The Neighbor

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Do you remember the moment you first fell in love? The way your body would tremble if you stood too close? Or how you would have to stare at a spot just beyond his shoulder, because if you actually looked him in the eyes, his beautiful, green-flecked hazel eyes, you would blush foolishly?

Thursday became my favorite night of the week. The culmination of a slow build of e-mail messages Wayne and I would exchange during the days in between. Nothing torrid. Nothing flagrant. I would relate stories of Ree, how she’d just mastered using a butter knife and now would only eat food she could cut in half, whether that was chicken fingers or green grapes. He would tell me of his latest assignment, maybe the cell phone he was analyzing from a bank robber, or an ongoing initiative to help the public secure their open wireless networks. I’d describe a funny episode that happened during the sixth grade’s attempt to locate Bulgaria on a map. He’d tell me about dinner at his sister’s house, where Ethan hijacked his father’s BlackBerry and spent most of the meal hacking into a major bank’s website.

By Wednesday, I’d find myself humming under my breath in anticipation. Only one more night. Twenty-four hours. Ree and I would put on fancy dresses, blast Loreena McKennitt, and prance around the house as two fairies attending a party at the Home Tree. Then we’d eat dinner served on bright flowered plates, with our milk poured into small crystal juice glasses, which we would toast with our pinkies in the air

I felt younger, falling in love with Wayne Reynolds. I felt lighter, happier in my own skin. I wore more skirts and fewer pants. I painted my toenails bright pink. I bought all new underwear, including a leopard print WonderBra from Victoria’s Secret.

I became a better mother. More patient with the endless routine of feeding, bathing, and tending a small child. More willing to laugh at Ree’s precocious demands for exactly this fork positioned exactly this way on exactly this color plate.

Ironically enough, I even became a better wife. On the one hand, I managed to purchase a blank hard drive on which I was supposed to copy the contents of the family computer. On the other hand, I attempted the deed less and less, because once I had the “forensically sound” copy, I wouldn’t have a reason to meet with Wayne again.

So I made excuses for my husband. One random photo over a few months’ stretch of time did not a porn-addict make. Most likely, the image was downloaded to his computer by mistake. He’d stumbled upon the wrong website, copied the wrong file. My husband could not be a pedophile. Look at the way he smiled at his daughter or his endless patience for her attempts to braid his thick wavy hair or the way he spent the first snow day of the season pulling her around the neighborhood on her little purple sled. That photo was simply some odd, vaguely terrifying anomaly.

I fixed my husband’s favorite meals. I praised his articles in the newspaper. And I shooed him out the door to work, because the sooner he left, the sooner I could go online and talk to Wayne.

Jason didn’t question my new and improved mood. I knew he still remembered my middle-of-the-night request for a second child, and was grateful I’d let him off the hook.

I didn’t try to touch my husband anymore, and he was happy.

Ree and I developed a new routine for Thursdays. I would pick her up at home and we would go to the little bistro around the corner for an early ladies’ dinner. Afterward, it was back to the school for the basketball game, where Ree would take a seat next to Ethan, and, once the game got going, I would disappear with Wayne.

“We’re just going for a little walk,” I’d tell Ree, and she would nod placidly, already too engrossed in pestering Ethan to care.

We always started out talking about computers. Wayne would ask if I’d copied the hard drive yet I’d report on my various failed attempts. Jason’s schedule was highly unreliable, I’d explain. He would arrive home anytime after eleven P.M., and first I had to put Ree to bed and then grade papers, and by the time that was all done, I was already nervous Jason would return home at any second. I tried, I aborted. I had a hard time concentrating…

“It’s all very nerve-wracking,” I’d say.

Wayne would squeeze my hand in support and I’d feel the contact of his fingers as a tingle all the way up my arm.

We didn’t hold hands. We didn’t find dark corners. We didn’t retreat to the back seat of his car and neck like teenagers. I was too aware that we were still in my place of work, where there were eyes and ears everywhere. And I was even more aware of my young daughter, never far away, who might need me at a moment’s notice.

So we walked the halls. We talked-innocently really. And the more Wayne didn’t touch me, the more his hands didn’t graze across my breasts and his lips didn’t brush along my collarbone, the more I wanted him. Crazily, insanely, until every time I looked at him I thought my body might spontaneously combust

He wanted me, too. I could tell by the way his palm lingered on the small of my back as he helped me climb onto the bleachers. Or the way he paused at the end of an empty hallway, never saying a word, but his eyes burning into mine, before finally, reluctantly, we both turned around and headed back to more populated areas.

“Do you love him?” he asked me one night. No reason to define “him.”

“He’s my daughter’s father,” I said.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I think it does.”

I didn’t tell him about my sex life, or the lack thereof. That felt too much like a violation of the family code. I could flirt with a stranger. I could tell him I suspected my husband was engaged in unlawful Internet activities. But I could not tell him my husband had never physically touched me. That would cross the line.

And I didn’t want to hurt Jason. I just… I wanted Wayne. I wanted to feel the way I felt when I was around him. Young. Pretty. Desirable.

Powerful.

Wayne wanted me, and yet, he couldn’t have me, and that made him want me more.

By the end of January, the e-mails were replaced by text messages. Only during school hours; Wayne was not stupid. He would send me a smiley face. Maybe a picture of a flower he’d taken with his cell phone at the grocery store. Then the questions began.

Maybe I could get a babysitter for Ree, or tell my husband I’d joined a book club. How long were my lunch breaks?

He never asked to have sex with me. Never commented on my body or made any overly suggestive comments. Instead, he began to actively campaign for a private rendezvous. It went without saying what we would be doing during this time.

I vetoed lunchtime. Too short, too unpredictable. What if Jason stopped by with Ree, or a student tried to find me? What if Ethan saw us leaving school grounds together? Ethan would definitely ask questions.

A babysitter was out of the question. All these years later, I didn’t know anyone in the neighborhood. Furthermore, Ree was at the age where she would talk, and Jason would want to know immediately what I had to do that was more important than watching our child.

As for joining a book club… These things were easier said than done. Who would be hosting this book club? What contact information would I give Jason and what if he actually called during the appointed hours? He would do that, at least once, I predicted. He had a tendency to check up on me.

I could’ve arranged for a “spa” night. But again, I’d never told Wayne of my unusual marital arrangement, nor did I mention it now. Spa nights were for strangers. And this wouldn’t be with a stranger. This would be different.

So we went round and round. E-mailing and texting, but mostly anticipating our chaste Thursday night walks around the South Boston Middle School, where this one man gazed at me with unrelenting hunger, wanting, needing, demanding…

And I let him.

The second week in February, Jason surprised me. School vacation week was coming up and he announced it was time for the family to go on vacation. I was standing at the stove at the time, browning hamburger. I was probably thinking about Wayne, because I had a smile on my face. Jason’s announcement, however, jarred me back to reality.

“Yippee!” Ree squealed, sitting at the kitchen counter. “Family vacation!”

I shot Ree a dry look, because we’d never gone on family vacation, so how would she know it was such a good thing?

Jason wasn’t looking at our daughter, however. He was regarding me, his expression contemplative, waiting. He was up to something.

“Where would we go?” I asked lightly, returning to the frying pan.

“Boston.”

“We live in Boston.”

“I know. I thought we’d start small. I got us a hotel room downtown. A swimming pool, atrium, all sorts of fun stuff. We can be tourists in our own town for a few days.”

“You already booked it? Chose a hotel and everything?”

He nodded, still staring at me. “I thought we could use some time together,” he said, his face inscrutable. “I thought it would be good for us.”

I poured in the Hamburger Helper seasoning packet. A family vacation. What could I say?

I gave Wayne the news by e-mail. He didn’t reply for two days. When he did, he wrote one line: Do you think it’s safe?

That jarred me. Why wouldn’t I be safe with Jason? Then I remembered the photo again, and the research I was supposed to be doing with the family computer, except I’d gotten so caught up in flirting with Ethan’s uncle, I’d forgotten Wayne was supposed to be offering me expertise instead.

We have a four-year-old chaperone, I wrote back at last. What could go wrong?

But I could tell Wayne didn’t approve, because the text messages dropped off. He was jealous, I realized, and was naive enough to be flattered.

Sunday night, I sent him a cell phone photo of Ree, dressed in a hot pink bathing suit with a purple snorkel, blue face mask, and two oversized blue flippers. Chaperone prepares for duty, I wrote, and included a second photo of Ree’s suitcase overflowing with the approximately five hundred things she believed she needed for a four-night hotel stay.

Wayne didn’t write back. So I cleared the inboxes of my cell phone, purged my AOL account, and prepared for four days of family vacation.

My husband will never hurt me, I thought I guess right up until that moment, I didn’t realize how much both of us were living a lie.