Social Lives (43 page)

 

 

 

R
OSALYN WAS DRESSED TO
the nines when Barlow walked in the door. He could smell the perfume, the fine cosmetics, the hair spray. They were subtle, always so subtle, the way the expensive products tended to be, but he knew them like he knew the smell of his own skin, and smelling them had always made him feel he was home. Tonight, he felt like a stranger.

He heard the clicking of the keyboard. She was at the computer, where she had been every second of every day as this damned assembly barreled toward them. Now it was here and she was still more concerned with her precious plans than the myriad catastrophes that filled every corner of this house.

“Still working?” he asked as he poured a glass of scotch.

“Having a drink?” Rosalyn retorted.

Barlow didn't answer. Instead, he asked a question.

“Where is Cait?”

Rosalyn tried to swallow but her throat was dry. “She's upstairs.”

“She's not coming?”

“No.”

Barlow smiled to himself with amusement. After all the work, the
schmoozing and planning and manipulating to make this sex-speaker assembly grander than the damned Oscars, and Cait had won the battle after all.

“What happened? I thought you were going to make her come?” He couldn't help but rub it in her face. Just one time. Just a little.

But Rosalyn was unfazed. “She doesn't want to come. She asked very nicely, the first nice thing she's said to me in months. After the accident and everything . . . just let it go.”

Christ
, there was so much he wanted to say right now, ways he could needle her. She had lost the battle, why couldn't she just admit it? Instead, she was acting as though she could care less, as though not dragging Cait there had all been part of her plan. After the day he'd had, he felt entitled to a little satisfaction, but denying him satisfaction was what his wife seemed to be best at.
Fuck.
He poured another drink.

“What time?” he asked, relenting.

“I'd like to leave the house in fifteen minutes.” She was still typing as she spoke.

“And we're leaving Cait here, by herself?”

Rosalyn typed and typed, then lifted her hands when the printer clicked on. “Marta's here.”

“Marta?” he looked at her, incredulous. “She did a fantastic job last time, didn't she?”

Rosalyn turned to face him. “That's hardly fair. No one could have stopped Cait that night.”

“We'll never know, will we?”

It was a low blow, even for Barlow. Even in the face of his wife's maddening, deafening indifference to the reality that surrounded them. She had planned the trip to West Palm Beach, but he had gone willingly and had been, if he was remembering correctly through the blissful buzz of the alcohol, shamelessly flirting with Sara Livingston the moment his daughter took out two deer and one Corvette, nearly killing herself.

Rosalyn ignored the barb. Instead, she turned her head and watched the letter as it emerged from the printer. Then she signed it and placed it out on the counter next to her desk.

“What's that?” Barlow asked, picking up the sheet of stationery.

“A letter.”

“A letter? You're writing a letter now?”

“Yes.”

Barlow scanned the contents. “You amaze me,” he said. It wasn't a compliment.

“Fifteen minutes,” Rosalyn said as she waited for him to return the letter to the counter.

Barlow looked at his wife. The back of her head, that gorgeous blond hair. The drop-dead burgundy dress, black boots that hugged her calves. He wanted to hold her, kill her, fuck her, something. Just standing there watching her was driving him out of his skin.

He closed his eyes, blocking out the sight of her. Then he left her to her work.

 

 

 

 

 

S
ARA KISSED ANNIE ONE
last time before heading to her room to change. The poor thing was almost asleep by six, having skipped her nap and run around outside for most of the afternoon.

“I stay?” Nanna asked, but Sara shook her head. They'd had a great afternoon together, Sara and her daughter, even with Ernest Barlow's kiss playing in her mind.

“She'll fall asleep. Let her snuggle with her blanket. There's some laundry if you don't mind.”

Nanna shrugged, clearly disapproving, but she obeyed.

Nick was just coming out of the shower. “When do we have to leave?” he asked from behind the door. His voice drifted out with the steam and the smell of his soap.

Sara sat on the bed, just watching, smelling him. And thinking. “We have a few minutes. I'm not even dressed yet.”

Popping his head out, Nick was smiling and drying his hair with a towel. “Are we going to have a fashion crisis?”

Sara tried to join him in his laughter, but she couldn't. She couldn't laugh or smile or do anything at the moment because she had kissed another man, felt attracted to another man, and keeping it quiet was no way
to save a marriage. “Nick,” she said, catching him before he disappeared again.

“Yeah?”

Sara patted the space next to her on the bed. “Come here a sec.”

She could tell by his face that he was considering a come-on of some kind, but her mood trumped his. He walked out slowly, almost afraid to join her.

“What? What is it?”

Sara looked at her bare toes as she dug them into the carpet. How could she do this? He had been wonderful that afternoon, accepting Barlow's “gift,” not threatened or intimidated. He'd let her manage the finances, trusted her when she told him it would work out. He'd done all that and for weeks said nothing about the baby he so desperately wanted.

“I have to tell you something.”

“Okay.” Now he was nervous, but she still couldn't look at him.

“Okay. Here goes.” She felt him sit down beside her, put his arm around her. He had no idea what was coming.

“When Barlow was here this afternoon, when he brought Frank and everything, I was a little emotional. I guess I didn't realize how much all of this has gotten to me.”

She stopped for a moment to give him a chance to respond, but he was quiet. Still, she felt his arm drop from her shoulders to the side of the bed.

“I started to cry and Barlow was comforting me. Oh, shit.” She got up then, standing firmly before him, and said it, just said it. “He kissed me, Nick, and I let him. Right there in our mudroom, with Annie upstairs and the workers here. He kissed me. And I let him.”

She exhaled, letting out a day's worth of guilt and fear and sadness. Then she looked at her husband, who was staring at her with an intensity she had never seen before.

“What?” he asked. “What are you telling me?”

“I don't know. . . .”

“That you love Ernest Barlow? That you're leaving me?”

Sara reached out for his hand, but he moved away quickly, to the other side of the room. “No, no—”

“Has this happened before, in Florida? God, why didn't I see it? You two were so friendly—”

“Nick!” Sara shouted at him to stop his runaway thoughts. “Listen to me! I don't love Barlow. I love you. That's why I'm telling you what happened. Can't you see that? That's why I'm telling you!”

Nick ran his hand across his face, pulling at his skin as though he might somehow erase the past three minutes. He heard what she was saying. She loved him, not Barlow. The old son of a bitch kissed his wife in a moment of vulnerability, and she was so miserable with the life he'd tried to give her that she'd let him, maybe kissed him back, though she wasn't fessing up to that. Not yet. Maybe that was coming. Still, it was about so much more than this one kiss. In her confession, he heard everything they had been avoiding for months.

“Why is this happening to us? Is this because of Wilshire? Is it because I want another baby?”

Sara shook her head as the tears came down. “I don't know. I wish I knew. I've been telling you for months that something is wrong.”

“So it's my fault? I haven't been listening?”

“No. I didn't say that.”

He was pacing now, his face red with anguish, and Sara was powerless to help him. She didn't know how to stop any of this. “We knew this might happen, didn't we?” he said, standing still to look at her.

“What are you talking about?”

“The day we decided what to do about Annie. We hardly knew each other, but we decided anyway because we thought we could do it. Maybe we were wrong.”

Sara walked to where he was standing, but she didn't reach for him, didn't dare touch him for fear he might ignite. “No. It's not about Annie. We did the right thing.”

But Nick was shaking his head, lost now in the memory of their past. “I loved you so much, so fast. And there you were, coming into my life as a package. You and Annie, already three months along. There was no choice for me. It didn't matter whose child she was. I wanted you, I wanted her. Maybe this is my punishment for wanting more.”

Sara buried her head in her hands. How could he think such a thing? How could he think wanting to have a child with her was so wrong? She had never thought for a second that he would love her daughter more if she had
been his. Not for one second. In her mind, he was as much Annie's father as any man could ever be.

She let out a long sigh, then took his face in her hands, drawing his eyes back to hers. “This is not about Annie. Don't ever say that again. I loved you that first night we met, and I never expected you to want me with another man's child. But you did, and you have loved her with your whole heart and soul. This is not about her. It's about me.”

“Then I don't understand. Not even a little.”

“Oh, shit. I don't understand it either. Please, just believe that I love you.”

Nick was shaking his head, studying her face, and she could see that he couldn't believe anything right now.

A voice came from downstairs. It was Nanna. “Miss Sara! You be late!”

Sara looked at the clock on the wall. It was half past seven. Nanna was right. “We have to go,” she said. Then she yelled down the stairs, “We're coming!”

“We're going to go? Now, in the middle of all this?” Nick asked.

But Sara looked at him and said, simply, “It's Rosalyn Barlow.” And though she could tell he wanted to say
Fuck it, fuck the Barlows!
he never would.

“How can we go? How can I look at Barlow?”

“I don't know. But somehow, you will, won't you?”

Yes, he would. They both knew it. He was attached to this life, the one he'd had as a child but not quite. Not fully. The roots were planted, with their marriage and Annie, his job and this house. He wanted it, all of it. And Sara, in spite of her deep ambivalence, would never bring herself to burn it to the ground.

She reached out and touched his face.

“I'll get dressed.”

 

 

 

 

 

T
HE LIGHTS WERE DIMMED
in the auditorium of the Wilshire Academy as Marcia Preston stepped up to the podium. Seated in the third row, Rosalyn caught a glimpse of her husband still standing in the aisle, apparently not wanting to be near her. She had saved a seat for him, and his childish defiance was not amusing her in the least. But nothing could be done about that. Not now anyway.

“Thank you all for coming,” Ms. Preston said, drawing down the chatter that had transferred from the atrium.

Standing on the stage in her customary black, flat shoes and glasses, she seemed almost giddy that the parent body was taking such an interest.

“We are all aware of the issues that brought us here tonight. It's in the news, it's on the Internet. It's in our homes. Like it or not, our children are increasingly exposed to sexual content in their music and films, and of course through millions of Web sites.”