Slim Chance (17 page)

“It’s frightening how wrong you are, and how sick that reasoning is,” I snapped. “You’re not enlightened, you’re demented. And an amoral bitch, too. You know that?”

She laughed. “I’m so sorry if I’ve offended your delicate sensibilities, Miss Mays. I suppose I was kind of wondering if you were actually considering actually doing it…you know, before it’s too late. And I guess I have my answer.”

Morgan’s tirade did inspire me to go back to the gym. I wanted to test my feelings, to see how strong they really were. I had to trust myself, that was the key. Of course, I would never actually
do
anything with Jade, but some of what Morgan said did make sense. And since playing with fire was something I’d never really done before, I had a right to know what it felt like. That could be empowering, too, without having to go all the way, of course.

Jade’s face lit up when he saw me.

“I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever see you again,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t feel like coming.”

“That doesn’t sound like you, Evie. Everything okay?”

“Bruce and I had a big fight.” I honestly didn’t mean to tell him. It just came out.

“What happened?”

I guess I really needed to vent, because over the next couple of hours, I told him the entire story, sparing no details, from beginning to end. To my growing delight, he nodded sympathetically at all the right places, and even touched my shoulder twice to show support (
Mademoiselle,
March: “10 Ways To Tell if He Likes You”). I didn’t feel guilty, like I thought I would, sharing Bruce’s words with Jade. All I felt was relief.

By the time we were finished, I should have been emotionally and physically exhausted. Instead, I was unbelievably energized.

After I changed and showered, Jade caught up with me at the front door.

“I’m done for the night,” he said. “Getting out early, for once.”

“This is early?”

“Yup—my 8:30 cancelled. She finally went into labor. You walking this way?”

“Yeah,” I said. “So what are you up to tonight?”

“I think I feel like going out. Whaddya say?” he nudged me in the ribs with his elbow.

There was no harm in it, I reasoned. I was really enjoying his company, in a purely non-sexual way. “Sure. Why not,” I smiled. “Bruce is gone for the night, anyway.”

“Again? He sure goes out of town a lot,” Jade said.

“This is the last time. School’s finished next week, and then he’s off until September. Well, sort of. He teaches summer school in the mornings. Can you believe that? Those little geeks go to school in the summer for fun.”

Jade didn’t say anything, and we walked in silence for a minute or two. I was such an idiot—he obviously didn’t want to hear about my fiancé’s summer plans.

“So where do you want to go?” I asked.

“You sure you want to?”

“Yes,”
I said. “It’s no big deal. Just two people with nothing else to do hanging out for a couple of hours. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, if you ask me. But just so you know, it’s not that I don’t have anything else to do tonight. I
want
to be with you.”

Now it was I who said nothing. As long as we were skirting the issue and flirting harmlessly, there was no trouble making conversation. It was when Jade got serious with me that I seemed to freeze up.

He sensed my discomfort. “Umm, let me think…well there’s a quiet little place just around the corner from my house. They make a mean apple martini. How’s that?”

“Sounds perfect,” I said quickly.

We took a cab to the bar, which was probably a really trendy place on the weekends, but since it was Tuesday night, it was pretty dead. We sipped our martinis and made small talk, mostly about our likes and dislikes, favorite movies, stuff like that. It reminded me of when Bruce and I first started dating, and the exhilaration of getting to know each other. Jade seemed gen
uinely interested in everything about me. He even asked me a few questions about my dad, which I skillfully avoided.

“So, did you ever think you’d end up sitting here with me having drinks?” he finally asked.

“You mean when I first saw you? I’d have to say definitely not. I thought you were just a dumb jock who flirted shamelessly to reel in customers.”

He laughed. The bartender looked over and drooled.

“Nobody could accuse you of mincing words, Evie,” he said. “So now what do you think of me?”

“Well, you’re not as dumb as I thought, but you’re an even bigger flirt than I imagined.”

“I think you’re the one who’s flirting,” he grinned.

“Easy, boy,” I said. I hadn’t eaten dinner, and the martini was going to my head in a wonderful way. I had this guy wrapped around my finger. Morgan was right—it was empowering.

“Easy yourself. You want another drink?”

“Sure. Couldn’t hurt. But two’s my limit on a school night.”

I don’t know whether or not it was my subconscious intention to get completely blitzed, but that’s exactly what I did. Maybe it was because I was hungry, and the martinis came with little slivers of apple in them. Or maybe it was because I was just so sick and tired of thinking all the time, and being drunk was like giving my brain a much-needed holiday. Whatever the case, an hour and a half and four drinks later, Jade and I were strolling arm-in-arm down the street. The plan was to walk me to the subway, but we ended up at his front door.

“Don’t ask me if I want to come in,” I sighed. “Because I really don’t.”

“Then I won’t ask you,” he said, turning the key in the lock and leading me up the stairs. “The place is a mess, so you probably wouldn’t want to see it anyway.”

“No, I certainly wouldn’t,” I agreed as I stepped through the doorway. Despite my drunkenness, I was thinking clearly and felt quite wonderful.

“Then you definitely wouldn’t want a tour, then,” he said.

“No thanks.”

“Good,” Jade said as we walked through his apartment. “Because this isn’t the bedroom.”

I looked around the room. It was actually pretty tidy. The bed was made and there were lots of little white candles everywhere. Very unusual for a guy.

“I bet you bring all your clients here,” I said, then added, “This room looks like a set from a bad porno.”

“I told you I don’t do that,” he said as he fluffed the pillows. “And I hate to disappoint you, but you’re the first one.”

“You’re a
virgin?
”

“No! I mean you’re the first woman I’ve ever brought here from work.” He lit a candle beside the bed.

“How many drinks did you have?” I asked him.

“Does it matter?”

“You’re not drunk, are you?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Are you?”

“Of course not.”

“Good,” he said, and sat down on the bed. “Well, as long as you’re in control of your faculties, why don’t you come over here? I want to show you my condom collection.”

“That’s very funny, but I’m fine where I am, thank you.”

“You’re fine wherever you are,” he smiled.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “You think I’m going to fall for that?”

“Yes.”

Jade stood up and walked toward me. The room was spinning, and I knew things were about to get heavy. I exhaled slowly. There was nothing to do but let it all happen.

He grabbed my waist and gently pulled me close to him.

“Evie,” he whispered.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“About what?”

“About this,” he said, and kissed me.

It was a long one, very slow and deliberate. The best kiss I’d ever had. I knew that before it was over. He pulled away and looked into my eyes. My legs were shaking like the floor was made of Jell-O.

“Is this okay?” he asked softly. “If you don’t—”

But it was definitely too late for that. I put my hand on the back of his neck, closed my eyes and kissed him again. It was just as good. Better, even. He tasted like heaven, like vodka and cinnamon gum.

Soon, we were on the bed, then under the sheets. My shirt was on the floor. He fumbled with my bra. I fumbled with his belt buckle.
Evie, Evie, what are you doing?
He let out a little moan. Slowly, the rest of the world disappeared.

It was almost impossibly surreal, like one of those out-of-body experiences you hear about on the talk shows where some old lady’s heart stops beating during surgery and she sees herself lying on the operating table below. Only this time it was happening to me. Most miraculously of all, every time I opened my eyes, Jade was still there. Gorgeous. Breathtakingly gorgeous. And at that moment, he wanted
me,
Evelyn Mays, more than anything else. I knew there was no going back, even if I wanted to. Which I didn’t.

Maybe if that first kiss was bad, I would have stopped right there and ran home to our shabby little apartment in Brooklyn. But it wasn’t, and I didn’t. And as good as that kiss was, the rest was even better.

W
ednesday morning, it didn’t take long for me to reach new heights of self-loathing. Of course, things didn’t start out that way. When I snuck out of Jade’s bedroom, it was with the intention of appearing kind of mysterious and elusive and fabulously noncommittal about the whole thing. Like a guy. Walking down the street, I imagined everyone could tell that I’d just spent the night with the most gorgeous creature in all of New York. Understandably, they were incredibly jealous. But when I got to the subway and opened my purse to get a token, there were my underwear, staring back out. On the train, it was almost as if I could hear them in there, mocking me. By the time I got home, those panties were no longer just the innocently sexy but otherwise innocuous Calvin Klein thong I’d bought on sale at Macy’s only last week. Small though they were, they had somehow taken on tremendous proportions. They were sinister. Evil, almost.

The second I got home, I stripped off my clothes and stuffed them in a plastic bag at the back of my closet. I buried the thong in the trash, and was seriously tempted to throw out everything I was wearing, but the everything in question was a new navy-
blue DKNY suit that looked fabulous on me (
In Style,
May: Seven Sexy Suits for Spring”). Definitely one of my better outfits, and worth salvaging. I vowed to bring it in that afternoon (if anything good came out of the whole Monica Lewinsky thing, it was that cheaters everywhere learned the importance of timely dry-cleaning). I took a very hot shower and collapsed on the bed. I only woke up when Bruce came home.

“Are you okay, Evie?”

“What time is it?” I asked.

“It’s one o’clock.”

“In the morning?”

“In the afternoon. I just got in now. My plane was delayed. Are you sick or something? I called you three times last night, but no one answered.”

I turned over and buried my face in the pillow. It smelled like Bruce. “Yeah, I have a headache.”

“I’ll let you sleep. I’m going in to school, and I’ll probably stay late. I’ll call later to check up on you.”

I didn’t want him to leave. “How was Baltimore?”

“Buffalo. But thanks for asking.” He shut the lights and I fell back asleep.

The phone rang and rang and I drifted in and out of consciousness until I had to pee so badly that I had no choice but to get up. It was almost five and the apartment was sweltering. I checked the machine—there were two messages from Bruce and a nasty one from Pruscilla, who was pretending to sound worried but who was probably really pissed off. I took another shower and went back to bed. But I couldn’t sleep. All I could do was replay the events of last night over and over again in my mind, and wondered if it was really as good as I thought it was. There were fuzzy patches, of course, but for the most part, I think it was an earth-shattering experience. And the real trouble was, the better I remembered it being, the worse I felt.

Bruce came home and ordered a pizza. I pretended to be asleep. He brought me two Tylenol and then went to watch TV.

When my alarm went off, I could barely move, even though I’d slept about twenty of the last twenty-four hours. Bruce had already left for school, and I was all alone again. The thought of going in to work was too much, so I called and left Pruscilla a message saying that I needed a few personal days. Thank God she wasn’t there, or I’m sure she would have given me crap for not calling in yesterday.

I also phoned Morgan before she left for work.

“Morgan, I need you,” I whimpered, and promptly burst into tears.

“Ohmygod, you did it, didn’t you?” She always had a way of knowing.

I nodded into the phone and sobbed.

“Don’t worry, I’m coming over,” she said.

“But…but…you…”

“Calm down, Evie. It’s okay. I’m going to take the morning off. I’ll be there in an hour.”

It only took her forty-five minutes. I must have looked pathetic, because she hugged me as soon as she saw me, and Morgan’s not much of a hugger. “Here,” she said, handing me a bag of bagels. “You need to eat.”

I hadn’t eaten a thing since the apple martinis, and those weren’t much of a meal. By the time the coffee was ready, I’d inhaled two bagels with cream cheese and some pizza from last night.

“So?” Morgan said, when she sensed I was ready.

“Well, I took your advice….”

“Whoa…wait a second. Advice is too strong a word. I was merely presenting an option, one of many.”

“Fine, Morgan. Whatever. I did what you said.”

She sucked in her breath. “I can’t believe you really did it. I
really
didn’t think you would.”

“I’m touched that you’re so impressed. But what I need right now is for you to tell me what to do. I’m just so screwed up, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can’t even think straight. God, I’m such a piece of crap. I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.” I put my head in my hands. “My thong hates me. I don’t know what to do.”

“Evie, it’s okay. I promise. You’re going to be fine. We’ll figure it out…. Except for that thong thing. But I’m sure there’s some sort of medication for that. Now tell me what happened.”

I took a deep breath. “Oh, you know, we went out, got drunk. I guess I didn’t think it was actually going to happen, you know? Like we were just going out as friends. But I didn’t account for how much cuter he got when I was tipsy. I just didn’t think it was possible. And the more I drank, the more impossible he was to resist…and I drank a
lot.
”

“You slut! Did you even enjoy it? Were you so wasted that you can’t remember it?” She was on the edge of her seat.

“I wish! Then I wouldn’t be torturing myself so effectively.” I was sobbing and laughing at the same time. “It was…
fantastic.
”

Morgan’s eyes widened. “Give me details. I need details!”

“I don’t even know where to begin.” I paused for dramatic effect. “That man is like, I don’t know, like a god or something. He was perfect. Everything was perfect. And I was good, too. No—I was great. With him, I was
great.
It was magical. It was passionate.”

She waited for more.

“It was the best I’ve ever had.”

“You’re fucked,” she said decisively.

It wasn’t quite the reaction I’d hoped for. A wave of panic washed over me. “But you said if I gave in to my urges, they’d disappear! That it would be empowering!”

“What—you don’t feel empowered?” she asked. “This type of liberating sexual experience is
exactly
what the feminists had
in mind back in the ’70s. If you don’t like it, or you feel weird or whatever, it’s just because you’re not used to it. But I can assure you that what you’re going through is normal, so there’s no need to get hysterical. You think I wasn’t weirded out the first time I slept with a married man? Or the first time I had a threesome? There’s more to loving than what they told you in church, Evie. Physical, emotional, marital—it’s all sort of the same thing when you see it without the spin. You just got your first glimpse of it, that’s all.”

“I don’t know….”

“Look. If you don’t want to freak yourself out for the next fifty years, just train your mind to sustain the way you felt last night. Something inside you allowed you to go through with it. And it felt good. So how wrong can it be? Knowing that it’s okay,
that’s
what’s empowering. Who knows? The memory might end up being something you treasure forever,” she finished triumphantly.

It was a compelling argument. “I guess,” I said. “Yesterday morning I felt good about it, for a while anyway. But the more I think about it, the worse I feel, because you can’t deny that this would really hurt Bruce.” Understatement of the century. “But with Jade, you’re right—I felt amazing. Not like me, but amazing. The problem is, now that I’m back in the real world again, it’s way different. Like I know it’s wrong, but I also know maybe it isn’t. I can’t stop thinking about him, Morgan. And the more I think about him, the sicker I feel, and the sicker I feel, the more I miss Bruce. I don’t know. It was just so good. But maybe once was enough to get it out of my system. But if Jade were here right now, I don’t know what I’d do. I don’t know how I’d feel.”

“How did you leave it with him?” she asked.

“Well, when I woke up he was still sleeping. I had to throw up, so I went to the bathroom. Have you ever had an apple martini? They’re pretty damn good on the way down. I didn’t feel sick at all until I woke up.”

Morgan stared blankly at the wall. “Once, I told Billy I loved him after five apple martinis…they’re killer.”

No wonder the poor guy was still hanging around.

“Jade was still sleeping when I got back to bed.”

“Did you wake him up and have fabulous morning sex?”

“No, but he looked truly gorgeous, just lying there. I guess I didn’t want to ruin the moment, so I left.”

“You just left? Just like that?”

“I pulled a Morgan!”

“I don’t do that,” she said. “Not to a guy I like.”

“Well, I don’t want him to think that I like him.”

“God, Evie, you’ve evolved into quite the heartbreaker.” Morgan thought
I
was being cold? It was an all-time first.

It occurred to me that on some level, I might have slept with Jade to impress her. Her approval did mean a lot to me. I knew she wouldn’t ever want me to do something that I wasn’t comfortable with, but she also didn’t quite understand that she and I were different in a lot of ways. Very different. Especially when it came to men and relationships. Maybe that was why this whole cheating thing was so hard for me—no matter how much sense she made, and no matter how much I agreed with most of what she had to say on the subject, at least technically, I couldn’t change the fact that I
felt
differently. It wasn’t just about me, like she’d said. It was about me
and
Bruce. I knew at least that. I would never be able to see my infidelity as an intellectual exercise in some deranged form of feminism, the way she could.

Damn it. Why hadn’t I realized this before all this shit happened? There was no sense in blaming her, though. I was the one who’d been so desperate to believe her.

“You know, I did sense that he was more into me than I was into him,” I told her.

“Yeah, right!” she shrieked.

“Why not? You don’t think I have him head over heels? Remember,
he
seduced
me.
”

“And I’m sure that was the biggest challenge of his life,” she laughed, and then let out a big sigh. “Oh, I’ve got to come clean with you…”

“What?”

“You’re probably going to kill me, but I’ve just got to tell you—I saw him! I saw Jade!”

“What are you talking about? When?”

“I couldn’t resist. I was just so curious. So I went to your gym one day when you weren’t there, since I knew you’d never bring me. I have to admit, Evie, he’s much hotter than I imagined. You weren’t lying. And you bagged him…! Oh, I can’t believe it. I just can’t. It’s too much.” She couldn’t stop laughing.

“Thanks a lot.”

“Sorry, but he’s a bit out of your league. He’s out of
my
league, for chrissake.”

“Vain
and
humble, your mother must be so proud….”

“Well, if you’re going to be like that about it, Jade and I are very much in the same league. I was just trying to boost your ego.”

“I think I’ve had enough of an ego boost on this one to last me the rest of my life,” I told her. But now that I knew how good it felt, would that one little taste really be enough to last forever?

“Well that was the whole idea, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe at first…”

“So why did you do it?” she asked.

“I was drunk?”

“No, that’s just
how
it happened. I mean, what were you trying to get from this?”

“Maybe I just wanted some excitement.”

“Maybe.” She didn’t seem convinced.

“Or maybe I just had an itch and I wanted it scratched.”

“Evie, I may not know the true workings of your mind, but I do know enough to say that this was about a lot more than just sex for you.”

Of course, she was right. But my immediate concerns were far more urgent. “But what do I do now? What about Bruce? What about our wedding? Morgan, I seriously don’t know if I can do this….”

“You mean get married?”

“No. I don’t know. I think I mean lying to him.”

“But you lie all the time. If Bruce knew how many credit cards you really have…”

“Yeah, but not about something like this. This is different. You know, it’s not easy to lie to Bruce, even about little things. He has a way of believing everything I tell him that makes me feel like a total bitch. But this guilt is off the charts. I couldn’t even look at him yesterday. I just kept thinking about the bag of clothes in the closet…”

“What?”

“My Clothes of Shame. What I wore Tuesday night.”

“Stop being such a drama queen.”

“Whatever. But I hate the idea of Bruce not knowing something this big about me. Like he’s at work right now, happily going about his business, completely oblivious to…oh, God…”

“Stop torturing yourself! You’ll go mental if you don’t quit this shit right now. There’s no use. You think I sit around making myself sick every time I’m with Peter? What’s the fun in doing something if you can’t enjoy it?”

“I know, but I’m not like you, Morgan.”

“Well, you better get like me, or you’re done for. What you do, have done, will do, whatever, is 100-percent your own life. You don’t owe anybody access to your memories. Not even Bruce.”

I wish I believed what she was saying, but I didn’t.

On Friday morning, Bruce made an appointment for me with his doctor. Since I had no choice but to play up the whole headache thing, and it had been three years since I’d had a checkup, I was backed into a corner. Of course, Bruce decided to tag along, probably to make sure that I actually went.

“I’d feel a lot better if you just left me alone,” I whispered in his ear as we waited.

“When you have a blinding pain behind your left eye for four days, it’s probably a good idea to see someone,” he intoned seriously.