There was no answer from any of them. I turned around with all the dignity I could muster and walked out, leaving them all standing there startled and embarrassed. My mind was spinning. I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know what to say and I didn’t know what to believe. What had I walked in on? How was Adam going to explain this? What did happen? I’d never forget the look on Eve’s face, that was for sure. She looked terrified to see me. But her fright seemed extreme if nothing had really happened between her and Adam. Maybe nothing happened. Maybe something did. But she looked as guilty as hell, and so did Adam. And she wasn’t wearing any underwear under her robe. There was no panty line or bra strap. I was going to get to the bottom of this, and it wasn’t going to be comfortable for anyone.
Adam followed me back to our condo almost immediately. I was standing in the middle of the living room, facing him, when he came in.
“Eliza,” he said, “we have to talk.”
“Really?” I was fuming with anger and devastated simultaneously.
“I know it looked bad back there, but it was nothing.”
“Really? Because, you know, Carl didn’t look too happy either.”
“Just listen to me. I can explain everything.”
“Go right ahead. Explain.”
“Okay, so I got here last night after I went to Lowe’s and picked up some drawer pulls. I remember I popped open a beer and went outside to look at the sunset. And you know this week has been extremely busy for me. I was either in my office at home or on a job site fourteen hours every single day.”
“Maybe you were. Maybe you weren’t.” So, what if he was? It wasn’t like he punched a clock. He worked for himself!
“Come on! Bear with me here for a few minutes. So, while I was outside I noticed that lights were on in Eve and Carl’s place. I wondered who could be there this time of year, so I went over to see. You know, maybe kids broke in and were drinking all the booze or something.”
“Sure.” I knew I sounded sarcastic and I didn’t care.
“Well, it wasn’t kids. Eve was in there watching Love Story, of all the horrible movies ever made in the history of Hollywood.”
“So?” I thought, Now you’re a movie critic?
I noticed tiny beads of perspiration on Adam’s forehead and top lip. Good. Sweat, you son of a bitch.
“Well, I almost gave her a heart attack. She started screaming like I was a burglar or something. And that is the funny part.”
“Uh-huh. So far this is a riot. Am I to believe she was surprised to see you?”
“Yes. She was surprised to see me. That’s why she was screaming.”
“Okay, so?” I knew better. Adam knew Eve was coming because she had probably called him to tell him so. We’d been through this before.
“Well, it turns out she was hysterically crying because she really believed Carl was carrying on with his nurse. She found a bunch of text messages on his phone that must’ve been pretty incriminating. She had left him and didn’t know where to go, so she came here. To think. I mean, it’s not like she was going to go to Cookie and ask for her old bedroom back, right?”
“Why should I care where she goes?” Although that sort of made sense to me. “What else?”
“So, she let me in and we drank a bottle of wine while she cried her eyes out. I just did what any friend would do. I just listened to her. And I told her I didn’t believe Carl was fooling around with his nurse. Which, as it turns out, he wasn’t. You missed that part.”
“That’s all?”
“That about wraps it up,” he said.
“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Adam?”
“God, no.”
“You’re not leaving anything out?”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“Then you want to explain to me why our bed hasn’t been slept in?”
I watched the color drain from his face. Faint, you bastard, I thought. See if I care.
“Shit,” he said. “I was getting to that part.”
“Like hell you were. I don’t believe you for a minute, Adam Stanley.”
“I fell asleep on their sofa.” He said in a mousy little voice that kids use on their teacher when they don’t have their homework.
“You did what?”
“I know. The next thing I knew it was morning and Carl was threatening to kill me, looming over me like a linebacker from the NFL with the front of my shirt all twisted into a knot. Not a nice way to start your day, lemme tell you.”
He was trying to be funny in an effort to lower my thermostat. I was having none of it.
“So, let me understand this. You came here, intending to do some work on the house, which I seem to remember you told me you were going to do. You went outside and saw lights on at their place. You went over to see what was up and after you scared Eve to death, you drank a bottle of wine with her and slept on her couch with her naked under a silk bathrobe. Slept there all night long and nothing happened. And you were surprised she was there in the first place. Oh, and she was crying over Carl. As usual.”
“That’s the whole story. I’m sorry. I know it looks very bad.”
He tried to take me in his arms and I jerked free of him and put my hands on my hips.
“You must really think I’m a total and complete idiot, Adam.”
“I think no such thing,” he said. “But I am telling you the truth.”
“And you fell asleep because you had such a long hard week you couldn’t hold yourself together to get off the couch and walk home, which is twenty-five feet away? It never entered your mind?”
“I actually don’t remember falling asleep, Eliza. True story.”
“I don’t believe that for one minute. How long have we been married?”
“Forever,” he said.
“Sadly, I’ve seen you drunk as a dog, but you always make it to bed. Always.”
“That’s true. I’m not quite sure how it happened. But I’m sorry, Eliza. I really am.”
“I send you here to fix the dripping faucets and this is what you do?”
“I did go to Lowe’s! Look! There are the bags of stuff!”
I looked over at the table and indeed there were bags from Lowe’s. They proved nothing to me except that he had gone shopping as promised, maybe just to have an alibi.
“How could you, Adam? For all these years, the first thing I did every morning until I went to bed at night, was to put you and our boys first. I trusted you with my life! I gave you children. I took care of all of you, cooking and cleaning and listening to you go on and on about anything you wanted to talk about and birthdays and holidays and this is what you do? This is what you do to me?”
“It’s really just an unbelievable coincidence that she was here at all and that it played out this way.”
“Adam. Do you think I have lost my memory?”