The Ghost (2 page)

By Christmas that year things were noticeably strained between Carole and Charlie. Charlie was having a crisis with a building site in Milan, at the same time that a deal in Tokyo had gone sour, and he was simply never there. And when he was, he was either jet lagged, exhausted, or in rotten spirits. And although he didn't mean to, more often than not, he took it out on Carole when he saw her, which wasn't often. He was constantly flying somewhere to solve a problem. They were the kind of months that always made them both glad they didn't have children. And it made Carole realize yet again how separate their worlds were. They never had time to talk anymore, or be together, or share their feelings. He had his work, and she had hers, and all they had in between were a few nights a month together in the same bed, and a series of parties and dinners they went to. She suddenly wondered what they'd built, what they'd done, what if anything they really shared. Or was it all just an empty illusion? She could no longer easily answer the question as to whether or not she loved him. And through it all, Charlie was so involved in his own work and woes that h-o had not the least inkling that anything unusual had happened. He had no idea Carole had been slipping steadily away from him since the previous summer. He spent New Year's Eve alone in Hong Kong, and Carole spent it at Annabel's with Simon. And Charlie was so involved in his business deals, he forgot to call her.

It all came to a head in February, when Charlie came home from Rome unexpectedly, and found her away for the weekend. She hadn't said anything to him this time, hadn't even claimed to be with friends, and something about the way she looked when she got home on Sunday night gave him a shiver of discomfort. She looked radiant and beautiful and relaxed, and the way she used to look when they stayed in bed and made love all weekend. But who had time for that anymore? They were both busy people. In fact, he said something casual about it to her that night, but he wasn't actually worried. Something deep within him had come alert, but the rest of his mind was still sleeping.

It was Carole who made a clean breast of it, and told him everything eventually. She knew that, at a subconscious level, something had struck a nerve with him and she didn't want to wait for something awful to happen, so she came home from work late one night and told him. He just sat and stared at her, with tears in his eyes, as he listened. She told him all of it, when it began, how long it had gone on, it had been five months by then, with a brief interruption after they got home from Paris, when she had tried to stop seeing Simon, and found she couldn't.

I don't know what else to say, Charlie, except that I think you should know. We can't go on like this forever, she said-softly, the huskiness of her voice making her sound sexier than ever.

What are you planning to do about it? he asked, trying to remind himself to be civilized, that things like this happened sometimes, but all he knew at that point in time was how hurt he was and how much he still loved her. He couldn't believe how acute the pain of having just been told she was sleeping with another man was. The real question was, did she love Simon or was she just having fun? Charlie knew he had to ask her. Are you in love with him? he asked, feeling worlds collide in his head and heart and stomach. What in God's name would he ever do, he asked himself, if she left him? He couldn't even imagine it, and knowing that, he could forgive her anything, and planned to. The one thing he knew was that he didn't want to lose her. But she hesitated for a long, long time before she answered.

I think so, she said. She was always so goddam honest with him. She always had been. That was why she had told him. Even now, she didn't want to lose that. I don't know. When I'm with him, I'm sure of it ' but I love you too ' I always will. There had never been anyone else in her life like Charlie ' nor like Simon. She loved them both in her own way. But she knew she'd have to choose now. They could have gone on like this for a long time, people did, she knew, but she was also well aware that she couldn't. It had happened, now she had to deal with it. And so did Charlie. Simon had already said he wanted to marry her, but she knew she couldn't even think about that until she resolved things with her husband. And Simon said he understood that too, and claimed he was willing to wait forever.

You make it sound like you're leaving me. Charlie had cried just looking at her, and then he'd put his arms around her and they both cried. How could this happen to us? he asked her again and again. It seemed impossible, unthinkable, how could she do that? And yet she had, and something about the way she looked at him told him that she was not ready to let go of Simon. He tried to be reasonable about it, but he had to ask her to stop seeing him. He wanted to go to a marriage counselor with her. He wanted to do anything they had to do to fix it.

Carole tried everything she could to make it work with him. She agreed to go to counseling and even stopped seeing Simon. For all of two weeks. But at the end of it, she was crazed, and she knew she couldn't give him up completely. Whatever had been wrong between Charlie and Carole seemed much worse suddenly, and they were both constantly angry at each other. The fights they'd never had before blossomed like trees in spring, and they fought every time they were together. Charlie was furious at what she'd done, he wanted to kill someone, preferably Simon. And she admitted to how unhappy she was to have been left alone so much, she felt as though they were nothing more than good friends and compatible roommates. Charlie didn't take care of her the way Simon did. She said he was immature, and accused him of being selfish. She complained that when he came home from a trip, he was too tired to even think about her, or talk sometimes, until they went to bed and he wanted to make love to her. But that was his way of establishing contact, he explained, it said more about his feelings than words ever could. But it actually said more about the difference between men and women. Their complaints were suddenly deep and ingrained, and Carole stunned him by telling their marriage counselor that she thought their whole marriage was centered on Charlie, and Simon was the first man she'd ever known who cared about her feelings. Charlie couldh't believe what he was hearing.

She was sleeping with Simon again by then, but she was lying to Charlie about it, and within weeks it all became an impossible tangle of deceit and fights and recriminations. In March, when Charlie flew to Berlin for three days, she packed her things and moved in with Simon. She told Charlie on the phone, and he sat in his hotel room and cried. But she told him she wasn't willing to go on living this way. It was agony for all of them, and just too stressful.

I don't want us to turn into this, she said when she called, crying at her end. I hate what I've become with you. I hate everything I am and do and say. And I'm starting to hate you ' Charlie ' we have to give it up. I just can't do it. Not to mention the fact that she couldn't practice law coherently while trying to juggle this insane situation.

Why not? he had blazed back at her. Honest rage was beginning to take hold of him, and even she knew he had a right to be as angry as he was now. Other marriages survive when one partner has an affair, why can't we? It was a plea for mercy.

There was a long, long silence at her end. Charlie, I don't want to do this anymore, she said finally, and he could hear that she meant it. And that was the end of them. For whatever reason, it was over for her. She had fallen in love with another man, and out of love with him. Maybe there was no reason after all, maybe there was no blame. They were only human after all, with unpredictable, erratic emotions. There was no saying why it had happened. It just had, and whether Charlie liked it or not, Carole had left him for Simon.

In the ensuing months, he ricocheted between despair and rage. He could hardly keep his mind on his work. He stopped seeing his friends. He sat alone in his house sometimes, just thinking of her. He sat in the dark, hungry, tired, still unable to believe what had happened. He kept hoping that the affair with Simon would end, that she would tire of him, that she would decide he was too old for her, too smooth, or maybe even that he was a pompous windbag. He prayed for all of it, but none of it ever happened. She and Simon seemed very happy. He saw photographs of them in newspapers and magazines from time to time, and he hated seeing them. At times he thought the agony of missing her would crush him. The loneliness he felt now was overwhelming. And when he couldn't stand it anymore, he called her. The worst of it was that she always sounded the same. She always sounded so warm and so sensual and so sexy. Sometimes he pretended to himself that she was coming home to him, that she was on a trip, or away for a weekend. But she wasn't. She was gone. Possibly forever.

The house looked uncared for now, and unloved. She had taken all her things. And nothing looked quite the same. Nothing was the same. He felt as though everything he'd ever wanted or been or dreamed had been broken. There was nothing left but shards at his feet, and he had nothing left to care about or believe in.

People in his office noticed it, he looked gray and tired and thin. He was irritable, and argued about everything. He no longer even called their friends, and he declined every invitation they sent him. He was sure that by now everyone was completely swept off their feet by Simon. And besides, he didn't want to hear about them, didn't want to know every little detail about what they did, or have to answer well-meaning questions. And yet, he could never stop himself from reading about diem in the papers. The parties they attended and the weekends they spent in the country. Simon St. James was extremely social. Carole had always liked going to parties, but never as much as they did now. It was an important part of her life with Simon. Charlie tried not to think about it all the time, but it seemed impossible to think about much else.

The summer was torture for him. He knew Simon had a villa in the south of France, because they'd visited him there, between Beaulieu and St.-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. He kept a good-size yacht in the harbor, and Charlie kept thinking of her on it. He had nightmares about it sometimes, terrified that she would drown, and then feeling guilty because he wondered if the nightmares meant that he wished she would drown. He went back to the marriage counselor to talk about it. But there was nothing left to say. By September, Charlie Waterston looked sadly battered, and felt even worse.

Carole had called to say she was fifing for divorce by then, and Charlie hated himself when he asked if she was still living with Simon. Before he even asked the question, he knew the answer, and could too easily envision her face and the tilt of her head as she answered.

You know I am, Charlie, she said sadly. She hated hurting him. She had never wanted to do this to him. It had just happened. That was all. She couldn't help it. But she was happier with Simon than she had ever been. It was a life she had never aspired to, but that she found she loved. They had spent the month pf August at his villa in France, and she was surprised to find that she liked all his friends. And Simon himself was doing absolutely everything he could to please her. He called her the love of his life, and the woman of his dreams, and there was suddenly a vulnerable quality about him, and a gentleness she had never seen. She was deeply in love with him, but she didn't say any of that to Charlie. It only made her realize again how empty their relationship had been. They had been two self-centered people moving along side by side, barely touching, and never meeting. And neither of them had ever realized it. She did now, but she knew that Charlie still didn't see it. All she wanted for him was a happy life, she hoped he would find someone, but it didn't sound as though he was even trying.

Are you going to many him? He always felt as though all the air had been squeezed out of him when he asked her these kinds of questions, and yet, much as he hated himself for doing it, he found he had to.

I don't know, Charlie. We don't talk about it. It was a lie, Simon was desperate to marry her, but that was none of Charlie's business for the moment. It's not important now. We need to sort things out between us first. She had finally forced him to hire a lawyer, but he almost never called him. We need to divide up our things, when you have time. He actually felt nauseous when she said it.

Why don't you just give it another try? he asked, hating himself for the weakness he heard in his own voice, but he loved her so much, the thought of losing her forever nearly killed him. And why did they have to divide up their things ? What did he care about the china and the couch and the linens? He waited her. He wanted everything they'd shared. He wanted their life back, just as it had been. He still hadn't understood any of the things she was saying. What if we had a baby? Somehow he assumed that Simon was too old to even think of it. At sixty-one, having had three wives, and a number of children, he couldn't possibly want to have a baby with her. It was the one thing Charlie could offer her that Simon couldn't.

There was a long silence from her end again, and she closed her eyes as she tried to get up the courage to answer. She didn't want a baby with him. She didn't want a baby with anyone. She never really had. She had her career. And now she had Simon. A baby was the last thing on her mind. She just wanted a divorce so they could get on with their respective lives, and stop hurting each other. It didn't seem like too much to ask of him.

Charlie, it's too late. Don't talk about that now. Neither of us ever wanted a baby.

Maybe we were wrong. Maybe things would have been different now if we had. Maybe that was the cement between us we were lacking.

It would only complicate things. Kids don't keep people together, they just make it harder.

Are you going to have a baby with him? He sounded desperate again. Even he hated the way he sounded when he talked to her. He always wound up as the supplicant, the poor slob begging the beautiful princess to come back to him, and he loathed himself for it. But he didn't know what else to say to her, and he would have done anything if she would just agree to give up Simon and come back.