The Friends We Keep(49)
Outside the door to Ben’s room, she paused, feeling him pressing up behind her, his breath on her neck. She closed her eyes briefly before turning and kissing him the way she had wanted to ever since she saw him on his own wedding day.
Their lovemaking—and it was lovemaking—was intense and fast. There was no foreplay, Ben was inside her, and she started crying as he moved back and forth. He kissed away her tears. Later, much later, when both of them had slept a little and awakened to find it was still dark, still night, when Evvie realized that this was not a dream but that Ben was beside her, gazing at her just as he once had, they made love again. This time it was slow, and languorous, and loving and lustful, and when she came, she heard her own voice shouting from somewhere else, and it was only afterward that she realized the only time this had ever happened before, this intensity, was with Ben.
“How was that?” Ben said.
“It was transcendental,” she sighed, before frowning again. “Oh Christ, Ben. What are we doing? What are we going to do?”
“I want to be with you,” he said. “I love Maggie, but not like you. I know it will be hard, but she will be fine. She’s an amazing woman, and it could be so much worse. At least there are no children. I can find work here. I can move to New York and we can start again over here.”
“We can’t,” said Evvie, her voice catching. “I can’t. Maggie would never get over the betrayal, and honestly, I would never be able to forgive myself. I know we’re barely in touch, but still, she’s someone I love. I couldn’t cause someone I once knew so well this amount of pain. I don’t want to be the other woman. It would be different if you weren’t married, but I can’t be responsible for breaking up a marriage.”
“So that’s it?” Ben looked at her, shocked. “We have this one incredible night and we both go back to our lives as if nothing has happened? I’m willing to tell Maggie. I’m willing to give this a shot. Maggie wants children but we haven’t started trying yet. If we’re going to do this, now’s the time.”
“I can’t. I can’t do this. I could never live with myself, knowing I stole you from Maggie.”
“You didn’t. This, us, existed before Maggie.”
“But you’re married. And we barely know anything about each other. Sure, we have amazing chemistry, and it feels like love, but who knows whether we would actually be able to sustain a relationship. We had a fantasy week together when we were children, but we don’t know each other. I can’t blow up your marriage when I have no idea what the future would hold. I can’t do this to myself and I can’t do this to Maggie. I won’t do this to people I love.”
“But you love me.”
“It’s different. Maggie doesn’t deserve this. I can’t do it.” She took a deep breath before looking at him. “This is closure, Ben. We will never do this again.”
Even in the semidarkness, Evvie could make out the stricken look on his face. And she realized then that she was the one who had to be strong through this, resolute; she was the one who had to make sure this never happened again.
“We aren’t meant to be together, Ben. Perhaps back then, had either of us got in touch with the other, things would be different, but we are where we are. You cannot leave Maggie for me.”
“What if I left Maggie anyway, and after a period of time, we got together.”
“No. Because I would always know. I’m sorry.”
Evvie left soon after that. She gave him a last lingering kiss, and started crying as soon as she closed the hotel door behind her. She sobbed as she came down in the elevator, and waved away the concerned concierge as she walked through the lobby and over to Madison to find a cab.
She sobbed all the way home, and through the rest of the night, back in her apartment, feeling as if her heart had truly broken and that life would never hold anything good, anything to look forward to, ever again.
* * *
? ? ?
Five weeks later she was on a modeling job, and in a furious mood. Usually she was able to turn it on for a photo shoot. However she may have felt waking up in the morning, there was something about the cameras being focused on her, a photographer (usually handsome) telling her how beautiful she was, how great the pictures were, that built her up and brought out her bubbly side. But today she couldn’t snap out of the funk.
“Honey.” The deputy fashion editor of the magazine they were shooting for was present for the shoot, and took her aside. “I have no idea if this is not enough sleep, or your hormones acting up, or whatever the fuck else it might be, but I am sending you out for a walk, and I suggest that when you come back, you have decided to wake up on the other side of the bed.”
Hormones, thought Evvie, realizing she was premenstrual, except . . . where was her period? And she remembered this from before. Her boobs were big, and her jeans were tight.
She went for that walk, straight to the Duane Reade on the corner, where she bought a pack of pregnancy tests. She came back to the studio and headed for the bathroom, peeing on the stick while sitting on the toilet, numb, not thinking about anything.
The line was blue. Evvie found herself smiling. Surely this couldn’t be. And this would be terrible, this wasn’t what she wanted at all, but she was smiling as she pulled the second test out of the box and peed on the second stick, and that, too, produced a blue line.