Bright, Precious Days

41

STILL STUNNED BY THE NEWS about Jack Carson, Corrine was peeling off her jogging clothes in the bedroom when she noticed her bra hanging from the laptop, which seemed odd. She remembered putting it away last night. Lifting it up, she saw that the cup was torn. Hasty as it had been, her disrobing at Luke’s hadn’t been violent, and she recalled it was intact when she’d taken it off again, later, at home.

She glanced at the computer screen and saw a new message from Luke: Last night was amazing. When had that come in? It hadn’t been there when she’d logged on. And how could she have forgotten to log off? She erased Luke’s e-mail, even as she realized that it was probably too late. How else to explain the bra on the laptop?

Had Russell seen that message? Oh God, please don’t let him have.

She’d attributed his dazed aspect to Jack’s death, but now she saw, to her horror, another explanation — but it was too terrible to consider. What was she supposed to do? How could she possibly face him? She couldn’t. It seemed preferable to throw herself out the window.

She tried to think of an innocent explanation for the e-mail. Could she just deny? She’d been lying for so long, why not just keep on? And yet she knew she couldn’t. It was over. The only way she could possibly even start to redeem herself was to begin telling the truth. Or at least stop lying, which was significantly different. If she told him the whole truth, she was afraid their marriage wouldn’t stand a chance.

But what to do right now, at this moment? She couldn’t imagine walking out there and facing him now that Washington was gone. Or was he? If Wash was still here, she could at least get out the door without a confrontation, and then consider her options.

She slunk across the hall to the bathroom, not seeing anyone, hearing only the beeps and chirps of a video game. In the shower, she wept, and curled into a ball on the tiles, wishing she could dissolve and disappear down the drain, to be spared the shame and the mortification, the horror of facing Russell and seeing the accusation and the hurt in his eyes. She prayed for a brief respite, a postponement of the inevitable. She hoped to escape the loft without incident, so that she could have time to formulate a response while going about her business at the Greenmarket, though she wondered how she could possibly concentrate on the simplest of tasks, much less present a socially viable front.

Ten minutes later, she thought her knees would buckle as she came upon him in the living room, sitting motionless in the armchair beside the couch, watching a football game, which was strange, since he seldom watched sports. Seeing the look on his face when he glanced at her, she realized it wasn’t so much his expression as the sense that he was clearly trying to suppress his feelings, that his contemptuous smirk was a mask that barely concealed more frightening emotions.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” she said.

He turned back to the television without answering.

—

Arriving at Union Square in a daze after missing her subway stop, she tried to immerse herself in the simple tasks of schmoozing the farmers and herding the volunteers, but throughout the afternoon she felt almost paralyzed with remorse and dread. Though she tried to convince herself that Russell knew nothing, she couldn’t help believing the opposite. Not knowing was agony. At one moment she wanted to plead illness and rush home and the next she wanted to postpone her return for as long as possible.

Finally unable to bear it another second, she deputized one of the volunteers to finish the rescue and grabbed a cab downtown.

When she arrived home, Russell was sitting alone at the kitchen counter. As soon as she saw his face, she knew she was busted.

“The kids are with Washington and Veronica. I didn’t want them around for this.”

She didn’t even have the heart to ask what this meant? She stood with her head bowed, waiting.

“Are you having an affair?”

Even though she knew this was coming, Corrine thought her knees would buckle beneath her.

“I was.”

“You were.”

“Russell, I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am, and ashamed.”

“Who’s Luke?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it fucking matters.”

“You met him at the benefit for his charity at the Waldorf. Luke McGavock. He started the Good Hope Foundation.”

“Jesus Christ, that was, like, two years ago. Has it been going on all that time?”

“He was living in South Africa. I only saw him a few times.”

“Saw him. It sounds like you did a hell of a lot more than see him.”

“Russell, I’m so so sorry.”

“I want you to leave.”

“Can’t we talk about this?”

“We just did. I want you out. Pack a bag. I don’t want you under this roof.”

“Russell…”

“I mean it. Get out.”

—

She hardly remembered packing the small bag she was carrying when she arrived at Luke’s building. It hadn’t occurred to her to wonder what she’d do if he wasn’t there.

“Oh, Luke,” she said, starting to sob when she saw his face.

“What’s happened?” he asked, taking her in his arms.

When she finally gathered the composure to blurt out her story, he seemed nonplussed. “I suppose it was inevitable,” he said.

Holding her arm as if she were an invalid, he walked her over to the couch. The financial news channel was blaring from the big TV on the wall. A crawling banner at the bottom of the screen read: LEHMAN STOCK IN FREE FALL, MARKETS IN TURMOIL. He picked up the remote from the coffee table and muted the volume.

“Tell me exactly what happened, my love,” he said, taking a seat beside her.

As she started talking, he glanced up at the television screen. And later, she would realize that was the moment he lost her. Not that he’d actually possessed her up until then, or that she even for a moment had considered what the recent crisis meant for her relationship with Luke, but as they spoke, it became clear that he had, that in his eyes the exposure of the affair was an opportunity rather than a calamity. Later, she could think of a fistful of reasons why she couldn’t be with Luke; he was a man who was used to having his way, a man who moved from conquest to conquest. She believed he loved her, but she didn’t necessarily believe in the durability of that love. He was Déjeuner sur l’Herbe and she was Interior at Arcachon. Ultimately, she would understand and enumerate her reasons for giving him up — the most elementary one being that he wasn’t Russell, but also because at that crucial moment he’d turned away from her and was looking instead at the television screen.

She would stay for another hour, and Luke would try to convince her that, painful as it might be for Corrine and her family, Russell’s discovery was as the lancing of a boil, a slicing of the Gordian knot, a fortuitous resolution of a lingering quandary. Now, he suggested, the primary obstacle between them had been cleared away, and while, yes, it wouldn’t be an effortless transition, he was here to make it as painless as possible. He spoke words of solace and comfort, holding her and expanding on their future, and through her agony she heard him distantly, his voice fading in and out of her consciousness, as if he were speaking to her across a body of water buffeted by intermittent gusts of wind.