I don’t remember exactly the course of events, but we wound up in the cops’ station right off the waiting area. Yvonne was sobbing and shaking, asking if she could call “her folks” and tell them she’d be late. Asking if she could call Hampton Jitney to find out when the next one left.
“Both a youse just sit tight,” the young cop said. “Yeah, yeah. Merry Christmas,” he said and waved off some old guy who was rubbing his beard on the doorway, mumbling. He sipped a coffee through a rip in the Styrofoam lid. I was dying for a coffee.
I tried to take deep breaths. I wanted to call someone, too, but I couldn’t think of who I’d call. I guess I could have called Sarah. I just sat there, pulling pieces of stuffing out of the ripped office chair, reading the cartoons and sayings that were plastered all over the walls. Schedules. Mug shots. I imagined my face on that wall. A picture of me and Mark on our honeymoon in Florence. Outside in the waiting area a group of black guys was harmonizing a jazzy version of “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” I was still holding Yvonne’s bag.
Now that we were sitting alone I didn’t know what to say to Yvonne. The way you run out of small talk with a colleague or acquaintance you see at a party. I don’t think either of us knew what to do next.
“Let me have that bag,” the older cop said. Giordano, his name was. Officer Giordano. I handed him the bag. He looked at it as if he had no idea how to proceed.
My lip was bleeding. I must have bitten it. I pressed it with a tissue I found in Yvonne’s coat pocket. Yvonne hadn’t said a word about my references to her apartment. I don’t even know what she heard.
“Where did you get this?” Officer Giordano asked me, holding out the bag. “Larry, commere. Take this down,” he said.
Larry shook his head and put his coffee down. “Jeez, Joe, this is a circus,” he said. He leaned against a file cabinet and held his clipboard and pen.
Officer Giordano looked at me.
“She left it at my house,” I said. I checked my lip. It was still bleeding.
Yvonne didn’t say a word.
“It was on the couch when I got in last night,” I said. I felt inspired. Like God was speaking through me, guiding whatever I had to say.
“I’d suspected she’d been having an affair with my husband,” I said. I looked at Yvonne. “I’d been told she was having an affair with my husband”—I waited to see what I’d say next—“but I really didn’t believe it was possible until last night.”
Larry snorted. Officer Giordano shot him a look.
I don’t know why I was so sure Yvonne wouldn’t contradict me. I knew she’d just go along with it. I suppose something that sordid couldn’t fit into her vision of life. That she shuddered at the thought of court appearances and newspapers, confronting Mark—all of it.
“She’s lying,” Yvonne said.
I looked at her. I’d almost been believing myself.
“I’m not,” I said.
“Listen,” Larry said, “you girls want to get your story straight.”
I swear he looked fifteen. Yvonne looked at him in disgust.
“Larry,” Officer Giordano said.
“Larry, why not let the adults take care of this,” I said.
Yvonne almost laughed.
“Listen, Joe, why don’t we call the husband.”
Now this was something I think neither of us had considered. I don’t know what was going on in Yvonne’s mind but I didn’t want Mark around for this.
“I don’t have to sit here,” Yvonne said suddenly. “I’ve had it. Give me my bag,” she said. She stood up. “I want to go.”
The cops looked at one another.
“You wanna just drop this?” Officer Giordano asked.
“It’s Christmas,” she said. “I want to go home.”
“You can press charges,” Larry said. What a small-minded little weasel.
“Can I call Hampton Jitney from here?” Yvonne asked.
Officer Giordano shrugged.
She walked to the desk and dialed. The black guys were singing that drummer boy song that goes “par-um-pum-pum-pum” all the way through. I checked under the tissue. The bleeding had stopped. I picked off tissue fibers that were stuck to my lip and looked at Yvonne. That run in her stocking. She’d probably have a long wait this time Christmas morning. She lit a cigarette. That surprised me. I’d never pictured Yvonne smoking, never seen a cigarette in her apartment. I’d never even smelled smoke. Maybe she only smokes when she’s nervous. I felt bad for her. I started thinking. Maybe that hadn’t been Mark in her bed. Maybe it had been someone else. Maybe Yvonne wasn’t as alone as I’d imagined her to be. Maybe she had a lover. Several of them. She did say she had a date the other night. And I was with Mark. I mean, when it came down to it, what proof did I have that Yvonne and Mark were having an affair? None. No real proof. Make sure you have all the facts, my father used to say. But facts can be misleading. A little bit of knowledge is dangerous. I could hear my mother: That kid has some imagination. And I know it’s true. I thought about all the times I’d imagined fires at the loft—and the thing is, I’d really smelled smoke. I really had.
“I can’t get through,” Yvonne said. She was beside me. Just another woman. She didn’t even look much like me after all.
She looked around, then put the cigarette out on a coffee lid that was lying on Officer Giordano’s desk. Mark hates cigarettes. “I’m sorry,” she said. She was twisting the butt onto the plastic to make sure it was out.
“No, I’m sorry,” I said. I stood up.
I heard Larry mutter something.
“It was nothing,” she said. “Nothing. I didn’t realize, I mean . . . you never connect . . .” She pushed her hair out of her face. “It’s over,” she said. “We ended it.”
I was just looking at her. Her mouth was moving and she was saying things, but I couldn’t get them in sync. She seemed really far away. She moved toward me.
“Mark was . . . I mean, it didn’t mean anything,” she said. “To him. I mean, he really loves you.”
She was looking at me the way you look at a small rabbit that got hit by a car.
“You had an affair with Mark?”
My voice felt really tiny. I was so hot it felt like steam was seeping out of my coat.
“You and Mark had an affair?”
Yvonne just stood there. I could see it now. She didn’t look like me in the least.
“When?”