The Quickie

Two

THAT NIGHT, instead of shooting Paul as he came through the front door, I allowed him one chance. I even waited until we were eating dinner to talk about what he'd been up to at lunchtime at the St. Regis Hotel in Midtown.

Maybe there was some logical explanation. I couldn't imagine what it would be, but in the words of a bumper sticker I once saw, Miracles Happen, Too.

"So, Paul," I said as casually as the liquid nitrogen pumping through my veins allowed me. "What did you do for lunch today?"

That got his attention. Even though I had my head down as I nearly sawed through the plate under my food, I felt his head bob up, his eyes lift, as he looked at me.

Then, after an extended guilty pause, he looked back down at his plate.

"Had a sandwich at my desk," he mumbled. "The usual. You know me, Lauren."

Paul lied – right to my face.

My dropped knife banged off my plate like a gong. The darkest paranoid possibilities flooded through me. Crazy stuff that wasn't really like me.

Maybe his job wasn't even real, I thought. Maybe he'd had letterhead made up, and from day one he'd been betraying me when he went downtown every day. How well did I really know his co-workers? Maybe they were actors hired to show up whenever I was planning to come by.

"Why do you ask?" Paul finally said, ever so casually. That hurt. Almost as much as seeing him with the stunning blonde in Manhattan.

Almost.

I don't know how I managed to smile at him, with the cat-five hurricane roaring through me, but somehow I managed to pull the tight muscles of my cheeks upward.

"Just making conversation," I said. "Just talking to my husband over dinner."