The Affair

from A to Z

Suddenly I envisioned the torture of hammering out a custody agreement and knew I could never divorce him. I may be celibate
and miserable for the rest of my years, but I will not leave Roger. If only I could have it all, a husband and a lover. The
French manage it, don’t they? Or is it only French men? What do I know?

Eddie wants me. That’s all I need. He caught me staring and winked. As I watched him, I realized this guy isn’t even my type.
In retrospect I realize that what attracted me to Eddie was his attraction to me. I saw his desire and suddenly it didn’t
matter what my type was.

’Til next time,

“You’ll absolutely love V—in fact, you’ll wish you were her friend. But since that can’t be arranged, you’ll happily settle
for reading her diary and discovering her most private thoughts and all the outrageous things that happen in her life.”

—Kate White, editor-in-chief,
Cosmopolitan

Copyright

WARNER BOOKS EDITION

Copyright © 2001 by Women.com LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including
information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may
quote brief passages in a review.

Warner Vision is a registered trademark of Warner Books, Inc.

Warner Books, Inc.

Hachette Book Group

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New York, NY 10017

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First eBook Edition: June 2001

ISBN: 978-0-759-52486-6

For Jeff, Adam, and Lisi

And for my parents,

Martha and Donald

This book would not be possible without Jeff Isaac, my husband and biggest fan for two decades, the person who pushed and
prodded and ultimately convinced me that Valerie Ryan deserved her own book. I also want to give special thanks to my delightful
children, Adam and Lisi, who love me even when I appear to be joined at the hip with my iMac.

Kate White is my patron saint, as intuitive as she is adroit, always supportive—a gem.

My agent, Sandy Dijkstra, who must have been my favorite aunt in another life, is tireless and wonderful and exquisitely patient.

Amy Applegate has filled the dual role of dear friend and wise counsel, and I’m grateful that she found her way to our dear
little town.

My editor, Maggie Crawford, is a writer’s dream: smart, enthusiastic, insightful, and always in good cheer. I adore her.

I thank David Salzman for his guidance, and Peggy Northrup at
Redbook
and Judy Coyne at Women.com for their commitment to V, online and everywhere else.

Andy Mallor is the best-dressed attorney I know, and I’m grateful for his help with the legal plotlines. He is brilliant.
Any missteps are strictly my own.

Donna Wilber, Lorraine Rapp, Lisa Kamen, and Alisa Sutor are my personal pom squad, true allies and confidantes, the finest
friends a woman could ask for.

Chelsea, Poe, and Joseph P. Kendicott are perfect exactly the way they are, even if they’ll never read anything I write.

Love and gratitude go to Teresa Coleman, my favorite aunt in this life; Brian Kent and Richard Spitzer, talented and honorable
men; Hy and Sylvia Isaac, who have supported me in every possible way; Carole Holton, a true alchemist and treasure; and Ann
Smith and Vivian Counts, my beacons, my fellow travelers.

I thank Martha Spitzer, who inspires me with her spirit and passion and strength.

And I thank Donald Kent, a fine poet and writer who left us too soon and will always be missed. This one’s for you, Daddy.

Contents

From A to Z

Copyright

Acknowledgments

Begin Reading

About the author

Worked late last night, trying to catch up on paperwork. It’s just me, the Hungarian cleaning ladies, and the guy who waters
the plants. I couldn’t help but notice his arms, thick and hairy (nice hair, not gorilla-man hair), and his torso is a perfect
V. He is sex in a pair of blue jeans.

I realized that he was spending a lot of time around my desk, which didn’t make sense since I only have one sad little ficus.
Then he smiled and said, “Working late again, huh?” He was on one knee, tamping the mulch around the base of the tree. His
fingers were thick and strong. “You ever find time for a little fun?”

A legitimate question, actually. Since my promotion from staff therapist to “senior partner in wellness” here at the Westfield
Center for Mental Wellness, I’ve had little time for anything but thrashing through heaps of paper and going to management
meetings where I get to vote on such critical management questions as Does Filomena Perez in reception deserve a nineteen-dollar-a-week
raise? (Yes.) Should our holiday staff party be catered or a potluck? (Catered. Who the hell has time to cook?) Should we
start a softball team next spring? (God no.) As senior partner I was responsible for generating new “wellness bridges” to
physicians, divorce attorneys, school counselors, and others who were in a position to send new clients our way.

“Nah, you don’t get out much. I can tell.”

Wait a minute. Was this guy trying to pick me up?
My whole body prickled to life. It had been two and a half months since Roger and I had sex, so it wouldn’t take enormous
effort to get me interested. His name was embroidered in neat cursive over his pocket. Eddie. “You have a cute mouth,” he
said.

Flirting! Oh joy! I straightened up and smiled at him. I licked my lips. “Excuse me?” I said disingenuously.

He pointed to my computer. “Your mouse. Cute.”

He was talking about the fuzzy mouse cover I’d bought at Staples. “Oh. Yes. My mouse.” I was mortified. The man leaned across
me to pet the mouse and I could feel the heat radiating off his forearm. “Well, I’d better get the rest of the floor,” he
said. Then he winked.

Roger was in his study when I got home. He didn’t turn around when I walked into the room. It’s been a week since I lightened
my hair and he still hasn’t noticed. I moved closer, bent to straighten some papers on his desk, flipped my hair in his direction.
“Valerie, I’m working on a critical scene. Later, okay?”

I would have slammed the door but my anger was suddenly tempered by simply this: Eddie.

’Til next time,

It took me exactly twelve minutes to get home from work and that’s with “traffic,” a word that we invoke with feigned exasperation
because we know that five cars stuck behind a tractor on Middle Street is nothing compared with rush hour in the Lincoln Tunnel.
In this
midwestern college town, everything is situated twelve minutes away from everything else, regardless of where you are or where
you are going. It takes twelve minutes to get from my house to the health club. Twelve minutes from Pete’s preschool to the
pediatrician’s. Twelve minutes from my office to the Dairy Queen, or the dry cleaner, or the supermarket, or the mall.

This calculus only works if you live in one of the two main residential areas: “in town” or in one of the subdivisions. If
you live in town you can walk to campus, which is why professors covet this pricey neighborhood, and you can buy an older
home made of something real and sturdy like stone or brick, but you only get one full bathroom, and the windows on these homes
don’t close right and all the rooms are drafty and you live in mortal terror that your World War II–era furnace will blow
up on the coldest day of the year.

If you’re willing to live in the suburbs, you can buy, for significantly less than the price of a house in town, a big new
house with a new furnace, five bathrooms, a nice yard, a walk-out basement, a cedar deck off the family room, another cedar
deck off the master bedroom, and windows that close properly. So the good news is, if you live in a subdivision, you can pee
in five different toilets. The bad news is that your house is made of the lumber equivalent of Spam, an unnatural amalgam
of chips and fillers. The houses look stately, but they’re like those propped-up facades at a movie studio theme park. God
forbid we should have a tornado in my neighborhood, these stately Spam houses will be flattened like roadkill.

When I got home, I snarfed down dinner and got Pete in bed for the night. I yanked on that itchy black teddie Roger bought
me four years ago, yet one more
attempt to resuscitate my sex life. I stood near his desk, cleared my throat. He looked up. “Hi, hon,” he said, absently.
He was looking right through me, his mind clearly on his work. Then his eyes focused and he sighed. “Oh. I get it.”

Maybe another woman would have persevered, but I felt too self-conscious to continue. “Forget it,” I told him. “It was a dumb
idea.”

I headed to the kitchen, clicked on the TV, and opened the pantry in search of anything chocolate. I found an orange plastic
pumpkin behind a dusty waffle iron. Pete’s Halloween candy left over from last year. Three Hershey’s Kisses and a roll of
those tart candies kids reluctantly accept when they’d much prefer anything chocolate. I unwound the tiny foil wrappers one
by one and let the candy soften in my mouth. The irony was not lost on me: If I couldn’t have my husband’s kisses, Hershey’s
would have to do.

Three cheers for Roger, I thought bitterly. Mister Playwright. Mister Broadway. It’s been nine years since his play
Basic Black
hit it big. Critics called him a genius. They had great expectations of him. We all did. But Roger hasn’t managed another
hit. He sits at his Mac and stares at the screen. He types. He scratches his stubble. He deletes. He types. Scratches. Deletes.
He did manage to squeeze out a one-act play in the summer of ’94, but it was so bad that some people walked out within the
first fifteen minutes, and there was booing and giggling during the curtain call. Roger went to bed that night and stayed
there for two weeks.