Panic Attack

nine

Before the robbery and the shooting, Dana Bloom thought she had gotten back in control of her life. She’d told Tony that she wanted to end their fling and, although he didn’t take it very well, and it had been hard for her to let go, too, she’d made it three days without any contact with him and she felt like she’d made it over the hump, that she was ready to put the past four months with Tony behind her and rededicate herself to her marriage.

But now, suddenly, everything was falling apart again, and it was all because of that stupid gun. She had no idea why Adam had to go and shoot that guy- why couldn’t he listen to her for once in his life?- and now Gabriela was dead and she couldn’t help thinking that it was all Adam’s fault, too. That he wouldn’t take any responsibility or admit any fault for anything he’d done infuriated her more than anything. Why was it so hard for him to say I’m sorry?

After Detective Clements left, Dana felt completely helpless. Not only couldn’t she get through to her husband, but she felt like the police couldn’t protect them, and she didn’t feel safe in her own house.

They were walking along the hallway past Marissa’s room- she was in there blasting her stereo again, some god- awful music- and Dana was saying, “Let’s go to Florida, just to get out of the house for a few days or a week or whatever.”

Adam, heading into the bedroom, said, “That’s ridiculous. I’m not running away.”

Following him, Dana said, “Don’t call me ridiculous.”

“I’m not calling you ridiculous. I’m saying running away is ridiculous.” “Who’s talking about running away? I’m just saying I’d feel a lot safer if we weren’t here, in this house, while that killer’s still out there, that’s all.” “What killer?” Adam said. “Think about what you’re saying. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“What doesn’t make any sense? What planet are you on? Gabriela was killed, and-”

“And that has absolutely nothing to do with us.” He was raising his voice to talk over her. She hated it when he did that; it was so demeaning and disrespectful. “You’re just making up stories, trying to scare yourself,” he added and turned away from her, changing into his sweatpants. Another thing she hated- when he gave her his back.

“I can’t believe you,” she said. “You really can’t be this stubborn. You’re just doing it to get a reaction from me.”

“Really? And why would I want to do that?”

“Because you like it, you like provoking me. You like the way it makes you feel.”

“That’s it, you have me figured out, all right. I woke up today and I said, You know what, I think I’ll provoke my wife today. That’ll be so much fun.” “That’s exactly what you do.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, stop it. Your problem is you just refuse to see anything any other way. You know everything. You have all the answers. You even know more than the police, apparently. I still love that, by the way, telling off the NYPD. That was just brilliant.”

“You’re doing it again,” she said.

“Doing what again?”

“Spinning everything I say into something I’m not saying instead of just listening to me.”

“I’ll listen to you if you start making some sense.”

She was so angry at him she couldn’t even remember what they were arguing about anymore. She took a few moments and then said, “So what if I’m right? What if it is all related? What if whoever killed Gabriela comes back here, tries to break into our house?”

“He won’t get in.”

“What if he does? What’re you going to do then? Get your gun again? Shoot him?”

“If he breaks into our house and heads upstairs in the dark, yes, I’ll shoot him.”

Dana stared at her husband, slack jawed, her hands on her hips. “Who the hell are you?” she said. “I feel like I don’t know you at all anymore.” “Oh, stop it with your melodrama.”

She continued, “You shoot one guy and you suddenly think you’re so tough, you’re some kind of Mafia hit man or something? Acting so rational, so in control. You’re not afraid, and you won’t run away, you’re just gonna keep shooting people with your gun- your gun’ll keep us all nice and safe.” Shaking his head, he said, “I’m going to the gym,” and left.

That was so like him- just walking out of the room in midargument with everything unresolved, leaving her all pent up and frustrated. It was so controlling, so manipulative, and she knew exactly why he was doing it- to push her buttons. She used to complain about it all the time when they were in marriage counseling, but he kept on doing it anyway. If that wasn’t an indication that he didn’t care about her, what was?

A little while after Adam left, Dana heard Marissa going downstairs, and the door slammed again. Dana was alone in the house, and she felt alone. She just wanted some emotional support at a difficult time; was that too much to ask for? Things were going to get worse, she just knew they were going to get worse, and no one was going to be able to help her, not the police, and not even her own husband.

Then she did something that she knew she’d regret- she got her cell phone from her purse and called Tony.

He picked up and said, “It’s so great to hear your voice, baby. I miss you so much.”

She thought, What the hell am I doing? She wanted to hang up- she knew that it was the right thing to do, that this wasn’t going to solve anything, that in fact it was going to make things even more complicated- but she heard herself say weakly, “I miss you so much too.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to call,” he said. “Where are you?” She wanted to feel his body against hers so badly. She wanted to feel him inside her.

“When do you get off?” she asked.

“I’ll get off for you anytime,” he said.

If any other man had said that to her, she would have assumed he was making a bad pun, but she knew even a bad pun was beyond Tony. It was usually hard for her to hold conversations with him that didn’t involve bodybuilding, protein supplements, or sex. Not that Dana usually had any objection to this, especially the sex part. She was interested in Tony for sex and sex only, and she’d made this very clear to him.

They arranged to meet at four at his place. Dana didn’t want to have to see

Adam again when he got back from the gym, so she left the house early and killed time at the Starbucks a few blocks from Tony’s. She was dressed casually, jeans and a black turtleneck, but underneath she was wearing a hot pink satin halter from Victoria’s Secret. Adam didn’t like lingerie- one time she’d worn sexy underwear to bed and he’d actually told her that it looked silly on her; way to make a woman feel great about herself- but it always turned Tony on. Heading toward Tony’s building, she tried to talk herself out of going. She reminded herself that she was jeopardizing her marriage, and did she really want to lead Tony on more than she already had? Although she’d told to him many times that they had no future together, that she had no intention of ever leaving Adam for him, when he said things to her like “Wouldn’t it be great if we were living together?” or “Imagine if it could be like this forever,” she’d felt like she wasn’t getting though to him at all.

It was still hard for her to believe she’d gotten into this situation. For years with Adam, even when things weren’t great, she’d never even thought about cheating on him. She’d seen the way affairs had destroyed families in her neighborhood, and she imagined growing old with Adam, for better or for worse.

But she’d had opportunities to be unfaithful. Mr. Sorrentino, Marissa’s fifthgrade science teacher, used to flirt with her at parent- teacher conferences, and a few years ago, Scott Goldberg, an old boyfriend from college at Albany, had contacted her. He’d recently gotten divorced and was going to be in the city on business, he said, and he asked her if she wanted to meet at the bar of his hotel for a drink. She made up an excuse and didn’t go. There were other opportunities now and then, but any time she sensed a guy was coming on to her she always maintained boundaries and let him know she was married and not interested.

But over the past several years her attitude had gradually changed. Part of it, she had to admit, may have had to do with empty nest syndrome. When

Marissa went away to college, Dana and Adam had more time to spend together, but it was hard for her to shift gears, to become just a wife again instead of a wife and mother. It was hard to remember what she liked about Adam, hard to remember what they used to talk about, and they actually spent less time together than they ever had before. Adam always seemed to be wrapped up in work, and she started to realize how lonely she was. For years she’d defended her life as a stay- at- home mom- she refused to use the word “housewife”- by telling her working friends, “I love doing nothing,” but secretly she regretted not going back to work years ago and was jealous of her friends who had careers. She was bored at home, and it was getting harder to fill her days. Last year menopause had started setting in, so she had to deal with the emotional ups and downs, and for a while she’d been on Prozac for what her psychiatrist had called “a mild depression.” When Marissa graduated and decided to move back home, Dana was actually thrilled. Things had been getting tense with Adam, and it was nice having her daughter around again.

Around the time Marissa moved back in, Tony started working as a trainer at the New York Sports Club. He was very friendly and flirty with Dana from the get- go, smiling at her all the time and saying hi, or coming over when she was using machines and saying things like “What you want to do is get some more extension,” or passing by smiling, commenting, “You look sensational today.” She thought he was just being nice and there was nothing more to it, but she had to admit, it stroked her ego to hear those compliments, especially from a guy in his twenties. She looked good for a forty- seven- year- old woman who hadn’t gotten any work done. She was slim, still had nice legs, and though she sometimes felt self- conscious about the lines around her eyes and mouth, most people who met her thought she was in her early forties, even late thirties. But it had been years since a man had paid any attention to her. When she was younger and passed a construction site, guys would whistle at her and make crude comments; yes, it had felt like harassment back then, but now she missed getting male attention, even the negative kind. She liked how when she was using the elliptical StairMaster she’d look in the mirror ahead of her and see

Tony checking out her ass and then looking away quickly when their gazes met. The most attractive thing about Tony was that he was attracted to her. He wasn’t bad- looking-he had a cute, pudgy Italian face- but his interest in her, the way he made her feel like a young sex object, was irresistible. When was the last time Adam had told her she was pretty or paid attention to her the way

Tony did? She felt like Adam took her for granted and barely listened to her half the time. She’d be telling Adam about something that had happened during the day, or something interesting she’d read about in the paper or seen on

TV, and she’d see his eyes wander and she’d know that even though he was answering her, saying “Really?” and “Okay,” he was thinking about something else and couldn’t give a shit about her. She started looking forward to going to the gym and seeing Tony, craving his flattering comments and the feeling she got whenever he smiled at her.

Then one day she was on the exercise mat, stretching, when Tony came over and asked her if she’d lost some weight. She’d actually gained a few pounds, but she said, “No, I’m the same,” and he said, “Well, you look sensational.” She noticed his eyes pan toward her breasts for a moment- she loved when he did that, and she was glad she was wearing that new exercise bra with that great support- then he said, “Hey, I’m getting off at seven, want to get some coffee or somethin’?” She had nothing planned- Adam had said he’d be in the city seeing patients and wouldn’t be back till late- but she said, “Sorry, I can’t.” It was the right thing to do. Tony was a nice fantasy, but that was how she had to keep it- a fantasy.

But the next time Tony asked her out for coffee, a few days later, she said yes. Coffee had somehow evolved into a drink at a nearby sports bar. As she’d expected, they had zero to talk about, but she loved the way he looked at her, like she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen- he actually said, “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen”- and she wanted him to kiss her. Into their second margaritas he asked her if she was happily married, and she said,

“We’ve had some problems,” purposely leaving the door open, wanting to keep this flirtation or whatever it was going, loving the way it made her feel, terrified to give it up. There was a long moment when they looked into each other’s eyes, and she saw his shift downward slightly, toward her lips. She checked the time on her cell phone and said, “I should really get-” and he reached out and held her hand- when was the last time a man besides her husband had held her hand in a romantic way?- and said, “Come back with me.” She told him she was extremely flattered but she couldn’t, and she insisted on paying for the drinks and left.

She barely slept that night. It hit her how truly unhappy she had become at home, and she couldn’t stop thinking about Tony and wishing she’d gone back to his place with him. She fantasized about him doing things to her until she couldn’t take it anymore and had to go into the guest bedroom and use her sex toy.

The next day Adam said he was working late again, and at around four fifteen Dana arrived at the gym, remembering Tony telling her he would be getting off work at five. Working out on the elliptical StairMaster, she looked in the mirror and saw Tony get distracted, checking out her ass several times while training a client.

At five to five she went up to Tony and said, “So does that offer still stand?” About ten minutes later, they were at his place, screwing against the wall, then on the living room floor. It was by far the hottest, rawest sex Dana had ever had. God, it had been more than twenty years since she’d had sex anywhere other than a bed. She’d never been with a guy so strong, so powerful, and it felt good to feel his strong hands pinning her down, squeezing her ass.

The fact that he wasn’t very bright and they had nothing in common made him even sexier. It reduced him to being a total sex object. He was just man- raw, simple man who gave her plea sure. She’d thought that so many things were missing in her marriage, that she and Adam had such underlying problems, but under that grunting bodybuilder, she felt like all she’d needed all along was to get laid.

In a few hours she had more sex than she’d had in the last two years with

Adam. Pathetic, but true.

She felt very guilty and conflicted afterward. She’d felt great with Tony, but now she felt like a horrible person, a liar, a slut. In the past she’d watch a movie and see a woman cheat on her husband and think, What a total idiot, and now, somehow, she’d become that woman. She’d been faithful to Adam for twentyseven years, including the time they’d been dating, and now she’d have to go through the rest of her life knowing that she’d been unfaithful. Making it worse, she knew this was totally one- sided; Adam would never even consider cheating on her. She didn’t plan to ever tell Adam, but how did she know Tony wouldn’t go bragging about his conquest in the gym? For all she knew he was sleeping with dozens of other unhappy married middle- aged women. Tony and Adam saw each other at the gym all the time; they weren’t very friendly, but they said hi to each other. She knew that if Adam somehow found out he’d never forgive her, and she was angry at herself for getting into this position. With one phone call, some young muscle- head trainer from the New York Sports Club had the power to ruin the rest of her life.

But this didn’t stop Dana from seeing Tony again. She met him a couple of days later, and then they started to see each other regularly, three or four times a week. She couldn’t stop thinking about him when they were apart, about how good it had felt to be taken away to a place so foreign that her normal life seemed dull in comparison. Sometimes they text- messaged each other or talked on the phone; although they had very little to say to each other, she got excited every time she saw his name flash on her phone or heard his voice. She felt like she was a teenager again, in her first relationship, and everything was fresh and exciting. To deal with her guilt, she told herself that she was having a fling, which somehow seemed more harmless than an actual affair. A fling felt like something she could compartmentalize, something that wasn’t potentially destructive. A fling was like a star that would shine briefly and brightly and then gradually peter out. She’d use the fling to help her get through this rocky pe riod in her marriage, and then everything would return to normal. Some days she was so sore from sex with Tony that if Adam came on to her she’d have to make up stories. I’m too tired. “I think I’m coming down with something. The constant lying was the worst part and was beginning to wear on her, overshadowing all the positives of the fling. Then Tony did something that told her it was really time to end it.

She came home from shopping one afternoon, and Gabriela, who was cleaning in the kitchen, said, “I think somebody like you, Mrs. Bloom.” Typically, since she’d gotten involved with Tony, Dana feared the worst, and her fight- or- flight mechanism kicked in. “What’re you talking about?” she snapped.

“Look in the dining room,” Gabriela said.

Oh shit, had Tony been to the house?

Dana went through the swinging doors, ready to scold Tony, tell him it was over, and then she saw the large, tacky bouquet of flowers on the dining room table. Well, it wasn’t as bad as him showing up, but it was almost as bad. She read the computer- printed note:

Hey you were fucking great last night baby You got a sensational body baby Love T-Bone!!!!

She called him up, furious, and he said he didn’t think he’d done anything wrong because he’d made sure the flowers would be delivered during the day when her husband was at work.

“How’d you know he’d be at work today?” he said. “What if he was home?” He admitted that, yeah, that probably hadn’t been such a great idea and promised he wouldn’t do anything like that again, but she saw this as a major wake- up call. He’d been getting reckless lately- texting her dozens of times a day and calling her a few times when Adam was home. She had a marriage to protect, but he was a single guy with nothing at stake, and it was starting to feel too unbalanced. Besides, he was getting too hooked on her, even saying the other night when they were lying in bed, “I think I’m falling in love with you.” There was no doubt about it- she definitely had to end the fling now, or things were going to spiral out of control.

She said to Gabriela, “Promise me you won’t say a word about this to Adam.”

“Don’t worry,” Gabriela said. “You can always trust me, Mrs. Bloom.”

The next day Dana went to the gym and told Tony there was something important she needed to talk to him about, and they went into the sales office. She knew he’d be upset and hoped that telling him in the gym would prevent a big scene. He got melodramatic, told her she was doing the wrong thing and he couldn’t live without her, but she managed to leave before the real begging started.

The breakup was hard for her, too, surprisingly hard. She didn’t miss him as much as she missed the idea of him, of having something exciting and unpredictable in her life. Suddenly being home with Adam felt excruciatingly dull; she felt like a prisoner serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole. She was back in her old rut, in her empty, meaningless, lonely life, living day to day, with nothing to look forward to.

Tony had left two phone messages and six text messages on her cell. He wasn’t taking the breakup well, and she wanted to call him, tell him she’d made a mistake, but she resisted and deleted all the messages without playing or reading them. God, this was even harder than when she’d quit smoking, but she knew she had to treat it exactly the same way, like she was breaking an addiction. The first days of getting over the addiction were always the hardest, and the trick was to stay strong, not give in. She was glad that she and Adam and Marissa were planning to go to Florida to visit Adam’s mother. Getting away from New York for a few days would be a huge help.

The next day she was home alone, and she felt the familiar intense urge to call Tony and arrange to meet at his place for a quickie during his lunch break. She fought it and called her friend Sharon instead and went over to her house a few blocks away for coffee. Keeping the fling a secret for so long had become draining, and Dana needed to talk to someone about it.

Opening up to Sharon was a big help. It made her feel like she’d done the right thing, ending it when she did, before it snowballed out of control.

Sharon told her, “You and Adam have invested so much time together, whatever you do don’t throw it away, especially for some guy you don’t even really like.”

Sharon’s words were like a refreshing blast of reality. Dana continued to delete all of Tony’s messages and managed to make it through the most difficult first few days. She spent more time with Adam; she met him in the city one night and they went out to their favorite Spanish restaurant in the West Village, and another night they stayed home and watched a movie together, cuddling on the couch.

They had to cancel their trip to Florida because of the tropical storm, but Dana didn’t feel the desperate need to get away anymore. Tony had gone a whole day without trying to contact her, and she was starting to think of the fling in the past tense. It had been fun for a while, but it had ended, and now it was time to repair her marriage.

Then the robbery happened, and now here she was, relapsing, going back to Tony, about to mess up her life all over again.

She knew that restarting something that had been so hard to end was a huge mistake. It was wrong to take her anger about the shooting out on Adam in this way, and it definitely wasn’t going to accomplish anything. Despite everything they’d been through and how angry she was, she loved Adam and wanted to improve their marriage and work out their differences. She knew that if she didn’t get herself to turn back she could ruin her life, but the pull to be with Tony and screw things up was so intense. She felt like something beyond her was controlling her, making her decisions, and she was just a witness to it all.

On the stairs, going up to his apartment, she was still trying to talk herself into turning back, reminding herself how much Adam meant to her, how this wouldn’t resolve anything, how it could make things worse, much worse, and then she saw Tony- in tight black boxer briefs and nothing else- and a few seconds later they were in his apartment and he was kissing her neck, pushing her up against the back of the front door. Her pants and turtleneck were off and he was sliding his hands up under her red lace panties, over her ass, saying, “I love when you wear this shit,” and she was moaning, “Oh, God, baby. Oh, God…”

Then, afterward, under his body on the floor, she thought, What the hell am I doing?

Tony looked into her eyes, smiled, and asked, “You want some Gatorade or somethin’?”

“I… I have to go,” she said, bending down, reaching for her jeans.

“What’s the hurry?” Tony said. “We got all night.”

“This was a mistake,” she said out loud, but to herself. “This was a huge mistake.”

“What’re you talking about?” He sounded seriously confused. “I thought you said you missed me.”

She pulled her jeans on, not bothering to zip or snap them. She was muttering to herself like a mantra, “Gotta get home, gotta get back, gotta get home, gotta get back…”

When she was about to put her turtleneck on Tony grabbed her wrist hard and said, “Come on, what’re you doing?”

“Please let go of me,” she said.

“Why? I don’t get it.”

He let go of her wrist, and she finished getting dressed.

“Was I too rough on you?” he asked. “I thought you like it like that.”

When she left his apartment and was going downstairs he screamed after her, “When am I gonna see you again? Don’t do this to me, baby! You know how much I love you, baby!”

She walked fast, saying to herself, “What an idiot, what a fuckin’ idiot.” She didn’t know if she was talking about herself or Tony, but she couldn’t believe she’d done such a stupid, impulsive thing. What the hell was she doing? She was forty- seven years old, acting like she was seventeen. It was no wonder Marissa had been giving them so much trouble lately- look who she had for a role model.

Several minutes later, as she approached her house, she was a little calmer- less emotional, anyway. Okay, so she’d had one minor slipup, but she could forget it ever happened; it didn’t have to mean anything. She just wondered about Tony. There was a tone in his voice, anger she’d never heard before. He’d already sent those flowers; what was he going to do next?

Damn it, she usually showered after having sex with Tony, and now she reeked of his cologne.

She opened the front door quietly, hoping Adam wasn’t home.

“Honey, that you?”

“Fuck me,” she muttered.