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“How did it happen?” Sidney Clare prompted.
“It was a long time ago. I was teaching at a university in Maine and I met a man on the faculty named John Diamond. We became friends.”
The television flashed to John, in the audience, and my stomach sank. They knew. They knew everything. This whole show was being orchestrated. So why was Tyler lying? Then I remembered John telling Chrissy—he’d talked to Tyler, he said. They were going to fix it.
I couldn’t look away from the screen.
“John and I started hanging out, doing things together—boating, fishing. Our wives got along. It was great for a while. Then…”
“Then?” Sidney Clare prompted.
“Then John’s wife, Stacy… started coming on to me.”
“How? What did she do?”
The camera panned to the audience and they all looked like me—on the edge of their seats.
“What didn’t she do?” Tyler gave a short, bitter laugh. “At first it was just verbal. Telling me how much she admired me. Talking about how unhappy she was in her marriage. Then she started finding me alone, brushing up against me. Trying to kiss me. I was shocked at first. Then… flattered, I guess. And my wife and I—we were going through a rough time right about then. I guess it just all fell into place.”
“So you had an affair?”
Tyler nodded. “Yes, I did. It was brief—a few months at most. I broke it off. And that’s when things got… crazy.”
“Crazy, what do you mean?”
“You saw the movie that came out a few years ago, with Glenn Close and Michael Douglas?”
“Fatal Attraction?”
“Yeah, that’s it.” Tyler nodded, looking out at the audience. The man was a great actor. The look of helpless guilt and regret on his face was textbook. The whole audience was quiet, listening, and even sitting in the green room watching it unfold on the screen, I could feel the tide of public opinion turning. They’re going to blame it on Dale’s mother, I thought. And she wasn’t even there to defend herself. I was starting to feel nauseous.
“Sidney, she was insane.” Tyler looked like he was on the verge of tears. “I did a horrible thing. I know that. And I apologized to my wife and have spent every day since trying to make it up to her. But Stacy Diamond—I guess she’s Stacy Spencer now, she took her maiden name after the divorce.”
“Divorce? Did her husband find out?” Sidney Clare asked the question the whole audience wanted to know.
“I told him myself.”
What?
The camera panned to John, who looked sad, but otherwise gave no reaction.
“I had to,” Tyler went on. “His wife was crazy. I mean, she made Glenn Close look sane. She threatened my wife, my family. She was obsessed with me. So I went to John and told him what was going on. And he got her the help she needed.”
“And that was the end of it?”
“I thought so.” Tyler sighed. “John and I… he’s just a great guy. He forgave me, if you can believe that. We continued to remain friends. But things were never quite the same. He knew his wife was mentally ill but he did everything he could throughout his marriage to keep it from his children and I don’t blame him. She was in therapy for a while and then they put her on medication. For a long time it worked.”
Tyler paused and they panned to the audience again, all leaning forward, listening.
“Then she stopped taking her medication. And the obsession came back,” Tyler said. He had a flair for the dramatic, that was for sure. “She was relentless. She wouldn’t leave me alone. She pursued me endlessly. I didn’t know what to do. For years, things had been fine. Now our kids were older, they were friends. It was a delicate situation.”
“Did you have sex with her again, Tyler?”
“Once.” He lowered his head. “My wife was out at the store. All our kids were playing in the pool. John wasn’t there that day. I believe he had to work. She came into my room while I was changing into my suit…”
I gaped at the screen. It was the story Dale had told me—how he’d found out his mother was having an affair. He’d walked in on them that day.
This was all planned, I realized. Perfectly orchestrated. John had told Chrissy he was going to “call Tyler and fix it,” and here it was happening, live on national television. Dale wasn’t going to be seen as a young kid trying to ride his father’s coat tails into fame and fortune. After this, he would be seen as a victim. Tyler was taking the fall, but it would be Dale’s mother everyone would blame.
