IT WAS HARD to remember.
Wrapped in Barlow’s arms, feeling the hot breath from his sighs against her neck, Jacks searched her memory for the feeling. Bliss. Lust. Abandon. After seventeen years of marriage to the same man, the memories of new love were hard to come by.
Sighing seemed right, less from the sexual pleasure than from the deep bewilderment at needing another person in the midst of a marriage, and the risk they were taking with lives that were so carved into stone. Yes, she thought. There should be sighing. For David, for Rosalyn, and for the children who were being dragged along on this path of deception.
She wrapped her arms tighter around his back, moved with him as though he were her fantasy, her passion. Wasn’t that how it had felt? Wasn’t that how her body had responded so many years ago, to David and the lovers who’d come before him? It was long gone, and in the face of the profound fear at being discovered, it was hard to remember.
Barlow pulled away and threw himself back onto the pillows. His skin was glistening with sweat as he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Jacks was there, right on cue, looking over him with a warm smile.
This part wasn’t so hard to manufacture. She held genuine affection for Ernest Barlow, with his long wavy hair and cute rounded face that seemed not to have changed since the day she met him. He was like a mischievous boy, and it was impossible not to be drawn in. Always moving, always joking, his charisma was born of a manic energy, and a neurotic insecurity that his outrageous success had done little to eradicate. She knew him. She saw him. She just didn’t feel about him the way she was now pretending to.
He shook his head as he had been doing lately, and ran his hand through her hair. Then came the look, the sad resignation that what they had between them was like a poison that grew stronger with each of these afternoon encounters.
“What are we doing?” he asked, just as he had asked that first time in the wine cellar.
“I don’t know,” Jacks answered as she lay down upon his chest. But, of course, that was a lie.
“We should get going,” she said after a few minutes, her voice filled with regret.
She lifted her head, but he reached for her, pulling her back down for one last kiss. It was soft and honest, and it made her body tense. How could she be this person? She thought about the letters, how they had stopped coming. Red was looking into it, and she couldn’t help but hold out hope that it was true. That maybe it was over, maybe David had found a way. Maybe this could be the last time.
“Do you want to go first?” she asked.
Barlow frowned playfully. “If I must.” He got up from the bed, gathered his clothing, and headed for the bathroom.
It was a lovely inn, the Lindly, nestled by the shore just at the edge of town. The small, cozy rooms were filled with antique furniture, fine linens, and the softest towels. Too quaint for business travelers, it was used, almost exclusively, for wedding receptions and out-of-town family members who were too unruly to be put up in one’s house. Without a spa service in sight and a menu that was a bit too pedestrian to draw attention, it was virtually deserted during the week. Come tomorrow, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, it would be booked solid. But today, a day of shopping and cleaning and packing, it was as safe as they could get without traveling out of town, and Barlow had decided it was the perfect scene for their crimes.
None of their planning, it turned out, would matter.
Searching the room for her own belongings, Jacks heard the soft buzzing in her purse. The phone had been turned to vibrate and now, it seemed, she had missed a call. Sitting on the bed, she pulled the end of the sheet across her body and called in to her voice mail. There was only one message, which seemed at first blush to be entirely benign. It was Eva Ridley, first going on about some tiff she’d had with a teacher at the Academy, then the meeting for Rosalyn’s blow job committee that was scheduled for this afternoon. Jacks had planned on attending, but then Barlow had sent her a text message: Wouldn’t it be perfect to meet today? He had been right, of course. Knowing where Rosalyn would be, and for how long, made it as perfect a time as they would ever have. Rosalyn had selected Casa Michelle, a pretentious and overpriced French restaurant on the other side of town. And Jacks hadn’t told anyone she had changed her plans and would not be joining them. That was a call best left for the very last minute, when they would all be too preoccupied to push her for an explanation.
Sitting on the bed, Jacks felt the breath rush into her body. She stood up, let go of the sheet, and began to gather her clothing—underwear, bra, slacks, blouse. With the phone still pressed to her ear and the water running in the shower, she took in every word at the end of Eva’s message. Having been to Casa Michelle the night before, Eva had asked that they change the location of the meeting. And the new destination was the Tavern at the Lindly.
Embedded within a story that was going on and on in the message were the pieces that Jacks was now putting together. Eva said she knew a woman who knew another woman who was friends with the chef and wouldn’t it be fun to try the new menu . . . only they didn’t start serving lunch until after noon, so the meeting would be pushed back. . . .
As she buttoned her blouse, Jacks stood behind one of the draperies by the window and looked outside. Snow had been falling for over an hour and was now blanketing the small parking lot that was behind the inn, hidden from the road. There were seven, maybe eight cars, but only two that had Jacks concerned. Her gold Lexus with the vanity plates that bore her initials, and Barlow’s orange Corvette. Flipping the phone shut, she checked her watch. It was five minutes to twelve. When she looked up again, it was just in time to see a red minivan turn the corner.
With her mind reeling, Jacks scrambled to put on her shoes, buckle her belt, comb her hair.
“You’re dressed,” Barlow said, sounding surprised as he stepped out of the bathroom.
“They’re here.” It was all that Jacks could manage to get out. Her throat was bone-dry.
Barlow smiled. “What, aliens?” He laughed and reached out for her, his arms wrapping around her waist.
But Jacks pushed him away. Moving as she spoke, she managed to tell him about the phone call, about the red van.
“Fuck!”
“I’ll go down first. I think I can duck into the ladies’ room. You come down later. After everyone has arrived—after Rosalyn.” Saying her name in this room, under these circumstances, was agonizing.
Barlow was shaking his head. He was deep in thought now, thinking through the options. “No—I need to get the car out of here. What reason will I have for being at the Lindly in the middle of the day?”
“Listen to me. There’s no time. They’ll either see you drive out, or they’ll see the car parked here. Which would you rather explain?” She’d dressed and gathered her belongings, and was headed for the door.
“Right. You’re right. I’ll think of something. I’ll stay here until I see them all.”
Jacks stopped for a second and looked at Barlow. This was a disaster for both of them, and the recklessness of their actions crashed down in pieces at their feet.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
But Barlow took her in his arms and kissed her. “Don’t be sorry. Don’t ever be sorry for this.” How desperate he was in that moment, to have her feel for him what she had made him feel for her.
But Jacks didn’t have time to think about that now. “I have to go.”
“Go,” Barlow said, suddenly drawn back into the urgency of the situation.
Jacks left him in the doorway as she hurried down the service stairs that led to the kitchen. She was barely noticed as she emerged, the nicely dressed customer who’d lost her way. She was nonchalant as she wove through the workers, chopping and washing as they prepared the lunch menu. She pushed through the door used by the waitstaff and into a hallway that led straight to the powder room.
When she got inside, her senses began to return, the thoughts settling into place. Yes—I have arrived early. I’m freshening up. And I have no idea why Barlow’s car is parked outside. She was covered, as covered as she was going to be, and convincing herself of this made room for the other conclusions that had been forming inside her head. Eva never cared where they ate, as long as they had wine and salad. And why at the last minute? Rosalyn had confirmed the meeting days ago. And, finally, why here? It was almost too perfect, the coincidences that had been woven together and were now threatening to expose her. It was almost as if Eva had known.
The door opened. Jacks finished the stroke through her hair she had started moments before and smiled. “Hi, Sara! How have you been?” She leaned over and kissed Sara Livingston on the cheek.
“I’m good. How are you?”
“Fine. Just fine. Getting ready for Thanksgiving.”
Sara took out a lip gloss, though she seemed to have a fresh layer. “I think we’re the first ones here,” she said, revealing the reason she had come into the ladies’ room. Late, early, late, early. Poor Sara Livingston never got it right.
“Did your family come up?”
“They did. They’ve been here since yesterday.”
“How’s that going? Do they just love the house?” Jacks took out her own lipstick.
Sara sighed as she would with a close friend. “Actually, no. They think it’s extravagant. They’re pretty modest people.”
Jacks managed to look surprised as she rubbed her lips together, then blotted them into a tissue. She would have been surprised were she not so consumed with panic. “Your house? Extravagant?”
Sara nodded. “I know.”
“Oh, well. That’s family for you.”
The conversation stalled as Jacks let her thoughts go where they wanted, to the plan that was forming in her head. No, she said to herself. How could she even think it? But it was too late. She had started down this path and was too far gone to turn back.
“I guess I’ll see if the others have arrived.” Sara was out of excuses to stay now and was putting the gloss back inside her purse. She turned to Jacks and smiled.
Let her go. Jacks looked into her bag and pulled out her concealer. She held back until the last second, until the opportunity was almost lost. The battle being waged inside her now was tearing her in two.
“Wait. . . .”
Sara turned to face her, her hand on the door handle.
Jacks closed her eyes as she jumped off the cliff she’d been standing on since the moment Sara Livingston walked into the room. And the feeling of the free fall nearly took her breath away.
“I think we’re meeting on the second floor.”
Sara looked at her with gratitude, her voice perky, innocent. So very innocent. “Thanks!” she said.
And Jacks had no words to justify what she was doing, what she had done. She thought about David, how he’d cried in her arms that night. She saw the faces of her girls, felt their happiness within her the way a mother does. God forgive me.
Sara was watching her, waiting for some kind of response.
And Jacks, after pulling herself together, managed to give her one. “You’re welcome. I’ll see you up there.”