Bright, Precious Days

40

STOREY HAD BEEN BEHAVING strangely all morning; she seemed agitated, on edge. Russell had roused Corrine, flexing that sense of superiority that accrued to the partner who’d gone to bed early, and requested her presence at the table, though he knew she didn’t eat in the morning. Storey was rude to her mother at breakfast, which seemed to be the norm of late. She was feeling kind of insecure about the new school, granted, but this had been going on for months. Russell had called her on it. “Don’t talk to your mother that way,” he said, prompting her to flee the table in tears.

Later, after Corrine went out for a run, Storey marched out to the kitchen, where Russell was finishing the dishes, her lips drawn into a frown.

“What’s up, honey?”

“It’s about Mom.”

“Yeah?”

“She’s having an affair.”

“What? That’s crazy.” Yet, somehow, he suddenly felt sick to his stomach.

“I found an e-mail.”

“What were you doing in your mom’s e-mail?”

“I was looking for a scrunchie for my hair. Her laptop was open on her desk. I’ll show you.”

Feeling light-headed, he followed her to the master bedroom. Corrine’s AOL window was open, and the most recent e-mail, sent twenty minutes ago, was from someone called Luke, with the subject line Last night was amazing.

“I knew she wasn’t going to see Sandy. And I’ve heard them talking on the phone.” Her lower lip quivered with the effort she was making to contain her emotions, but finally she started sobbing violently.

He took her in his arms, trying not to cry himself.

“What are you going to do?” she eventually managed to say.

“It’s going to be all right,” Russell said with paternal insincerity. He had no idea what he was going to do. “You say you’ve heard her talking on the phone to this…guy.”

She nodded. “Luke.”

He didn’t think he knew any Lukes. Stupid name. Was it better that it was a stranger? “When did you hear them talking?”

“A couple times.”

“Starting when?”

“Maybe, like, six months ago.”

“Have you ever seen him?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You really shouldn’t be spying on your mother.”

He could see immediately that he’d disappointed her, but he was still living in a prelapsarian universe in which the old rules applied.

Jeremy barreled in to announce that Washington and his kids had arrived. “What’s wrong?” he asked, picking up on the gloom.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Russell told him. “Did you buzz them up?”

“Uh-huh. I better go out and wait for them,” he said, running out of the room.

“Let’s just keep this to ourselves for now,” Russell said, giving Storey a hug.

“Okay.”

“Go wash your face and then come join us.”

As long as Storey had been in the room, he’d been able to treat this new knowledge as theoretical, but now it became physical. Finding it difficult to breathe, feeling nauseous, he sat down on the bed, hyperventilating. She’d betrayed him with a man named Luke. Was she really capable of treating him this way? Sleeping beside him while fucking a man named Luke. Lying to Russell, lying beneath a man named Luke. It was intolerable. Luke who — Skywalker? The apostle? Bastard. He didn’t think he could bear it. He looked at the e-mail again: Last night was amazing. Just four words had changed the course of his life, cast doubt on his most fundamental beliefs.

Being married to Corrine was the central fact of his existence. After all these years, he’d imagined they were inseparable, their union inviolable. He went to the hamper in her closet and rooted through the dirty clothes, lifting a pair of panties and examining them for evidence before moving on to her lingerie drawer, finding the bra that had aroused Storey’s suspicions on top. He pulled it out and held it up by its straps. Did he take it off her last night, or did she take it off while he watched? In fact, he noticed that some of the lace at the top of the cup was frayed, as if it had been torn off in haste. He held it to his nostrils, inhaling the unmistakable scent of Corrine, then tugged at the lace, ripping half the cup open before regaining control of his emotions. The bra was not so damaged as to suggest vandalism unequivocally. He needed time to think, to consider his response.

He heard Washington and the boys outside the door, chattering in a language he was no longer certain he spoke, or comprehended. How could he possibly go out there and pretend that he did? That he was the same man he’d been ten minutes before?

On a sudden, malicious impulse, he hung the bra over the screen of the laptop and walked out into the hall, pulling the door closed behind him.

“Sorry to crash in on you, chief, but I have the kids for the day, Veronica’s at a meeting at the office, and I’ve flat run out of ideas.”

Russell nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“You okay? I guess you heard about Jack.”

“What? Jack Carson?”

“Yeah, he…I assumed you’d heard. Jack and Tony Duplex. High-speed crash on the West Side Highway early this morning.”

“Is he okay?”

Washington shook his head.

“He’s dead?”

Washington nodded. “Both dead.”

“Tony Duplex? How do they even know each other?” Russell was shocked, though, as the news sunk in, he realized he’d always, in the back of his mind, feared something like this would happen.

“I thought you knew, man,” Wash said, presumably referring to Russell’s shell-shocked demeanor, for which, now at least, he had a plausible explanation.

For a moment he considered confiding in Washington, but quickly discarded the idea. He wasn’t ready to share his humiliation. He couldn’t bear the idea of anyone else knowing, at least not yet. Perhaps, especially, his best friend.

“Jesus Christ — Jack’s really dead?”

“I wish I could say I was totally shocked,” Washington said.

“Yeah, but still.”

“I know.”

“It was an accident?”

“They were in Tony’s Lamborghini.”

“Fucking lunatics.”

Washington stepped forward and hugged Russell, slapping his shoulders blades gruffly. “I’m really sorry, man.”

If he only knew.

“So it looks like the girls want to go to a movie and the boys want to stay here and play video games. Big surprise. Anyway, your choice, coach. I have to warn you, though, the movie is Nights in Rodanthe. I’ve got an invite to a screening at the TriBeCa Grand. On the plus side, you have Diane Lane, but weighing heavily against it — the fact that it’s based on a Nicholas fucking Sparks novel.”

Much as he wanted to get out of the house, Russell didn’t think he could possibly sit through a romantic tearjerker. Neither could he imagine seeing Corrine right now. He couldn’t honestly think of any activity or any known conscious state that would make this pain bearable, as the knowledge of all that had happened before Washington arrived came rushing back over him. Sad as he was about Jack, he felt he could bear that. “In that case, why don’t you go with the girls,” he said.

“Thanks a bunch. You’re sure you’re okay?”

“I’m okay. I’ll watch the boys.”

He felt unsteady, his legs weak. He tested them, walking down the hall to the living area, where the boys were sitting on the couch, staring at the TV screen, each thumbing his own video game controller.

Just then, the elevator door slid open and Corrine emerged in her running gear. In the light of his new knowledge, he half-expected her to look different, but she looked much as she had when she went out forty minutes ago, only sweaty and flushed. With her hair pulled back in a ratty bun, chest flattened in a running bra, she certainly didn’t look like anyone’s mistress.

He didn’t know if he could face her, until he did.

“It’s so humid out there,” she said.

So, there was still weather.

“Wash came over with the kids,” he said.

“That would explain why he’s standing there next to you. Don’t hug me,” she said to Washington. “I’m all gross and sweaty.”

“Sweaty’s good,” Washington said.

Sweaty was not good. Sweaty was a word that summoned images of Corrine engaged in carnal congress. It was a horrible word. Before he could turn his mind around, he couldn’t help picturing Corrine in several lurid tableaux.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, examining his expression.

“Jack’s dead,” Washington said helpfully.

“He got killed in a crash on the West Side Highway early this morning,” Russell added.

“Oh, honey, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry,” she said, embracing him. He found himself flinching from her touch, and it had nothing to do with the sweat. “You must be devastated.”

“I’m not sure what I feel.”

“Poor baby,” she said. “What can I do?”

Washington said, “Any chance you want to take the girls to see Nights in Rodanthe, starring Mr. Richard Gere?”

“Thanks, but I have to go to Union Square to supervise the Greenmarket rescue.”

“What,” he asked, “or should I say whom, is the Greenmarket being rescued from?”

“We rescue, so to speak, unsold produce and food products from the farmers’ stalls at the end of the sales day, before it gets dumped in the garbage. How’s Veronica holding up?”

Washington shrugged. “She’s freaking out.”

“Surely they can’t let Lehman go under.”

“We’ll know soon,” Wash said.

“Russ, I hope you’re good to watch the boys,” Corrine said.

He nodded reflexively as she walked past him on her way to the bedroom, realizing suddenly that he had no idea if this was the truth — if she was really going to the market. How many times had she lied to him? How many times had she gone out under some pretext to see Luke? Fucking Luke. He couldn’t decide whether to be relieved that he wouldn’t have to spend time with her right now, or outraged by the possibility that she was embarking on another rendezvous with this Luke. Would she be wearing her bra? The goddamn bra.

Waiting for the elevator with the two girls, Washington said, “I’ll give your love to Diane.”

Russell wondered how long it would take Corrine to notice the bra on the laptop. Would she see the e-mail? He realized it had probably come in after she’d gone out for her run, since she wouldn’t have left it there on the screen. Would she put the two ostensibly disparate pieces of evidence together? Ripped bra, incriminating e-mail? This prospect brought, if not exactly pleasure, at least a brief cessation of pain. Did he want her to suffer? Yes, he decided, he did, just as he was suffering.

He managed to avoid her for much of the next hour, before she finally left for wherever she was going, and apparently she was just as eager to avoid him. Jeremy and Mingus, meanwhile, were lost in a make-believe world that he found himself envying.

He poured himself a glass of vodka and sat at the kitchen counter, where he was still sitting when Washington and the girls came home.

“How was the movie?”

“It was pretty good, but she was kind of old,” Storey said, opening the refrigerator.

“They were both old,” Zora said.

“Hey, Diane Lane is nine years younger than your distinguished dads,” Washington said.

Zora cocked her head and regarded him with mild curiosity, as if waiting for the rest of his rebuttal, then followed Storey back to her bedroom, the boys following in their wake.

“You want a drink?” Russell asked.

“I’m good,” said Washington. “Are you really okay? You looked all fucked-up.”

“I found an e-mail. I think Corrine’s having an affair.”

“Corrine?”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“Pretty sure.”

Suddenly the boys burst out of their room and charged back into the room, brandishing plastic swords.

“I’ve gotta get them home. Let me know if you want to catch a drink later.”

Russell nodded.

“Damn,” Washington said. “I can’t say I saw this one coming.” He hugged Russell, slapping him on the back, before herding his kids into the elevator.

“Why did Washington hug you?” Jeremy asked as the doors closed.

“We do that sometimes,” Russell said.

For the rest of the afternoon, Jeremy acted as if he sensed something amiss, while his sister seemed eager to preserve the illusion of normalcy, although later, when the two of them were alone, she asked her father what he was going to do.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Are you going to get divorced?”

The word, uttered aloud, was shocking. As he tried to formulate an answer, he saw the tears welling in his daughter’s eyes. He took her in his arms and held her. “I wonder if Diane Lane is single?” he said.