A Summer Affair (21 page)
Thx!
Claire
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Sent: March 28, 2008, 7:32
A.M.
Subject: Auction item
Dear Claire,
I have the fullest confidence that you will create a breathtaking piece for our auction. The sentiments of the committee during our initial meeting are ones that I share: you are an island artistic treasure, and having your masterpiece to auction is a coup for Nantucket’s Children indeed. Dinner with Kristin, although a fabulous idea, might have been an option for us back in October, but by now she has donated away all her time for the next calendar year. I really do think we will have to stay our course with your magnificent piece.
Thx! Isabelle
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Sent: March 28, 2008, 9:12
A.M.
Subject: Auction item
What about the G5?
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Sent: March 28, 2008, 9:13
A.M.
Subject: Auction item
What about it?
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Sent: March 28, 2008, 9:35
A.M.
Subject: Auction item
The round-trip flight anywhere? The cocktail party onboard? I thought that was the best idea of all! Is it still available?
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Sent: March 28, 2008, 9:37
A.M.
Subject: Auction item
No.
Claire should abandon it, declare it beyond her reach. They still had four months until the gala. They should certainly be able to come up with another option. Claire was positive that Isabelle was insisting on the chandelier as a means of revenge. The damn thing would sap Claire’s energy and steal her time, and then,
then,
to cap it all off, no one would bid on it except for Lock, and Claire would look like—indeed,
be
—a failure. Abandon it! It was giving her one bad day after another. Her frustration with the chandelier was creeping into the rest of her life. She was late for pickup two days in a row, and she missed most of J.D.’s first Little League game.
Some part of Claire felt she deserved the torment the chandelier was causing her. She deserved it because she was a liar and a cheater. She was having an affair with Lock Dixon.
She wondered if, after a certain amount of time passed, the intensity of her feelings for Lock would fade. Would the sparkle wear off? Would he seem familiar? Would she begin to notice the twenty pounds he had to lose, or the shiny bald spot on top of his head, or the words he routinely used to show off (“pernicious,” “occult”)?
No. Every day, every meeting, Lock Dixon seemed more amazing to Claire, more mysterious and unattainable—and therefore desirable—than ever. She was in love with him and it was making her miserable. When she couldn’t be with him, which was nearly all the time, she was a hostage to her longing. She couldn’t enjoy anyone else—not her kids, not Siobhan, not Jason. She counted hours, minutes, she rearranged her schedule, she skipped things, blew them off, so she could spend one more bittersweet hour with Lock.
One night, Claire and Lock sat at the table in the conference room, holding hands. They were naming the things they would do if they were free in the world together.
LOCK:
Play cards.
CLAIRE:
Fly to Spain.
LOCK:
Where in Spain?
CLAIRE:
Ibiza.
LOCK:
Take you shopping. Watch you try on clothes.
CLAIRE:
Eat Big Macs.
LOCK:
Go to the movies.
CLAIRE:
Ride a Ferris wheel.
LOCK:
Climb the Eiffel Tower.
CLAIRE:
Climb Mount Everest. No, scratch that. Too hard.
LOCK:
Go fishing. In Ibiza.
CLAIRE:
Build a campfire, roast marshmallows.
LOCK:
See a concert.
CLAIRE:
Who?
LOCK:
Tough decision. Anyone past or present? Frank Sinatra.
CLAIRE:
Love it. My turn. Share the Sunday paper. You can have the Business section.
LOCK:
Stand in line together at the post office.
CLAIRE:
We could do that now, if you wanted to.
LOCK:
But I would have to be holding you from behind, with my chin resting on top of your head.
CLAIRE:
(fighting back tears):
Oh.
LOCK:
Your turn. What else?
CLAIRE:
Sleep in the same bed. Just once. One night.
They were both quiet after she said that. It was a fun game, and funny, but demoralizing, too. All the things they wanted to do together but couldn’t. The simplest things: stand in line at the post office, share a pew at church, shop for a new watch, pick out a video. As they sat in silence, their hands squeezing, stroking, squeezing again (
Don’t let me go!
), Claire wondered how bad her life would be if she left Jason and married Lock. She wondered this all the time, and the answer was: Bad. Very bad. The kids would hate her, they would side with Jason, their lives would become a mess that even therapy couldn’t straighten out. Claire would lose all her friends, including Siobhan, she would lose her position in the community, and she was certain that Lock, once he was married to her, would become disenchanted.
Still, she wondered. Because it was on nights like these—nights when, instead of frantically making love, they talked and floated around in their fantasies—that Claire didn’t think she could stand it another day. She was in love with the man. She wanted to be with him.
Claire was at Hatch’s, the liquor store, on a Saturday afternoon of cold and driving rain. Jason had the kids at home, and Claire wanted out, just for a few minutes. The weekends were murder, a wasteland of No Lock, of Claire’s trying at home, trying to cook something nice, trying to be engaged in family life.
Want to play Parcheesi, Mom?
Okay, sure, she could do that. It would be fun. They played five games with Zack whimpering and stuffing the colored pegs in his mouth. Jason sat right there alongside them, watching a bowling tournament on TV.
Is there any beer?
he asked.
Claire checked the fridge. They were out of beer. Instead of telling Jason,
Sorry, honey, no,
instead of yelling or taking the moral high ground because she had just spent two hours entertaining the kids while he moldered in their midst, she saw this as her opportunity.
Before he could protest, she snapped up her car keys.
Liquor store,
she said.
Be right back.
She stood in front of the towers of white wine with a bottle of viognier in her hands. Hatch’s was busy, a rabbit warren of activity, wet people buying cigarettes, scratch tickets, snack food, the newspaper, beer, wine, champagne, vodka, gin, scotch, Cuervo Gold, whatever helped them through. The door had a lovely little bell that rang every time someone went in or out. Claire didn’t want to leave the store; she didn’t want to go back to her house. She was a woman in a movie, a character from a Bruce Spring-steen song. She went out for a bottle of expensive French wine and never went back.
“Claire?” a voice said. “Is that you?”
Claire swiveled.
A person in a green raincoat, holding a dripping Burberry umbrella. A woman, familiar, but there was a split second when Claire was stymied. Who? Then the medicine ball to the stomach. Daphne.
“Hi!” Claire said like a maniac.
Daphne took the very same bottle of viognier that Claire held in her hands off the shelf. Claire was suffused with heartache, and then fear, and then heartache again. Daphne was picking up Lock’s wine, or their wine together, wine for an afternoon by the fire, wine for whatever dinner plans they had tonight. Out? In? Which would be better? Which would be worse? Claire shifted her own bottle of viognier behind her back, but this movement must have seemed furtive because it drew Daphne’s attention.
“You drink viognier?” she asked.
All the time,
Claire wanted to say.
It’s my favorite varietal.
But this was out of the question.
Claire gazed at the wine bottle in her hands. “I just picked this up,” she said. “I don’t really know what it is.”
Daphne stared at Claire for a second. Was she suspicious? Would she know that Claire and Lock drank viognier in the office all the time? Or was she simply stunned by Claire’s ignorance?
“How
are
you?” Daphne said. “How’s everything going with the gala planning?”
Trick question? You never knew with Daphne.
“Fine,” Claire said. She sounded very nonchalant to her own ears. Disinterested, even. “Things are falling into place bit by bit.”
“I’m glad for that,” Daphne said. “I finally convinced Lock to get away.”
Claire nodded. What was Daphne talking about? Get away? From her? Or . . . what? Claire was confused, but she kept right on nodding.
Whatever you say, Daphne, you bet!
“We’re going to Tortola a week from Friday,” Daphne said.
“Tortola?”
“It’s one of the British Virgin Islands.”
“Oh, right,” Claire said. “I know what it is. I just didn’t realize . . .” She couldn’t continue.
“We’re going for a week.”
“With Heather?” Claire said. What must her face look like? She was, as far as she could tell, still upright, though her legs were threatening to buckle. The wine was dangling from her hand like a club. “Is it her . . . spring break?”
“We’re going alone,” Daphne said. “Just the two of us. It’s time. We need it. We’ll go see Heather first, for the weekend. Then we’ll fly out of Logan to the Caribbean. We’re staying at this ultrachic new place called—”
“It sounds fabulous,” Claire said, then realized Daphne wasn’t finished. But no matter—Claire was finished.
Finished!
When she got into her car, she would decide if she should cry or vomit, but she couldn’t do either right now.
“I’m surprised Lock didn’t mention it to you,” Daphne said. “He is so anxious to get away, the vacation is all he talks about.”
“Well, with this weather,” Claire said, “who can blame him?”
“Exactly,” Daphne said. “And what about you?” Her nose wrinkled, and Claire wondered if she was about to make another nasty comment about Claire and the shower. Well, if she did, Claire would smack the nose right off her face. Okay, this was bad, a bad thought, a bad series of thoughts, a bad,
bad
situation—facing her lover’s wife in the liquor store, both of them buying the same bottle of wine, Lock’s favorite fucking wine, and then the news of the vacation. Unspeakably bad.
“What
about
me?” Claire asked.
“Are you going away?” Daphne asked. She took a stab. “Disney?”
“No,” Claire said. “Not this year.”
“That’s too bad,” Daphne said. “I suppose it’s hard, with the kids.”