Fuck it. She picked up the phone and punched in Ethan’s number. Voice mail. Imagine that. “Hi,” she said. “It’s me. Susan Ward. Again. Listen. I just got off the phone with Molly and I want you to tell her that I understand. I had an affair”—she caught herself “—or whatever, with my teacher when I was fifteen. And I’ve spent a lot of time justifying it. But you know what, Ethan? It’s not justifiable. It’s just not. So just tell Molly that. She’ll understand. And I won’t call you again.” Who was she kidding? “At least not for a few days.”
She set the phone back down on the table and lifted her computer to her lap. She was on deadline and this story was about Gretchen Lowell. Gretchen, who was very much alive. Gretchen, who made Susan’s teeth hurt. Susan was convinced that if she could get Gretchen down on paper, she could somehow understand Archie and McCallum and the rest of it. She could feel the story, shadowy and amorphous, in the room with her. It just needed to be gathered and shaped. She took a large sip of wine. It was from the Great Writer’s collection, which she had found hidden in the back of his closet under a stack of remaindered hardbacks of his latest novel. Susan told herself he wouldn’t mind. These were special circumstances. The wine was fragrant and leggy and she held it on her tongue, savoring its heat before she swallowed it.
When Susan heard the knock at the door, her first thought was that it might be Bliss. She had called her mother when she got home—Bliss, who was the only person in the world without a cell phone or voice mail. Susan had left a forlorn message on her mother’s answering machine, which only occasionally recorded, and more often played back messages in a weird slow cadence that sent Bliss writhing in hysterics. So when Susan heard the knock, she had a brief fantasy that her mother had heard her message and had dropped everything to rush over to see if she was okay. Susan knew this was an absurd scenario. She had spent so much time when she was growing up taking care of Bliss; yet in her commitment to treating her daughter like an adult, Bliss had rarely taken care of Susan. Besides, Bliss refused to own a car and would have had to take two buses to get to the Pearl. No, Susan decided. It was Ian. She smiled at this idea, allowing herself a heartening smugness that he had, in the end, been unable to resist her feminine wiles. They were powerful, her wiles. Yes. It was most definitely Ian.
He knocked again.
She got up and headed to the door in her socks, pausing to check her reflection in an old gilded mirror she passed on the way. The Great Writer had told her he’d bought it at a flea market in Paris, but she’d seen the same one at Pottery Barn. Gretchen Lowell was right: She was developing a furrow between her eyes. Susan didn’t like the look of it one bit. Was it possible she had aged in the past week? She set her wineglass on the table in front of the mirror and held her thumb flat against the offending wrinkle until her forehead relaxed, and then she pulled at some wisps of pink hair and secured them behind her small ears. There. She put on her most dazzling smile and opened the door. But it wasn’t Ian.
It was Paul Reston.
It had been ten years. He was now in his mid-forties. His light brown hair had thinned and inched back from the temples, and his belly had softened. He looked longer somehow. His back bonier, the folds in his face more pronounced. He had given up the rectangular glasses with the red plastic frames that Susan remembered and now wore wire-rims with oval lenses. It surprised Susan to see that he was not the dashing young teacher she remembered. Had he ever been?
“Paul,” Susan said, taken aback. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s good to see you,” he said. “You look great.” He smiled warmly and opened his arms for a hug, and she stepped forward and he wrapped his arms around her. He smelled like the Cleveland auditorium, like paint and sawdust and oranges. “Paul,” she said into his maroon V-necked sweater. “Seriously.”
He let go of Susan and looked at her, his brown eyes heavy with disappointment. “A police detective came to see me.”
Susan flushed with shame. “I’m so sorry about that,” she said. “I took it back. I told him I made it up. It’s all fine now.”
Paul sighed heavily and walked past her into the apartment, shaking his head. “What were you thinking? Bringing that story up again. You know it could cause me all sorts of trouble at school.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Susan said, trying to reassure him. “There’s nothing he can do if we both deny it.”
Frustration sparked in his eyes. “There’s nothing to deny. Nothing happened, Suzy.” He cupped her face in his hands and looked at her. “It’s the truth.”
Susan stepped back, so that his hands fell away. “Yeah. Nothing happened.”
“You had a rough time as a kid. I get that. But you need to move past this.”
“I have,” Susan insisted. “I will.”
He turned back toward her with an imploring look. “So let me hear you say it.”
“Nothing happened,” Susan repeated in her strongest, most confident voice. “I made it all up.”
Paul nodded a few times, relieved. “You’re a good writer. You have so much potential. You were always so creative.”