“We’d be delighted.” Gabriel’s voice was strained. “Since we’ll be dining with you this evening, Mr. Norris, I’ll claim my wife for lunch.” He smiled, showing all his gleaming white teeth.
“Darling, can I have a word?” Julia asked. She turned to Katherine and Paul. “We’ll be right back.”
Julia took Gabriel’s hand and led him to a quiet corner of the room.
“I want to have lunch with him.”
“Over my dead body.” Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest.
“He’s an old friend.”
“An old friend who kissed you.”
“That was after you left me. As you may recall, I turned him down.” She crossed her arms, mirroring his posture.
Gabriel scowled. “He wants you.”
“Paul is not someone who would make a pass at a married woman. It’s just lunch. So I’m asking you, please, don’t make a big deal out of this.”
“It is a big deal.”
“I haven’t seen him in a year. I’d like to talk to him and see how he’s doing. Maybe he’s back together with Allison.”
“He’s still in love with you.”
“No, he isn’t.”
Gabriel crowded her, dropping his voice.
“You forget that women who are beautiful, intelligent, and kind are in short supply. A man would do anything to have a woman like you. Including stealing you from your husband.”
Julia squared her shoulders.
“You forget that when a woman finds a good man, a man who loves her and makes her happy, she doesn’t f**k around.”
Gabriel flinched.
He couldn’t help it—his eyes found Christa’s and he watched as she taunted him, looking between himself and Julia smugly.
Gabriel turned back to his wife and uncrossed his arms.
“I’m not happy about this.”
Julia reached up to kiss his cheek. “I can live with that. Thank you.”
Within minutes, Gabriel found himself in the unhappy position of having to watch his wife sit next to the Angelfucker, while he sat on her other side. She and her friend exchanged a few playful words before the session began, and Gabriel resented each and every one of them.
This conference is like a tour through the various levels of Hell, he thought. The only things missing are a respectable Virgil and hordes of people screaming.
It was one thing to suffer the slings and arrows of Miss Peterson. It was quite another to find his wife in the arms of another man. And in the arms of the Angelfucker, of all people.
Gabriel started reciting the prayer of St. Francis in Italian in an effort to calm down.
He knew that he should tell Julia about his confrontation with Christa. But he also knew that it would upset her, potentially ruining her opportunity to appear poised and self-confident in front of the conference attendees. So he kept the distasteful details to himself.
Besides, he had Mr. Norris to worry about.
Paul had been a good and loyal friend to Julia, especially when she’d needed him. But he’d made a play for her, something Gabriel understood but would never forgive.
He wanted to keep Julia as far away from him as possible. But the look on her face when she saw him killed that possibility. She’d had precious little to smile about the day before. Gabriel was not about to kill that look.
He tapped his foot quietly as the first conference speaker began her presentation. He was absolutely oblivious to the distracting noise his handmade Italian shoes were making against the floor until Julia laid a gentle hand on top of his knee.
He took out his Meisterstück 149 and toyed with it, trying in vain to flip it over his fingers in a single motion.
In an effort to distract himself from a paper he swore he’d heard before, he thought back to his very public fight with Julia, when she’d been a student in his seminar. She’d provoked him in front of Paul, Christa, and the rest of the class. He’d been horribly embarrassed and furious. In his rage, he’d even destroyed what had been a very serviceable Ikea chair.
He’d learned a great deal from Julia in the interim, not least of which was the importance of forgiving others and one’s self. But Julia’s pacifist tendencies were too extreme. Without him, or someone like him, she’d been broken and abused.
Gabriel watched her thoughtfully. Perhaps she’d become a pacifist because she’d been abused. Perhaps the bearer of scars was all too aware of the damage that could be done by vicious words and deeds. He pondered that insight for some time, staring at her, until she squirmed.
Julianne was beautiful, with clear skin and large eyes, but she didn’t know it. She didn’t see what others saw, and although she’d made much progress since they’d been together, Gabriel knew that her self-image would always be less than it should be. He knew this and because of it, he was careful to protect her, even from himself.
He certainly wouldn’t let the Angelfucker capitalize on her weaknesses.
Chapter Thirteen
January 2011
Near Essex Junction, Vermont
Paul Norris stepped into a very large pile of cow shit.
“Fuck,” he exclaimed, lifting his boot.
Bessie, one of his father’s prized Holsteins, cast him a baleful look.