She was going to make a salad and ceviche and she asked me to tell her about Vic as she worked. She asked me what he looked like. I described him as best I could but said that he was more of a feeling than anyone I had ever known. I told her about his hats and his suits, how large they were, that he’d never worked out in his life beyond the weights he lifted in high school. And though he wasn’t overweight, he was definitely ashamed of his figure, and so he wore these big suits.
She asked me again if it was crazy of her to think that we were getting somewhere. I told her no, it wasn’t crazy. I could have said more then. I could have told her everything, and I wanted to. But she was right that Vic would lead into the rest.
I’d already told her about Scotland and Cumberland Island and Mexico. The sunny days. The times when I’d still felt like a girl, when I could still pretend that I hadn’t flushed myself down a drain. Now it was time to tell her when the rot set in.
In as much detail as I could remember, I described the company trip to Palm Springs. The scaly heat of the desert. Vic was always arranging events so he’d have an excuse to be with me for a long weekend. It’s funny to think how many corporate dollars are spent so that one man can fuck one woman.
We stayed at a ten-bedroom guesthouse that had natural-rock hot tubs with unobstructed views of the mountains in the distance. I’d never been attracted to any of our colleagues, but there was one man, Paul, who had just come from Virginia, from some old tobacco family, and he hunted and fished and wore Minnetonkas and swore very graciously, the words goddamned and witch’s tit.
Paul was something of a precursor to Big Sky. He was an amuse-bouche. I sat next to him at the first dinner. It was held at a decent chain with a huge kitchen and a gas-burning fireplace that stretched horizontally across the room. We sat in long strips of two and Vic was diagonal from me. Poor Vic folded the napkin in his lap very meticulously, but for some reason I always had the feeling it was tucked into his shirt, beneath his neck. I listened to Paul with my chin in the cradle of my palm. I laughed a lot. I did that with most men at first. I’d done it with Vic. I told Alice how I was sure I’d gotten this from my mother. Paul talked about hunting like an asshole. But he was also self-effacing and had a nice head of chestnut hair so that overall it was charming, and had I been a little healthier, I might have tried to date him. But I didn’t. I flirted in a way that a man from a good Southern family couldn’t quite comprehend. It made Vic angry. I could feel his wrath across the table. His skin was red. He drank glass after glass of wine. Then he switched to Scotch and flicked his eyeballs to the back of his brain.
But he didn’t erupt. What he did instead is what all men do when they feel like another man has touched something they think they own—they try to reclaim you. That night he came into my room. There were no locks on the doors and I had the room on the top floor between Vic and some woman named Crystal whose eyes ping-ponged from side to side when she talked and everybody made fun of her all weekend long and so did I.
Around midnight there were still some men playing poker in the kitchen, but most of us had gone into our rooms. I heard my door open. I couldn’t believe it. I thought to pretend I was dead asleep. I heard him walk very quietly to the side of my bed and kneel down until his face was next to mine. I opened my eyes. Hey, he said. My stomach turned. His eyes were small. His skin was dry and he looked like someone who’d let himself go for many years and now, he’d found a reason to live and he wanted to drink purified water and join a gym. He smelled like Scotch and cologne. He kissed my forehead and then my eyelids.
—Jesus Christ, Alice said. Please tell me you did not let him fuck you.
—No. I said I was feeling sick from the wine. He got into bed and held me. In his boxers and t-shirt. He didn’t let go all night.
—Bloodsucking pig.
—In the morning we overslept. I remember the room was very cool, someone had cranked the air-conditioning, and the shades were down and we slept past eight thirty. Nine was the time we were all being picked up by a limo to be brought to the breakfast spot for a team-building exercise. Someone knocked on my door. I bolted up in bed. Vic did not. He snored peacefully. Just a second! I said. The voice outside said, Joan, are you okay? The limo’s here. It was Paul’s voice and I could tell he hadn’t heard me and meanwhile Vic stirred and said, like a hungover boor, What?
—Oh my God.
—And the door began to open and I ran up and pushed back against Paul and I told him that I was running late and I would be right behind them in a taxi. And he seemed to peer around me and Vic was making waking-up noises and I was sweating, I was so afraid. Then Paul left and it was just the two of us in the house and so we both arrived late to the team-building exercise. I insisted in going in a taxi by myself, but Vic popped in about five minutes after me, freshly showered, looking jovial.
—He wanted everyone to think he had fucked you.
—Paul barely said another word to me for the rest of the weekend. Every one of them avoided me. I was garbage.
—You said you ruined this man’s life. And all I’ve heard so far is how he pissed all over yours.
I told her she didn’t know the whole story. By now she had diced the spring onions, tomatoes, and avocados, and cut the tuna into textbook cubes. She’d minced the serrano peppers and cilantro. She used a wooden spoon to gently fold it all with lime juice and a few teaspoons of sugar. We were drinking Sancerre out of short cups, filling each other up frequently. It was just before two on a Monday afternoon.
—We’ll eat the ceviche now, and then I’ll make the salad outside while you grill the bluefish. Does that sound okay?
I nodded. I wished she would do or say something that wasn’t perfect so that I wouldn’t have to kill her.
—Now tell me how you hurt this man, because I have to tell you, Joan, I think you’ve got it wrong.
I told her about the week I met Big Sky. It was the same week that I had a big project due at work, and what she had to understand was that this was the first time in my life I had a job that wasn’t odd. For Christ’s sake I’d made up dead people, and poorly, because I didn’t have any training. At the advertising firm I’d been promoted from a secretarial position to an associate very quickly. I was telling the world to buy beer and cars and to shop at big department stores. I was involved in a conversation, I was involved in the making of money. It had become somewhat lost on me that the reason I was in this vaunted position was because a married man had become infatuated with me.
And Vic was happy to provide for my progression. He prided himself on his connections, his ability to vault people, but with me, of course, he also wanted to prove indispensable. He promoted me again. I met Big Sky a day or so later.
—You have to understand, I said to Alice, the situation with Vic had begun to fester. Palm Springs had happened a few months before, and I was done. I was disgusted. And he could tell.
—Did you tell Vic about him?
—I couldn’t bear not to. I had nobody else to tell.
—Not one girlfriend?
—Nobody.
—You’ve never had girlfriends? Alice asked.
—Not really. My aunt.
—You haven’t seen a point with women?
—I wouldn’t say that.
—Even though, all around you, men were fucking you right in the ass.