The Girl Next Door (32 page)

Rachael wasn’t sure that she could forgive any of it. Or whether forgiveness was something you could choose to bestow, but she knew Milena was right.

And so she agreed to meet him. Lunchtime, not evening. Neutral territory. A restaurant not too close to either of their offices, as quiet as she could make it. She told her PA she wouldn’t be back in the afternoon. She couldn’t imagine being in any state to go back.

To be fair, David looked terrible, too. She hated the ‘rabbit in the headlights’ look on his face. She wanted to slap him, and at the same time she wanted him to hold her. For so many years, it had been him. He’d been the cure and the antidote and the answer. She couldn’t get used to the idea that he wasn’t that person any more.

They made brittle, polite small talk for the first five minutes. Took brief refuge in the subject of their children. It was surreal.

David took a sip of water. ‘Rachael. I’m sorry. I want to say that to you. That’s what I want you to hear from me most of all.’

‘I’m sure you are.’ Her voice was shrill with sarcasm. She hadn’t meant to begin that way, and under the table she squeezed her fingers into her palms. Don’t be like that.

‘Don’t be like that,’ he implored. ‘Not sorry I got caught. Sorry I ever did anything to hurt you.’

‘What did you do, exactly, David? I think it’s about time I knew what we were talking about, don’t you?’

‘I wanted to tell you straight away, that first night.’

‘I wasn’t ready to listen then. Now I have to be.’

He took a deep breath. ‘Her name is Stephanie. She’s someone at work. I mean, she works for the company – she’s not in my department or anything. I don’t see her from day to day, not in the normal run of things…’ His voice faded away, but Rachael didn’t interject.

‘It started earlier this year.’

‘When?’

‘January.’

She raised her eyebrows. Longer than she’d hoped.

‘It’s all been painfully obvious, I suppose, how much of a fucking idiot I’ve been. The overnights, and off sites in the spring. She never came to the apartment. She never met the children or anything like that.’

‘I never thought for a moment that she might have done.’

‘She didn’t.’ If he wanted credit for that, he could forget it.

‘And the summer?’

He’d been afraid she would ask.

‘Yes, I saw her this summer. When you were away.’

‘Fourth July weekend?’ She was staring down at her cutlery.

He was afraid to lie any more. ‘Yes.’

She sighed. He saw the pain that last one inflicted, in her face.

‘Do you love her?’

‘No.’ His voice was scornful.

She raised an eyebrow at his tone. ‘Do you not love me?’

‘No. I mean, yes. I love you. I still love you. I never stopped loving you. And our children.’

‘Don’t bring our children into it. We’re separate. Not at this moment. I can’t bear to have you talk about them. But you’ve done this to them, as well, you know. Not just to me. To our family.’

‘I know.’

She stared down at the tablecloth, past his head, trying not to cry.

‘Rachael.’ He wanted to touch her hand, but he didn’t dare.

‘So why, David? Why would you do it?’

‘Look – I can’t say anything that’s going to make this okay, can I?’

‘No, you can’t. But I need you to make me understand why. I mean, you must have an answer to that. You were the one who did it. You must know why.’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘No, it isn’t, David. It really isn’t. I thought we were happy. I mean really happy. I’ve lain awake night after night since this happened, going over and over everything. I don’t get it. Weren’t you happy? Were you lying when you said you were?’

‘No.’

Again, he felt the urge to take her hand, but when he reached across the table she flinched from him, and she knocked her glass over. Water spilled all across the tablecloth, and into her lap. She dabbed at herself with her napkin, waving the omnipresent waiter away. David saw that she had tears in her eyes, and she was shaking. She wasn’t wearing her wedding ring, and that alarmed him. There was a narrow white band of flesh on her finger where it had been for all of those years. She’d never taken it off.

It seemed hopeless.

What was she hoping to hear? She didn’t even know. ‘This isn’t going to work. You don’t have anything to tell me. You can’t fix this, can you?’ Rachael stood up.

‘Please don’t go.’

‘I can’t stay.’

‘Stay. Talk to me.’

‘I’ve been talking, David. I’m the only one who’s been talking.’

He threw a $20 bill on the table, and followed her out, feeling the eyes of the waiters and the other diners on him.

Outside, she was trying to hail a cab. It had started to rain.

‘I was stupid to think you could say anything that would make a difference.’

‘What are you saying?’

A cab pulled up across the street, discharging passengers. Rachael ran across in front of the oncoming traffic, and had climbed into the car before he had a chance to catch her. She couldn’t look at him. He wanted to bang on the windows. He wanted to lie across the front of the car so the cabbie couldn’t drive away. He wanted to scream. He did none of those things, and the car sped away as he stood aside, watching his wife disappear.

It was still raining the next day, in the late afternoon, when his secretary brought in a letter that had obviously been sent by courier. It was from Rachael’s lawyer – the one her family had always used. He’d met the guy at his wedding. He’d pumped David’s hand, and wished him luck. He’d uncapped beers for him at the 4th July party in Southampton. Now he was asking for details of David’s own lawyer. Rachael believed it was time, the letter said, to open a dialogue about the terms of a divorce settlement.

David hadn’t seen Stephanie, except at work, since Rachael had found out about the affair. She had tried to speak to him, straight after the weekend, but he’d written a terse, brief email, telling her that Rachael knew about her, and that she must understand he could have nothing more to do with her. He didn’t miss her at all. Sex was the very last thing on his mind, and sex was really all they had had so it didn’t surprise him. He saw her a few days after he sent the email, in a sandwich shop near the office. She was with a co‐worker, several places ahead of him in line. He didn’t stay. But it struck him for the first time how average‐looking she was – how ordinary.

Rachael, by contrast, had never looked so lovely to him as when she walked into the restaurant on the rainy day. He knew people were looking at her. People always looked at Rachael. Her hair, which she battled so valiantly to smooth and tame, refused to comply in wet weather, and tendrils curled around her forehead and ears. It always took him back – that damp hair of hers. Back to the surf that morning a million years ago. Back to her beautiful exhausted head lying back on a pillow in the delivery suite after each of the children had been born. Back to Rachael, fresh from a thousand showers at home, swallowed by a vast terry robe, padding barefoot around the apartment. It took him back. She had looked tired and vulnerable, but her eyes were still huge, made a darker brown by the pallor.

He sat at his desk, facing outwards, to the view up Lexington Avenue, with the letter in his hand, staring out, trying hard, he was surprised to find, not to cry. And wondering just what it was, deep within his psyche, that had led him to this act of extraordinary self‐sabotage.

Jason

Kim had said something strange was going on next door. She hadn’t spoken much about the Schulmans since the 4th July party. They were a hot‐button topic, he supposed – for both of them, in different ways. But he’d raised it, this time. He hadn’t seen David for weeks, and, although it wasn’t unusual for him to take business trips, they were usually brief. Jason couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen him. Or large bundles of his dry cleaning, returned during the day, and hung next to his own on the long rack in the doormen’s cupboard. Or the five of them together, heading off for the park.

Kim said Esme had been talking, down in the basement, to the Schulmans’ maid. Not Milena, who would never be so indiscreet – this was Padma, the girl who came in to clean and do laundry twice a week, and didn’t have the same degree of loyalty to and affection for her employer. They’d been in the basement laundry, apparently, Esme and Padma, folding washing, and Padma had remarked casually that her loads were right down, with Mr Schulman not being around. No damp gym kit, no black and navy socks to match up. Esme had asked where he was and Padma had raised her index finger to her lips, shushing, and shaking her head. Mr Schulman had moved out, she said.

Kim spoke nervously. She wasn’t used to Esme sharing confidences with her – that part of their relationship was very new. She wasn’t sure how Jason would react to the gossiping, either. She concentrated on not sounding excited or salacious about the story. She still remembered the tone of her own voice, that day at the beach. His face as he watched her speak.

‘Moved out? When?’

‘Last month, Esme said.’

‘And so what does that mean?’

Kim shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s permanent.’

‘Have you seen much of Rachael, since the summer?’

‘Hardly anything. You?’

‘No.’

Truth was, Kim didn’t feel excited or salacious. It made her feel a bit sick. If perfect Rachael Schulman’s perfect marriage could fall apart (and why else would David move out?), then hers was far from immune. She was doing what she could, but she wasn’t getting far. Jason was still careful and remote and distant. Panic fluttered deep in her belly. She wondered whether the fear was of being without him, or simply of being alone.

Eve

Eve’s first Halloween was in full swing. She could have had no idea how huge an occasion it was for the city. There was a carnival atmosphere. Stores all up and down Lexington hung lanterns and fake cobwebs, and gave away small packets of sweets. Restaurants dressed up their staff, and offered special ghoulish menus. Everywhere was crowded, although it was pretty cold, and a school night. Children milled about, serious about the business of collecting their loot in plastic buckets. The building next door held a party in the foyer. All the kids on this block, and others around the neigh‐bourhood, went. The residents dressed up, and hung decorations across their wooden panelling. They took it in turns to man the candy buckets. Someone had made a red punch that seemed somehow to smoke, and was filling orange plastic cups with a ladle.

Earlier in the week, there had been a list in the elevator where residents could sign up for trick or treat, with a time slot. Eve had written in ‘7A, 5‐9 p.m.’, and bought party packs of candy at CVS, which she’d tipped into her biggest bowl. By 6 p.m., no one had rung the doorbell and she was curious to go outside, so she left the bowl on the table between their front door and the Piscatellas, and called the elevator. Maria came out. She hadn’t seen her for a couple of weeks, Eve realized. It seemed like that wouldn’t happen, living so close. But it did.

Maria cooed and aahed at ‘the bump’. ‘You’re really showing now, huh?’

Eve nodded and rubbed her stomach proudly. ‘Almost twenty weeks.’

‘You look beautiful. Can I touch it?’

‘Go ahead. You can do whatever you like, if you say I look beautiful. To me, I just look fat.’

Maria laid her two hands reverently on Eve’s belly, letting them rest there for just a moment, as though it was good luck. Maybe it was an Italian thing. Eve didn’t mind. Strangers on the subway – that was something else. The other day she’d had to change carriage to escape the attentions of some nosy woman who asked more questions than the ob/gyn. But Maria was lovely.

‘Nonsense. You modern girls – you’re crazy. You want to put on ten pounds and be back in your skinny jeans a week later. Relax, enjoy. Be a good home for your baby, Eve – that’s all that matters.’ Maria always said the right thing. ‘Me, I was huge, with both of them. I ate pasta every day. Earnest fed me. He wanted big healthy bambini. Got them, too – 9lbs the first, the second almost 10. Still makes my eyes water, thinking of it.’

Eve grimaced – that sounded vast. Maria laughed. ‘Listen, one day for a lifetime. It’s worth it, believe me.’

‘I know.’

‘So you’re taking the little one out for her first Halloween, huh?’

‘Mine, too – we don’t have anything like this in England. We try, a bit, these days, but the effort seems a little pathetic in comparison to all this. The stores have been full of Halloween stuff for weeks now. I want to go and see what it’s all about.’

‘It’s crazy.’ Maria shook her hands above her head. ‘It’ll be easier taking her now, when she’s in there, than when she’s a toddler, believe me. We lost my Bradley one year. My God. There’s a whole street, over on the West Side – closes to traffic, every house decorated – people come from all over the city, to trick or treat there – come early and stay late. It’s a scene, I tell you. We lost him in the crush. Lost him! Can you believe? He was about four years old.’

‘How scary!’

‘You don’t know how scary. It was maybe five minutes, that’s all. I remember I had Ariel in the stroller. I was running one way – Earnest the other. I thought I was going to die. Everyone looked the same. I remember he was wearing a little devil costume. Red cape, horns. There must have been a hundred little devils there that night, all in the exact same get‐up from K Mart. It was like hell.’

‘Where was he?’

‘Sat on the step of one of the brownstones – counting his candy. That’s my Bradley. Has to be organized. He was always that way, from a baby. You never had to yell at him about his homework, nothing. Ariel now – she was a different kettle of fish…’ She laughed at the recollection. ‘Easier now, believe me!’

Kim

Trick or treating was out of the question for Avery, even for this new Kim that she was working so hard on becoming. She hadn’t gone cold turkey on the old Kim, and the old Kim was absolutely not into the whole Halloween thing. Everything about the holiday brought out the old fears and doubts. The evening was fraught with danger, so far as Kim was concerned. It was dark, it was cold out, the streets were too crowded. Regular candy was bad for you. Adulterated candy could be fatal. Every year, didn’t you read dreadful stories about apples with razor blades, and poisons injected into sour gums? In future years, there might be controlled experiences Avery could have – Halloween parties at school, at friends’ houses. She might get over it, and become one of the carefree Halloween mothers surrounding her this year. Until then, they just pretended it wasn’t happening.