The Secret Lives of Married Women (14 page)

As Abel went on, a bleak story emerged: of a struggling mother in a house she’d gotten dirt-cheap because so much was wrong with it. A house that kept flooding, kept failing her. “She needed to replace the roof, put in a new septic tank and field...I mean, we’re talking about tens of thousands of dollars. I’ve given her money before, lots of times, but it humiliates her to take it. And I knew that this time it would all but kill her, because I told her not to buy that house.

“So when I heard Roscoe’s miraculous rates, I couldn’t help thinking of her,” Abel continued. “I asked whether Apex did any residential work, and when Roscoe said yes, I wanted to know what it would cost to rehab her house on the side. Of course, even this was sheer idiocy—someone in my position doesn’t use the same vendor for public and private work. But what did me in was my response to what he said next.

“He basically told me:
Hey look, you give us the big job, and not only will I give you a great deal on your sister’s house, but if you want, I can bury those charges in the Navy Yard invoice.”
Abel exhaled sharply. “So—do you follow? The Navy Yard project’s a multi-million-dollar tab. An extra thirty or forty thousand wouldn’t even be noticeable. I figured the city would pay it without looking twice. And so, God help me, I took him up on this offer.”

“Ah,” I said, quietly.

“You have to understand—dangling this kind of carrot is absolutely standard in the industry. All contractors offer you this stuff off the back of the truck. But as someone entrusted with public capital, I can’t afford to reach for any of it, ever. And I never have before. I’ve returned
Christmas
bottles of
champagne
from corporate vendors, for Christ’s sake. It was a one-time, disastrous lapse of judgment.”

“You know,” I said, half to myself, “I’m surprised the D.A. is going after this full throttle. Of course what you did was wrong, but as you’ve said, this kind of thing goes on every minute. Why now, why you? Does Kamin just want to make an example of someone? Even if that’s his motive, I find you an unlikely choice.”

“Kamin’s planning a mayoral run next year,” Abel said. “My guess is there’s an understanding that Bonney will fill his campaign coffer one way or another. Aboveboard or under the table.”

We sat in silence for a moment.

“If what you’ve said is true,” I said slowly, “if a cop had a hand in setting you up, then an entrapment defense is one potential strategy.”

“Avoiding prison is my main goal,” Abel said. “If an entrapment defense would accomplish that, then I’m all for it. That won’t restore my reputation, of course, but I suppose there’s no hope of that anyway.”

“No,” I agreed. “But by explaining your sister’s situation, we can tell a sympathetic and somewhat mitigating story. The fact is that you did what most people would do. We can’t make it right, but we can make it understandable.”

* * *

Now, in the tavern, I asked Nan, “How did you come to live at the convent?”

“It’s one of those stories you hear about but don’t think are real: as a baby, I was left on the doorstep of a Carmelite convent.”

Oh,
come on,
I wanted to howl. Who was this preposterous woman? It was possible that everything she was telling me was a lie. As she herself had suggested, it was even possible that she was mentally ill. Nonetheless, I managed to keep my tone neutral. “Aren’t the Carmelites a reclusive order?”

“Yes, they are. But the fold includes several externs who see to the day-to-day business of running the convent. They live in a separate annex and they’re the ones who take care of the orphans.”

“All right,” I said. My soup had gone cold, and now I pushed the bowl away. “So how did you come to know Braille?”

“I taught it to myself,” she answered.

“Just for Abel?” It was an inane question. She’d already told me she had never before known anyone who was blind.

“Yes, of course.”

“Did he ask you to learn it?”

“No, he never did,” she said. “I just thought I should.”

* * *

My initial meeting with Abel took place late on a Friday afternoon. He was my last appointment of the day and snow was falling when I left the office afterward.

I was troubled about a tense exchange I’d had with the receptionist on my way out. The phones were quiet as I passed her desk and she was reading a book. Beneath the title on the cover
—The Prince’s Captive
—was a woman with windswept hair in the embrace of a bare-chested man, and I felt an ancient irritation flare within me.

“Penny,” I said. “Outside the workplace, your choice of reading material is of course your own. But when you’re here, you are representing this firm, and
that...
”—I pointed at her book— “...is not appropriate for the office.”

My partner Dana walked by us and out the door, with a slight wave and a glance I couldn’t read. But when I joined her at the elevator bank, she gave me a dubious look. “Really, Lil,” she said. “She’s the receptionist. Who cares if she reads a bodice-ripper during the slow hours? What do you want her to look at, a law journal?”

“Dana, I’ve worked hard to build a serious practice. First impressions are important. I’ll be damned if clients walk into this firm and the first thing they see is trash like that.”

Dana sighed. She was used to me. “Anyway, have a good weekend,” she said, squeezing my shoulder at the building exit.

Once on the street, I thought about walking four blocks out of my way to the nearest gourmet market for brie and a bottle of Chardonnay. That was the kind of thing I did when Darren and I were first married. But by now, I tended to see such efforts as a contrivance. A way of trying to make our life look the way I thought it should: the power couple with the hot marriage.

For years now, whenever we resolved to have a romantic evening—breaking out the wine and building a fire in the fireplace—it felt as if we were just going through the motions so that we could congratulate ourselves afterward. Because, really, I was thinking about my work and he was thinking about his.

A counselor once told us to make a ritual of connecting when we got home from work. And we tried to heed this advice. He’d make himself ask about my day and I’d do the same, but we were like two diligent students completing an assignment. It was a relief when we let it go.

Tonight Darren was already on his way out as I was coming in. He was putting on his coat when I walked through the door.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“I told you I was seeing Reg tonight.” Reg was his college roommate who occasionally came to town on business.

“You did not.”

“Yes, Lil. I did.”

“Well, how late are you going to be?”

“I really don’t know. I think he and Tina are going through a rough time, maybe even looking at divorce. He might want to talk for a while. So don’t wait up.”

This was a joke. I never waited up for Darren.

“All right, but that means we have to do it now.”

“Do what now?”

“I don’t know why I ever expect you to know, since you can’t be bothered to glance at the ovulation calendar, but it’s that time.”

“Oh come on, Lil. I told him I’d see him in twenty minutes.”

“Well, tell him you’ll see him in twenty-five.”

I kicked off my shoes, moved down the hall to the bedroom, stripped off my skirt and stockings and lay back on the bed. He appeared in the doorway.

“Listen, I was seriously just on my way out.”

“This doesn’t have to take long.”

“Christ,” Darren said. He threw his coat on the bed and stripped from the waist down. “I resent the hell out of this, all right? Just so you know. I feel like a fucking stud horse.”

“Yeah, it’s so tough having a wife who demands sex. You know, a lot of guys would be happy to have this problem,” I said.

“And I might be happy too, if I thought you weren’t just in it for the jizz. If the whole thing weren’t all business.”

He sat on the edge of the bed, using his hand to work himself up.

“Look, if you weren’t in a rush, I wouldn’t be like this. I just don’t want to make you later than necessary.”

Darren didn’t answer. He had achieved an erection and he wordlessly mounted me. Despite my urgency, I myself wasn’t ready and it hurt, but I gritted my teeth and resolved to ignore the pain.

In. Out. In. Out. What an overrated activity. After several long minutes, I actually looked at my watch. What if after all this, he couldn’t get off? That happened once in a while. “Darren, are you...are you close?” I asked.

“Can you get on your hands and knees?” he asked. It was his favorite position, or one of them. I didn’t like it, or at least, didn’t like the fact that I liked it.

“Missionary works best for conception,” I told him. “Next time we can do it your way.”

I’d almost said “next month,” and while I was glad I hadn’t, it wouldn’t have been inaccurate. We had sex when the calendar demanded, and that was it.

Eight more wordless minutes passed before I got what I wanted, and two minutes after that, he was gone. I stayed in bed, holding the position I’d been advised to try, knees bent, hips thrust skyward, feeling forlorn. The beauty of the snow falling outside the window only sharpened this sadness.

I wondered what to do about dinner. I began to wish I’d bought that bottle of wine, though drinking alone was hardly an uplifting prospect. I thought of calling Leda but ever since she’d had her own baby, it had become harder to take comfort from our conversations. There was a peace in her voice that had never been there before and I wanted to feel glad about that. But all I could feel was a suffocating jealousy. Along with a stung mystification: we were physically identical, or nearly so, so why had Leda conceived within weeks of getting married, while I had been trying for years?

And just then, the phone rang and it was her. This had happened all of our lives. I would think about calling her and the phone would ring. Everyone always said it must be a twin thing, and maybe it was. While I was wavering over whether to answer, the machine picked up and I heard her voice on the recorder.

“Lily, call me, I have some great news—”

She couldn’t possibly be pregnant again yet. Could she? Heart pounding, I snatched the phone from its cradle.

“Leda?”

“Hey! Screening your calls?”

“I just—I was in the other room and I didn’t get to the phone in time.”

She wasn’t pregnant again. (Thank God.) The news was that she and her husband were buying a house in Washington. They would be moving just across the river from their current rental in Portland, Oregon.

“Oh,” I said, relieved and ready to be excited for her. “That’s wonderful, Leda. You know, Darren and I have been talking about seeing his dad in Calgary, and visiting that part of Canada. Maybe we can fly into Portland to help you move and then drive north. This might be what’ll get us in gear to really do it.”

As I proposed this, I felt cheered for the first time since coming home. To me, there was nothing more romantic than a road trip. Maybe that was what Darren and I needed right now.

“Oh, Lily, that would be great. The actual move won’t be for another few months—we didn’t want to break our lease, and the owners agreed to wait till May. Could you come then?”

“I’ll have to check Darren’s schedule, but I think May could work, actually. Maybe around Memorial Day weekend? Of course, we might need to renew our passports. I’ll have to look.”

We talked for a while longer, mostly about the new house, and I felt a surge of the old comfort that, until recently, I’d always taken from hearing her voice.

And then I hung up and went into my husband’s study and opened his file cabinet in search of our passports and that’s when I saw it.

First: a glimpse of an image I registered as illicit before I even knew what I was looking at. A flash of black leather straps crisscrossing a woman’s body—an otherwise naked body. It was in an unmarked folder at the back of the drawer. It was a pornographic DVD.

This was shocking in itself. Darren was well aware of my opposition to porn. In law school, I wrote arguments in support of a federal law banning it from the internet and I’d presented at conferences about the link between the porn industry and human trafficking. Darren had always expressed support for my views. For a moment I thought maybe this DVD had something to do with one of his cases, though there was no legal material in the folder, no correspondence or notes, nothing else at all. Then I lifted it out and the shock of what I saw was like a blow to the throat. I almost dropped the box.

Because the woman on the cover was me.

It wasn’t me, of course. But the amended reality, which asserted itself a moment later, was nearly as impossible to take in. It was Leda.

Her hair was blonde—an obvious dye job—and her eyes were blue, whether from colored contacts or photo retouching, I couldn’t tell. But it was her. The copyright date was 1991, the year Leda was nineteen. (The year
we
were nineteen.) What had I been doing the year she made this movie? I’d had an internship in Boston, at the Exoneration Project, a group dedicated to seeking the reversal of wrongful convictions. Leda never said a word about it to me.

Her real last name was not on the box. The cover read:
Introducing Leda Swann.

I stood there for several moments, holding it gingerly, as if it were a grenade. I didn’t want to know anything more about it; I certainly didn’t want to watch it. I wished I hadn’t found it at all, wished I were the kind of woman who would drop it back into the folder, close the drawer, and find a way to pretend never to have seen it in the first place. But I wasn’t that woman, and no form of clarity—however awful—had ever been worse than my imagination.

I put the disc in the DVD player and sat at the edge of the couch. My knees were pressed together and I was clasping my own arms for warmth, though the apartment was overheated. As the movie played, my chill deepened and at one point I had to pause the video to grab a blanket from the linen closet. I was shivering by the time the credits came onscreen, nearly feverish.