My stomach rumbles and I realize I haven’t eaten since lunch.
A group comes toward me, led by a guy in a floppy Santa hat. He’s walking backward, singing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” loudly and mixing up the lyrics while his friends laugh.
I step to one side to let them pass, feeling as if I’m disappearing into the shadows in my all-black work outfit.
A year ago, I was also part of a happy, loud group. We sat around after rehearsals on Friday nights, and Gene ordered in Chinese food for everyone. Sometimes Gene’s wife would stop by with homemade brownies or cookies. In a way, it felt like a family.
I didn’t realize how much I miss it.
I’m alone tonight, but I’m used to that. It’s just that I don’t often feel lonely.
The last time I googled Gene, I saw his wife had just had a baby girl. My search turned up a picture of the three of them together at the opening of one of his shows, the wife smiling down at the infant in her arms. They looked happy.
I think about the two texts from Katrina, the ones I haven’t answered.
A question has been forming in my mind, despite my efforts to move on from that period in my life. As I think about Gene’s innocent wife, it’s like I can hear Dr. Shields asking it:
Is it ethical to destroy one blameless woman’s life if it means there’s a chance of protecting other women from future harm?
I need an escape from my thoughts. If I did drugs, now is when I’d be reaching for a joint. But I don’t lose control that way. There’s another outlet I crave when the pressure gets to be too much.
Noah thinks I’m the kind of girl you cook for and only kiss on the first date. But that’s not who I am anymore, ever since that evening with Gene French. Maybe because I trusted him so much, now it’s hard to be emotionally vulnerable with men. Even if Noah were in town, he’s not what I’m looking for tonight.
I think instead about the guy who just texted, and how he stared after me when I walked toward the museum. With him, I can just be an anonymous girl.
So I text him again: Any chance you’re free for a drink now?
I briefly think about Noah with the dishcloth tucked away in his jeans as he cooked for me.
He won’t ever know, I think.
All I’m going to do is see this guy for a few hours. I’ll never need to talk to him again.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
Friday, December 14
After you file your report on your encounters with Reyna and Tiffani, the phone remains silent for an agonizingly long stretch of time. When Thomas finally calls at 9:04 P.M., the cup of peppermint tea has been freshened three times. Nearly two pages of the legal pad are filled.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t see your text earlier,” he begins. “I was running around Christmas shopping and I didn’t hear my ringer because the stores were so packed.”
Thomas typically does leave holiday shopping until the last minute. And the rush of city noises can be heard in the background.
Still, suspicion swells. Would he truly have not felt the vibration of his phone?
But his excuse is readily accepted, because it is even more vital that he enters the experiment blind.
A bit of light chatting ensues. Thomas says he is worn out, and is heading home for an early night.
Then he utters one final sentence before hanging up.
“I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow, gorgeous.”
The teacup clatters into the saucer, chipping the fine china. Fortunately, he terminated the call before the noise erupted.
During the course of our marriage, Thomas freely bestowed compliments: You’re beautiful. Stunning. Brilliant.
But never gorgeous.
In the errant text that he addressed to me, though, it was the term he’d used for the woman he confessed to having an affair with.
Experiencing emotional phases of dark and light is universal. A healthy and loving partnership can provide a supportive infrastructure during a downward trajectory, but it can never erase the pain that infuses an individual during pivot points such as the death of a sister, or the infidelity of a husband.
Or the suicide of a young female subject.
This seismic tragedy occurred at the beginning of this past summer: June 8, to be exact. Our marriage suffered, Jessica. Whose wouldn’t? It was difficult to summon the energy to wholly engage. Visions of my subject’s earnest, brown eyes intruded at all hours. A retreat both emotionally and physically resulted, despite Thomas’s reassuring words: “Some people are beyond help, my love. There’s nothing you could have done.”
Our marriage could have recovered from the estrangement formed during this time. Except for one thing.
A season later, in September, the text he said was intended for the boutique owner with whom he’d had a one-night stand landed on my phone. The bright, chiming noise seemed to reverberate throughout my quiet office. It was 3:51 P.M. on a Friday afternoon.
Thomas likely sent it at that particular time because his own office was empty, too; clients typically depart at ten minutes before the hour, leaving a small window for the therapist to attend to personal needs before the next patient is welcomed.
During that summer of internal darkness, my office hours were also maintained, Jessica. No patient was turned away. This was perhaps more vital than ever before.
Which meant the nine vacant minutes that followed the receipt of the text could be spent staring at Thomas’s message: See you tonight, Gorgeous.
It was as though the words expanded until they blotted out all else.
As a therapist, one often witnesses a client’s attempt to rationalize, to make excuses, as a defense mechanism to quash overwhelming emotions. However, those four words could not be ignored.
When just one minute remained before new clients would be ushered in to both of our offices, the trancelike state broke. A reply was transmitted to Thomas.
I do not think this was intended for me.
The phone was then silenced and my four P.M. appointment, a single mother struggling with anxiety that was exacerbated by her teenage son’s belligerence, was utterly unaware that anything was amiss.
However, Thomas must have canceled his final appointment of the day, because fifty minutes later, after the agitated mother was escorted out, he sat slumped in my waiting room, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his face drawn and gray.
In the wake of Thomas’s text, data was amassed.
Some information was offered by Thomas. Her first name: Lauren. Her place of employment: a small, upscale clothing boutique near Thomas’s office.
Other information was independently collected.
A brief phone call to the boutique at noon on a Saturday was all that was required to verify Lauren’s presence on the premises. It was a simple matter to wander inside and pretend to be absorbed in the colorful fabrics.
She was ringing up a customer with easy chatter. The boutique contained one other sales clerk and several other shoppers. But she was the one who drew the eye, and not just because of her history with my husband. You look a bit like her, Jessica. There’s a similarity in your essence. And it was easy to see why even a happily married man would be susceptible to her overtures.
She completed the transaction and approached me with a warm smile. “Looking for anything special?” she asked.
“Just browsing,” she was told. “Can you make a recommendation? I’m going away for the weekend with my husband and I’d like a few new outfits.”