Gordon stayed fit just to spite them. Whenever they came to visit, Gordon would stride into the living room to greet them wearing his sweat suit, with a damp towel around his neck, slurping a repulsive-looking green juice out of a tall clear glass. I’m not going anywhere, he all but shouted.
But whether he was alive or dead, this was the truth: You got to a certain point, wealth-wise, and it was impossible to keep your kids from being rich too. You made decisions when they were young for certain sentimental and tax avoidance reasons, you moved money in your children’s direction during your various acrimonious divorces in order to keep it from your hateful ex-wives, and then when they were forty and hadn’t worked an honest day in their lives, you had only yourself to blame.
Rocco was born early in the morning of March 21, the first day of spring, and while Gordon was not generally one to think in either symbolic or poetic terms, with this he couldn’t help himself. Rocco was a fresh start, a new beginning, a fierce purple crocus pushing up against the winter’s dirty snow.
Gordon just wanted one of his kids not to be a total shit. Was that too much to ask?
The papers. God knew what she’d done with them.
*
“I’ve figured out what you are,” Lucy said to Ben.
“What’s that?”
“You’re the great evener-outer,” said Lucy. “No matter what Owen gets up to during our six months, I’ll have had you, even if we stop this today, even if this is all it is, this will even it out. In my head at least. In our marriage, in my head, I’ll be fine.”
“That is quite a compliment.”
“It is. You should take it as one.”
“What do you think your husband is doing?”
“He’s having sex with a woman who has an orange cat,” said Lucy. “And he may or may not have bought her an air conditioner at Home Depot.”
“Explain, please.”
“Well, it’s possible that the cat lady and the air-conditioner recipient are two different people. I don’t know.”
“Does it bother you?”
“I do my best not to think about it,” said Lucy. “And that, by the way, is one of the strangest things about this whole arrangement. When you stop and think about what your spouse would actually do. For example, I’m doing exactly what I would do, but not what Owen would think I would do.”
“What do you mean, you’re doing what you would do?”
“I mean this,” Lucy said, gesturing big, somehow taking in Ben and the bed and the sex they’d been having with one swoop. “Falling into something that’s delicious and life-affirming and, most important, temporary. You’re like…” Lucy thought for a second, and then it came to her. “You’re like the junior year abroad of marriage.”
“What does that mean?”
“When I went to Barcelona for my junior year, I remember worrying that all of my friends were going to have an amazing time at school and I would be left out when I got back. Instead I had this once-in-a-lifetime experience, truly the time of my life, and when I went back to campus, nothing had changed. Not one thing. It was like an episode of The Twilight Zone.”
“What does your husband think you’re doing?”
“Owen?” said Lucy. “He thinks I’m taking French lessons.”
As she walked down the hallway to the elevator, Lucy called over her shoulder, “Don’t let me fall in love with you.”
“Don’t worry,” said Ben. “That will not happen.”
Lucy pushed the elevator button and looked back at him. He was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, wearing a button-down shirt and boxer briefs. “Because that would be the fly in the ointment,” she called.
“There is no fly here,” Ben said, “only ointment.”
Lucy stepped into the elevator, smiling. The doors started to close, and she heard Ben calling after her.
“Only ointment!”
Lucy had been trying to avoid having any big, private conversations with Sunny Bang for what seemed like forever. It was hard, but so far she’d managed it by canceling on two ladies’ nights at the last minute and pretending to be in a big rush whenever they bumped into each other at the school. Still, Sunny Bang was pretty much everywhere any kids were, and Lucy finally found herself standing next to her at a child’s birthday party, out of earshot of the other mothers, at the indoor bouncy-house place with the MRSA and the bad pizza.
“So,” Sunny said.
“So.”
“How’ve you been?”
“Good. Busy. Things have been crazy.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you ever get in touch with Ben?”
Lucy took a breath and then nodded.
“And?”
“I think maybe it’s best if we don’t talk about it,” said Lucy.
“Okay,” said Sunny Bang.
“Yeah.”
“But you’re not mad at me,” said Sunny.
“Why would I be mad?”
“I just mean, I didn’t steer you wrong or anything.”
“You did not,” Lucy said—and then a smile came over her face, one of those smiles that is lit from within—“steer me wrong.”
“Oh my God, you did it! What the hell? Why didn’t you call me?”
“I think we shouldn’t talk about it, Sunny.”
“You’re right,” said Sunny Bang.
“Let’s pretend it never happened.”
“Okay, but stop smiling. You’re freaking me out.”
“I’m not smiling.”
“You’re smiling with your eyes,” said Sunny Bang. “Stop eye-smiling!”
Lucy didn’t say anything.
“I can’t believe I made this happen,” said Sunny Bang. “Please don’t ruin your perfect life, Lucy. I’ll never forgive myself.”
“No one,” said Lucy, “is ruining anything.”
*
The Campbell Apartment was tucked away upstairs in Grand Central Station, and you had to know where it was to find it. Owen always thought that it struck the perfect note between business and sex. If you walked in at six o’clock on a weeknight, you’d swear that half the people there were going to close a deal and the other half were about to get laid.
“You’re married,” Cassie said.
“I know,” Owen said. “But do you remember that party? That was twelve years ago. And I still think about it.”
“I was drunk. Sometimes I do things like that when I’m drunk. It doesn’t mean I’m going to go fuck somebody else’s husband.”
Owen tiptoed onto delicate ground.
“I don’t usually tell people this, but Lucy and I have sort of an arrangement,” said Owen.
“What are you talking about?”
“We have an arrangement. And not sort of. It’s real. It’s confidential, though. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t repeat it.”
“Are you serious?” said Cassie.
“I am serious. We’re happy, and we love each other, but we’re giving each other a free pass for a few months. Like Amish kids. It’s a rumspringa, but for marriage.”
“Ugh,” said Cassie. “I thought you were one of the good guys.”
“I am one of the good guys,” said Owen. “It was my wife’s idea.”
“There’s no way that’s true.”
“It’s a hundred percent true.”
“So you’re saying you’re allowed to hook up with me. And you want to hook up with me. That’s what this drink is all about.”
“I wanted to see you,” said Owen. “I’ve always liked you. But yes to the other parts too.”
“Interesting,” said Cassie. “Very interesting.”
“It is interesting,” said Owen.
“I’m going to go to the restroom,” said Cassie.