Rachel's Folly (6 page)

“What is it? Is it him?” Rachel asked.

“Yes! He says his phone’s been out of service. He’s in Dallas. He’s been super busy but everything is good. He
misses
me.” She held her phone to her chest, closed her eyes and smiled widely.

“So, that’s it? Now you’re fine?”

“Yep.”

“Gee whiz, kid, you’re more whipped than I thought. Don’t you know you’re supposed to play a little hard to get with boys?”

“Oh God, that’s so old school,” she said, walking away from Rachel backwards to keep eye contact. “I gotta go. I was supposed to be at work twenty minutes ago.” Then she turned around and hurried towards the exit.

“What? Get moving then. I’ll see you Thursday and don’t forget what I said about school!” Rachel called out. Sara was already down the aisle, headed towards the sliding doors when she shouted back, “Yeah, okay, bye!”

Rachel sighed heavily. She realized now that Sara was more unstable than she had initially thought. She could easily see this girl making some really bad choices. Rachel shook her head and thought of the famous quote from George Bernard Shaw: “Youth is wasted on the young.”

* * *

By Thursday Rachel had already run over twenty-five miles, more than she usually ran in an entire week. Her legs were so achy, she winced when she climbed stairs, but she needed the long runs like a junkie needed a fix. She knew she was probably pushing herself too hard, but it was the only thing that helped her feel better.

On her way to work, while waiting at a traffic light, she decided to stop procrastinating and go straight to Elena’s condo. She figured it was better to just get it over with. After maneuvering through the downtown morning traffic, she reached Cesar Chavez Street and drove past the condo entrance and into the adjacent short-term parking lot. The condominium was built in the sixties. It was one of the first high-rise residences located in the heart of Austin. One side of the structure faced the State Capitol and downtown skyline. The other side was about three hundred feet from Lady Bird Lake, which ran through the middle of the city. She had run right past the building on Monday while she was on the running trail, but she had been so lost in thought, she hadn’t even noticed. Rachel figured the building had been renovated several times since it was first built. The lobby was decorated in classical style with giant crystal chandeliers, natural wood-paneled walls and hardwood floors. It smelled of rich mahogany. There were big oil paintings in ornate, gold-leaf frames hanging on the walls. Most of the artwork consisted of images of longhorns in bluebonnet fields set in the Texas Hill Country. The mailboxes were located off to the right-hand side of the lobby in a small mailroom with marble floors. Rachel went in, searched for the right mailbox and opened it. It was stuffed with letters and junk mail. There were also notes from the management indicating that Elena had packages in the store room. Rachel grabbed the mail and went to the front area to look for the store room. She looked around for someone to ask, but there was nobody in sight. She waited for a few minutes and when no one appeared, decided to forget it and just go upstairs.

She walked into an open elevator, pressed twelve, and for the first time, realized that Elena’s condo was just one floor under the penthouse. The elevator was excruciatingly slow. She stood there impatiently, watching the lights above the doors illuminate as the elevator passed each floor at a snail’s pace. She thought about how empty the building felt, like the hotel from
The Shining
.

Dr. Wilkinson had bought the condo with a colleague in the early eighties as an investment property. His partner sold him his half five years later and Dr. Wilkinson decided to keep it as a second residence, although he never used it. He let Elena move there when she started working at the community clinic a few years ago. But now the condo belonged to Elena and Jack, a wedding present from her father.

When Rachel finally reached the twelfth floor, she walked down the vacant hall and used the key to unlock the door.

It was an updated two-bedroom, two-bath unit with high ceilings and nine-foot, glass wraparound windows. The windows that faced north had a long balcony and a spectacular view of the city skyline. The kitchen had been recently remodeled with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. There was a ceiling-mounted pot rack full of expensive pans hanging over the kitchen island. The condo had wall-to-wall carpet in a light cream color. The only rooms that weren’t carpeted were the kitchen, bathrooms and utility room which had antique, white porcelain tile. The entire wall in the living area was lined with white, built-in bookshelves, packed full with all types of books: biology, medicine, travel, gardening, Mexican poetry.

Rachel walked into the kitchen and placed the mail on the countertop. A picture frame sitting on the counter caught her eye. It was a picture of Elena and Jack. She picked it up and examined it. She recognized the furniture and blue marlin hanging in the background, and knew that the picture had been taken at Dr. Wilkinson’s beach house. Both Elena and Jack were looking directly at the camera, wearing wide, happy smiles. From the angle of the shot, Rachel could tell Jack had taken the picture himself. He was so handsome. She sighed and put the picture back on the countertop. The familiar uneasy feeling of guilt started to stir inside her. The red letter on her face, which she had tried so hard to shake, was emerging again. She suddenly wondered if she would take the secret with her to her grave. Her heart grew heavy. She tried to brush the unpleasant thoughts away and decided to get busy. She would water the plants and get out of there as quickly as possible.

She went to the utility room to fetch the watering can and then back to the kitchen to fill it up. She walked out onto the front balcony to tend to the plumerias, which were in full bloom and smelled like a cross between jasmine and a peach. There were three of them. Rachel remembered when Elena bought them, on a trip they took to Hawaii nearly ten years ago. They were merely leafless stem tips back then, not more than six or seven inches long, about three dollars each. Now, they stood over three feet high. Next to the plumerias, a large, healthy, bushy green fern hung from a hook above. There was no denying that Elena had a very green thumb. When Rachel finished on the balcony, she went back into the condo and watered the one indoor plant by the window in the dining area. She was careful not to let water leak onto the carpet and looked around to make sure there wasn’t another plant she had missed.

It was then that it dawned on her that very little had changed since her last visit to the condo a few months ago. If she hadn’t known that Jack had moved in, she would have guessed Elena was still living there by herself. There was no sign of Jack’s presence at all, none of his pictures, furniture, clothing or anything of his lying around. This, coupled with the fact he had no family and hardly any friends at the wedding, was unsettling to her. She tried to recall if Elena had told her where Jack was from and exactly what he did for a living. Elena had mentioned he worked from home a lot, but Rachel couldn’t remember much more than that. Did he say he worked with computers? She knew he wasn’t from Austin, but she had no idea where he grew up or went to school. She remembered what Ben said, that there was something about Jack being an odd fit. Maybe he was right.

She went back to the kitchen to empty the watering can and was just about ready to go when she suddenly remembered the small balcony on the east side of the condo. It was situated in the back, next to the utility room. It was so small and inconspicuous that it could easily be missed. She wasn’t quite sure why it had been built in the first place, since it opened to the back of the building and really had no view. It looked out towards the parking garage and past that, in the distance, I-35. She figured it was possible there was a partial view of the lake at one time, but nothing of that remained now that thick trees had grown in front of it. Down below, there was only concrete and two industrial-sized dumpsters. She slid open the glass door and didn’t see any plants, but in the corner, there was a small, wooden chair next to a large, black, ceramic plant holder. There were several crushed cigarette butts in the hard, dry dirt inside it.
Jack smokes,
she thought,
and he probably spends a lot of time out here.
She turned around and walked back inside, closing the balcony door behind her. She looked at her watch and realized it was getting late, so she quickly went to get her purse and left for work.

* * *

Several weeks passed. Rachel was getting on with her life as best she could by filling her days with as much activity as possible: running, working, yoga, volunteering at Jacob’s school. She even painted Jacob’s room and cleaned out the garage, anything to keep her mind busy. There were long stretches when she barely thought about Jack, the incident becoming ever more distant, like a piece of driftwood caught in the waves, being taken out deeper into the sea. Each day would take it further and further away. She would start to feel like herself again, and then, out of nowhere a dream, or a blouse Elena gave her would bring him instantly back into her mind. She still couldn’t understand how she could have been so thoughtless, so reckless. She’d spend whole afternoons imagining Jacob as a teenager trying to explain to his friends why his parents got divorced. “My mother slept with her best friend’s fiancé in our living room.” She shuddered and tried to shake away the thought.

* * *

It was now late July and dreadfully hot and humid. There had recently been a stretch of four consecutive days with temperatures over one hundred degrees, and a heat index of over one hundred ten. The elderly were asked to stay indoors; people were reminded not to stay outside for extended periods of time and to make sure their pets had plenty of shade and water.

Rachel would wake up earlier on these summer days. She was now running an average of forty-five miles per week. She had gained considerable muscle mass in her legs, which felt stronger than ever, but she had also lost weight in her upper body and face. Her cheeks were hollowing out, chiseling her face to look older and hardened. She was working more hours, seeing more clients. She was still making progress with Sara. Although Sara was still dating James, she had agreed to go to a meeting with her parents at her high school and they were looking into what needed to be done so she could start classes again in the fall. She was living with her grandmother, which was actually working out better for all parties.

One morning Rachel was at her office with a new client, Lisa Garza. Lisa came to see her because she was having an affair with her coworker. They had been seeing each other for about six weeks and would sneak off to his car during the workday. They would drive around on their lunch hour until they found a secluded area to park and proceed to fog up the windows like “sex-crazed teenagers.” Lisa told Rachel she was embarrassed to reveal these things to her but she desperately needed to confide in someone and get some sound advice.

Rachel was careful when handing out advice. Whenever possible, she preferred to help people work through their own feelings and guide them to make their own decisions, recognizing that most people knew exactly what they should do about their problems. The answer was usually painfully obvious, but never easy to accept.

Rachel studied Lisa while she talked and came to the conclusion that she was probably in her mid-thirties. She glanced at Lisa’s tight-fitting blouse and slightly exposed cleavage. She found her to be an attractive, voluptuous woman, the type of woman that was probably used to getting men’s attention. Rachel sat up straight and crossed her legs, suddenly feeling self-conscious of her own body, which she had always thought of as rather boyish.

“So, how do you feel about your husband?” Rachel asked in a relaxed voice, trying to keep her mind on their conversation.

“He’s a good man. The boys adore him. He’s a great father, and it kills me, because I know they’ll want to live with him if we end up getting divorced.” She sounded remorseful, but then she got defensive. “But there’s just no passion in our marriage anymore. We’ve been more like buddies than lovers for years now. Other than our sons, we have absolutely nothing in common.”

“What about marriage counseling?”

“Oh, we’re way past that.” Lisa shifted her full-figured body uncomfortably in her chair. “Look, I know what you’re getting at and this all must sound so ridiculous, but I’m not here to talk about my husband.” She fidgeted in her seat again and tossed back her dark red hair over one shoulder. “Do you think Keith is ever going to leave his wife? I mean, I get that she’s recovering from breast cancer, but he never wants to talk about the future. Every time I bring it up, he says we should just live in the moment.”

“And how does that make you feel?” Rachel looked at Lisa expectantly, knowing this question would probably provoke her to open up about her expectations for the affair.

As Lisa went on venting her frustrations, Rachel thought about how differently she would have felt about Lisa’s dilemma a few months ago. Although she had always tried to remain neutral during her sessions, sometimes during her clients’ confessions about infidelity, she couldn’t help but feel a little irritated. She saw quite a few women, usually in their late thirties or early forties, having incredibly risky affairs, most of which did not end well. The reasons for their infidelity ranged, but most were just feeling stuck in their marriages, looking for excitement in their lives. But now sitting there listening to Lisa, Rachel felt uncomfortable. She used to tell her clients that their thoughts drove their behavior. They were, literally, whatever they thought about. She suggested they only needed to stop thinking about the person and eventually their feelings would go away. But now, she knew just how daunting that task really was. She couldn’t get Jack out of her head, and she knew better. She considered herself happily married, so her previous beliefs about why women cheated were now muddled. She thought maybe the true reason why some people cheat might be so buried inside, it would take years to uncover. Or maybe, just maybe, there was no reason at all.