Bird in Hand - Christina Baker Kline [91]
She looked at him for a long moment. “I don’t believe you.”
He shifted uncomfortably.
“This whole marriage has been a lie.”
“No, Alison.”
“Just stop the bullshit,” she said. “How long have you been fucking her?”
“Al—”
“How long?”
He sighed. “We started seeing each other a few months ago. In the winter.”
He could see her calculating the date in her head. “When?”
“Before the holidays.”
“Oh, that’s lovely,” she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm. “Where? Where did you go?”
“The—the first time?”
She made a face.
“A hotel. In Midtown.”
“Where was I? Or was this on your lunch hour?”
“No, it was—it was a Friday. You were visiting Pam Thurgood in upstate New York with the kids.”
“Aah,” she said, nodding slowly, “I remember that weekend. You said you had to work late, right? That was why you couldn’t come.”
“You know,” he said hesitantly, “the actual details are kind of irrelevant.”
“Really,” she said.
“Yeah. I just think … it’s not important what happened when, and all that.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “So how was it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, was she a good fuck?”
“Come on, Alison.”
“What? Is that irrelevant, too? I’m guessing it matters to you.”
“I just—I don’t think we need to be doing this.”
“Ummm.” She nodded, parodying amiability. “Yeah, you’re right. We don’t need to be doing this. You’re fucking my best friend—you say you’re ‘in love with’”—she knifed quote marks in the air with hooked fingers—“my best friend—my best friend—but you’re right, how rude, how impolite of me to ask you anything about it.” She bit down on the words, her voice rising with each syllable until she was practically shouting.
Jesus, she’s going to wake the children. Charlie wanted to stifle her somehow; he had to restrain himself from putting his hand over her mouth or telling her to shut the fuck up. He knew he didn’t deserve to be impatient with her; he had to hear her out, but Christ it was hard. He didn’t want to explain, pick over each detail, sit there and take it as the enormity of it sunk in and she got more and more furious.
“Yeah, that would be crass, wouldn’t it?” she continued. Now she was on her feet. “You fucking asshole! You low-life. You brought two children into the world, and now you’re going to abandon them.”
“No I’m not.”
“Yes you are.”
“I’m not, Alison. I wouldn’t do that.”
“Oh, okay. I see. Is Claire going to move in with us?”
“Alison, please.”
“I have given the best years of my life to you—that fucking cliché, it’s true,” she cried, spitting the words at him. “I devoted myself to you, to this marriage. To being a family.”
“I know, I know,” he said, patting the air with his hands, as if trying to tamp down her emotion. “And you are an amazing wife and mother. This may sound crazy, Alison, but I mean it—this is not about you.”
“Exactly!” she screeched. “This is not about me. It’s never been about me, has it?”
“Alison,” he said miserably.
“Stop saying my name.” She strode out of the room, and for a brief moment Charlie wondered if the conversation was over. Then she came back with a handful of tissues, which she pulled out of her balled fist one after another like a magician with silk scarves. She blew her nose loudly. Tears were streaming down her face. “Does Ben know?”
“I think so.”
“You think so?”
“Yes, he does.”
“How do you know?”
“Because … Claire called me.”
She hiccupped. “When?”
“Today.”
“When today? When you were ‘at work’?”
He nodded.
She shook her head. “I knew you were fucking lying about going to work today,” she sobbed.
“I wasn’t lying. I really had to go in.”
“How convenient, that she knew you ‘had to go in.’”
“She didn’t know. She called my cell phone.”
“Bullshit. Your cell phone was here.”
“Right,” he said, struggling to keep up with her detective work, “so then she sent me an e-mail on the off chance—Jesus, Al, what does it matter?” he said finally. “I wasn’t lying to you