at one, so they did. All that was plenty of satisfaction for her. Nowadays she read and volunteered here and there. She used to enjoy visiting antique shops, but now didn’t feel she could, after Kevin paid an exorbitant fee to the decorator he thought they needed. They probably did. Cindy didn’t exactly have an impressive knack.
A glance into the kitchen produced a wince at the buildup of dishes. She’d only been gone three days, and Kevin seemed to have used enough dishes for twice that. Obviously he hadn’t worked at the office all weekend, as he too often did. She hadn’t bargained on her marriage being quite this lonely, but then life threw all sorts of stuff at you, and you could either become miserable and depressed or deal with it and choose to be happy anyway. Why would anyone pick any other path?
Upstairs, overnight bag in hand again, she entered their lovely spacious bedroom, with the decorator’s choice of stain on the hardwood and the decorator’s choice of Oriental rugs and knickknacks and wrought iron and everything else.
But she had to admit the room was beautiful. Usually. At that moment, their king-sized bed was unmade and strewn with Kevin’s clothes. He couldn’t have tidied up even a bit for her homecoming? Usually he was the neater of the two. He must have been in a horrible rush this morning. Not like him at all.
Cindy gathered up a pile of shirts and underwear and dumped them into the quaint wicker and canvas hamper, also decorator-chosen. Sometimes she felt like she lived in some other person’s home. Her ideal would have been a rustic cabin in the Rocky Mountains or an ivy-covered stone cottage in the English countryside. Maybe a villa in the south of France, but that part of the world was becoming too chic for someone like her.
Kevin’s clothes cleaned up, she pulled at the sheets—Neiman Marcus 604 thread count, the price of which had nearly given her a heart attack, but that’s what Kevin grew up with—and the thin cotton blanket and cream-colored quilt, all they needed for summer in Milwaukee.
A lump remained at the foot of the bed after she’d carefully arranged the covers. She frowned and tugged up the various layers again. Still there. Must be one of Kevin’s socks, though she hadn’t noticed any singles during her earlier sweep. Maybe its mate was on the floor?
She sighed and reached underneath, scrabbling around until her fingers touched something too soft and too satiny to be a sock. Dragged out into the muted gray light of a cloudy day, it proved to be underpants. A thong actually. Black, trimmed with red lace. Not hers.
But how had—
Her brain caught up with her surprise.
Not again.
She sank onto the bed, staring at the panties, hands starting to shake. Was it all going to happen again? No, no, it couldn’t. There was some other explanation. Like…
Like…
Like she couldn’t come up with another explanation.
Right now she had some respite through the miracle of denial, but she knew that not too far off the pain and shame would hit—and, since she was a woman, probably guilt too, that once again she hadn’t been enough for him. Then she’d have to go through the anger and depression and bargaining stages again, and it was not going to be fun. At all.
However, during this tiny peephole of sanity she could think rationally. Maybe she should call her friend Marjory. The last time Kevin did this, Marjory stood by her, though she’d been furious at Cindy for staying in the marriage. Cindy intended to stay this time too, because she’d sworn in front of God and man and umpteen thousands of intimidating dollars’ worth of guests and flowers and food and rented space that she would, until death. This wasn’t death, though soon it would feel like it.
Of course he’d promised too, to be faithful, but one broken promise didn’t give all-out license to break them all.
Last time, Marjory might have understood on some level and maybe admired her for fighting so hard for her marriage, for enduring those stiff counseling appointments and silent dinners until they’d worked through the worst and were able to move on.
This time Marjory would say Cindy was an idiot for staying. And so would her parents—who still refused to be civil to Kevin after he’d done this the first time, when she and Kevin still lived in Boston, and the second time, when they’d moved to Chicago. And so would probably everyone else she knew, except her grandma Louise, who thought you should stand by your man even when he was in the process of aiming a pistol at your head.
Cindy launched the panties onto the bed as if they’d ignited. What kind of woman left a man’s home where she wasn’t supposed to be in the first place, and didn’t notice she no longer had on underwear? Maybe a woman who didn’t usually wear underwear. Or a woman who wanted to be caught. Or…
Wild hope arose. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe Kevin was secretly a cross-dresser, or maybe…
No, she didn’t think so. The woman probably went everywhere toting a bag full of sex toys and hot lingerie and just—oops!—left some behind.
And here came the anger, rushing at her like the huge boulder in the Indiana Jones movie, only she had nowhere to run to avoid it. And no Max to comfort her. Always when she was feeling low, she’d lie down, on the floor if the low was really low, and he’d curl up next to her or on her tummy. Lying with him, feeling warmed and adored and worried over, was about as good as it got. Though it did bother her sometimes that the good-as-it-got in her life came from being prostrate with a dog.
But without Max now and with all this anger, tears would inevitably come. If she gave in, she’d spend the rest of the afternoon sobbing and furious. Then when Kevin came home, she’d be a puffy-eyed, red-nosed mess and all he’d think was how could he have stood her for so long?
So she wouldn’t. Instead…she’d practice her tennis, which Kevin wanted her to learn so they could be a cute tennis-playing couple at the country club.
Downstairs, changed into sweats and sneakers, she was inspired to grab a tub of split pea soup—Kevin’s favorite—from the freezer, which his mother had made and stored during her last visit, and plunk it into a big soup pot over low flame to thaw and heat. Kevin would love having his favorite soup for dinner.
An hour later, still breathing hard from the energy required to chase down the driveway after all the balls she missed on rebound from the garage, she came back inside, feeling as if a tennis ball had turned to rock and lodged itself inside her chest. She turned on the oven for frozen bakery breadsticks, ran upstairs to shower, and put on a blue cotton “skort,” which in her day were called “culottes,” and a white polo top.
Back down, bursting with unpleasantly manic energy, she set the stage on their dining table, using wedding china, candles, crystal, and a slightly bedraggled bunch of peonies thrust into a vase too large for them.
There. All the house needed was Kevin.
Fifteen agonizing minutes later his car turned into the driveway. The rock tennis ball in her chest became lead. She made a false start in one direction, then another, then forced herself to be still several feet from the back door where he would come in, and began humming a tune that had been stuck in her head all day, which she couldn’t place.
She wished she had a capacity for alcohol, because it seemed like now would be a good time to pour herself a stiff one and toss it back defiantly. However, in her case, especially on an empty stomach and raw nerves, she’d just unravel and have to be carried to bed.
His key hit the lock. Cindy wasn’t going to open the door for him today. Nor would she throw her arms around him and welcome him home in her usual fashion. Instead, she hummed louder.
“Hey, there, look who’s back.” He smiled, and she hated him for being able to stand there, tall and still boyish in spite of the encroaching gray, smiling at her as if he hadn’t been ejaculating into someone else in their bed that morning, and probably all weekend too. “How was the trip?”
“Very enjoyable.” She enunciated carefully so she wouldn’t blubber and so he wouldn’t notice that she was upset, which was a waste of time because when she was calm and happy she’d never say anything like Very enjoyable.
His eyes narrowed; his chin jutted like Max sniffing the wind to see which kind was blowing.
An ill one. From him doing no good.
“Your parents well?”
“Yes. They send love.” Which was ludicrous because they’d more likely send anthrax if they could get away with it.
He loosened his tie, handsome as the day they met, alumni weekend at Princeton Day School, when she was a sixteen-year-old student helping out and he was twenty-one coming back to his alma mater. She still got a little thrill looking at him, though obviously these days he had to get his thrills elsewhere.
“Where’s my hug?”
“Your hug.” She couldn’t do it. “I don’t know. Did you lose it?”
Now he was looking nervous, glancing at her as he set down his briefcase and plopped on top of it a copy of the day’s New York Times, which he’d finish reading that night in bed. “C’mon, Cinds, you must have one for me somewhere.”
He put his arms around her, and she let herself burrow against his warmth for one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, and that was it, or she’d start crying.
“You hungry?” She tried to pull away, but he held her so all she could do was lean back and pretend she needed the distance to focus. Nearly forty and her eyes weren’t what they used to be, something like that. “I brought out your mom’s pea soup. So you’d have something hot waiting for you, which I know you like.”
The dig was too subtle. He didn’t react. “Fabulous. I’m starved.”
Then he kissed her, and she actually had to hold back a gag thinking of those lips pressed against some other woman’s. Again. She managed to pull away this time, or maybe he’d just released her.
“Ten minutes and soup will be on the table.”
“I’ll go change. Sorry the house was such a mess when you got back. I was—”
“I understand. You were busy.” How she kept acid out of the word busy, she didn’t know, but she deserved a medal.
“Yeah, it was a crazy weekend.”
“I’ll just bet.” The smile stayed on her face, and she even softened her eyes into what would look like wifely sympathy and affection, nearly choking with the need to scream, How could you? How could you? Melodrama of the type he hated most, which he’d only use as proof of her inadequacy. No doubt the woman who’d left underwear upstairs was as cool and sophisticated and brilliant as the other two, not that Cindy had met either of them. But she knew. Because if he wanted someone just like Cindy, he wouldn’t need to stray.
He shot her another glance before turning and walking up the stairs, decorator-covered with a runner and brass rods, which Cindy hated. Ten years they’d been in this house, moving from Chicago for this fabulous new job he’d been lusting after for so long. And now there was more lusting of the other kind. Because Kevin couldn’t get enough sex or good-enough sex or whatever it was he missed from her. She wasn’t sure. Sometimes during counseling sessions she’d felt as if she were trying to understand the feelings of a block of wood.
Ten minutes later, jacket off, business suit exchanged for gray sweats and a faded blue Orlando Magic T-shirt he’d gotten on a family trip to Florida, Kevin Matterson was ready for dinner.
And so was his lovely wife, Cindy.
She put the deep cream soup bowl in front of Kevin, then got her own and sat down to watch. He would dip his spoon in cautiously, skim the surface, testing for temperature against his lips. If it was too hot, he’d make a pained face and drink water, avoiding her eyes. If it was too cold, he’d eat, but without comment or relish. If it was just right, her wee baby bear would smile at her and say that it was good.
He smiled at her tonight, and dipped his spoon again. “Delicious.”
She watched him over the silver bread basket, a gift from some aunt of his, which held the still-warm breadsticks. She was too nervous to do more than stir her soup around.
On his fifth spoonful, a bit of red lace surfaced in his bowl. She would have expected him to take longer to reach paydirt, but there it was. And now the whole goop-coated thing came into view, dangling forlornly on the end of his spoon.
“What the hell is this?”
“Looks like panties.” She managed a calm mouthful of soup, but it tasted like plaster. Or how she imagined plaster would taste, since she wasn’t in the habit of eating it. Her heart was thudding so painfully she was afraid it was the beginning of a heart attack. But she wouldn’t give him and Ms. Sexy Sophistication the gift of her death.
“What are panties doing in my soup?”
She couldn’t believe he had the nerve to be indignant. Unless he thought they were hers. Or unless…there was some other explanation?
Hope again. Beautiful hope, a shining ball of it, rising up from the pit of her raging stomach. Would she never learn?
“That’s strange. There were panties in our bed when I got home too. Maybe aliens are planting women’s underwear throughout the city? Or maybe they’re a gift from above. Isn’t there a song about that? Panties from heaven?”
Okay, she was starting to sound a little hysterical. But really, she was entitled.
By now Kevin had put two and two together and come up with a rose is a rose is a stinking cheater. His face had gone wooden, and her fear and dread joined forces to squeeze the hope ball until it imploded and sank back into the gloom of her guts.
“Cindy, I had no idea…I didn’t realize…” He was looking very ill now, and she realized with certainty that for the rest of her life she would never want to eat split pea soup again.
“Last time was supposed to be the last one, Kevin. Is this like old rock stars who have seven farewell tours? Or is this really the end? The grand finale? The last hurrah?” She gestured to the dripping mess in his soup. “Your swan thong?”
The line was so clever she almost giggled. She wasn’t much of a punster, not like her father, but that one was pretty good. Or would have been if she wasn’t sounding even more hysterical now.
Kevin put his head in his hands and gave her a good view of the slight thinning on his crown, which she wasn’t sure he’d discovered yet.
“God, Cindy. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“No, of course not. Why would you want me to find out?”
He lifted his face and the expression on it scared her. He wasn’t looking contrite, or angry, or stubbornly unaffected, not like the other times. He looked…anguished.
“You would have found out.” He nearly whispered the words, but just when she was going to say What? her brain managed to sort them out.
“What do you mean?”
“I was going to tell you.”
She snorted her disbelief, and then what he was saying hit her another way, and the bright ball rose again. “You mean it’s over?”
“No.” Anguish again, and a tear, then another one. His, not hers. Her shock made it very hard to take in what they were talking about.
Kevin was crying. Something dark and terrifying sounded a warning, like the shark chords in the movie Jaws, as if her subconscious had already lived her life and was letting her know a really bad part was coming up.
“I was going to tell you, Cindy.” He spoke gently, as if he were talking to a special needs child. “Because…I’m leaving.”
She was so stunned that this didn’t compute at all. “Leaving.”
“Yes.” He couldn’t look at her, and she couldn’t look away from him.
“Leaving…” She had become suddenly stupid and nothing made sense. “…me? Our marriage?”
“Yes. Yes.” He was impatient now, anxious to get this little unpleasantness over with.
He couldn’t mean it. Twenty-one years of marriage, solid in every way but his affairs, which she’d chosen to put up with. He always came back. He would always come back. It was an unspoken agreement. His breaking that agreement was worse than breaking his vow to be faithful. Way worse. They were married. He had to stay with her until death. That was how it worked.
She stood and started pacing. “Why are you saying you’re leaving this time and not the others?”
“Because…I love her.”
She stopped to stare at him until a harsh laugh broke out, a bitter middle-aged woman’s laugh, not hers. Nothing he could say could have been more horrible. Not that this panty-leaver had bigger tits, a tighter ass, straddled him better than a bronc rider—all that Cindy could forgive and understand. But love was reserved for the wife, and sex for the mistress, everyone knew that.
“You love her?” She screeched the words, which she thought was pretty understandable given the circumstances, but he wouldn’t.
“I knew you’d get this way.” His jaw set like cold rock; they were back on familiar ground.
She threw out her arms then brought her hands back to grip her head, fingers bent like claws. “What should I do, Kevin? Say, ‘There, there, I understand. I’ll be gone by morning, don’t give me another thought’?”
“You’ll be taken care of. By me, financially. And Patty has—”
“You are in love with someone named Patty?” Control was gone, she might as well face it. “I hate that name.”
“She’s found a place that will help you—”
“What?” Finding out he loved someone else was bad, but the pain of finding out this woman had done research to help Cindy get over the agony she caused was so acute, Cindy just stood there, trying to get more words out over little gasps that took the place of breathing.
“It’s in Maine. It’s a camp. For women who—”
“You plotted with her to send me off to camp? Like I’m a child you want out of the way?”
“She was trying to help.”
“That…bitch.”
“She’s not—”
“Bitch.”
“You don’t know—”
“All-bitch Patty, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pick—”
“Stop it.” He stood abruptly, gesturing, and knocked over his soup. The thick green liquid flowed, lavalike, over the table, chunks of ham and black and red lace in sharp relief as the rest settled into the thick cotton cloth. “We’ll talk about it in the morning, when you’re calmer.”
“Calmer.” She laughed bitterly again, regretting the panty trick, regretting her fury, regretting everything but her daughter and her marriage to this wonderful handsome man who was her whole adult existence. “I’m supposed to take the ruin of my life calmly? Go away quietly to the camp your mistress picked out, so you and she can screw in our bed? In our house? In—”
“I’m staying at her place tonight.” He walked out of the room and then upstairs. She stood in the dining room, staring at the split-pea-coated panties on her beautiful table, which had belonged to his grandma Matterson. He was supposed to back down at the sight of the thong. He was supposed to apologize. He was supposed to get rid of the woman, or promise to be discreet going forward, swear it was just sex and that he was always faithful to Cindy in his heart, where it mattered.
She crumpled back into her chair, the humid hammy smell of the soup making her want to throw up.
He wasn’t supposed to want to leave.