Lies She Told(36)

“What brought you here from Trinidad?”

“Am I from Trinidad?”

“Aren’t you?”

“What gave it away?”

The answer is his accent coupled with the nationality of his favorite “footballer.” But I smile rather than say any of that. He’s playing defense, making me work for small answers so that our conversation stays on the surface. He knows my most humiliating secret. Is it wrong to want to know something real about him in return?

He nods slowly, acknowledging that I’ve figured out the game. “Ex-wife. She was a general manager at the Hyatt down there and got offered a dream job to run one of the brand’s Manhattan hotels. I came with.”

The waitress returns with the bottle. She pours a taste in my glass, which I pass to Tyler. “I don’t really know wine.”

“Not sure that I do either.” He sips anyway and then pauses a second before nodding approval. I’m relieved. Rejecting wine is something only royal pains do to look fancy. I would have thought less of him if he’d done anything other than accept it.

She splits half the bottle between our glasses. The wine sparkles in the flickering light of the flameless candle. I raise my glass, viewing Tyler for a moment through its pale-gold filter. He has such a nice complexion, smooth and dark, like a stained piece of oak.

“To you.” Our glasses clink. “Thank you for standing up for me.”

The drink tastes light and nearly nonalcoholic, though I know it must be at least 12 percent dangerous to classify as wine. I should be careful with this. “Do you like New York better than Trinidad?”

“It’s not exactly home.”

“Why stay?” I sip my wine to cover the fact that my back has tensed. This is when he’ll tell me that he left his wife for another woman who, conveniently, was also living in New York City.

“My daughter is here. She splits the week between me and her mother.” I flash back to the conversation in his office about not needing to stay with a cheating spouse for the kids. The advice may have come from personal experience. “And there’s the job. I built a pretty decent practice in the past thirteen years. I wouldn’t want to abandon my clients and start over.”

My muscles relax. “I imagine that would be difficult.”

The wine lubricates conversation. We chat easily about the city, our neighborhood, kids, the news. The latter discussion segues into my job covering crime and the courts. I share the highlight reel of my most interesting cases, happy to show off that I was not always a betrayed housewife on maternity leave. I have value, even if my marriage is falling apart.

As I talk, he seems to look at me differently. A wide smile takes shape on his face. “You have to be pretty confident to be a journalist.”

I shrug. “Not really.”

“No. I think you do. You put your words out there. Have to stand by them. Don’t sell yourself short.”

I feel a smile forming. I grab the bottle to cover it and pour another few swallows into my glass. The bottle feels light. An hour and we’ve nearly finished the whole thing.

“Of course, you have every reason to be confident,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

He looks squarely at my face and tilts his head.

My cheeks grow hot. I pick up the wine bottle and pour the last of it into his glass.

“Will you be covering that rock star’s wife who hit all those people? The one who has the case coming up next month?”

“No. I’d have to recuse myself.” I take a long sip, trying to act casual. “I know the prosecutor.”

“Your husband.”

Though his tone is matter-of-fact, the statement works like a shrill high note, breaking the glass that had blocked out reality. Again, I’m the depressed patient married to the cheating spouse. He’s the shrink. He drains the last of his drink. The waitress must see the deliberate way he polishes it off because a second later, she slides the check in the center of the table. He reaches for it.

I stand to place my hand on his. “Let me get this.” I grab my wallet from my purse and slip a fifty into the leather folder, enough for the wine, tax, and tip. I slide from the interior seat. “You can pick it up the next time I save you from a bar brawl.”

He towers over me. My eyes come to the level of his defined chest. I’d like nothing more than to walk home with my head leaning on his pectoral, his arm draped over my shoulder. But that’s not going to happen. I’m married. And though that means nothing to my husband, it means something to the man in front of me.

The air outside is blanket heavy. It presses on my shoulders, adding to the weight of my embarrassment. I let myself forget that Tyler was only accompanying me because he felt sorry for me. I allowed myself to hope.

We walk in silence toward our apartment buildings, crossing busy Twelfth Avenue, where the lights are too bright and the noises too loud, heading toward the river. The park is dark save for a few streetlamps along the promenade. Laughter sounds from somewhere on the lawn. Music wafts from the party boats over yonder on the Hudson. A couple pushes a baby carriage. Everywhere, life is being lived. Shared. But I am headed to an empty bedroom. The idea is so disheartening that I suddenly can’t stand being out in the open. I want to get home, crawl beneath the covers, hide from Tyler’s well-intentioned pity. Sleep for days.