My Year of Casual Acquaintances (South Bay #1)

13.

Connor looks like the child actor who would be summoned if you called up central casting and said, “Send me an impish little boy.” With curly red hair, a tiny upturned freckled nose, and a mischievous grin made more endearing by a gap between his two front teeth, Connor is beyond adorable.

Still, mealtime with him presents formidable challenges.

The first day at his house, when it’s time to feed him his lunch, I realize Connor’s mom hasn’t given me any instructions. In this same situation, Heather and Michael could always be relied upon to leave behind copious typed notes, so I’m unprepared for Cheryl’s more lackadaisical approach. “How about a peanut butter sandwich?” I ask the boy, immediately regretting the offer. Supposing he has a peanut allergy? But wouldn’t his mother have told me that? She couldn’t be that lax.

“I hate peanut butter.”

“Okay, then . . . turkey sandwich?” I say, surveying the fridge and pantry.

“Don’t like it.”

“Ham?”

“Don’t like it.”

“Macaroni and cheese?”

“I hate that more than anything.”

I try a different tack. “Why don’t you tell me what you would like?”

He responds without hesitation, “Chicken teriyaki.”

Great. This kid has no idea who he’s dealing with. “Connor, I don’t think I can cook that for you. We don’t have the right ingredients—”

“In the freezer,” he says, pointing upwards.

I open the top freezer compartment and scan the contents. “Where?” I ask.

He holds up his arms to indicate I should lift him towards the open freezer, where he points to the right edge of the lower shelf. “There.”

Sure enough, I see half a dozen small baggies, each containing two skewers of precooked chicken teriyaki. All I need to do is zap them in the microwave – my specialty. Connor eats the warmed chicken with relish, licking the soy sauce off his fingers. He also finishes a cupful of Goldfish crackers and a big bowl of blueberries, both specific requests.

After lunch, he introduces me to his toys and books. His favorite book is about the sounds that different animals make, and when he presses down on the electronic buttons on the animals’ noses, the various bleats, moos, and neighs are replicated with stunning accuracy. The boy recites the entire book aloud without missing a cue. Is he a fluent reader, or has he memorized it all? I should be able to tell the difference. After a couple more books, he says, “Mar-Mar, time for my nap now.”

He has already given me a nickname. Another name! I have so many, I don’t know who I am anymore. I can’t imagine Benny taking charge of his own schedule this way, but then I remind myself that Connor is half a lifetime older. That any child this age would nap at all is a miracle in itself. Benny is already on the verge of outgrowing his own afternoon quiet time. During the hour or so that Connor sleeps, I consider applying myself to one of my free-lance assignments; but given my current sparse workload, I prefer to save the writing for later, over a glass of wine at my computer.

The next day, in the kitchen with Connor, I say, “Chicken teriyaki time.” The words come out in a sing-song voice.

“No, Mar-Mar. No teriyaki today.” He looks stunned that I would make such an outlandish suggestion.

“Okay, what’ll it be?” I’ll let him decide. As I will soon find out, the menu changes daily at Connor’s whim.

He holds up his arms again and we go to the freezer. This time he points to an individual serving of turkey tetrazzini, naming the dish correctly. As long as Connor knows his way around the freezer and I know my way around the microwave, we’ll get along fine. The whole schedule, in fact, is close to perfect. After my morning gym routine, I pick Connor up at preschool around noon, drive him home for lunch, and play with him for an hour until he looks at the clock and announces his naptime. Is it typical for a four-year-old to tell time? I doubt it, but there’s a lot about Connor that isn’t typical.

When he wakes up, I give him a snack and offer him a choice of the playground at the end of the block or his own back patio, which resembles a showroom for Fisher-Price ride-on toys and playhouses. As usual, he directs the activities. “I’ll drive the dump truck. Mar-Mar, drive the car. No, not the blue car, the pink car.” He informs me there is a fire in the house and he’s going to put it out. “Mar-Mar, go inside the house,” he commands, pointing to the classic cottage playhouse with its red plastic door.

“But you said there’s a fire inside.”

“Just go.” He promises to save me from the flames.

My cellphone buzzes during the fire rescue. It’s Mrs. Ostrowski again. I acknowledge with a pang of guilt that I’ve never returned my old neighbor’s calls, even though she’s left me three or four messages in as many weeks. Come to think of it, it may have been longer than that. But I can’t talk to her now. I resolve to phone her back in a day or two. By four o’clock, Cheryl returns from her art class, or maybe it’s the volunteer gig—I lose track of her day-to-day schedule.

On my fourth afternoon at the job, as I grab my purse and prepare to leave, Connor throws both arms around my legs in a fierce hug and says, “I love you, Mar-Mar.”

Life is good. I have a charming new pint-sized pal who adores me without judgment. Though I spend long afternoons saying nothing more profound than, “Time to watch Daniel Tiger,” or “Mar-Mar wants coffee,” it’s worth it to fill the gaping holes in my schedule. And I still have the freedom to do what I like for the rest of the day. After my babysitting gig, I go straight to my beach walk – where I unwind by the shore and enjoy my meetup with Audrey and Petey, who now resemble old friends.

. . .

At the gym, Judge Judy is in the women’s lounge with Amazon Lady, Dame Donut, and the usual suspects. As I face a mirror in the adjacent dressing room, applying my lipstick, Judith delivers a familiar rant in her unmistakable nasal twang.

“So, it turns out the dude is not dead. His wife tells him he’s a goddamn cheating son of a bitch, and it serves him right that she gave all his stuff away. Can you fucking believe that?” There is laughter all around as Judith re-tells the story of the embittered client who is settling a score with her unfaithful husband after he’s strayed while traveling on business. Judge Judy can spin an amusing yarn, there’s no doubt about it. Although this yarn is not funny. At least, not to me.

The thing is, Alice wasn’t Henry’s only partner in infidelity. There were other women – most or all of them one-night stands, as far as I know, which occurred during his business trips over the course of at least a decade. The first time I learned Henry was cheating, Michael was a teenager. It happened on a Saturday afternoon in autumn when the boy was off visiting his friend Luke. I remember how gray and chilly it was. We were contemplating whether to fire up the furnace for the first time that season. When I walked into the bedroom carrying a basketful of clean laundry to fold, I found Henry sitting on the edge of the bed, his back turned to me, his shoulders shaking.

I dropped the laundry basket and ran to him. “Henry—what’s happened?” A multitude of frightening possibilities cascaded through my head in a split second. Was Henry ill? Or perhaps one of his parents? Was the company in trouble? Had he been hiding some financial problem from me?

He leveled his dark gaze on me, eyes brimming with tears, and grabbed my hand, squeezing it with urgency in both of his. “Margaret, I—I’m not sure how to explain this, but—”

“You’re scaring me. Just tell me.”

“I—I met a woman while I was on the road, and . . .”

“You’re having an affair?”

“It isn’t an affair. I—we had a few drinks at the hotel bar, and then we went to her room.” He paused, reluctant to continue.

“And?”

“And we—you know . . .”

“No, I don’t know. I need you to spell it out.”

He sighed. “I slept with her. Once.”

“When?”

“Wednesday night.”

“Jesus, Henry. I’m trying to get my mind around this. You just went and picked her up at the hotel bar?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Henry said. “She was sitting a couple of barstools away from me, and she looked sad—distraught, even. She started a conversation and told me both her parents died in a car crash the month before. Then she broke down crying.”

“So this was—what? A pity fuck?”

“The woman was coming on strong to me. I’ll admit she was attractive, but I felt so sorry for her. The whole thing was kind of raw, emotional.”

“Did you see her again Thursday night?”

“She checked out early that day to fly home.”

“But if she’d stayed, you might have slept with her again?” Now I was a prosecuting attorney trying to corner the witness.

“I’m not sure if—no, it wouldn’t have happened a second time. This was the proverbial one-night stand.”

“One and done, huh?”

“This may sound like a cliché, but I swear to you it didn’t mean anything outside of the moment.”

“If it meant nothing, why make a confession?”

Henry blinked at me. “Oh, Margaret, I couldn’t keep a secret like that from you. I would have felt terrible.”

“So you chose to unburden yourself and make me feel terrible instead?”

“That’s not how I meant it. I’m sorry. I never intended to hurt you.”

Then something else occurred to me. “Since you slept with a stranger, do we now need to worry about—you know, catching some disease?”

“No, no,” he said without hesitation. “I would never put myself at risk that way. Or you, of course.”

I believed this. Henry was always good at taking care of Henry. But did this mean he carried condoms on his business trips, or did his bereaved partner considerately supply the protective device? I didn’t want to know.

He kept grabbing my hand, repeating his apology, begging for forgiveness. That’s the way Henry has always been. He hates it when anyone thinks ill of him, so he’ll go to great lengths to absolve himself of whatever wrong he’s committed. But with all the apologizing, there’s one thing Henry didn’t say that day. He never promised me it wouldn’t happen again.

Over the coming days, I felt numb about my husband’s revelation, as if the news of his betrayal and breach of trust had sent me into shock. I figured I’d come out of it in time – and when I did, I’d experience a delayed reaction of pain and anguish. I waited for that to happen. Then I waited some more. But it never played out that way. To my relief, strange as it sounds, I had to admit Henry’s infidelity didn’t bother me all that much. After all, lots of people had one-night stands, didn’t they? Probably most people during the long course of a marriage, I rationalized – though most people exercised greater discretion, not confessing to one’s spouse after a single false move.

Our marriage continued as before. We still enjoyed good health, a comfortable household, and a life free of financial worries. I pushed the incident out of my mind, locking it inside a safe compartment in the back of my consciousness.

I’m certain Henry continued to cheat on me two or three times a year, over a period of many years. I learned to recognize the signs. After returning home from a business trip, instead of vegging and dozing in front of the TV as usual, he would initiate enthusiastic sex. It had been ages since I’d felt any deep attraction to Henry. So when this happened, I was neither thrilled nor repelled. It was like dining at a fancy restaurant where an over-attentive waiter served a meal that failed to delight the senses yet wasn’t bad enough to send back to the kitchen.

Sometimes I’d steal a glance at Henry’s cellphone, where I often found text exchanges with unnamed recipients, confirming assignations. Though the messages weren’t blatantly salacious, they were suggestive enough to leave little doubt in my mind that he was up to something. But I never confronted him with the evidence, and he never confessed to these other indiscretions. Don’t ask, don’t tell.

Did Henry become passionate with me on those occasions to assuage his guilt over cheating? Or did it happen because he was aroused by his trysts with new (and therefore more exciting) sexual partners? I didn’t know, but I could always sense when he had been with someone. I told myself, At least Henry’s being discreet, life will go on as before, no need to be threatened by this behavior.

Until he fell for Alice.

Michael knew nothing about the other women. In his eyes, Henry could never do wrong. He was always the fun parent, the easy parent, the let’s-go-to-Vegas-for-the-weekend parent. Even the relationship with Alice could be excused, given that I’d never been the warm and devoted wife this wonderful man deserved. I should have been hosting dinner parties and organizing charity events and dedicating myself to Schuyler Enterprises.

I remember once, when Michael was in grade school, for Mother’s Day the kids received an assignment to create a picture of Mom engaged in her favorite activity. Though I liked to believe I was a more attentive and nurturing parent than Mum, I knew Michael wouldn’t be drawing us baking cookies together. He brought home a sketch of me seated at my desk, a curly-haired stick figure staring into a childishly drawn computer screen. That is how Michael has always seen me – as a woman who loves work above play, above family, above everything.

He’s not entirely wrong. I’ve always turned to my work for comfort and shelter the way an overeater turns to food. I’ve taken the high road all these years, never saying a word to Michael about his father’s philandering. Even when the affair with Alice came out into the open, I didn’t denigrate Henry to him, not once. And where has it gotten me? In Michael’s eyes, I’m still the bad guy, still the one to blame for the failure of his parents’ marriage.

Maybe it’s time for me to set the record straight about his father.