Risking It All Read online

  “I can explain.”

  “Really? I’d almost like to hear what you come up with. But actually, I don’t think so, Jeff. Please don’t try. Don’t feed me some lawyer’s lies. Just tell me what’s going on.” She felt her eyes tear up, a weakness she couldn’t allow. Not if she didn’t want to fall apart completely.

  “Now? On the phone?”

  “No. Let’s both leave the office and go home.”

  “Maybe not home. Berta is there. Griffin. Danny.”

  “Danny is at school.”

  “Let’s meet in the park.”

  “Where?”

  “The Sixty-third Street entrance.” Jeff’s office was just a few blocks away from Marcia’s on East Forty-eighth Street, so she knew they could both get there fairly soon.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll leave now.”

  She wished she had something to stop her heart from pounding. She wanted to think clearly before she confronted him. What did she want out of it? She tried to think calmly. The first question she needed answered before she could begin to think of where she wanted to go from here was how far his affair had gone. Was he in love with this woman? Did he want to make a life with her? A fist of anxiety twisted in her gut. She feared what might lie ahead, the specter of divorce, lawyers, loneliness, Griffin growing up in a broken home, custody arrangements, Danny … Danny, whose arrival in their lives precipitated all this. She wanted to avoid all that, to keep their marriage going even if it wasn’t perfect, to remind Jeff of what they were before, even to find a compromise if she had to about Danny if that made the difference. But she was caught in a maelstrom of emotions: fears, hopes, anger, rage and deep despair. When she thought of the lies, the so-called meetings, the weekends with the “client,” the missed dinners, the utter betrayal, it galled her. More than that, it hurt her, maddened her, filled her with fantasies of revenge. But she had to admit that on some level she had suspected it; that’s why she had asked Charlie if he knew anything. She hadn’t wanted to see what was right in front of her; she had lied to herself, protected herself, hoping it would go away. She thought Charlie had probably known too and her cheeks flushed with humiliation and shame.

  She arrived at their meeting place full of these contradictory passions.

  The park was nearly deserted at this hour. She was surprised by the force of the wind when she reached Sixty-third and Fifth Avenue, but she pulled her hood tighter and the wind seemed to die down as she entered the park. The weather mirrored her mood. The sun was masked by the sky, which was the color of lead. Dry brown leaves, their edges brittle, huddled in little piles under scraggly bushes. Occasionally whipped up by a gust of wind, they’d land in jagged pieces on the frozen ground.

  She saw Jeff right away, bundled in his black parka and sheepskin hat, a red and blue striped scarf pulled tight around his neck. He was walking toward her and even before he reached her she could see that he looked ashamed, his shoulders hunched over, his step tentative. She knew him so well, she thought, but apparently not well enough.

  “Marcia. I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say. I’m so sorry.”

  She took a deep breath and looked straight at him. “I just want to know one thing before we say anything else,” she said. “Are you in love with her?”

  He too took a deep breath. His shoulders collapsed even more. “It’s ridiculous to talk here,” he said. “Let’s go get a cup of coffee.”

  Her mind was reeling. He hadn’t answered her question. Was that because he wanted to find a way to tell her the bad news or because it was complicated and he wanted to explain? Whatever the reason, it wasn’t the resounding no she had hoped for and expected. She nodded stiffly. They found a luncheonette on Seventieth and Lexington and chose a booth in the back. Some time was taken up as they both peeled off their heavy coats, stuffed their gloves in their pockets and their hats in their sleeves. They sat facing each other and ordered coffee, still without talking. She waited. He looked at the table briefly, then up at her.

  “Listen, Marcia, you know things have not been good between us for a while,” he began.

  “Do you love her?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so?” She pressed her lips together. “What do you think you need to help you decide?” Her voice was colder than her hands, which were still stinging as the heat thawed them.

  “I mean I still love you, Marcia.”

  “You have a funny way of showing it.”

  “I might say the same to you.”

  “How? Have you gotten any text messages from any of my lovers recently?”

  “Stop being such a bitch. That’s not going to help.”

  “It helps me.”

  “Marcia, there is more than one way to betray someone you love.”

  “You ought to know. How many of them have you tried?”

  “Stop it.”

  “You stop it. You’re trying to say this is my fault somehow. You said you were sorry but it doesn’t sound like it. It sounds like you feel justified.” She looked at him, feeling sad and vulnerable. “I don’t understand, Jeff. How could you do this? How can you talk to me like this? How can you hurt me like this?” She struggled to keep her voice from breaking. She brushed away the tears that had started to drip down her cheek and turned her face toward the wall so no one would see.

  He reached for her hand reflexively, the way he would if she’d been hurt by someone or something else, but she pulled it away. “I am sorry,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you. I want us to fix this.”

  She sniffled. “How can we fix it if you don’t even know if you love her?”

  “I don’t know anything anymore. I know I don’t love her like I love you, like I’ve always loved you. But lately, since…”

  “Since Griffin?”

  “Since Danny. You know, Marcia. We’ve been on opposite sides of this from the beginning. And coming home became a trial instead of a pleasure. I begged you to do something about it, something that might have helped us and him too but you wouldn’t listen. Then I met Ilana and she—”

  At the mention of her name the anger Marcia had felt when she read the texts returned. Her voice hardened with sarcasm.

  “Wait, let me guess. You met Ilana. She’s a single woman or maybe divorced. She has no children, though we know she has a cat she’s devoted to. She has a spotless little apartment somewhere. Maybe she has flowers in every room, especially when she’s expecting you, and scented candles, right? She’d have time for that because she wouldn’t have a household to manage and a baby to take care of as well as a demanding job and a husband who works all the time. Maybe she even gets a full night’s sleep once in a while. Does she cook gourmet organic meals for you? I get it. I really do. No baby crying. No unhappy preadolescent orphan hanging around. No stressed wife trying to balance her marriage, her motherhood and her conscience. In fact, obviously, you aren’t troubled by conscience at all.”

  “Hold on. You paint me as such a villain. Is it such a surprise I liked being around someone who likes me?”

  She stared at him, surprised and saddened, her fury temporarily expended, like air whizzing out of a balloon. “I like you, Jeff,” she said softly. “I love you. And I know how hard it’s been at home. But how did we let ourselves get so far apart that you could do something like this?” She paused and looked away. Her mouth was dry. “Do you want a divorce?”

  “What? No. No, of course not. I want a family, our family. But just our family.”

  The air rushed back in. “I presume that means without Danny. So who do you mean? You, me, Griffin and Ilana?”

  He pursed his lips and shook his head. “It’s hopeless talking to you when you’re like this. Of course I don’t mean Ilana. I’ll stop seeing her. I’ll come home. We can go to a marriage counselor, if you think that will help. But it has to be without Danny. I can’t live with him.”

  “You said you didn’t know if you loved her.”

  “I
didn’t mean that.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Marcia? What do you say?”

  She rubbed her eyes, then looked at him. “How long have you been with her?”

  “I don’t know. A few months.”

  “A few months? I mean, this is March. Griff isn’t even a year old yet. So when did this start? When did it get so bad that you figured it was okay to break your vows to me and lie and cheat and sneak around? I’m just wondering what your threshold for unendurable discomfort is. A month? Two?”

  His jaw tightened. “You’re too angry to have this conversation now. Maybe we should talk tonight when you’ve had some time to calm down and think it over. I have to get back to work.” He started to gather his belongings.

  “Don’t come home tonight.” She said it impulsively, out of anger, but once said, she couldn’t take it back, didn’t want to. “You can’t live with Danny? Well, after this, I’m not sure I can live with you.”

  “Marcia, don’t do this.”

  “I didn’t do it, Jeff. You did. Won’t you even take responsibility for that?”

  22

  Marcia had insisted that Danny wear his school uniform, but she couldn’t control how he wore it. As soon as he arrived at school he pulled out his shirt, threw his school blazer into his locker and went looking for Raul. He didn’t see him in the school yard, the hallway or the bathroom and the class bell had already rung, so he slipped into his seat in his homeroom hoping to catch up with him there. Raul was in his usual place in the third row. He looked particularly neat today—Danny was surprised to see his shirt tucked in, his blazer buttoned and his hair cut short. Raul saw him come in but didn’t nod at him and Danny was puzzled as he took his seat. The teacher was going over the week’s schedule, announcing that auditions were going to be held on Thursday for the school choir. Danny’s mouth curled into a sneer. The choir! They never sang anything worth listening to. They performed kid songs, stuff he’d heard when he was eight, and oldies that the teachers liked. Why didn’t they do something cool like form a rock band? He didn’t play any instrument well enough, so he couldn’t be in it, but it would be fun to hear them. He balled up a piece of paper and pitched it at Raul’s head to get his attention, but Raul ignored it. What was with him? He tore a piece of paper out of his notebook and scribbled a note: Hey, what’s up? Gotta talk. He folded the paper into a small packet and handed it to Joey Fontana, who sat next to him. He didn’t even have to say pass it to Raul, because Raul was the only person Danny ever sent notes to, and Joey and everyone else in class knew that. Joey passed it to Dawn, who sat in the row ahead of him, and Dawn gave it to Harlan and finally it reached Raul. Danny watched as Raul took it and put it in his pocket without reading it. Danny couldn’t figure out what was going on.

  When class ended, Danny walked up to Raul as they filed out of the room.

  Raul looked uncomfortable and upset. His eyes kept flicking around, not settling on Danny but looking beyond him.

  “What’s up?” Danny asked. “You okay?”

  “No. My ma heard about what happened.”

  “What happened?”

  “I mean here. With you.”

  “Oh yeah. I gotta talk to you about that. They’re throwing me out of school.”

  “I know. My ma says I can’t hang out with you anymore. I’m on scholarship. She thinks I’ll get in trouble if they see me with you. She thinks you’re a bad influence.”

  Danny didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t expected this but now that he heard it, he felt stupid not to have known. Why wouldn’t it happen? Everyone he cared about disappeared. Now it was Raul’s turn.

  “You gonna listen?”

  “I gotta.”

  “So you can’t come over to my house anymore?”

  “No. And you can’t come to mine.”

  “But we can sit together at lunch, right?”

  Raul looked miserable. “No. I can’t. I promised. I gotta find another place to sit.”

  Danny bit his lip. “So how are we gonna see each other? What are we gonna do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe we can, like, say we’re staying for choir and hang out instead.”

  “I can’t. I promised my ma.” The bell rang, announcing five minutes till the next class. “I gotta go. I’m really sorry.”

  Raul hurried off.

  Danny got through the rest of the morning somehow. He couldn’t concentrate and he was lucky no teacher called on him for an answer. He just kept thinking about how unfair everything was. He saw Raul in every class and at recess but he couldn’t approach him, couldn’t hang out with him, couldn’t even talk to him. When he tried to catch his eye, like they always did before when something was funny or someone said something stupid, Raul looked away. When lunchtime came and he walked into the lunchroom and saw Raul sitting at another table with a bunch of kids Danny didn’t even like, his hurt turned to anger. He ran out of the lunchroom, out of the school, onto the street. What difference did it make? He was going to be thrown out of the school anyway. What more could they do to him? So maybe they’d make him leave now instead of in September, so what? It might be better. Then he wouldn’t have to see Raul every day. Raul was such a mama’s boy, Danny thought bitterly. He listened to everything she said. He could see how Raul couldn’t invite him over, but he could have still sat with him at school. They could have worked out a way. But Raul didn’t want to. As soon as there was a little trouble he just caved.

  He wanted to go home and play with Griffin—that always made him feel better. Griffin laughed at everything. And he was always so happy to see Danny—his whole face would light up when Danny came in. But Marcia was home today and she’d ask why he wasn’t at school. Maybe he could tell her it was a half day. But she’d probably find out. He thought about going to see Dr. Benson but he didn’t have an appointment. It was cold and he had left school without his coat and without his subway pass. He thought about going back to get them but it was too embarrassing, so, hugging himself for warmth, he started walking. The Claremont School was a good eighty blocks from Marcia and Jeff’s apartment (he still thought of it that way even though Marcia kept encouraging him to think of it as his home). He wasn’t going to be able to walk eighty blocks without a coat. He couldn’t take the subway because he didn’t have his pass, but maybe he could just sneak in. He was a little afraid to do that—he’d heard you got in big trouble if you got caught, but he didn’t know what else he could do, and he couldn’t really imagine any trouble bigger than the one he was already in. He wished he had a cell phone like almost everyone else in his school. Then he could have called someone. But who could he have called? Maybe in the end he could have called Marcia and she’d help him. But there was no point in imagining. He didn’t have a phone.

  He walked a few more blocks and ducked into a kids’ clothing store to warm up. He looked at the winter jackets covetously. He found his size and tried one on. It felt so nice and warm. What if he walked out wearing it? he wondered. Would they notice? He spotted a saleslady watching him and hoped she hadn’t noticed the name of his school emblazoned on the sweater of his uniform. When he walked over to the mirror in the dressing room to see how the jacket looked, a salesman followed him, so he knew he’d better not risk taking it. He pretended to look at a few more jackets and finally, warmer than when he’d entered, he hung up the jacket and left the store. He headed for the nearest subway station.

  It was empty—just the guy in the booth selling MetroCards, no one on the platform. He stood staring at the turnstile for a while, trying to figure out his chances of sneaking in. A train thundered in, disgorging a few passengers. One old man on crutches was trying to push open the exit gate instead of using the turnstile, but was having trouble with his crutches. Danny ran over as if to help and held the door for him. The guy smiled his thanks and Danny slipped in behind him, moving quickly down the platform and out of view. Another train stopped and Danny ran into the open door. When it
closed and the train rumbled on, he breathed a sigh of relief and sat down. He was trembling a little. He’d been scared but now he was exhilarated. He felt proud—he’d pulled it off. His mother always told him to use his head and he had. He didn’t need Raul or anyone. But then he saw the cop.

  It was the same one who had brought him home that day that already felt so long ago. He was walking through the train like he was looking for someone and when he entered Danny’s car, he stopped.

  “Hello, Danny,” he said.

  He remembered his name. That wasn’t good. “Hello,” Danny said, still hoping this was just a weird coincidence.

  “I saw that maneuver at the station. You know it’s illegal to jump a turnstile, don’t you?”

  “I didn’t jump it.”

  “No, you sneaked in the gate. I saw you. You know the law on this? Anyone who doesn’t pay the fare gets taken to the police station, fingerprinted and charged with a crime.”

  They had reached Danny’s stop at Eighty-sixth Street and the cop told him to come with him. They left the train. Danny talked fast.

  “Please don’t do that. Please,” he begged. “I just didn’t have my coat and I was cold and I didn’t have my pass. But I have a pass. It just wasn’t with me.”

  “Where was it?”

  “At school.”

  “And why aren’t you at school?”

  Danny didn’t answer.

  “Do you want to tell me at the police station?”

  “No. I…” He was thinking fast trying to come up with a lie, but he knew it was useless. “I had some trouble and I left. I didn’t take my stuff.”

  “Should we go back to school and you show me your pass?”

  “Oh please, don’t make me go back there. Everyone will know. They already hate me there.”

  “Why do they hate you?”

  His eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know,” he said simply.

  “Is your mother home?”

  “She’s not my mother,” he mumbled.

  “Okay, let’s go to school then.”