Graham thought that the main problem with the All Night Folding Room was that there was no one around to make fun of the All Night Folding Room with. Everyone there seemed to take it very seriously. They were gathered in small clusters around different models, folding intently. A few instructors wandered from group to group, but there was little conversation and no background music, just the rustle and snap of many papers being folded.
Matthew left Graham’s side and went to one of the tables, and the people there greeted him and quickly made space for him. Their manner was so much more welcoming and accepting than the kids’ on the playground at Matthew’s school that Graham’s heart clenched briefly.
He waited until Matthew was settled and then he stepped out of the ballroom and found a quiet corner. He took out his cellphone and Jasper’s number and dialed.
A girl answered, saying, “Jasper’s phone.”
Graham swallowed. “Could I speak to Jasper, please?”
“Sure,” the girl said. “Hang on.”
So there was a girl in Jasper’s life and he let her answer his phone. Both of those were good signs.
“Hello?” It was Jasper now, the same voice as on the message.
“Hello,” Graham said. “You don’t know me but my name is Peter and I’m a friend of Audra’s and she has a message for you.”
“Friend of whose?” Jasper asked. Graham could detect no hesitation.
He sounded open and friendly, honestly confused.
“Audra’s,” Graham said.
“Who’s that?”
“Audra Daltry? Graphic designer?”
“I’m a photographer,” Jasper said. Again, Graham heard that breathless, energetic sound in his voice, as though he were hopping on one foot or putting on his shoes while he talked. “I know dozens of graphic designers.”
“Who is it?” the girl asked in the background.
“Someone calling about a designer,” Jasper said.
“We have to go,” the girl said. Graham wondered where they were going at ten-thirty p.m. But that was young people for you.
“I know,” Jasper said. “You go on out. I’ll be there in a sec. Wait, take my blue— No, right, that one, thanks.”
Graham smiled slightly at their shorthand. Every couple had that. “I’m sorry,” he said, feeling foolish. “I must have the wrong number.”
“No problem,” Jasper said.
“Sorry to have bothered you,” Graham said. “Goodbye.” He could feel his whole body relaxing, relief flowing from the hand that held the phone all the way through him.
“Wait,” Jasper said. “What was the message?”
Graham gripped the phone harder. “What?”
“You said she had a message for me,” Jasper said. “What was it?”
Graham was silent. Most people are uncomfortable with silence and will eventually say something to fill it. He waited to hear what Jasper would say. “Was it—”
But suddenly Graham couldn’t bear to hear any more. “It doesn’t matter,” he said quickly. “Goodbye.” He ended the call.
His heart was thudding and he could barely swallow. It had been a mistake to call. The worst decision possible. If there was anything to know, he didn’t want to know it. He couldn’t bear to know it. His heart would burst under the weight of it. He realized that now.
—
In the morning, Audra was so hungover that Graham sent Matthew down to Clayton’s room to tell him that they would leave an hour later than they’d planned. Audra stayed in bed with the pillow pulled over her head, and Graham sat in a chair and leaned his head carefully against the back of it, taking small sips from a glass of water. He was hungover, too.
Matthew was back five minutes later. “Clayton was in the shower but the girl said she’d tell him.”
“What girl?” Graham asked. “Are you sure you went to the right room?”
Audra sat up on one elbow.
“Yes, I went to the right room,” Matthew said. “Room 471.” Matthew never made mistakes when it came to numbers. “And I did like you said, I knocked and the girl answered and I said that Mommy had had too much wine and needed more time.”
“I didn’t mean for you to say that part—” Graham began and then gave up. He also hadn’t specified not to say that, and Matthew was so literal.
“What girl, Matthew?” Audra asked. “What did she look like?”
“The girl who sat at our table last night,” Matthew said. “With the blond hair and the glasses. Can I go downstairs and look at the models since I’m ready?”
“Sure,” Graham said absently. “Just don’t leave the hotel.”
Matthew left, banging the door behind him, and Graham and Audra stared at each other. Audra was sitting all the way up now, and the strap of her pale yellow nightgown slid down one arm. She always wore pale nightgowns, she said, because men liked it when they could see her nipples through the fabric. (She had told him this on their first date, cheerfully, while she ate a cheeseburger.) Graham could see her nipples now, and he liked it. But the thought of Jasper seeing them and liking them made Graham feel as though an unseen person had suddenly laid a cold hand on his chest, directly over his heart.
“I think it is just unforgivable of Clayton to do that to Pearl,” Audra said. “Especially considering how she wears those itty-bitty paper airplane earrings all the time.”
Graham frowned. “You think wearing paper-airplane earrings is the worst part of being married to Clayton?”
“Sure,” Audra said. “What do you think the worst part is?”
“Well, having to talk to him or have dinner with him or go to bed with him. Just Clayton himself, I guess,” Graham said. “The earrings might be the best part of being married to him.”
“I just hate him now, though,” Audra said. “I can never forgive him for this.”
And Graham thought that someone else might take Audra’s anger at Clayton as proof that she would never have an affair herself, but he knew differently. He knew that adultery was just like any other vice—pride or gluttony or overspending or vanity. It was easy to condemn other people for it, but then you went right out and did it yourself. It was all different when it was you.
—
As they got in the car, Graham thought that he and Matthew and Clayton looked like three of the Seven Ages of Man. Matthew the healthy little boy and he and Clayton the two stooped gray men near the end. He would even put Clayton as the final man, though Graham was probably older by a few years. Clayton’s hangover appeared extreme; he looked dull and shrunken, with none of his usual hyper energy.
“No talking,” Audra said to Matthew as they drove out of the parking lot. “Everyone has a headache.”
“I don’t have a headache,” Matthew said.
“Well, the grown-ups do,” Audra said. “You just sit quietly and think interesting thoughts. You, too, Clayton,” she added quickly, leading Graham to believe Clayton must have opened his mouth in protest.
In less than fifteen minutes, Matthew and Clayton were asleep. Graham saw them in the rearview mirror and turned to smile at Audra, but she was asleep, too, curled sideways in her seat with her feet tucked under her and her face resting against the upholstery. Her eyelashes were dark crescents on her cheeks.
What was the message?
Graham pushed the thought away.
Audra woke up an hour later and stretched. “Can we stop at an Arby’s?”
“Sure.” Graham knew she believed Arby’s to be the perfect hangover cure.