Goodnight Beautiful(3)

“How do you know I’m married?” he asks, the heat rising on the back of his neck.

“You’re wearing a wedding band,” she says.

He slips his hand in his pocket. “Says who?”

“Does your wife know you’re out tonight, analyzing the confident only children of Chestnut Hill, New York?”

“My wife’s out of town,” Sam says. “What do you say? You want to join me for dinner?”

She laughs. “You don’t even know my name.”

“It’s not your name I’m interested in.”

“Is that right?” She puts the glass down, turns to face him, and reaches under the bar. “Well, in that case . . .”

“You guys doing okay?” It’s the bartender. He’s back, scratching an itch over one eye, as she slowly slides her hands up Sam’s thighs.

“Yes,” she says. “We’re doing great.”

The bartender walks away as her right hand arrives between his legs, where it remains for another minute at least, her eyes locked with his. “My goodness, Doctor,” she says. “From what I can tell, the poor sucker who married you is a lucky woman.” She returns her hands to the bar. “Be sure to tell her I said so.”

“I will.” Sam leans forward and softly cups her cheek, his breath hot on her ear. “Hey, Annie Potter, guess what? You’re a lucky woman.” She smells like Pantene shampoo and is wearing the earrings he gave her last night. “Now put your hand back on my dick.”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Statler,” she says, pulling away from him. “But that was just part of your anniversary gift. You’ll have to wait until we get home for the rest.”

“Well, in that case.” Sam raises his hand and signals for the check as Annie picks up the stirrer and bites into the last olive.

“How was your day, dear husband?” she asks, smiling at him.

“Not as good as my night’s going to be.”

“You see your mom?”

“I did,” he says.

She brushes a hair off his shoulder. “How was she?”

“She was fine.”

Annie sighs. “Everyone over there seemed so grumpy yesterday. They hate the new management.”

“It’s fine, Annie,” Sam says, not ready to replace the feeling of his wife’s hand between his legs with thoughts of his mother sitting alone and unhappy at the five-thousand-dollar-a-month nursing home he moved her into six months before.

“Okay, fine, we won’t talk about it,” Annie says. She raises her glass. “To another successful week of marriage. These past six weeks have been so good, I give us at least six more.”

Sam adjusts Annie’s tank top to cover the bit of bra strap on display at her shoulder. “You sure you don’t resent me for all this?”

“All what?”

“Giving up New York. Moving to this shithole town. Marrying me.”

“I happen to love this shithole town.” She intercepts the check from the bartender and quickly signs his name. “And if nothing else, you’re very rich. Now come on, Doctor, take me home and pleasure me.”

She stands up, slowly slips her jacket back on. Sam follows her toward the door, so content at the sight of his wife walking in front of him through the restaurant that he barely registers the seductive smile from the pretty blonde at the podium as he passes. He has no need to notice things like that anymore. He’s a changed man.

No, really.





Chapter 2




I wake up hot, the sun glaring at me through the window, a warm square of light aiming right for my eyes. There are footsteps coming up the driveway, and I sit up, seeing a woman in a flimsy blue sundress and two-inch sandals walk decisively past the porch, down the stone path lined with zinnias I planted, to the door to Sam’s office on the garden level. It takes me a minute to reorient myself and remember I’m not in my one-bedroom apartment in the city but here, waking up bleary-eyed from a nap in Chestnut Hill, New York, Sam at work downstairs.

I check my watch—4:16 p.m.—and ease off the couch, staying low as I approach the window and study her, Sam’s last patient of the day. Late forties. Bag is genuine leather. Blowout is recent.

And now it’s time for everyone’s favorite game: Guess the patient’s problems!

Two tween daughters, contemplating a divorce and a real estate license.

Wrong! A pediatrician, staring down menopause, still trying to figure out her own mother.

A steady buzz unlocks the door from the inside. She enters, and I wait for the slam of the outside door, imagining her stepping into his waiting room. I can picture it perfectly: Sam’s in his office with the door closed. She’ll take a seat on one of the four white leather chairs, place her bag on the glass coffee table next to the two neat stacks of In Touch and the New Yorker. (“I’ll know everything I need by which one they pick,” Sam joked when the first issues arrived in the mailbox.) There’s a Nespresso machine on a side table; small glass jars hold tea bags and both brown and white sugar. She’ll be wondering if she has time to make a cup of Earl Grey when Sam opens his office door, four thirty on the dot.

I asked him once what he and his patients talk about downstairs—them on the soft beige couch, him on the expensive leather chair he special-ordered from some Scandinavian company with a weird name. “Come on, just one,” I teased. It was happy hour, and I’d mixed us some drinks. “What sort of problems are the rich ladies of Chestnut Hill grappling with?”