The Meet
Alyna left a message on my newly repaired cell phone that said, “Meet me at the Baker for lunch tomorrow. 1 P.M. Don’t be late.” She didn’t actually call me. She just recorded and sent the message to meet her at her favorite café. I imagine three scenarios as I drive to the Baker.
I imagine her showing up with divorce papers and demanding that I sign them or never see my kids again. I imagine her telling me that she forgives me and she’ll take me back as long as I never talk to Holly again, which I don’t know if I’m prepared to do just yet. And I imagine her not showing up at all but, instead, a hired killer who slits my throat and pisses on my corpse. I realize the first two scenarios are much more likely, but still, the third is possible.
When I walk in she’s already there. She doesn’t smile. She doesn’t even get out of her chair. She just looks at me. She doesn’t seem angry or even upset. She just seems to be there. I sit down and I say, “Hey.”
She says, “Hey.”
I say, “So, what’s . . . I mean . . . I don’t know what to say here, really. Do you want to know where I’m staying?”
Alyna says, “I don’t give a fuck where you’re staying.”
I say, “Okay. How are the kids? What’d you tell them?”
She says, “I told them there was something extremely important at work and you might have to be gone for a little while.”
This gives me some hope that she sees a possible reconciliation. I reason that she would have outright told the kids I was a cheating pile of shit, or maybe told them that I died, or something far more final than that I might have to be gone for a little while, if she thought there was no chance of ever repairing things between us. I say, “Okay. So why did you want to meet?”
She takes a deep breath and says, “I guess I just . . . in that moment when I found your phone, I obviously couldn’t think straight. I saw Roland and he said that I should at least hear your side of the story. Whether I believe anything you say at this point is up in the air, but he said I should at least hear you out. He said that I owed it to you and to me to listen.”
Roland continues to impress me. I say, “Okay. Well, what do you want to know?”
She says, “Everything, I guess. I read the texts. I know you’ve been fucking this girl.” She’s starting to get pissed again. “And I do mean girl. What is she, eighteen? Is she even eighteen? Are you a fucking statutory rapist on top of being a cheating piece of shit?”
I don’t want to say any of the shit I’m about to say, but I figure at this point lying will only make everything that happens in the next few months worse than it has to be. It seems to me that all of the lies will get uncovered anyway, so I say, “She’s twenty-one. She’s an intern at my office. It hasn’t been going on that long.”
Alyna says, “And what do you see in her? I mean, why her?”
I want to say that it’s because she’s hot as fuck and her ass is as tight as a trampoline, but I just say, “Honestly, she paid attention to me. That was it.”
Alyna says, “And I don’t?”
I say, “No. Not anymore.”
Alyna says, “Don’t you fucking turn this around and try to make it about how I neglected poor little you.”
I say, “I’m not. You asked me ‘Why her?’ That’s why.”
Alyna says, “We have two fucking children. How could you do this to them?”
This one hurts a little more than I expected. I say, “I don’t know. It just happened.”
Alyna says, “But then it happened again and again, right?”
I say, “Yeah.”
Alyna says, “Not that I’d be any better with it just happening one time, but I’d at least understand that more. This is . . . seriously, are you planning on dating this girl, this fucking child?”
I say, “No. Come on.”
Alyna says, “Well, what am I supposed to think?”
I say, “I don’t know,” and I realize that I don’t even really know the answer to her question. I haven’t thought of the possibility of dating Holly, of trying to have something more with her than fucking and flirting at the office, until this moment, until my wife brought it up. For a fleeting second, I can see us together. It doesn’t seem that strange to me. But then I imagine getting to see Andy and Jane only every other weekend, and being the dad who was never around for them. I say, “I guess you’re supposed to think that I fucked up.”
Alyna says, “No shit.”
I say, “And that I’m an asshole.”
Alyna says, “No shit.”
I say, “And that I’m still the father of our children and that I still love them and you very much. I just made a mistake.”
Alyna says, “Is that an apology?”
I say, “Well, yeah.”
Alyna says, “Well, it’s not accepted. You didn’t just make a mistake. You’re having an affair.”
I say, “Come on. It’s not an affair.”
Alyna says, “You’re fucking the same girl multiple times outside of your marriage. That’s the definition of an affair, you stupid fucking asshole.” In this moment I start to wonder why she wanted to do this in a public place. Maybe she thought it would keep her from crying, but I think her unbridled anger is serving that function. She says, “There was a time when I would have done anything for you, when I trusted you beyond anyone I ever thought I could trust. We had something really good.”
I say, “Then why—”
Alyna says, “Shut up. We had something really good. And you fucking ruined it. How can I ever trust you again? If you thought we weren’t having enough sex before this, how did you think this would make it better? Now, when I look at you, all I see are those pictures that girl sent you. How am I supposed to get over that, to move on from that?”
I say, “I don’t know.”
Alyna says, “Neither do I. I really just wanted to see you today to see if I could find anything in myself that’s able to forgive this. And I’m not saying I can’t find it, but I can’t find it right now.”
I say, “I understand.”
Alyna says, “No, you don’t. I’ve thought a lot about this, about us, about what we were like when we were younger, when we first met, how good everything was, and I know things have changed. But they never changed so much for me that I needed to fuck somebody else. I’m here right now for the kids, and anything that happens between us after this is because of them.”
I say, “Okay,” and we sit there in silence for a few seconds.
Alyna eventually says, “Where are you staying?”