An Anonymous Girl(55)

Our marriage could have recovered from the estrangement formed during this time. Except for one thing.

A season later, in September, the text he said was intended for the boutique owner with whom he’d had a one-night stand landed on my phone. The bright, chiming noise seemed to reverberate throughout my quiet office. It was 3:51 P.M. on a Friday afternoon.

Thomas likely sent it at that particular time because his own office was empty, too; clients typically depart at ten minutes before the hour, leaving a small window for the therapist to attend to personal needs before the next patient is welcomed.

During that summer of internal darkness, my office hours were also maintained, Jessica. No patient was turned away. This was perhaps more vital than ever before.

Which meant the nine vacant minutes that followed the receipt of the text could be spent staring at Thomas’s message: See you tonight, Gorgeous.

It was as though the words expanded until they blotted out all else.

As a therapist, one often witnesses a client’s attempt to rationalize, to make excuses, as a defense mechanism to quash overwhelming emotions. However, those four words could not be ignored.

When just one minute remained before new clients would be ushered in to both of our offices, the trancelike state broke. A reply was transmitted to Thomas.

I do not think this was intended for me.

The phone was then silenced and my four P.M. appointment, a single mother struggling with anxiety that was exacerbated by her teenage son’s belligerence, was utterly unaware that anything was amiss.

However, Thomas must have canceled his final appointment of the day, because fifty minutes later, after the agitated mother was escorted out, he sat slumped in my waiting room, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his face drawn and gray.


In the wake of Thomas’s text, data was amassed.

Some information was offered by Thomas. Her first name: Lauren. Her place of employment: a small, upscale clothing boutique near Thomas’s office.

Other information was independently collected.

A brief phone call to the boutique at noon on a Saturday was all that was required to verify Lauren’s presence on the premises. It was a simple matter to wander inside and pretend to be absorbed in the colorful fabrics.

She was ringing up a customer with easy chatter. The boutique contained one other sales clerk and several other shoppers. But she was the one who drew the eye, and not just because of her history with my husband. You look a bit like her, Jessica. There’s a similarity in your essence. And it was easy to see why even a happily married man would be susceptible to her overtures.

She completed the transaction and approached me with a warm smile. “Looking for anything special?” she asked.

“Just browsing,” she was told. “Can you make a recommendation? I’m going away for the weekend with my husband and I’d like a few new outfits.”

She recommended several items, including the unstructured dresses she’d picked up on her recent buying trip to Indonesia.

A brief conversation ensued concerning her travels.

She was exuberant and brimming with joy; she wore her zest for life.

After Lauren was allowed to prattle on for several minutes, the encounter was abruptly terminated. Nothing was purchased, of course.

The meeting answered a few questions, but it raised others.

Lauren still has no idea of the true intention of my visit.


A drop of bright red blood stains the white china saucer.

A Band-Aid covers my tiny wound. The broken teacup remains on the table.

Thomas is not a tea drinker.

He prefers coffee.

The legal pad rests on the desk next to the teacup.

The question at the top of the yellow lined page, written in all capital letters, can finally be answered: WHERE WILL THEY FINALLY MEET?

Every Sunday, following his squash game, Thomas enjoys a simple routine: He reads The New York Times at a diner two doors down from his gym. He pretends this is because the location is convenient. The truth is that he craves their greasy bacon and fried eggs with a heavily buttered bagel. Despite a marriage filled with so many overlapping regimes, our Sunday-morning routines were always divergent.

In thirty-six hours, Thomas will indulge his weekly craving.

And you, Jessica, will arrive to provide a different sort of temptation.





CHAPTER


THIRTY-FIVE


Sunday, December 16

I spot Dr. Shields’s target the instant I step into the diner that’s filled with the clatter of dishes and the buzz of customers’ conversations. He’s alone in the third booth on the right, his face partially obscured by his newspaper.

Yesterday Dr. Shields called to tell me she had a check for a thousand dollars for my work on Friday night. Then she gave me this assignment: Find a certain man, at this particular coffee shop, and exchange phone numbers. It was uncomfortable enough to flirt with Scott at a hotel bar, but doing the same thing without the dim light and alcohol seems a hundred times worse.

The only way I can do it is by imagining my family’s expressions when they learn they’re going on vacation after all.

Sandy hair. Six foot two. Tortoiseshell glasses. New York Times. Gym bag. Dr. Shields’s description runs through my mind again.

The man checks every box. I walk briskly toward him, poised to say my opening line. He looks up just as I reach his table.