The Other Mrs.(31)

He doesn’t sag at the shoulders, he doesn’t convulse and sob like men who have lost their wives are supposed to do.

As far as I can tell, he doesn’t shed a single tear.



CAMILLE


I was addicted. I couldn’t get enough of him. I watched him, I mirrored him. I followed his routine. I knew where his boys went to school, which coffee shops he patronized, what he ate for lunch. I’d go there, get the same thing. Sit at the same table after he’d left. Forge conversations with him in my mind. Pretend we were together when we weren’t.

I thought of him all day, I thought of him all night. If I’d have had my way, he’d be with me all the time. But I couldn’t be that woman. That obsessed, hung-up woman. I had to keep my cool.

I worked hard to make sure our run-ins seemed more like chance encounters than what they were. Take, for example, the time we crossed paths in Old Town. I stepped from a building to find him on the other side of it, surrounded by pedestrian traffic. Another cog in the machine.

I called to him. He took a look, smiled. He came to me.

What are you doing here? What’s this place? he asked of the building behind me. His embrace was swift. Blink and you might miss it.

I looked at the building behind me, read the sign. I told him, Buddhist meditation.

Buddhist meditation? he asked. His laugh was light. I learn something new about you every day. He said, I never took you for the meditation type.

I wasn’t. I’m not. I hadn’t come for Buddhist meditation, but for him. Days before, I’d gotten a peek at his calendar, saw a reservation for lunch at a restaurant three doors down. I chose any old building nearby, waited in the foyer for him to pass by. I stepped from the building when I saw him, called to him and he came.

A chance encounter that was anything but.

Some days I found myself standing outside his home. I’d be there when he left for work, hidden by the chaos of the city. Just another face in the crowd. I’d watch as he pushed his way through the building’s glass door, as he blended in with the rush of commuters on the street.

From his building, Will would walk three blocks. There, he’d slip down the subway steps, catch the Red Line north to Howard, where he’d transfer to the Purple Line—as would I, twenty paces behind.

If only he’d have turned and looked, he would have seen me there.

The college campus where Will worked was ostentatious. White brick buildings sat covered with ivy, beside glitzy archways. It was thick with people, students with backpacks on, racing to class.

One morning I followed Will down a sidewalk. I kept just the right distance, close but not too close. I didn’t want to lose him, but I couldn’t risk being seen. Most people aren’t patient enough for this kind of pursuit. The trick is to fit in, to look like everyone else. And so that was what I did.

All at once, a voice called for him. Hey, Professor Foust!

I looked up. It was a girl, a woman, who stood nearly as tall as him, her coat fitted and tight. There was a beanie on her head, flashy, red. Strands of unnatural blond fell from beneath the hat, draped across her shoulders and back. Her jeans were tight, too, hugging her curves before meeting with the shaft of a tall brown boot.

Will and she stood closely. In the center, their bodies nearly touched.

I couldn’t hear what they were saying. But the tones of their voices, the body language said it all. Her hand brushed against his arm. He said something to her and they both doubled over in laughter. She had her hand on his arm. I heard her then. She said to him, Stop it, Professor. You’re killing me. She couldn’t stop laughing. He watched her laugh. It wasn’t the hideous way most people laugh, mouths wide, nostrils flaring. There was something delicate about it. Something graceful and lovely.

He leaned in close, whispered into her ear. As he did, the green-eyed monster grabbed ahold of me.

There’s a saying. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Which is why I took the time to get to know her. Her name was Carrie Laemmer, a second-year pre-law student with aspirations of becoming an environmental lawyer. She was in Will’s class, that one in the front row whose hand shot up every time he asked a question. The one who lingered after class, who bantered about poaching and human encroachment as if they were something worth discussing. The one who stood too close when they thought they were alone, who leaned in, who confessed, Such a damn tragedy about the mountain gorilla, wanting him to console her.

One afternoon I caught her as she was making her way out of the lecture hall.

I brushed up beside her, said, That class. It’s killing me.

I carried the class textbook in my hands, the one I spent forty bucks on just to make believe I was in the same class as her, just another student in Professor Foust’s global public health course.

I’m in over my head, I told her. I can’t keep up. But you, I said, praising her to high heaven. I told her how smart she was. How there was nothing she didn’t know.

How do you do it? I asked. You must study all the time.

Not really, she said, beaming. She shrugged, told me, I don’t know. This stuff just comes easily for me. Some people say I must have a photographic memory.

You’re Carrie, aren’t you? Carrie Laemmer? I asked, letting it go to her head, this idea that she was somebody special, that she was known.

She reached out a hand. I took it, told her I could really use some help if she had time. Carrie agreed to tutor me, for a fee. We met twice. There, in some little tea shop just off campus where we drank herbal tea, I learned that she was from the suburbs of Boston. She described it for me, this place where she grew up: the narrow streets, the ocean views, the charming buildings. She told me about her family, her older brothers, both collegiate swimmers for some top-ranked college, though she, oddly enough, couldn’t swim. But there were many things she could do, all of which she listed for me. She was a runner, a mountain climber, a downhill skier. She spoke three languages and had an uncanny ability to touch her tongue to her nose. She showed me.