“Hi, Sara.” He was pleased he’d remembered her name. “Everything’s good with me, how’re things down the street?”
She smiled. “Good. Are you meeting Anne for lunch?” Look, see how casually I display my knowledge. I do know you, we know each other, we are friends and neighbors, and I didn’t just screw up the social contract.
He nodded. “Yeah, although she’s late. Mind you, she’s always late, so that’s not a big deal. Are you meeting Iris?” Five points for remembering the other lesbian’s name. He didn’t consciously think of them as “the lesbians,” but that was one of their many tags: neighbors, parents, women, hot women (this one in front of him, the other one not so much), famous people (again, this one, not the other one), parents of a son, a friend of Milo’s, people in the kids’ carpool, people one saw at the holidays, people one saw at soccer practice . . . It was a long list of tags.
Sara shook her head, and then made eye contact with her agent, whom she’d spotted at a table in the back. “No, I’m here for work. I see my person. I’d better go.”
“Sure, well, see you in the ’hood.” He smiled, pleased to have navigated their little exchange without messing up anyone’s name. Anne took care of all that stuff. As he thought that, Anne walked in the door and his head turned, along with several others. She had her own set of tags in his head, of course, but the most important one was Best Friend, and he was pleased to see her. He stood up as she approached the table and she smiled her incredible smile, the one that touched him to the core, the one that made him think of the birth of his children, the first time he’d kissed their little wet heads and then looked up into Anne’s eyes and felt that nameless connection nothing could explain or express sufficiently. Nothing would take that away; that was in their bones.
“Hey, babe,” she said, sliding into the chair across from him. “Did you order?” She looked around at the beautiful room, the cream walls, the open fireplace, the open French windows into the garden. L.A. was so beautiful, now that her conscience was clear.
He shook his head. “I just ran into Sara whatshername from up the road.”
“Iris’s wife? Frances’s cousin?”
He frowned. “Is she?”
“Is she what?”
“Frances’s cousin?”
Anne smiled at him. “She’s not. Sara’s not. But Iris is, her wife. Iris is Frances’s cousin on her mother’s side.”
“Oh yeah?” Charlie was always surprised at how much information about other people women knew. He didn’t think he was being sexist, it was just not something he ever heard from his guy friends: Hey, did you know that Arthur, who is Danny’s cousin by marriage, and the one who did that thing at Christmas, do you remember? Anyway, did you know that Arthur has diabetes, which is not all that surprising seeing as his grandmother died of it. Nope, that was not a typical guy conversation, although maybe he was just hanging out with the wrong guys.
“Yes. Frances and Iris basically grew up together. Her brother died, you know.”
“Iris’s?” He was getting hungry, and this was now edging into boring.
“No, Frances’s.” She could see he was losing interest, and to be fair, it wasn’t all that interesting. She wasn’t one of those women who was fascinated by other people; she just maintained the most basic database. “Are you hungry?”
He nodded, and opened the menu. “What appeals to you?”
“Apart from you?”
He looked up in surprise. She was smiling at him in a way she hadn’t for a while, that slow smile that said she wanted him. He raised his eyebrows. “Have you been drinking?”
Her grin deepened. “No. You just look sexy today, is that a problem? You are my husband, after all, aren’t I allowed to find you attractive?”
He felt himself stirring, and reached across the table. “Of course, it’s just been a while.”
“Maybe it’s been too long?” He heard a soft thud, and then her bare foot started moving up his leg, pressing.
Charlie was taken aback. Not in a bad way, necessarily, but still. Anne was flirting with him in a way she hadn’t in a long time. A very long time. There wasn’t so much need for foreplay and seduction when you were sure of someone, when you knew their body so well, the order of their lovemaking, the process that worked. When couples complained that the romance was gone from their marriage this was what they were missing. The insecurity, the tension, the subtle but powerful question and answer of seduction. Maybe this time I won’t get her into bed . . . But after buying that bed, washing the sheets, maybe having a case or two of flu in it, it was pretty much a given.
He crossed his legs, trapping her foot. Then he reached down and started tickling her arch, watching the color mount in her face as she tried not to laugh. His fingers moved higher, and she stopped laughing.
He looked for the waitress, and called for the check.
• • •
Later that afternoon, after Charlie had left her half asleep in bed and had gone back to the office, Anne decided to purge her clothing. If Richard had ever seen it, it was going in the trash. Clothes he’d seen her in, underwear he’d taken in his mouth and tugged down her thighs, all of it was going. Then she showered, dressed, went to the store, and bought six new sets of bras and panties, all of it in a size smaller than she’d purchased last time. She hadn’t been this slim since her twenties; the affair had given her back her body. And now that body was just
