The Numbers Game Read online

  “No, I just thought it might be fun to go somewhere nice for a change.” He was making her feel stupid, but she stuck to her suggestion anyway.

  “I’ll take care of it. Do I have to wear a tie?”

  “Not if you don’t want to,” she said easily.

  “Good. I don’t. I do enough of that at work.” He wore a suit and tie every day. “See you tonight. I’ll try to get home at a decent hour. I don’t have a client dinner tonight for a change. The one I had scheduled canceled.” But he came home at ten anyway, and she had fallen asleep in bed with the TV on and a book in her hand. Pennie was up, watching a movie in her room, and the boys were already asleep. Paul only saw them now on the weekends most of the time.

  The next day, he left for work in a rush, and she didn’t have time to remind him about dinner, but she was sure he’d remember. It was the fanciest date they’d had in years.

  She traded car pool duty with another mother. Pennie was going to work on her college essays. Eileen went to the hairdresser and got her hair and nails done, and then dressed carefully for her date with Paul. She took a black dress out of her closet that she hadn’t worn in three years, and a pair of high heels, one of the few she hadn’t given to Pennie yet. She wore perfume and earrings. Pennie stopped in her room to see her once she was all dressed.

  “Wow, Mom, you look great. What’s the occasion?”

  “Dinner with your father. I thought we’d go someplace nice for a change. We’re going to Chez Julien.”

  “Pretty fancy. Can I have those shoes when you’re through with them?” She was eyeing her mother’s Christian Dior shoes that Eileen had only worn twice herself.

  “No! They’re the last decent pair I have left. I gave you all the others.”

  “I’d look good in those too,” Pennie teased her and left, and Eileen waited nervously for Paul to come home. He had texted her the day before that the reservation was for eight-thirty, a little late for them, but the only one he could get, and she used to like dining late, once all the children were in bed. Now they just ate with them at six if Paul was home in time, or she did if he wasn’t coming home at all.

  He wasn’t home yet at seven-thirty, and she figured he’d be there by eight. He’d have to rush to dress, or he could wear the suit he’d worn to work and take off his tie. She was mildly worried, but not panicked yet.

  Eight slipped by with no word from him.

  Eight-thirty came and went. Then nine and nine-thirty. She was livid by then. She was in tears at ten. She had called him a dozen times on his cellphone. He never picked up and it went straight to voicemail. And he didn’t answer her texts. She couldn’t imagine he would do this to her and stand her up completely, unless he was dead. She was afraid something terrible had happened to him, like in one of those novels or a movie where the wife is all dressed, waiting, and the love of her life is dead by the side of the road somewhere. But real life was never as dramatic as that. Unless he was being held hostage by terrorists on the train. She turned on the news and nothing was reported.

  He called her finally at midnight, sounding desperate. “Oh my God, Eileen, I can’t believe I did that to you. I had a new client meeting at the end of the day that got organized this morning. We wound up finishing at ten. We never even ate dinner. It was too late to come home and I was exhausted, so I checked in to a hotel. I was going to call and tell you, and I fell asleep the minute I sat down on the bed. I just woke up and remembered that we were supposed to go to Chez Julien tonight. I think I thought you were kidding when you suggested it, and it went right out of my head after I booked the reservation. I’m so sorry. We’ll do it another time, I promise.” He sounded frantic and mortified, and she wasn’t even angry by then, just sad. He had completely forgotten about her and their “date.”

  “Don’t bother,” she said in a tired voice. “I guess that’s not who we are.” She had taken the black dress off two hours before, handed the Dior shoes to her daughter and told her they were hers now, and she had put on her nightgown and gone to bed an hour before.

  “I’ll be home first thing in the morning. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” But she knew he couldn’t, and probably wouldn’t try. They were past date nights and restaurants like Chez Julien, if he couldn’t even remember a Friday night dinner plan with his wife. She’d been a fool to think otherwise and felt like one.

  “Come home whenever you want,” she said in a dead voice. “I’m taking the boys to soccer tomorrow.”

  “I’ll try to come by before the end of the game.”

  “I won’t tell them in case you don’t show up, so they’re not disappointed,” she said without malice. She knew him well.

  “I deserved that,” he said humbly.

  “What hotel are you staying at, by the way, in case the house burns down?”

  “I’m staying at a hotel in SoHo, which is where we had the client meeting. It’s a British boutique hotel. It’s pretty good. We’ll have to stay here sometime. The Crosby. I’ll see you tomorrow, and I’m really, really sorry I forgot our date.” He sounded sincere and contrite when he said it.

  “I’m not sure it matters. Good night,” she said coolly, and hung up. She lay in bed with the lights on for half an hour after that, thinking about it, and how easily he’d forgotten her. So much for sexy date nights. Feeling slightly guilty, she called information and asked for the number of the Crosby hotel in Manhattan. She told the automated voice to “connect her,” and a minute later, the hotel operator was on the line. She asked for Mr. Jackson’s room, Paul Jackson, she said precisely, and there was a pause as the operator looked up his room number and then came back on the line.

  “I’m sorry, we have no registered guest here by that name,” she said, and Eileen managed to thank her and hang up. She had suspected it, or she wouldn’t have called the hotel, but hearing it was entirely different. It made her fears a reality, like a bolt of lightning that went straight to her heart. She felt like she’d been turned to stone. He had lied to her and had forgotten their date. The only thing she didn’t know was where he was staying that night, and in whose bed.

  Chapter 4

  Eileen moved through the motions of her life the next day like a robot. She made breakfast for the twins, checked in on Pennie, who was working on her applications, and took the boys to their soccer game. Mercifully, Paul didn’t show up. She didn’t want to see him there after the night before. And the boys hadn’t been expecting him so they didn’t care. It was five o’clock when she got home, and Paul was there, going through a stack of bills in his office at home, and writing checks. He looked up with an apologetic expression when Eileen came in. He stood up to kiss her and she walked past him without looking at him.

  “Look, I’m sorry. I really am,” he said nervously. “The client meeting went on forever, and our dinner plans went right out of my head.” She paid no attention to what he said, and turned to look at him from across the room.

  “Where did you stay last night?”

  “I told you. The Crosby Street Hotel.” For an instant she wondered if she had called the right hotel, and was almost willing to doubt herself, but she knew she had.

  “I called there. You weren’t registered.”

  “I checked out at the crack of dawn and went back to the office for a while before I came home.”

  “I called you there half an hour after you called me. You weren’t there.” He was stone-faced for a minute, not sure what to say.

  “Why don’t we just leave it alone for now? We’ve all been through a lot with Pennie’s pregnancy. Let’s not rock the boat again,” he said. They were suddenly in dangerous waters, with sharks all around them.

  “She lost the baby three months ago. That has nothing to do with where you stayed last night.” Eileen homed in on him. “There’s obviously another woman in your life. What do we do now?” She heard her own vo
ice as though it were someone else’s. She couldn’t believe she was having this conversation with him after eighteen years and three kids, and everything they’d been through and built together. Or was it all just a house of cards that blew over in the first gust of wind? Had he done this before? She wondered now, and realized she didn’t know him at all.

  Paul didn’t admit or deny anything. He bowed his head for a minute at his desk, looking for the right words. He didn’t want to go too far, but he knew something had to be said. He looked up at her with a sigh. “Maybe we need a break. Why don’t I stay in the city for a while?” It was all he could think of to say to relieve the tension.

  “Stay where? With whom? I think I have a right to know.” She was shaking when she asked him.

  “I can get a furnished studio apartment and stay there.”

  “Who is she, Paul?” Eileen pressed him.

  “It doesn’t matter. This is the first time.” She didn’t believe a word he said now, but he had admitted that there was someone else. Her heart felt like it was going to stop beating. She was shocked. It wasn’t the answer she’d expected. She thought he’d reassure her.

  “Are you in love with her?” She wanted to know now.

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I love you and our kids. Can’t we leave it at that for the time being? I don’t want to do anything drastic.”

  “You already did. How long has it been going on?”

  “A few months.” There was no point lying to her again, he didn’t want to anymore. He had been for months. “I was upset about Pennie, and I made a mistake.” He made it sound so easy, but it wasn’t, for either of them.

  “Don’t hide behind our daughter,” Eileen said angrily.

  “All right. We’ve been drifting apart for a long time. We probably never should have gotten married, but we’ve made the best of it. I’m just not sure what I want to do with the rest of my life. The kids are what holds us together. What happens when they leave? The boys are leaving in seven years. I’ll be forty-eight then. You’ll be forty-six. Do we want to continue living a mistake for another seven years?” She was shocked by his question. She’d had no idea he was thinking that way.

  “They’re not leaving right now as far as I can see. But it seems like you are.” He was re-evaluating his life, and he hadn’t mentioned it to her. And where was she in all this? Their marriage shouldn’t be based on unilateral decisions. She was turning forty, and her husband had just suggested a break and was walking out on her, because she caught him cheating on her. That was major. And he wasn’t suggesting they fix it. He wanted a “break,” a time-out away from her. This was not the way she had expected her life to happen. She felt as though her whole world was falling apart. “When are you leaving?” She felt as though she was having an out-of-body experience, and someone else was speaking for her. It didn’t even sound like her own voice. She felt strangely calm, or maybe she was just dead and didn’t know it. He had killed her the night before, while he spent the night with his other woman. Now he was moving out to be with her.

  “I can leave in the morning,” he said quietly, “or tonight if you’d prefer.” She thought about it for a minute before she answered.

  “If you’re involved with another woman, I don’t want you to stay here,” although he had been for the last four months, if the affair dated back to when Pennie told them she was pregnant, or was he lying about that too? Maybe it had gone on much longer, like years, and she’d been too big a fool to see it. They had never been blissfully happy or madly in love, but their marriage had worked well enough for eighteen years. They’d had some good times together, and raised a family, and she’d been faithful to him, even though he hadn’t been to her, apparently.

  “I’ll leave tonight then,” he said quietly, and went to pack some things. She stayed in the office, feeling dazed, and he came back a few minutes later with a small overnight bag in his hand. He said he would come back for the rest later, he didn’t want to pack more now. “What are you going to tell the kids?” He was worried about that and so was she.

  “I don’t know. What do you say in situations like this?” This had never happened to her before.

  “Maybe as little as possible until we figure it out ourselves.”

  “It sounds like you already have,” she said in a dead voice.

  “I told you, it was a mistake.” But he didn’t sound sorry. He was oddly matter-of-fact, even relieved.

  “But you continued it anyway. Are you willing to end it?” she asked him about the affair. That was the key question. Would he give the woman up to save their marriage? It didn’t sound like it.

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I wanted to several times, but the time never seemed right. I need to figure it out,” he said sadly when he saw the look in Eileen’s eyes. She looked broken in half by what he was doing to her. He felt better being honest now. Living a lie had been killing him. Now he felt free to make some decisions and some moves, no matter how painful it might be for both of them in the end. He was tired of living a lie, torn between two women and two lives. “Could you hold off telling the kids about her until I know what I’m doing?” It was a lot to ask, but she was an honorable woman, and he trusted her not to try and destroy his relationship with his children. She wouldn’t do that.

  “It depends what they ask me. I don’t want to lie to them.” He nodded and walked out of the office, without trying to go near her. He turned and looked at her again. “I’m sorry,” was all he said, and then he hurried down the stairs and opened the front door. She heard him drive away a few minutes later, without saying goodbye to his children. He had left her to explain his disappearance.

  She walked into their bedroom and lay down on their bed and stared up at the ceiling. She had no idea where to go from here, or what would happen next. She wondered what the other woman looked like and who she was. He was obviously in love with her if he was willing to leave their home for her. She had no idea if Paul would ever come back, or if she even wanted him to. She was still lying there when Pennie came to ask her a question an hour later and was surprised to find her lying down.

  “Are you sick, Mom?” she asked, worried. Eileen never lay down except to go to sleep at night.

  “No, just resting,” she said, sat up, and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “He had to go back to the city.”

  Pennie nodded, and handed her the draft of an essay for an application. “Could you read this for me and tell me what you think?”

  “Sure.”

  All the children had plans for dinner that night, and she was grateful that she’d be alone to absorb what had happened. She had a lot to think about. None of it seemed real. She wondered if she should have demanded to know the woman’s identity, but it was obvious Paul wasn’t going to tell her and she was too stunned to force the issue. She shuffled around the house after that, with no idea what she was doing, until they left. Her life had become a shambles in an instant, and she had to try and make sense of it. Not only did she have to figure out who he was, but she had to figure out who she was, without him. What if he never came back? And did she want him now? She didn’t know the answer to that either. His departure had seemed so unemotional and so bloodless. But maybe there was no blood left in the marriage. Maybe it had been dead for years and she hadn’t noticed. She felt dead as she walked back up the stairs to her bedroom, trying not to wonder about where he was, and who he was with. He was a ghost in her life now, and she felt like one too.

  * * *

  —

  Olivia Page was a beautiful, fiery, petite redhead, with long, luscious curly hair, big green eyes, full of energy and always in motion. She had a constant flow of exciting ideas. She was twenty-seven years old and had just started her own business. She had established an art gallery online that everyone was talk
ing about. She represented a number of important artists, and lesser ones, and she had the connections to sell to major clients. She had worked in the contemporary art department at Christie’s after she’d graduated from Yale, with a major in fine arts and a minor in art history. She had left Christie’s after a year to work for a well-known gallery, and had now just started her own business.

  She was the daughter of a famous Hollywood producer who had died when she was seven. He had been thirty years older than her mother, and he had been Olivia’s hero until his death and long after. He was a Hollywood legend, and so was her mother, Gwen Waters. She was a major Hollywood actress, winner of two Academy Awards. She had made a slew of well-known movies, although recently she’d been working less. Olivia worshipped her mother, but she didn’t envy her career. Olivia had no interest in Hollywood. The art world was her passion, and it seemed a better choice to her. Her mother was currently suffering from a lack of roles for women in their fifties, no matter how big a star she was.

  She was both her parents’ only child, although her mother had been married several times. She and Olivia’s father had divorced before he died, but remained close, and her father had left his entire fortune to Olivia. She had a penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue that looked like a Hollywood movie set, filled with the kind of art she sold. She had two Picassos in the living room, and a Jackson Pollock in the dining room that she had inherited from her father, and an entire wall of Andy Warhols of her mother in various hues and poses early in her career. Olivia had met countless famous people because of who her mother was, but she managed to be a real person in spite of it. She was honest and straightforward and outspoken, and had all the confidence of beauty, youth, brains, and famous parents. She was fearless and exciting and her taste in men leaned to those old enough to be her father, probably because hers had died when she was seven. She always said that men her age bored her.