High Risk

Chapter 4-1

Chapter 4

Mark paused, key in hand, a breeze at his back. Slowly, he closed the door. Had it sounded like Beth ran from the room?

Strange.

The apartment was still. Usually, he came home to music; Beth did little without the accompaniment of music, most often jazz. From here in the vestibule, he saw the receiver’s glow, but there was no Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday.

Why was it so quiet?

Mark wasn’t much for intuition; he dealt in realities and facts. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was awry. It hung in the air like smoke. Was it just the fact that the apartment was silent? Was it just that it seemed Beth ran from the room rather than running toward him, as she usually would, to greet him and welcome him home?

Mark set his briefcase next to the copper umbrella stand, loosened his tie, and hung his jacket on the bentwood rack. He placed the irises on the front hall table, a little cherry wood piece that usually held the day’s mail. But obviously, Beth hadn’t gotten that yet, either.

She was in the kitchen, back turned to him, drinking a glass of water. He knew that she knew he was there: her spine stiffened when he entered. She stared out the window as she drank.

Mark found himself unable to move.

“Should I have phoned first?” His voice emerged raspy; he hadn’t known until he spoke how dry his throat was. His voice seemed unnaturally loud in the stillness of the kitchen, jarring.

Beth didn’t answer, but her knuckles whitened against the granite countertop’s edges when he spoke.

If he didn’t know better, he would wonder who this was in his kitchen. He had never seen Beth dressed like this. Where did she get the clothes? A tight green leather mini-skirt, white vest, a row of bracelets (his mother would have called them “bangles”), running up her left arm. Her hair was a wild halo around her head.

“What’s going on?” Why did he have the sudden wish that his intellect was a switch he could flip into the “Off” position? Why did he feel that it was better not to think?

She turned from the window and faced him.

With the light behind her, Mark didn’t at first see the signs of distress. But then, like a photo developing, they became clear: the smudged mascara that rimmed red, wounded eyes, the pale, clammy skin, her quivering lip.

And worst: she couldn’t meet his eyes. He glanced down at the black and white tiled floor to see if he, too, could discover what was so interesting there.

He moved closer and smelled her perfume. She never wore perfume during the day, but he recognized the scent, because she rarely wore anything else: Chanel No. 5.

What should he say? All sorts of thoughts crowded his mind, none of which he wanted to acknowledge. His tie felt too tight. He reached up to loosen it, only to find he already had.

“What’s going on, Beth? Where did you get those clothes? What’s wrong?” Mark’s heart hammered. Infidelity was something that seemed so remote it had barely crossed his mind in all the time he knew her. Oh sure, he had been tempted. Plenty. In his line of work, it was often unavoidable. But he had always trusted Beth. Demure Beth. Virginal Beth. A real old-fashioned girl.

Except, right now, she looked none of those things. Who was this person?

She glanced up at him for only a moment: a quick, frightened look. She covered her face and began to sob.

I should go to her now. Put my arms around her. Comfort her. But he couldn’t move. He stared at her as if she were someone he had never met, someone weak and vaguely repulsive. His arms stayed rooted to his sides, his feet cemented to the floor.

He noticed the four empty Sam Adams bottles on the kitchen counter. The brown glass caused a sour taste to rise up in his mouth, making his stomach churn. He tasted bile at the back of his throat.

He left Beth in the kitchen and returned to the living room for a better look. He could barely swallow, and his heart had become an enlarged, unwelcome presence in his chest, almost constricting. He knew what to think. He was a divorce attorney for God’s sake, but could he allow himself to think it of Beth, his own wife?

There was a half-full (or was it half-empty?) bottle on the coffee table. Then he noticed the wineglass beside the bottle, the dregs of white wine.

He tried to swallow, but had no spit. He stooped in front of the entertainment center and pressed the button to open the CD player carousel. Prodigy. Prodigy? He had never known Beth to listen to such stuff.

His gaze moved to a corner on the floor and he saw their cordless phone, crushed and in fragments on the blond wood.

The room spun a little and the sensation made Mark want to laugh. But there was nothing mirthful in the desire. He wanted to slide down on the floor, but didn’t want to be near the accusing bottle and glass.

What had that bottle and glass borne witness to?

He walked to a ladder-back chair near the window and sat. He closed his eyes and rubbed them. After his breathing had calmed, he got up and returned to the kitchen.

Beth was still in the same place. She had stopped crying and had rubbed away the mascara. Her eyes looked even redder against her white, white skin.

His voice came out weak, soft, when he wanted to shout. “Wanna tell me what the f**k’s going on here?”

He wanted fury, but the desire to begin crying was strong, almost overpowering.

Beth licked her lips. “Sure.”

They faced one another. The clock mounted on the soffit above the sink clicked once, twice.

“Well?”

Beth stared at the floor. She balled and relaxed her fists. “My mother called this morning.”

Mark felt the bands around his chest began to loosen. Tell me anything. Just make it halfway plausible.

“She told me Dad wants a divorce.”

Mark nodded.

Beth moved closer, reached out to touch him, then let her hand drop. “She was so upset. I didn’t know what to say.”

Mark waited. None of this rings true. But he wanted to believe so much that he thought that if there was any way the pieces could fit, even if he had to cram them in, he would accept it. Make me believe, Beth.

“She’s been with him…what? Forty years? She doesn’t know how to move on at this point.” Beth searched Mark’s eyes. What is she looking for? That I’m buying this? Stop! Don’t think that way. This is Beth. “Things have been dead between them for years.”

And between us? “Why now?” It was a stupid question; he saw equally long marriages, longer even, dissolve in his mahogany-paneled office on a regular basis.

“I don’t know. I never heard her talk to me this way. She never really showed her emotions, not to me, anyway.” Beth twisted a lock of her hair between her fingers. He wished the jumpiness in her would stop. It would make her a lot more credible.

He tried to make himself breathe slower. Why would Beth lie to him? As far as he knew, she never had before. Not about anything major, anyway. Everyone was privy to a white lie now and then. “Aw, honey, I guess it’s got you pretty upset.”

“Oh, yes.” Beth collapsed against his chest, trembling. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed, at last beginning to breathe just a bit easier. “I’ve been a basket case all day.” She looked up at him, her eyes red, moist. “You can’t say anything to her about this, ‘kay?”

And the doubt leeched back in, suddenly, like something dark and choking. Mark tried to concentrate on the tactile, gathering a bunch of her hair in his hands, squeezing it, feeling the soft silk. He glanced over her head at the bottles on the cabinet. “Been drinking?”

She nodded into his chest. “Stupid, huh? It just made me feel more cloudy-headed. Distorted. It made me cry all the harder. And that was, maybe, what I needed.”

“How much did you have?”

“I started with a glass of wine, just to calm my nerves. It didn’t do much…and besides I finished off the bottle that was in the fridge and didn’t want to open another one, not all by myself. So I moved on to the beers.” She stepped back from his embrace, looking abashed. “I don’t know how many. I lost count.” She giggled. Rubbing at her eyes, she said, “I got mad at the messenger, too.”

Mark gave her a sick smile. “What?”

“I flung the phone against the wall after she called.” Beth looked at him sheepishly. “Guess we need to make a trip to Best Buy.”

This was not at all like the Beth he knew. The Beth he thought he knew, anyway. And then there was the dangling thread, so to speak, the puzzle that no matter how hard he tried to make it fit, he just couldn’t. “And the clothes?” He tried to make light, smile. “What’s up with those?”

“Don’t you like them?” She smoothed the leather skirt, almost as if she were trying to pull it closer to her knees. She crossed her arms across her chest, hiding the cleavage the tiny vest revealed. “I bought them for you, sweetheart. I thought you’d think they were sexy.”

So why put them on in the middle of the day…when you didn’t even expect me home for at least a couple of hours? He pulled her back to him, squeezed tight, not liking the sour smell of sweat and alcohol that even the Chanel couldn’t mask. “You’re sexy enough,” he whispered into her hair, his gut churning. It was then he made a decision, stupid though it was, to believe her. What else could he do?

He wanted to believe so much.

* * * *

His embrace was all she ever wanted. She wanted it to continue, a buffer against the anxiety and guilt humming inside her like an electrical current. But he was pulling away, gently and with a sigh she wasn’t sure how to interpret. Why should he believe her? He was a divorce lawyer; he saw infidelity almost every day. Her clothes, the remnants of her dreadful little party all around: these were like red signposts that even someone not in the business of deceit and marital problems could read.

Mark picked up the beer bottles and threw them in the trashcan in the pantry. He hurried into the living room, snatched up the wineglass, and came back to rinse it out and put it in the chrome dish drainer. What was he thinking? He turned and…finally…smiled. “I’m going to get out of these clothes. Okay?”

“Sure. Get comfortable.” She almost wanted to say, “What are you doing home so early?” but realized immediately how self-accusatory that question would be. Instead, she leaned against the counter and watched him leave the room.

Her heart was at last beginning to pound out something akin to a regular rhythm. When he was gone, she went to the sink, let the cold water run, then splashed her face with it, scrubbing, scrubbing, until she was sure all traces of make-up and dried mucous were gone, until the skin was once more pink, undefiled…almost raw.

Never. Never again.

* * * *

Mark slid out of his suit, hands trembling, letting the expensive clothes fall to the hardwood of the bedroom floor. Later. I can take this s**t to the cleaners later. Or let Beth do it. I can’t be bothered with thinking about something like a suit right now.

What was she doing? I mean really. Was the whole schpiel about her mother just a cover up? It was one he could check easily enough…even if she had begged him, suspiciously enough, not to mention it to her. But doing that would only up the suspicions. And finding out the story was a lie was something he didn’t think he could bear.

Mark yanked open a dresser drawer, pulled out a pair of shorts, a T-shirt. In the closet, he got his racquetball racquet and a can of balls. He’d pick up a game at the Court Club. A little sweat, some mindless physical exertion was just what he needed. It would put this whole insane afternoon into a different light, a light that maybe would shine softer and less accusingly.

As he slid the T-shirt over his head, he realized he already had the sweat.