Open House(22)

Priya had studied the woman’s face so carefully that night. It was heart-shaped and pale, with a glossy-lipped smile and subtle eye makeup, but it was absolutely the woman who worked the front desk at the local gym. The woman—Tracy? Nancy?—usually wore glasses and was always pleasant and not even a little conciliatory as she handed Priya a towel. Never once had her eyes telegraphed, I’m so sorry I’m sleeping with your husband, but here’s a fluffy towel! Brad hadn’t entered the woman as a contact into his phone, it was just a 914 number, and Priya had scrolled to see banal text messages that made her indescribably depressed.

Meet you at eight?

when do you get off work?

U teaching tonight?

And then she saw the one that made her cry. Did you tell her yet?

Was that truly how deep in he was with this woman, that they’d had some kind of discussion debating whether Brad should tell Priya?

That night, when Priya confronted him, he broke down. He said he’d made a terrible mistake, and that he’d never do it again, and that the woman was his only transgression since the mistake he made years ago. Priya feared she was being the most naive woman on planet Earth, but she believed him, and she decided to stay.





FOURTEEN

Emma

Ten years ago

I’m standing outside the door of town house 24B. I’m out of breath, because I practically sprinted here. At the last minute I decided not to tell Josie about the pregnancy and instead told her I just had to pick up art supplies I left in the studio and that I’d be right back so we could go to Noah’s. I don’t want her to find out about what I’ve been up to with this guy because I really don’t want her telling Noah. It’s part of the reason I’m coming here tonight to end it, so that nothing gets in the way of Noah and me. He’ll take me so much more seriously if I end it in person instead of over text. He barely even carries a phone.

Town houses line the east side of Yarrow’s campus, redbrick things with putty-colored frames on the windows. They’re too new to be charming, but the people who live here—mostly professors and administrative staff—have tried their best, with flower boxes and old-fashioned bicycles leaning against iron railings. The teachers at Yarrow can be a little hipster and above it all, which is why I mention the old bicycles. Instead of buying shiny new ones, they ride along the sidewalks on the old dilapidated ones, sporting wan smiles and carting their books in the functional metal basket attached to the handlebars. It’s a look, I guess. And it suits most of them.

But not Brad. I can tell he likes nice stuff by the way he decorated his town house. I’ve only been inside twice because obviously it’s risky for us to be sleeping together, and I wouldn’t want to get him in trouble, because he’s not only superhot but also really sweet and decent, other than sleeping with a student, I guess . . . but it’s not like I’m his student. And he’s just a TA for a pre-med science class, which is barely even being a teacher. His real job is as a surgery resident at Waverly Memorial. Plus, he didn’t even know I was a Yarrow student until we’d hung out a bunch of times. I didn’t lie about it exactly; I just didn’t mention it. We met at a coffeehouse and had lattes together, and it’s all been mostly innocent. He said he thought I was really pretty and artsy, although I don’t feel very pretty or artsy these days. He’s a little intense, but not into drugs or anything weird, and at first he wasn’t possessive about seeing me. I think that’s what interested me when we started seeing each other, the lack of desperation, and the ease of it all. Plus I’d never been with an older guy, and there was something so exciting about that. I think he’s in his late twenties or so, but I purposely haven’t Google-stalked him because like I said, it was feeling so easy, and I didn’t want to ruin it because being with him felt like a break from my other life with Josie and Noah. But lately Brad’s been more desperate, more possessive.

I raise my hand and knock, thinking about the baby inside my stomach. How big is she? (I know she’s a she—I just do.) She’s got to be so tiny if I remember right from high school biology classes. What’s Noah going to say tonight when I tell him? What are my parents going to say? What am I going to do?

The door swings open, and my mind trips over itself when I see the face in front of me. What’s my art teacher doing here? Her black hair is usually tied into a high bun in watercolor class, but now it’s long and loose and falling over her shoulders. Gone is her uniform of leggings and a paint-spattered tank, and in its place is a chenille robe, tied loosely over her protruding stomach.

“Priya?” I say, my heart pounding.

“Emma, hi,” she says, an edge in her voice. Her hand goes to the swell of her stomach.

“Do you live here?” I ask. The town houses look identical, and it’s dark out—is it possible I knocked on the wrong door? My neck cranes to check out the number again.

“My fiancé lives here, Emma,” she answers, and the way she says my name sounds very different from the way she says it in class.

“Oh,” I say, stalling, and then I start backing away from her, from this, inch by inch.

“Can I help you with something?” she asks, her eyes narrowing.

Lie to her. Think of something. Just tell her a lie!

But I can’t. Something’s wrong with me—I can’t say anything at all. I back down the stairs, gripping on to the railing, scared I’m going to fall and hurt my tiny baby, which is probably not even possible at this stage of a pregnancy. And then I think about Priya’s baby, who is apparently Brad’s baby, and then I start thinking about how when these two babies grow up, they won’t ever know that they were face-to-face like this one winter night, just a few feet apart when their mothers realized they were sleeping with the same man.