Her hair was a perfect white-blonde frame around her heart-shaped face. She wasn’t beautiful precisely—her nose was just the tiniest bit crooked. Her face, in fact, was weak—one of those faces that is pretty only in youth, plump and dewy with health. Once time and gravity got to work, there was no strong scaffolding underneath to fight the sag, the inevitable lines and wrinkles. Her body was nice, soft—muscles not too ripped by countless desperate hours at the gym. But she wasn’t hot—not like boyhood fantasy hot. Few women were, off the pages of a magazine; there were always physical flaws in real life. But Kristi was the kind of girl who knew how to take care of and maximize the gifts nature had bestowed on her, however fleeting they may be.
The other thing he’d liked about her (at first) was that she was perfectly sunny all the time. Merri (contrary to her name) could give Sartre a run for his money—hell is other people and all of that. But Kristi was always bright-eyed, continually looking for the silver lining, the best in people and situations. She relaxed Wolf. She rolled his joint for him and held it to his lips—literally and figuratively. She got on top and rode him until he quivered beneath her, spent and gorgeously exhausted. She giggled when she laughed, light and mellifluous. She liked Hello Kitty. She didn’t mind that he was into porn. In fact, she watched it with him. To his delight, it turned her on.
“Be careful,” his buddy Blake had warned. “Those are the girls who always turn.”
Wolf figured Blake—always the straight arrow all through Regis, at Columbia, now partner at a big law firm, faithful husband, perfect dad to two girls—was maybe just a little jealous. Blake and his wife Claire had been together since high school (she was a Chapin girl whose daddy had founded Blake’s firm), so he had to be at least a little curious, especially since Claire didn’t exactly impress Wolf as the kind of girl that would get wild at all in the bedroom. (Of course, Blake would never talk about anything like that, got all prudish when the topic even came up.)
Though Wolf had to admit that Blake didn’t exactly seem jealous. Pitying would be a better description of his attitude. Anyway, Blake had been right. Wolf should have listened. His lifelong friend was an uncanny judge of character.
Wolf glanced at the clock. It was 2:35 in the afternoon. He had to leave in exactly fifteen minutes to pick up Jackson from school. Last year, Jackson was raging that Merri wouldn’t let him take the subway home. Everybody takes the subway, Mom! You’re turning me into a freak show! Now, the poor kid wouldn’t go anywhere without one of them. He was as fragile a person as Wolf had ever seen. And Wolf would be there on time to get his kid, who needed him. He wasn’t going to let anyone else down. Ever.
“Look, Kris,” he said, trying not to sneak another peek at the clock. “Can’t we talk about this later?”
“Later when?”
She sat on the red felt bar stool, leaning on the quartz countertop. Her face was blotchy and red from crying. She held a tissue, regularly dabbing the corner of each eye in a practiced effort to keep her mascara and eyeliner from running. He moved toward the door, hoping she’d take the hint and follow.
“I have to get Jackson,” he said. “This is not a good time to talk.”
She subtly—almost imperceptibly—rolled her eyes. He was trying not to hate her.
“I need to know when, Wolf,” she said. “It’s been almost a year. I’ve been patient. Most women wouldn’t have waited around this long.”
There was a wide, unbridgeable gully between them. Why didn’t she see it? Did he have to spell it out for her? Maybe he did. He had been sleeping with Kristi for a year and a half. It had started a few months before they lost Abbey and had, in spite of his desire to end it, dragged on after. And the longer he was with her, the less knowable she seemed. The less he wanted to know her. Beneath that well-coiffed, (once) sunshiny exterior—what was really there? What moved her? Inspired her? Frightened her? What did she love? Hate? How many times had he heard her say blandly, “Wow, that’s awesome.” Or, all pouty: “That’s so not-awesome.” Had she ever been truly awed by anything? He didn’t know.
“Your marriage is over,” she said. “It has been for a long time. You said so yourself. I know it’s been hard.”
She bowed her head here. Why did it seem like she was trying to look sad, understanding—like she was acting? “But we need to move forward.”
That she could be sitting here, saying this to him, made him think of Blake.
“Man, that girl is—”
Wolf thought Blake was going to say “hot” or “sweet.” Wolf had kind of sprung Kristi on Blake. Blake was his best friend, and Kristi at the time, in the beginning, was making him so happy; he needed to share it. So he had her pop in just quickly at the Upper East Side bar where Wolf was meeting Blake for a drink.
“Empty,” Blake finished. “She’s completely vacant. No offense, man—you know I love you. But when you have a woman like Merri, and two great kids, why would you do something like this to your family?”
That moment, after which Blake paid the bill and left, had put a real strain on their friendship.