Chapter 9
WAR GAMES
After arranging Jasper’s return, a need for hot water came over me, like soaking in my clawfoot tub might help wash some of this disgusting filth off me—and I’m not talking about the foam. I felt wronged and violated, disrespected and humiliated. Betrayed.
I descended the stairs like a zombie, stumbling without motor control, holding onto the walls for balance.
I retrieved a bottle of merlot from the bar in the living room and went back upstairs.
I entered the bathroom and turned on the hot water, hotter than normal.
Burning my skin might soften the pain in my heart.
I washed the foam off my body in the shower and then eased into the tub.
The water had only risen a couple of inches and hadn’t yet warmed the cold porcelain.
The hot and cold tore at my flesh. I sat there and stared at the white wall in front of me and felt the steaming water creep up my skin, one inch at a time.
Philippe, tapping into his sixth sense, plopped down on the bathmat and watched me with the utmost concern.
I sipped the merlot and stared at the blank wall in front of me.
The icy sting of the porcelain subsided.
My imagination projected the video onto the wall, and I watched the scene repeatedly, wondering about the truth.
It was impossible to deny what had happened, but I could see how the cheating might have occurred.
I tried not to blame it on Nadine’s big boobs.
Of course, I had been going through the same sexual starvation Rory had been, but I hadn’t gone out looking for a guy with larger anatomical attributes to satisfy my sexual needs.
And Rory’s behavior had made it impossible for me to see that he’d needed contact like I had.
But I was always—always—there for him. He should have turned to me, not to someone else.
If he loved me, that is. It was becoming clear.
I should have listened to Erica. Rory was no longer attracted to me, simple as that.
Questions and potential answers swirled like an angry ocean in my seasick mind.
How long had this been going on? I thought about the night I had seen Nadine at my house, our fun chat about my diet and her future in her politics.
Had she and my husband already been together?
Had this been a yearlong affair or was the revelation of today their first time?
She and I got along famously. Was she a calculating bitch inside?
Had she been nice to me two nights ago, while secretly thinking about how she enjoyed sleeping with my husband?
Had they thought they could fool me? Had they been laughing at me behind my back?
I hoped this was their first time. Surely, there was no way a public figure like Rory could have gotten away with infidelity for very long before being caught.
Perhaps even more painful than my husband cheating on me—with a younger woman bursting with Mt.
Everest breasts—was the public nature of it all.
I’d gotten used to being looked at and stared at by the people of Burlington and even the rest of Vermont.
As a couple, Rory and I were kind of a big deal.
I was getting used to the idea that I might someday become a senator’s wife, which would only increase the public attention we’d endure.
But think how this calculated betrayal would affect our family.
To think that every person in our city, our state, even the country, had the potential to see that awful video of Nadine going down on my husband—a video that, because it was so explicit, was sure to go viral!
Put me and my feelings aside for a moment—what about Jasper? His friends, classmates, and teachers would be sure to see the video. Once word got around, they’d hunt for it. How was this exposure going to affect Jasper?
Going forward, if Rory’s name were entered in a search engine on the internet, the first hits wouldn’t be about any great accomplishments in his life, not the fact that he had been an attorney in good standing, not that he’d been elected the mayor of Burlington, not that he was being looked at for a senate position.
The first hits would link his name to that video.
What a terrible position Rory’s action had put us all in, and although Jasper and I had done nothing wrong, we’d be paying the price for Rory’s mistake for the rest of our lives. What had he been thinking? Part of me wanted to fly to Texas, find Jasper, and leave the country. Never come back.
I thought of Anthony Weiner and what his wife had gone through.
And Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Elliot Spitzer.
All the politicians who’d publicly destroyed their families.
How do you survive that? And Jasper, the son of a public figure, how do you ever forgive your father?
How do you walk into the public eye ever again?
Everyone would know how bad your life was.
No matter how well you lived your own life, that stigma of another family member’s wrongdoing would always lurk in the background.
Escaping the projection on the wall, I closed my eyes and tried to melt away. I still couldn’t remove the images. The pleasure exuding from my husband’s face. The grimacing and mumbling as Nadine pleasured him. What in the world had he been saying to her?
No matter where my thoughts ran, Rory was there waiting for me like a demon in a horror movie. I wondered what would happen next.
He’d called me several times. Would I see him today? Maybe I should leave the house, but where would I go? The sanctuary of my home might protect me through the coming days. Everyone would see that video. There was nowhere Jasper and I could hide.
That doorbell would soon ring, and I was terrified. Journalists and other vultures would linger for days. Hopefully, we could keep them restricted to the main road. Perhaps the police would help us keep them off our property.
Despite the pain and anger filling my bones, I found it nearly impossible to imagine leaving my husband.
I wasn’t ready to be on my own. Rory had done most of the banking, most of the driving.
I had learned to count on him in so many ways.
It’s not that I couldn’t have done those things, but I’d always relied on him.
Now that I knew I couldn’t depend on him, I felt afraid.
He was supposed to be our defender. He was my knight in shining armor. At least, he used to be.
I drank more merlot. The burn of the alcohol felt nice.
I remember for a moment being distracted by how pleasurable this particular wine was, the exact kind I like: slightly fruity but not overly lush.
It reminded me of the Bordeaux Rory and I had drunk the night before, the bottle that had led us to dance and make love.
The bottle of merlot-based wine from my favorite region.
My thoughts about the wine I was drinking flashed by so quickly amidst my depression that I didn’t put it together at the time, but I was drinking from the bottle of merlot from Red Mountain.
The bottle of merlot that Nadine had gifted me.
It was that bottle. Under the circumstances, what irony!
The merlot did its magic, and I drifted into a dream.
I wasn’t in the tub anymore.
I was in the kitchen. Waiting for him. It had been three hours since I’d discovered he’d been having an affair with Nadine.
I was doing the only thing I knew to do, which was cook.
I’d cooked more food than we could eat, but that wasn’t stopping me.
I wasn’t cooking for people to eat. I was cooking to cook, to take my mind off the devastation.
When Rory entered the kitchen, I cut my eyes to him.
He dropped his briefcase down onto the tile floor and removed his coat, revealing a pinstriped suit with a red tie underneath.
My husband looked at me and sighed. He knew not to step any farther.
Not until he had taken the temperature of the room, the temperature of my fury.
Not until I’d given him permission. He said, “Darling, I’m sorry.
I don’t even know how to tell you how sorry I am. I made a big mistake.”
“How long have you been sleeping with her?” I spat.
He raised his hands, palms up. “That was the first time.”
I thrust my finger at him. “Don’t you lie to me.”
Talking with his hands, he said, “I swear to you, Margot. It happened. It wasn’t even me. You know it wasn’t me. I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life.”
“The biggest mistake of your life?” I repeated.
He nodded, like he was already assuming I’d accept his apology.
I said again, “The biggest mistake of your life.” I smiled at the absurdity of it all. “You destroyed our family. You just ruined your son’s life. You ruined my life. All to get your…ugh!” I clenched both fists.
He stepped toward me. “We can work through this. I know it won’t be easy, but please. We can work through this.”
“What about last night?” I demanded. “Was that you taking out your sexual feelings for Nadine on me? How could you make love to me like that and then let her suck your cock the next day?”
“It meant nothing,” he said. “Honestly.”
“You say it didn’t,” I said, wiping a runaway tear. “And I want to forgive you.”
Rory didn’t smile, but the optimistic expression on his face indicated that he knew he was winning.
That he might actually survive this. That I might not leave him.
His smile did something to me inside. My spine straightened with confidence.
I turned toward the island and saw the butcher block of knives.
I tightened the grip on my right hand and imagined grabbing one of those knives.
I looked over and saw the pressure cooker and then the mixer.
I saw so many things I could use to hurt him.
Everything in my kitchen became a weapon.