“Well, he clearly loves you!” She waved the card in the air and hugged me again. I absorbed her genuine good cheer for my counterfeit relationship.
Hours later when I climbed into bed, my BlackBerry glowed red with a new PIN message. I typed in my passcode, but stopped myself from clicking on his message. The look on Clare’s face when I told her Reed was married made me want to curl my legs into my body and groan out loud. Reed was never going to leave Miranda and his girls. And if he did, would we even be attracted to each other anymore? How could I ever trust him given his history? And what if the real draw to the relationship was the illicitness, the secrecy, the current of shame that animated our connection? Wasn’t this covered in the most basic of Lifetime movies?
I hurled my BlackBerry into the closet. The pain of not connecting with Reed before falling asleep was physical—a stomach cramp that felt like something scrambled in my guts. Reed might love me, but he wasn’t available. Didn’t I want something real? How did screwing around with a married man make me a real person if the whole thing was a secret? I rocked back and forth. I stuffed a corner of my pillow in my mouth and bit down hard. The red blinking light on my BlackBerry flickered like a heartbeat.
31
I ducked into a Starbucks in Logan Square on a Friday night at six thirty. Commuters were rushing home, and darkness had chased the weak winter sun well below the horizon. Reed’s call was ten minutes late. My resolution from the night of Clare’s party had dissolved the next day, and we resumed our daily phone calls. There was also a weeknight trip to a suburban mall where I helped him shop for a winter coat—when the mall closed, we groped in his minivan by the light of the Cheesecake Factory. Ours was a very classy romance.
When my phone finally buzzed, I moved to a quiet stool away from the espresso machine. Reed’s breath swallowed his voice. It sounded like he was running down the street. I pictured him sprinting down Madison so he could get home. To his family. I want him to run to me. Something cold and sharp in his voice made me sit up taller. He always swore he had no secrets from me, that I could ask him anything. Now it took all my courage ask: “Where’re you going?”
“I’m taking the girls out for pizza.” Girls undoubtedly included his wife. The lump in my throat held the shape of her in that plum dress and those Hollywood highlights. “It’ll be an early night. We’re headed back to Iowa tomorrow.” Miranda’s father had recently been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. I was sure the diagnosis would bring Reed and his wife closer together, but so far, he reported she was shutting him out more than ever.
“Are you okay?” I rocked back and forth on the stool, one hand on the phone, one on my chest.
“Nervous about the trip.” That cold thing in his voice was sharper still.
“I’m here if you need me—” The espresso machine grinded and whirred, drowning out all other sounds.
“I’ve got to go.”
For the first time ever, he hung up without saying I love you. The noisy Starbucks counter spun in my vision as genuine panic set it. I’d felt this before. Reed was loosening his grip on me. Now he would slide under the water and disappear, just like all the others, just as I always knew he would.
Reed’s PIN message popped up just after eleven that night. Sorry, he wrote.
I wasn’t about to interrogate him. I was the anti-Miranda—never suspicious, never prying, never difficult. I wrote back: No need to apologize! I love you! Let’s talk tomorrow. I certainly didn’t ask why it took four hours to eat pizza “with the girls.”
“I lied to you.” It was six the next morning. I’d been up since four, wandering around my apartment and swigging skim milk from the carton, trying to calm my stomach.
“Dude, I already know about the wife and kids.” I forced a laugh; he was silent.
“Last night, Miranda and I went out for our”—I sucked in my breath, mouthing the word before he said it—“anniversary.”
I pressed my back against my bedroom wall and slid down.
Anniversary. Such a beautiful word, now turned bitter in my mouth. The truth of his lie settled in my belly. My body craved expulsion: vomit, tears, screaming. But I sat against the wall, my body perpendicular to my legs.
He hadn’t said a word about his anniversary in group. In all the therapy sessions we sat through together—holding hands—I got the impression that there was insufficient civility between Reed and Miranda to sustain them through a meal without the girls. Now I couldn’t get the picture of them sitting down to fillets and flourless chocolate cake out of my head. I saw candlelight, apologetic caresses, and a softening of all the hard hurt between them.
I shook and shook and shook.
“I love you. Please don’t doubt I love you,” Reed pleaded. “Say something. Please.”
“This is boring.” I’d been smart enough to know we’d never last but dumb enough to hope for a different ending.
Still gripping the phone, I crawled to the bathroom and peered over the toilet seat, a comforting view I’d known so well as a teenager. Nothing came out because I hadn’t been able to eat any dinner, unlike Reed, who’d had a lovely anniversary meal with his wife of twenty years.
“I’m hanging up now.” I flipped my phone shut and threw it as hard I could against the bathroom mirror. It clattered to a stop by the bathtub. I turned off my BlackBerry and locked it in the trunk of my car.
No more PIN messages.
No more phone sex.
No more secret thrills.
The
