I was surprised at the ease with which I walked through the breakfast routine the next day. After my first night with Charlotte, I had been afraid that the smallest gesture might give me away. But now I had learned that all I had to do to play my part well was to believe in it. I was a family man, I was wearing my robe and slippers, I was sitting at the table with my wife and children, I was reading the paper. There was nothing more to me than met the eye.
Except… I was beginning to miss my cues.
‘So tell me again how it happened,’ you said to me. You were still in your nightdress.
What?’ I had to ask.
‘When Charlotte brought out the Tell-tale Disc.’
‘I already told you,’ I said. ‘Charlotte found it in Trey’s office, identified it as Mitchell’s, and so gave it back to Becky, and that was that.’
‘But what would Trey be doing wanting to look at Mitchell’s records in the first place?’
‘Probably he forgot to give them back after we stopped using him,’ I said.
‘Mitchell thinks he’s planning to turn us in to the IRS.’
‘Well, that’s just Mitchell being paranoid. According to Charlotte, these were records from two years ago.’
‘Then why did she speak to me so coldly?’ you asked.
‘Who?’ I had to ask. ‘When?’
‘On the phone just now. You know, when I called her up to ask her.’ I nodded, although I had no idea if she meant Becky or Charlotte or even Ophelia. ‘She is acting so strange. It’s as if there was a third person on the line. As if she knew everything I was telling her already. You haven’t been talking to her about this, have you?’
‘No, of course not,’ I said, still not sure which friend she meant. On the way to school, one sentence kept coming back to me. ‘She was the only one I still felt comfortable with.’ Which one was that?
Becky was waiting for me at the Creative Learning Centre. ‘So what’s this about Trey?’ she asked.
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘nothing you didn’t already know.’
‘So why do you think he stole Mitchell’s disc?’
‘Well, obviously, he has some grudge against him. But you can tell Mitchell from me that if they were records from two years ago like Charlotte said, I can vouch for them.’
‘So what did Ophelia say to you about it?’
‘About what?’
‘About putting him away or getting him checked. Wasn’t that what you were there talking to her about last night?’
I realized my mistake. ‘Oh right,’ I said. ‘Well, we decided to keep a close eye on him as Charlotte doesn’t seem to realize how bad he is.’
‘How serious is it? Is he having paranoid delusions? Was Kiki there too? What did he think?’ I was just about to make up some lie about what Kiki thought when he himself appeared at my side.
My first worry was that he would ruin my alibi. That was why I asked to talk to him in his car. When Becky called after me, ‘I’ll wait here so we can decide which movie we went to,’ I had no idea what she was talking about. I gave her an ambiguous wave. Then I was in Kiki’s car. And sorry to be there.
Suddenly he seemed very big.
‘I guess I should thank you for filling in for me,’ he said. He gave me a creepy smile. I felt my lower lip begin to tremble.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘It was nothing.’
‘It’s all my fault. I should never have left her like that, I mean in that shape. But as you may know, I have a lot on my hands right now.’ He gave me a knowing look.
‘I don’t know how much she’s told you. But as you have gathered probably from what you’ve witnessed, we’re sort of on the rocks.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said insincerely.
‘Have you ever been to counselling?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not that kind.’
‘Well, let me tell you. There are some things people don’t say. Some things I have to take care of myself. But the strain is killing me. So sometimes I just have to go outside and, you know? take a walk.’
I tried for a nod that might indicate sympathy without a request for more information. Fortunately, at this point Becky beckoned for me. I said I had to go.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘But in the meantime, Listen. I owe you one.’
‘Right!’ I said. Squeaked.
‘One of these nights maybe you and I should go out for a beer or something.’
‘That sounds great,’ I said.
‘So it’s that bad, is it?’ Becky said after he had driven off.
‘What?’
‘You know, Trey. So how bad is it? Are they thinking of committing him?’
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘I guess we’ll know by tomorrow.’ Wouldn’t Trey find this moment to arrive with his kids. I felt terrible when I thought of the things I had been saying about him, just to provide myself with a cover story.
Becky wanted to talk about it over a coffee. But I wasn’t up to it: every time I opened my mouth I seemed to incriminate someone. So instead I went home and just sat there. I remember that when the bell rang I considered not answering it. But then stupidly I did.
It was Charlotte.
Just the sight of her made me want to crawl under the bed. ‘Caught you!’ she said. She sat herself down. ‘So. I hear you had a nice night out.’
‘Who told you that?’ I almost screamed.
‘Who do you think?’ She put her grocery bag on the table and began to take out lunch. ‘I thought that would turn out to be a movie worth seeing.’
My mind ran through the clues. Then I got it. She had talked to Becky, who had said I had gone out to the movies with her, and who when pressed had given a name. So long as I didn’t refer to the wrong name, I was OK.
Except…
I didn’t have the energy to keep the conversation away from forbidden topics. There were so many of them! I told Charlotte I had to lie down. Unfortunately, she read this to mean I needed a massage.
‘I can tell you’re tense about something. Well, this ought to make it better.’ Except that with each touch, I felt…
‘Why don’t you let me take the kids this afternoon?’ she said. ‘I have to go to the office but they can come with me.’
The idea of her adding another favour to the mountain I already owed her was so terrifying I jumped out of bed and buttoned up my shirt again. I insisted on our going to school together – a move I regretted when I saw Becky and Ophelia sitting together.
Becky looked puzzled. Ophelia looked bruised. Charlotte, sensing tension, tried to introduce what she had to think was a safe topic. Hadn’t the children enjoyed that Valentine party yesterday, she said, hoping to please Ophelia, but Ophelia bristled and left our group as soon as her son emerged from school. I thought I was going to die when Becky and Charlotte said she looked like she had been gangbanged.
I died again not long after the kids and I got home, when Ophelia’s nurse called to remind me that Maria was expected in for a check-up. I considered asking someone else to take her for me, but just then Mitchell turned up to talk to me about the disc.
I really didn’t want to talk to him, so I told him I was on my way to the doctor’s office. He gave us a lift. As we drove across town, he shared with me his worries about Trey. I assured Mitchell that Trey was unhinged but that he couldn’t do anything to us with the records he had stolen because we had nothing to hide. I don’t remember making any date to see him later that day, although it is possible that I did promise to meet him and promptly forgot about it.
Ophelia was nothing but correct during Maria’s check-up. She was going to pretend it had never happened! We never had to talk about it ever again!
Now all I had to do was find out what movie I was supposed to have gone to with Becky the night before. When I called her up, she told me which one it was, and suggested that we really go to it tonight. ‘I’m sure Laura won’t mind,’ said Becky.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But what if she tells Charlotte?’
‘Just say you’re going to the movies by yourself, for God’s sake! Why do you have to make everything so complicated?’
That thought carried me through the evening routine. Becky was right. Things were simpler than I pretended. I was a family man, at home with my kids, supervising their bath while watching the local news on TV. There was nothing more to it than that. But as the evening progressed, I began to remember how bad Ophelia looked, and to wonder if she was OK. So while you were in your shower, I called her. I was alarmed when she didn’t answer.
I decided to stop by her house on my way to the movies, just to rid myself of my anxieties. When I saw there were no lights on in her apartment, I flipped. I ran the four blocks to her office. I found her sitting outside it in her car.
Why I was suddenly swamped by affection and tenderness for her, I do not exactly know. I am just reporting the sequence of events as I remember them. When she said, ‘It’s just so hard to watch a marriage crumble,’ and I replied, ‘Well, I’ll be there for you,’ I meant it.
When it got too cold to sit outside, and we went into the office and began to grope each other in the dark, and I told her that she was beautiful and I loved her – I meant that too.
I was too swept up to notice how violently my emotions were shifting. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to be embracing our family doctor, stripping off her clothes, and fucking her on her examination table. Not even the crackling of the paper cover reminded me where I was, or warned me how I would feel about this office next time I tried to enter it as an ordinary patient. I had this idea, as I bit her neck and her ear and rammed into her more violently than I had ever done with any woman in my life, that I was making her strong again, but when her knees buckled on our way out to the car, and she put her arms around me, and gasped, I felt almost proud that I had ended up making her even weaker.
I went into her apartment with her – just to be sure she made it into bed.
This was a mistake.