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The sad part is that’s not the main reason I gave Mark what he wanted. I did it because I wanted to keep my job and my house. Most importantly, I wanted to keep my family intact. June would have left. Eventually, if not right off the bat. And I would have let her go. I knew the kind of life she wanted for herself and the kids. I had been working twenty-hour days just to provide it. The ability to keep it up was quickly slipping through my fingers. There was always more, and I knew she would have found some excuse to get it, and I knew it wouldn’t have included me. It wasn’t that she didn’t love me. It was that we both knew she deserved better. After all, it wasn’t her that had changed the unspoken rules of our agreement. It was me. I’m the one who let Michael fool me. I’m the one who nearly caused us to lose everything.
“Do you miss June?” Melanie asks one afternoon out of the blue. Sometimes I think she’s clairvoyant.
“Yes,” I say. I should lie. I?
?ve read enough to know that women don’t like to know you’re thinking of another woman. It doesn’t matter if that woman is dead.
But I don’t lie. I don’t want to betray June more than I already have.
“I thought so.”
Her eyes lit up. To say this reaction is unexpected would be an understatement. “I think we should do a little role playing.”
“That’s not funny.”
She comes closer. “I hadn’t meant it to be.”
I swallow hard.
“I want to learn everything about you,” she says in that sultry way of hers. “I want to be the best lover you’ve ever had.”
I take a step back. God, she’s good. Already, just the way she is. With slight tweaking, I can’t imagine. Which brings me to my biggest problem yet—I really think I could love this one.
“Do you miss it?” I ask Josie.
I’m seated on her new sofa in her new condo downtown. It overlooks the city, and I should be surprised she’d trade the suburbs in for this, but I’m not. Josie has the illusion of safety here. She likes being at the top, looking down at others.
“Me? Miss the church?” She thinks about my question for a long while. I realize, glancing down at my watch, that I should have called and asked for a visit. I can see she’s in shock. Everything is taking longer than it needs to. It’s rude to show up unannounced, and I abhor rudeness. But I knew she wouldn’t have agreed to see me. So, I apologize once again.
“Sometimes,” she tells me finally. She sucks in a breath and holds it. At some point, she lets go. “Under different circumstances, maybe I could have made it work.” She pauses and then turns to meet my eye. “But I assume you aren’t here to learn about my regrets.”
I don’t respond. Not at first. I tell her I like her place.
She crosses the living area and comes to a stop by the window. “Who sent you to spy on me?”
“I’m not here to spy.”
“Let me guess…Beth? Mark?”
“No one.”
She rolls her neck. “Adam? Cheryl?”
I see her point. People work as teams at New Hope. Usually husband and wife. But not always. That’s part of the reason I’m here.
“No,” I tell her. “No one sent me.”
“How are Adam and Cheryl these days?”
“Fine.” I haven’t a clue.
“I do miss them,” she offers, looking over her shoulder at me. “They were a fun couple. You know, the kind that’s for real.”
I know what she’s talking about. I didn’t come here for fun or for gossip.
Josie looks away again, out at the expanse of the city. “And Melanie? How is she?”
“She’s great.”
