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“How long have you been sleeping with my husband?” I ask. She knows the answer, of course. I can see by the way she chews at her lip. I’d be willing to bet she knows right down to the minute. Grant has that way about him. Even now, even after everything, I still get it. Five weeks, three days, and two hours? Longer?
Finally, she shrugs. She’s not very good at being direct. I bet my husband likes that.
I study her carefully, wondering what else he likes that I’ve missed. “You don’t think I deserve the dignity of an answer?”
This time she doesn’t just chew at her lip. She bites. Hard. It starts to bleed a little. She licks it away. “A few weeks.”
She hands me my coffee. “Can we talk?” I ask motioning toward a table.
“We’re kind of busy,” she says.
“Not that busy.” I made sure to come at the appropriate time. I didn’t want to be completely alone. But I didn’t want her to be too swamped, either.
She shrugs again. “Okay.” She goes into the back and returns with an older woman. The two of them speak briefly. I watch as the older woman takes over, and then I take a seat at an empty table in the corner. I wonder how many times Grant has been here. Did he tell her about the sandwich incident? Did they have a good laugh at my expense? Was it his way of making sure there was enough distance between his mistress and myself or was it just his usual shenanigans? I don’t know. Maybe I never will.
Izzy slides the chair out from the table and drags it across the floor. She wants me to think she’s doing me a favor.
I don’t waste any time. I’ve done enough of that. “My husband isn’t the man you think he is,” I pause to blow on my coffee. “But then, I don’t know what you think. I can only guess.”
She glances down at the table. She folds her hands and puts them in her lap. She unfolds them and rubs her palms on her knees. She’s fidgeting. But also bracing herself. She expects me to be angry, probably even to hurl my coffee in her face. I surprise her when I offer a smile instead.
“I know it’s wrong—I know what I’ve—what we’ve done is wrong. But we didn’t mean—”
Guilt is a powerful thing.
“I love him—” She just puts it out there just like that.
“Don’t—” I say, cutting her off. I place my coffee on the table. “Like I said. You don’t know him.”
She tilts her head. She wants a challenge, when she’s already entered the ring. “I know enough.”
I don’t respond. Not at first. I wait until she doesn’t think I’m going to. Meanwhile, I nurse my Americano and stare out the window. I could cry. But I won’t. Still, even dry-eyed, I need to make it uncomfortable for her. It’s the least I can do seeing the way she’s made my life suddenly uninhabitable.
I watch people outside coming and going. People oblivious to the fact that while they’re nonchalantly going about their simple business, I’m in here dealing with the worst kind. Betrayal. It’s hard to see it coming. Not because you trust the other person. But because you so desperately wanted to. I think about how Grant and I stopped here after seeing June. It seems like a lifetime ago. In reality it wasn’t. I think about posting a shot of my coffee on Instalook: It all started with an Americano. Or: Coffee with my husband’s mistress. It’s a new day.
Instead, I turn and meet her gaze. “I was like you once,” I confess. “Naive. Hopeful. A fool.”
She furrows her brow. “I’m not that green.”
I can’t help myself. I choke on nothing. Or maybe it’s not nothing. Maybe it’s the bitterness that’s been there all along creeping toward the surface. “No?” I hear myself say. “What did you think? That my husband is going to leave me for you?” I motion around the place. “For what? For a waitress in a coffee shop only slightly older than his own daughter?”
“He wants to be with me, Josie.” She says it matter of factly. Like it’s either true or she’s rehearsed it. Either way, my name sounds strange coming from her lips. Her eyes flicker. She looks like she wants to crawl under the table. Like she wants to hide, like she’s just spoken a secret into existence and has just realized she can’t reel it back. She drops her voice to match her eyes. “He’s scared, though,” she continues. “He’s afraid of you.”
My eyes grow wide. “Did Grant tell you this himself? Or is it another of your childish inferences?”
“No. I mean yes.” She backtracks. “He said you’d take everything.”
I laugh and it isn’t the laugh of a woman who has it all together. It’s maniacal, animalistic. “If you believe that—then I was right. You don’t know my husband at all.”
There’s a difference in thinking of doing something terrible and actually doing it. But as it turns out, it’s a very thin line indeed. What I’m still in the process of deciding is at which point you go from one side to the other. Is it possible to cross it before you realize? At which point can you still turn back?
I should have known coming to this side of town would be trouble. Of course, my husband should’ve known, too. He told me he had to work late. That’s what they always say. Now—not only do I have a deceptive husband— I have a gun on my hands. A gun I won’t know how to explain.
There are lots of scenarios in life that have
rules. Playbooks. Like if this happens, you do that. If X, then Y and Z. But where’s the playbook for having a philandering husband and a loaded gun that isn’t yours? If I call the cops and tell them I was just almost robbed at gunpoint, then what? That’s the problem these days. Everyone’s trying to take what’s not theirs to take. Surely, they will want a statement. They will want to know why I was here. If I explain that I wanted to see them together, that I had to see it for myself, will they think I’m crazy? A scorned wife looking for attention? Because I have to be honest, that’s what I would think.
On the other hand, if they give me the benefit of the doubt, will they take me downtown for questioning? Will there be lineups? I have a lot on my plate right now and that sounds time consuming. Somehow I don’t think telling the cops I’m not sure how I’ll fit it all in is going to fly. Alternatively, what will I say to my husband when he realizes I was spying on him? What will I say when everyone wants to know why I was on this side of town? People want details. That’s the best part of any story. Certainly, it would be the punch line in this one.
