By then, it was too late—too late for resolve, too late to ask Chahrazad’s mom her name again…
At the hotel, they shared a bottle of 1996 Krug Clos d’Ambonnay—Karen made a mental note of the vintage so she could tell Troy—toasting their lack of a future as they drank. Then they watched an Animal Planet rerun of a show called Puppy Bowl, in which dogs played football. At some point after that, they fell backward. As their bodies came together, Karen felt as if the two of them were in a giant snow globe with sparkly silver bits swirling all around them, enveloping them in a dizzy dream. For as long as the sky kept falling, they lay safe inside, hidden from view, removed from time and space. “Karen Kipple,” Clay kept whispering as he ran his hands down her, then pushed himself inside her until she couldn’t see straight, couldn’t tell the walls from the ceiling, or the ceiling from the floor. It was only after the last of the sparkly silver bits had settled, and she and Clay lay collapsed on the bed, that reality began to reassert itself. The image of Ruby’s rosy cheeks springing to mind, Karen glanced at the clock on the bedside table, then bolted upright. “Shit—I have to go,” she said, throwing her legs over the side of the bed.
“Why?” said Clay, his lids half closed as he reached out an arm to pull her back.
“Because,” she said, sliding out from under him. She felt as if her mouth were filled with paste.
“Kiss me one more time.”
She kissed him one more time, but her head was already elsewhere. A swirling mix of panic, satiety, shame, and delirium now filled it, propelling her homeward.
In the elevator down to the lobby, Karen closed her eyes and imagined the snow globe splitting and herself falling through the bottom. Down and down and down she fell until she reached the red-hot magma at the earth’s core and was instantly burned into oblivion. But when the elevator doors opened, she found the ground still cold and firm beneath her feet and her flesh unscathed. She hurried through the lobby and exited onto the street, her eyes scanning the curb in search of a taxi. She found one idling in front of an Indian restaurant nearby and climbed in.
Karen arrived home to find Ashley sitting on the sofa watching the Real Housewives of Somewhere-or-Other without the sound. To her surprise and relief, there was no sign of Matt. “Hi! Sorry I’m late,” she said, waving her arms around. “Dinner went on forever.” When had she become such a good liar?
Or maybe she wasn’t as good as she thought. “No problem,” said Ashley, but she was looking at her employer funny. Did Karen look suspiciously disheveled? Or was she projecting? Maybe twenty-year-old Ashley couldn’t have cared less where the geriatric mother of her evening charge had been. When Karen was Ashley’s age, she’d barely noticed the existence of people over forty. They might as well have been furniture, which she also hadn’t noticed. These days, when Karen walked into a room, the first thing she checked out was the decor.
The other difference between Karen at twenty-five and Karen at forty-five was that, in her youthful prime, she’d been dogged by self-consciousness. As a result, sex had felt more like a performance than a source of pleasure. She’d been close to thirty when she’d had her first real orgasm. And it had come as a revelation. But even then, it had seemed apart from her—a thing that happened to her rather than a thing she embodied. It was only now that Karen was in middle age, her hair silvering and the veins protruding behind her knees, that she found herself capable of feeling as if her entire being had been doused with gasoline in preparation for a match. It all seemed backward; wasn’t sex for the young?
After Karen thanked Ashley for her service and sent her home with an extra-large wad of cash commensurate with Karen’s guilt, she went to check on Ruby. She found her daughter lying on her side with her arms wrapped around her stuffed octopus, Octi. Her lips were parted, her lashes fluttering ever so slightly, her cheeks flushed. Lying there, Ruby looked like a picture of innocence. Karen wondered how soon she’d learn the truth about the world—not just about rape, murder, torture, and war, but about the ways in which people who claimed to love each other tore each other apart for no obvious reason. She also wondered if and when Ruby—not just Empriss—would begin writing “realistic fiction” about her fractured family.
Suddenly, Karen couldn’t believe what she’d done or how she could have risked so much for the temporary cessation of an animal urge. Or did Karen and Clay’s connection run deeper than biology? It had certainly felt that way. But then, Karen had never understood the concept of casual sex. It was never casual to her. In any event, Karen was determined to keep her infidelity a secret. After burying her soiled clothes in the bottom of the hamper, she stepped into a scalding shower and attempted to wash away every last trace of Clay. She was toweling off when she heard Matt come through the door. “Hey,” she said, walking out in a robe and half expecting to be condemned on the spot.
But he didn’t even look up. “Hey,” he replied blankly as he went through the mail on the kitchen counter. “How was your dinner?”
“Fine,” she answered. “What have you been up to?”
“Nothing much.”
“Well, I’m going to sleep.”
“Okay,” he said. Apparently, he had no more questions.
As Karen walked out of the room, she realized that Matt suspected nothing. What’s more, it was likely to stay that way unless Clay reached out to him, which seemed unlikely. The burden of her betrayal, she realized, fell on her. Cheating had proved so easy. Keeping it to herself would be the hard part. The desire to confess stood right there, like a meter reader waiting at the front door.