‘I just had the most fantastically awful date, and you have to have a drink with me.’ Snowflakes gathered in the dark waves of her hair, her sweet scattering of freckles glowed, her cheeks were bright pink, as if someone had double-slapped her. She has this great voice, this fuzzy-duckling voice, that starts out ridiculously cute and ends up completely sexy. ‘Please, Nick, I’ve got to get that bad-date taste out of my mouth.’
I remember us laughing, and thinking what a relief it was to be with a woman and hear her laugh. She was wearing jeans and a cashmere V-neck; she is one of those girls who look better in jeans than a dress. Her face, her body, is casual in the best way. I assumed my position behind the bar, and she slid onto a bar stool, her eyes assessing all the liquor bottles behind me.
‘Whaddya want, lady?’
‘Surprise me,’ she said.
‘Boo,’ I said, the word leaving my lips kiss-puckered.
‘Now surprise me with a drink.’ She leaned forward so her cleavage was leveraged against the bar, her breasts pushed upward. She wore a pendant on a thin gold chain; the pendant slid between her breasts down under her sweater. Don’t be that guy, I thought. The guy who pants over where the pendant ends.
‘What flavor you feel like?’ I asked.
‘Whatever you give me, I’ll like.’
It was that line that caught me, the simplicity of it. The idea that I could do something and it would make a woman happy, and it would be easy. Whatever you give me, I’ll like. I felt an overwhelming wave of relief. And then I knew I didn’t love Amy anymore.
I don’t love my wife anymore, I thought, turning to grab two tumblers. Not even a little bit. I am wiped clean of love, I am spotless. I made my favorite drink: Christmas Morning, hot coffee and cold peppermint schnapps. I had one with her, and when she shivered and laughed – that big whoop of a laugh – I poured us another round. We drank together an hour past closing time, and I mentioned the word wife three times, because I was looking at Andie and picturing taking her clothes off. A warning for her, the least I could do: I have a wife. Do with that what you will.
She sat in front of me, her chin in her hands, smiling up at me.
‘Walk me home?’ she said. She’d mentioned before how close she lived to downtown, how she needed to stop by The Bar some night and say hello, and did she mention how close she lived to The Bar? My mind had been primed: Many times I’d mentally strolled the few blocks toward the bland brick apartments where she lived. So when I suddenly was out the door, walking her home, it didn’t seem unusual at all – there wasn’t that warning bell that told me: This is unusual, this is not what we do.
I walked her home, against the wind, snow flying everywhere, helping her rewrap her red knitted scarf once, twice, and on the third time, I was tucking her in properly and our faces were close, and her cheeks were a merry holiday-sledding pink, and it was the kind of thing that could never have happened in another hundred nights, but that night it was possible. The conversation, the booze, the storm, the scarf.
We grabbed each other at the same time, me pushing her up against a tree for better leverage, the spindly branches dumping a pile of snow on us, a stunning, comical moment that only made me more insistent on touching her, touching everything at once, one hand up inside her sweater, the other between her legs. And her letting me.
She pulled back from me, her teeth chattering. ‘Come up with me.’
I paused.
‘Come up with me,’ she said again. ‘I want to be with you.’
The sex wasn’t that great, not the first time. We were two bodies used to different rhythms, never quite getting the hang of each other, and it had been so long since I’d been inside a woman, I came first, quickly, and kept moving, thirty crucial seconds as I began wilting inside her, just long enough to get her taken care of before I went entirely slack.
So it was nice but disappointing, anticlimactic, the way girls must feel when they give up their virginity: That was what all the fuss was about? But I liked how she wrapped herself around me, and I liked that she was as soft as I’d imagined. New skin. Young, I thought disgracefully, picturing Amy and her constant lotioning, sitting in bed and slapping away at herself angrily.
I went into Andie’s bathroom, took a piss, looked at myself in the mirror, and made myself say it: You are a cheater. You have failed one of the most basic male tests. You are not a good man. And when that didn’t bother me, I thought: You’re really not a good man.
The horrifying thing was, if the sex had been outrageously mind-blowing, that might have been my sole indiscretion. But it was only decent, and now I was a cheater, and I couldn’t ruin my record of fidelity on something merely average. So I knew there would be a next. I didn’t promise myself never again. And then the next was very, very good, and the next after that was great. Soon Andie became a physical counterpoint to all things Amy. She laughed with me and made me laugh, she didn’t immediately contradict me or second-guess me. She never scowled at me. She was easy. It was all so fucking easy. And I thought: Love makes you want to be a better man – right, right. But maybe love, real love, also gives you permission to just be the man you are.
I was going to tell Amy. I knew it had to happen. I continued not to tell Amy, for months and months. And then more months. Most of it was cowardice. I couldn’t bear to have the conversation, to have to explain myself. I couldn’t imagine having to discuss the divorce with Rand and Marybeth, as they certainly would insert themselves into the fray. But part of it, in truth, was my strong streak of pragmatism – it was almost grotesque, how practical (self-serving?) I could be. I hadn’t asked Amy for a divorce, in part, because Amy’s money had financed The Bar. She basically owned it, she would certainly take it back. And I couldn’t bear to look at my twin trying to be brave as she lost another couple years of her life. So I let myself drift on in the miserable situation, assuming that at some point Amy would take charge, Amy would demand a divorce, and then I would get to be the good guy.
This desire – to escape the situation without blame – was despicable. The more despicable I became, the more I craved Andie, who knew that I wasn’t as bad as I seemed, if my story were published in the paper for strangers to read. Amy will divorce you, I kept thinking. She can’t let it linger on much longer. But as spring faded away and summer came, then fall, then winter, and I became a cheating man of all seasons – a cheat with a pleasantly impatient mistress – it became clear that something would have to be done.
‘I mean, I love you, Nick,’ Andie said, here, surreally, on my sister’s sofa. ‘No matter what happens. I don’t really know what else to say, I feel pretty …’ She threw her hands up. ‘Stupid.’
‘Don’t feel stupid,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what to say either. There’s nothing to say.’
‘You can say that you love me no matter what happens.’
I thought: I can’t say that out loud anymore. I’d said it once or twice, a spitty mumble against her neck, homesick for something. But the words were out there, and so was a lot more. I thought then of the trail we’d left, our busy, semi-hidden love affair that I hadn’t worried enough about. If her building had a security camera, I was on it. I’d bought a disposable phone just for her calls, but those voice mails and texts went to her very permanent cell. I’d written her a dirty valentine that I could already see splashed across the news, me rhyming besot with twat. And more: Andie was twenty-three. I assumed my words, voice, even photos of me were captured on various electronica. I’d flipped through the photos on her phone one night, jealous, possessive, curious, and seen plenty of shots of an ex or two smiling proudly in her bed, and I assumed at one point I’d join the club – I kind of wanted to join the club – and for some reason that hadn’t worried me, even though it could be downloaded and sent to a million people in the space of a vengeful second.
‘This is an extremely weird situation, Andie. I just need you to be patient.’
She pulled back from me. ‘You can’t say you love me, no matter what happens?’
‘I love you, Andie. I do.’ I held her eyes. Saying I love you was dangerous right now, but so was not saying it.
‘Fuck me, then,’ she whispered. She began tugging at my belt.
‘We have to be real careful right now. I … It’s a bad, bad place for me if the police find out about us. It looks beyond bad.’
‘That’s what you’re worried about?’
‘I’m a man with a missing wife and a secret … girlfriend. Yeah, it looks bad. It looks criminal.’
‘That makes it sound sleazy.’ Her breasts were still out.
‘People don’t know us, Andie. They will think it’s sleazy.’
‘God, it’s like some bad noir movie.’
I smiled. I’d introduced Andie to noir – to Bogart and The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, all the classics. It was one of the things I liked best about us, that I could show her things.
‘Why don’t we just tell the police?’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t that be better—’
‘No. Andie, don’t even think about it. No.’
‘They’re going to find out—’
‘Why? Why would they? Have you told anyone about us, sweetheart?’
She gave me a twitchy look. I felt bad: This was not how she thought the night would go. She had been excited to see me, she had been imagining a lusty reunion, physical reassurance, and I was busy covering my ass.
‘Sweetheart, I’m sorry, I just need to know,’ I said.
‘Not by name.’
‘What do you mean, not by name?’
‘I mean,’ she said, pulling up her dress finally, ‘my friends, my mom, they know I’m seeing someone, but not by name.’
‘And not by any kind of description, right?’ I said it more urgently than I wanted to, feeling like I was holding up a collapsing ceiling. ‘Two people know about this, Andie. You and me. If you help me, if you love me, it will just be us knowing, and then the police will never find out.’
She traced a finger along my jawline. ‘And what if – if they never find Amy?’
‘You and I, Andie, we’ll be together no matter what happens. But only if we’re careful. If we’re not careful, it’s possible – It looks bad enough that I could go to prison.’
‘Maybe she ran off with someone,’ she said, leaning her cheek against my shoulder. ‘Maybe—’
I could feel her girl-brain buzzing, turning Amy’s disappearance into a frothy, scandalous romance, ignoring any reality that didn’t suit the narrative.
‘She didn’t run off. It’s much more serious than that.’ I put a finger under her chin so she looked at me. ‘Andie? I need you to take this very seriously, okay?’
‘Of course I’m taking it seriously. But I need to be able to talk to you more often. To see you. I’m freaking out, Nick.’
‘We just need to sit tight for now.’ I gripped both her shoulders so she had to look at me. ‘My wife is missing, Andie.’
‘But you don’t even—’
I knew what she was about to say – you don’t even love her – but she was smart enough to stop.
She put her arms around me. ‘Look, I don’t want to fight. I know you care about Amy, and I know you must be really worried. I am too. I know you are under … I can’t imagine the pressure. So I’m fine keeping an even lower profile than I did before, if that’s possible. But remember, this affects me, too. I need to hear from you. Once a day. Just call when you can, even if it’s only for a few seconds, so I can hear your voice. Once a day, Nick. Every single day. I’ll go crazy otherwise. I’ll go crazy.’
She smiled at me, whispered, ‘Now kiss me.’
I kissed her very softly.
‘I love you,’ she said, and I kissed her neck and mumbled my reply. We sat in silence, the TV flickering.
I let my eyes close. Now kiss me, who had said that?
I lurched awake just after five a.m. Go was up, I could hear her down the hall, running water in the bathroom. I shook Andie – It’s five a.m., it’s five a.m. – and with promises of love and phone calls, I hustled her toward the door like a shameful one-nighter.
‘Remember, call every day,’ Andie whispered.
I heard the bathroom door open.
‘Every day,’ I said, and ducked behind the door as I opened it and Andie left.
When I turned back around, Go was standing in the living room. Her mouth had dropped open, stunned, but the rest of her body was in full fury: hands on hips, eyebrows V’ed.
‘Nick. You fucking idiot.’