Infidelity Read online

  Tamara held out the brown paper bag in front of him in a final effort to get him on his way. “Do you want me to write your name on the bag?” she asked, grinning.

  “Stop it.”

  “You know you’re just being silly.”

  “It’s different for you. You love your job.”

  This was true, but Tamara was always too quick to mention that he got to lounge around and drink Merlot with writer-types while she worked through spreadsheets into the wee hours. Every time the furnace failed or the porch needed repair, she would sigh noisily and ask Charlie if he was “planning to take on something paid anytime soon.” That meant teaching or ghost writing or something equally insufferable, and Charlie obliged until the bills were paid up.

  Charlie dreaded the writer-in-residence position because he despised young people, with their dreams and aspirations and smooth cheeks like baby’s asses. Their youth and vigour and sexual appetites left him feeling inadequate, impotent, and the notion of being around them enough to teach them anything was horrifying. Even the occasional crush bestowed upon him by a pretty young thing was certainly not enough for him to tolerate things.

  The guilt that accompanied Tamara’s snide remarks only increased when Veronica started to consume Charlie’s thoughts. Despite the fact it had been a few weeks since he had seen her in the back of the room at his reading (since she had promptly run away from him before he could get close enough to smell her, touch her again), he had thoughts about her daily. He tried to burn an image of her into his memory from only those two brief moments. Enough time had passed that he had managed to fictionalize her completely—what she wore, how she spoke, what she did for a living, what she liked to eat, what music she liked, and of course, what she looked like naked. He would watch his wife sleep, gaze at the folds of flesh that came with age and that gathered around her chin and under her arms, and he would promise himself he would try to put Ronnie out of his thoughts, that he would not see her again, that his life was good and Ronnie would only cause problems. He promised himself it would go no further than his fingertips on the inside of her thigh at a crowded Christmas party.

  The feel of the inside of that thigh had been something he had most certainly memorized. It was enough fodder to allow him to pleasure himself in the shower behind a locked door.

  He reminded himself that he loved Tamara over and over again, while they ate meals together or went to parties together. Their life together was largely good, much better than most imagined, thanks to the struggle that was Noah’s unpredictable mental state.

  It was good. It was good enough.

  And he would be good in return.

  Tamara fixed the collar on Charlie’s jacket and again kissed him softly on the mouth. “Now go. You’re going to be late.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you at dinner. Are we still having those godawful friends of yours over?”

  “Indeed we are. Oh, and Charlie?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “I’m really proud of you. You know that, don’t you?”

  Yes, Charlie knew that. But he was no longer sure that it mattered.

  Noah had recently begun writing numbers on the backs of things with a blue ballpoint pen.

  It had started with paper—receipts, coupons, five-dollar bills that he would find on countertops and in drawers.

  The numbers always seemed random, pointless, meaningless. The doctor told Tamara and Charlie to expect randomness in his behaviour, that it was nothing to worry about. It was normal, or rather normal for abnormal.

  They allowed it because, although annoying, it seemed relatively harmless. They allowed it because the doctors told them repeatedly, “You should go to the place where he lives instead of expecting him to come to you.” Come to normal. The numbers, the organization, it seemed to settle him down. Scrawling numbers on everything prevented him from screaming. Seemed to solidify his need for order.

  His debilitating need for order.

  Charlie would come home and Amanda would apologize profusely.

  “He wrote on your books today, Mr. Stern. The ones in your office. I’m sorry, but I know you asked me not to stop him,” she said, exhausted.

  “It’s all right. I understand.”

  “He could only really reach the first three shelves, so I moved as many as I could. I tried to pick out the more valuable ones.”

  Charlie noted when he went to survey the damage that Amanda had not moved any of the books he himself had written, multiple copies of poetry collections littering the floor with Noah’s childish scrawl all over them.

  Over time the numbers got higher.

  What started as one- and two-digit numbers written on the back of takeout menus and Canadian Tire money grew into four- and five-digit numbers written on the bottoms of mugs and the undersides of tables.

  One day Charlie came home to find that Noah had written 387 on the back of the television with a Wite-Out pen he’d found in Tamara’s desk drawer.

  Then it was 586 on the cushion of the recliner in marker.

  Around this time Tamara stopped inviting guests over. Although she was generally calm and flexible, given years of dealing with Charlie’s neurosis, she was quite proud of domestic order and her ability to keep house. She loved Noah, but his ongoing defacing of their belongings was a source of embarrassment that caused her to move her monthly book club meeting elsewhere.

  “Maybe we should put plastic on the furniture,” she said to Charlie one night over dinner.

  “Don’t be absurd,” he replied.

  “I’m only looking for solutions. It’s not absurd to want to find a solution.”

  “This is the way it is. We have to learn to accept it.” Charlie enjoyed being the rational one for once, while Tamara gazed mournfully at their pristine beige microfibre sectional.

  Another time Charlie awoke from a nap in front of the television to Noah carefully scrawling 869 on his thigh with a Sharpie.

  From there it just got worse, and soon they discovered what he was actually doing was some mysterious form of cataloguing.

  Their fat, aging, orange cat Mille sported a collar with the number 1227. The garage door opener became 1376. Charlie paid for meals with bills numbered 1456 and 1457.

  It simply couldn’t be stopped. When Charlie pulled the pen from Noah’s hands he screamed and pounded his fists with such violence it was terrifying. Charlie no longer had the energy to care that his home was being defaced, no longer cared about the questions and stares of potential dinner guests.

  The doctor always said it would pass, like all his other phases, and that he would move on, but on a Monday afternoon Charlie came home from the university to find that Noah had begun the elaborate task of putting everything in the house in chronological order.

  Again Amanda was exhausted and apologetic, panting at the doorway with hair dishevelled, her eyeliner smeared onto her temple.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Stern, I couldn’t stop him. He just got so upset—”

  “It’s okay, Amanda. I know whatever it is it’s not your fault.”

  Sometimes it amazed Charlie that Amanda had not yet quit. He was constantly impressed with her resilience and tolerance, both of Noah and himself.

  Charlie hung his coat on a hook in the hallway and braced himself for what he would see inside. Amanda readied herself for his reaction, placing her hand over her mouth as if to muffle a cry.

  Sitting there, among spoons and empty plastic bottles, Tamara’s suit jacket and the toaster oven, Noah looked up at Charlie and pointed to a small, clear space on the floor of the living room.

  A space between the ficus plant, 868, and the vacuum, 870.

  “Daddy. 869.”

  ( CHAPTER TEN )

  RONNIE

  I hate mangoes. Mostly because they’re all work and no pay off.

  Aaron has that kin
d of patience and I have none. I watch him cut it open in the most economical way possible—peeling so perfectly that no piece of flesh is spared. It’s methodical, with no sensuality in an easily sensual act. No rebellious sticky sweetness dripping the length of his arm, no juice licked from fingertips. Just evenly carved segments lined up on a plate, his hands scrubbed antiseptically clean of any evidence of the endeavour.

  That piece of fruit could be a metaphor for all of it; he peels it, cautiously, carefully, and I eat it. Consume it. He does all the work and I enjoy the results.

  I have never been the kind of girl to invest, never wanted to take the time. I always want it quickly, and now. Fuck hardboiled eggs, fuck soufflés, fuck five-year terms and two-year leases,—sometimes even fuck microwave burritos.

  I’m the kind of girl who wants to reach my hand into a cereal box and shove a fistful of Shreddies into my mouth. I never really understood what was wrong with that. Sometimes you just want to shove a fistful of Shreddies into your mouth and have no one give you shit about it, especially not the person who eats in your kitchen and sleeps in your bed and walks your dog. The same person who knows how to patiently peel a mango, and balance a chequebook, and what prime is right now.

  Aaron and I will be stuck in traffic in our twenty-year-old Volvo station wagon and I’ll be singing along with the radio, eating potato chips, like we’re on a road trip, when really we’re just going to his mom’s house for roast beef, then he’ll change the station to catch the traffic report and tell me not to get chip crumbs on the upholstery.

  He does all the work and I eat cereal straight from the box, drink milk from the carton, and steal that last slice of mango.

  He cleans up all my messes.

  ( CHAPTER ELEVEN )

  At four in the afternoon on a Wednesday in the third week of January, Charlie was in a meeting with a nineteen-year-old undergrad about her 400-page opus on the transience of love. Nineteen-year-old undergrads were always writing novels about love, and Charlie was always forced to talk to them about it. Forced to lie and say he would show his agent. Forced to tell them they had “so much promise” and that they should “keep writing,” even though he thought they should look into other career choices.

  This particular undergrad was pretty—unkempt and unshowered, and perhaps slightly high, but certainly pretty—and he was willing to suffer through her endless ramblings on Neruda and Winterson to fulfill the office hour requirement of his residence. If he was honest, the office made him feel powerful, less like the stuttering, clumsy fool he believed himself to be, and more like the charming writer he hoped people saw.

  He had just managed to tune this particular student out while inserting the requisite uh-huhs and yeses, when there was a knock at his office door. Without rising from his chair, he called out an invitation to come in and watched the heavy wooden door slowly creak open.

  Ronnie’s flushed face appeared from behind it. Her hair was damp, and a heavy wool coat was pulled up to her chin. Charlie rose to his feet and maintained his composure.

  “Hi Mr.—Charlie.”

  “Mr. Charlie?”

  The nineteen-year-old undergrad shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Charlie was quite certain if he could get close enough to her she would have smelled incapable of using the residence coin laundry.

  “Shannon, I’m sorry we’ll have to cut this short today as my next appointment has just shown up,” he said, gesturing toward Ronnie, who smiled in acknowledgement of his lie. “I’m very pleased with how your edits are coming along. You’ll be close to publication soon.”

  Shannon, despite being stoned, knew the woman at the door was too old to be Charlie’s next appointment. She started giggling.

  “Thanks—Mr. Charlie,” she finally said, smiling coyly—as coyly as a girl with dirty hair could smile.

  She collected her belongings haphazardly, a pile of removed sweaters and various bags that she hung from her available limbs, and shuffled like a bag lady out the door. Ronnie moved out of her way but avoided eye contact as she closed the door behind her.

  “Close to publication? Wow,” Ronnie remarked genuinely, sitting in the chair that the undergrad had vacated.

  “Not a chance. I always say that. It just means I get to spend less time with them.”

  “How awful.”

  “More awful than destroying their dreams?”

  “I suppose not.”

  Ronnie crossed and then uncrossed her legs, scanning the room slowly. Books were piled haphazardly on every available surface, pushed up against walls, lying open face down on his desk. The room had the smell of damp paper.

  “Your office. It’s nice,” she said.

  “You’re being kind.”

  “No. It’s homey.”

  “Well I’ve been trying to keep it tidy. Just in case.”

  He was charming. Not bumbling. He was making Ronnie smile. A smile that didn’t come from a place of mockery.

  “Are all these books yours?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you read them all?”

  “Most of them, yes.”

  “I don’t read that much,” she said, blushing.

  “Reading’s overrated.”

  She shifted her weight and absently picked up a collection of Auden’s poetry from his desk and flipped through it.

  “Well Miss Kline, it took you a while to get here,” Charlie said, changing the subject.

  “A month, yes. I’ve been busy.”

  “Busy not reading?” he laughed.

  “Just busy.”

  This was actually not true. She had certainly not been busy, and she had actually been to his office much earlier than that but felt foolish when she learned that he had not moved in yet. A hairdresser was not aware that the university was still closed for the holiday break. She didn’t mention this to Charlie, hoping that the distance between the party date and now would make her seem desirably casual about the visit. Desirable in general.

  “I take it you got my letter?”

  “No, I just followed the smell of desperation.”

  “Cute. And did you bring the schnapps?”

  “Yes, indeed I did. And two bologna sandwiches just in case you were hungry. I figured you’d like them given that mustard stain on your shirt the night of the party.”

  “Very observant of you. Maybe you’ve got writer in you somewhere.”

  “Doubtful.” Ronnie laughed nervously, returning the Auden to his desk to reach into her bag. She retrieved a silver flask and a plastic-wrapped kaiser roll, passing them both across his desk. It struck Charlie that a bologna sandwich was the perfect thing for a girl like Ronnie to bring. He felt comfortable, like she wasn’t intimidating him. He was buoyed with confidence.

  “Did you enjoy the reading the other night?” The words struck Ronnie suddenly, and she felt her stomach burn and knot with embarrassment.

  “What reading?”

  “My reading that you came to and ran away from before saying hello?”

  “Oh, that reading,” she said, trying to be casual. “I didn’t really understand it but you seemed like you knew what you were talking about.”

  Charlie laughed as he unscrewed the cap of the flask. He took a swig, grimacing when the syrupy sweetness hit his lips.

  “Honey, I never know what I’m talking about. God, how can you drink this?” He eyed the flask suspiciously. “Who’s Aaron?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Aaron. The flask. Engraved,” he said, holding it up and toward her. “Sweet Rons, all my love, Aaron.”

  “You know full well who Aaron is,” Ronnie said combatively. “You sent mail to his business address.”

  “Business address? You mean your apartment where the two of you live together, right?”

  “How do you know that?”

 
“It’s not hard to get people to tell me things, Ronnie.”

  “Speaking of people telling me things, how’s your sick child, Charlie?”

  “I told you he’s not sick. He has autism.”

  “I hear that takes a lot of work. You must be a devoted parent.”

  The accusations hung in the air. They’d transformed the conversation from playful to combative in mere seconds, gotten off to a bad start, despite the schnapps and sandwiches.

  “Okay. Glad we got that out of the way. You’re married with a special needs kid, and I’m living with someone. Yet, I still came to your office, didn’t I?”

  “Just because people have the things in their lives that they’re supposed to want doesn’t mean that they’re happy, despite what other people may think,” Charlie said, punctuating his convoluted wisdom with another swig from the flask engraved with Aaron’s name.

  “Sounds like you’re already drunk.”

  “No, but I’d welcome it.”

  Charlie took another swing and then put a framed picture of his family face down on his cluttered desk with no attempt to hide the gesture from Ronnie.

  “Are we going to have an affair?” he asked her nonchalantly, unwrapping his sandwich and then licking the leaking mustard from his fingers.

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “A relatively simple one; are we going to have an affair?”