Baby proof

twenty-five

I plan on going straight to work the next morning from Daphne's house, but I left my bra at home. I would go without one, but I'm wearing a tight sweater that is on the thin, almost sheer, side. Daphne jokingly offers up one of her bras but we both know that's not an option. Her boobs are significantly bigger than mine. So I head home to finish dressing, hoping that I don't run into Trey.

Fortunately, I don't.

I do, however, run into Michael, standing in front of the television with a remote in his hand, in all of his naked glory.

"Shit!" we yell in unison.

"What are you doing here?" I say, realizing how dumb the question is. I mean, he's certainly not here just lounging around in the buff, watching Sportscenter. I avert my eyes, but not before I catch an unwitting crotch-level shot of Michael that is sure to be emblazoned in my head forever. I combine the image with the sound effects from last night and think, Wow, Michael. And I thought you were nothing but another pretty-faced publicist.

At this point, Jess emerges from her bedroom, looking smug. "Have you two met?" She tosses a towel to Michael, who quickly wraps it around his waist.

"Yeah. We've met a few times," I say, smiling.

Michael smirks back at me and says, "We thought you were at Richard's."

"I was at Daphne's actually," I say, taking my coat off, remembering my bra situation one second too late.

"Nice tubes, Claudia," Michael says. "Guess it is show-and-tell at Elgin Press today. Or at least show. We can talk about it, though… If you want."

I put my jacket back on and say, "Forgot my bra. Sorry."

"No need to apologize," Michael says.

Jess gives him a playful, but strangely possessive, jab, which tells me that this might be a dash more than an isolated hookup. At least in Jess's eyes. My instinct is to leave the room and get the separate scoop from both parties later in the day, but then I figure that I might as well just ask the question now. So I say, "What's going on here anyway? How long have you two been creeping around like this?"

Jess slides her arm around and says, "Since you were in Italy, and I found my sperm bank."

Michael laughs and says, "Don't listen to her. We use condoms."

Condoms, plural, I think, as Jess laughs and says, "I'm talking him into it, though," she says, laughing.

"Seriously?" I say.

"Seriously," Jess says. "He has good genes, you know."

I look at Michael, a man who can't even commit to giving a woman a key to his apartment. He smiles and shrugs.

"But we're also in love," Jess says. "So it's all good."

"That's true," Michael says. "I love her."

I study their matching inscrutable expressions. They are thoroughly amused with themselves but also strangely serious.

I shake my head and say, "This is too fucking weird." Then I head to my room to get a bra.

That afternoon, I am trying to work, but mostly contemplating how I should get in touch with Ben, when there is a knock on my office door. I assume it is Michael who has yet to show his guilty face.

"Come in!" I say, leaning back and mentally preparing my one-liner.

The door opens and Richard appears, sporting my favorite literary look: tweed blazer, turtleneck, and glasses. I am happy to see him-and still quite attracted to him. But overriding this is a sense of awkwardness due to the fact that in the ten days since our return, this is our first face-to-face interaction.

"I didn't know you wore glasses," I say with a nervous laugh.

"Reading glasses," he says, taking them off and slipping them into his jacket pocket.

I smile and motion toward my guest chair. "Have a seat."

He closes the door to a crack and sits down.

"So, Parr? What's the deal?" he says. He gives me a little smirk that doesn't completely mask a dash of hurt pride. I am pretty sure that Richard is not accustomed to being blown off in any manner. "You didn't like Lake Como or what?"

I clear my throat and stammer, "I've just been busy… But no, I had a lovely time at Lake Como."

"Lovely, huh?" Richard says with an amused expression.

"You know what I mean. I had a great time," I say more sincerely. " Thank you."

"You already thanked me," he says. "No need to say it again."

We smile at each other for what feels like ten minutes, but is probably only about thirty seconds. In that brief window, it becomes absolutely clear, if it wasn't already, that our affair is over. I know Richard has no deep feelings for me-and I'm almost as sure that he has at least one other woman in his rotation, and a few on the back burner. But I still feel compelled to give him an explanation. So I say, "Listen. I feel really pathetic telling you this, but-"

Richard interrupts and says, "Careful. Pathetic can be charming on the right woman."

I laugh and say, "Not in my case."

"Let me guess," he says. "You're still in love with your ex-husband?"

I look at him, wondering how he knew. I can't think of a single time I've brought Ben up since Raymond Jr.'s baptism. Then again, maybe that's precisely how he knew. I consider a full explanation, but instead I say offhandedly, "I told you it was pathetic."

Then I reach into my top desk drawer for my cocktail ring. I can't return the trip to Italy-and it would be way too uncomfortable and gauche to offer up money for my half of our travel expenses. But I can symbolically return the ring. I say, "I feel weird about keeping this." As I attempt to hand it back to him, I have an unexpected jolt of being in high school when I returned Charlie's letter jacket to him upon our departure for college.

Richard waves me off and says, "Oh, for God's sake, Parr. It was nothing. It wasn't even that expensive. Keep it."

"Are you sure?" I say.

He gives me an exasperated look.

I put the box back in my drawer and say, "Okay… thank you. I really do love it."

"Well," he says, standing. " That was the point, ya know." He stands as I feel a mix of relief and regret. I am relieved that the conversation was so painless, and that I have no sense that working together will be awkward moving forward-which is obviously the biggest fear with any office romance. But I feel regret because I like Richard and will miss hanging out with him. And frankly, I will also miss sleeping with him. The thought of being thirty-five, at my theoretical sexual prime, and abstinent is not one that I relish. I know that I'm at risk for being completely alone. Richard turns to leave and then looks back at me with a trace of a smile. "If you change your mind, you know where to find me. Just call me. No strings attached."

After he is gone I replay his words and decide that although he meant it as a selling point, there is something almost tragic about a no-strings-attached kind of life.

Of course there is also something really sad about the opposite sort of life, too-a life where people stay together because of strings, I think, as Maura phones me from the parking lot of Zoe's ballet practice and says, "Well. He's doing it again."

I know right away that she is talking about Scott. He is cheating on her again.

"Could you be wrong?" I say. "Remember that one time you were wrong-and he really was just working late?"

I hear her inhale and then say, "I hired someone to follow him. I have him on tape."

"Oh, God, Maura… I'm so sorry."

"Don't," she says. "You'll make me cry."

I try to switch out of sympathy mode and deal with facts instead. "Tell me what happened," I say.

Maura says that she started suspecting Scott of having an affair based on the same tired patterns: working late, flowers sent to appease her, distracted behavior, ceaseless voice-mail checking. She says that the worst part has always been the wondering, so last week she opened the yellow pages and called the first PI listed, a guy named Lorenz whom she describes as a "Sopranos outcast type who cleans up well enough to look like a legitimate businessman." She says she paid him a one-thousand-dollar cash advance and in five days he had proof-a blurry video of Scott meeting his woman in a bar in Battery Park City. They had three drinks each and got cozy in a corner booth.

"How cozy?" I say.

"Daphne would call it canoodling," she says. Maura and I always tease Daphne for her celebrity-magazine jargon.

"Hmm," I say. "So what happened next?"

She tells me that Lorenz followed them onto the elevator at the hotel, taping the following furtive whispers behind him:

"Can you please stay overnight?"

(Inaudible).

"Why?"

"I can't, babe (inaudible)… I have a few hours."

"That's not long enough."

"Let's make the best of it."

Lorenz then trailed them to their room and listened at the door for a few minutes. The following morning he returned, slipped a maid fifty bucks to let him into the room. He took photos of two empty champagne bottles, a plate of half-eaten strawberries (so trite), and stuffed the sheets from the bed into his duffel bag.

"Why did he take the sheets?" I say.

"Semen samples. Classy, huh?"

I digest the sordid details and then say, "Who was she? Do you know?"

"I have no idea," she says. "But when I first saw the tape I thought it was Jane."

"Your best friend Jane?" I say, horrified.

"Yeah. But it turned out, it was just her body and hair double. I mean, this girl could be Jane's lost, slutty twin. And I've always suspected Scott of having a thing for Jane. So when I saw this video my heart literally stopped and I'm thinking to myself, Oh, my God, I am so going to kill Scott, and then Jane, and then myself. And the only thing that pulled me out of the moment was my next thought, one that made me almost smile. I thought to myself, Daphne is going to get three kids out of this deal."

"Wait," I say, as innocently and nonchalantly as possible. "Daphne gets the kids if you and Scott both die?"

Apparently I'm not subtle enough for Maura, who says ever so defensively, "Well, she's married, Claudia… And she wants kids."

"Oh, yeah. I understand," I say, but just as I did on the day of Raymond Jr.'s baptism, I have a twinge of envy and small stab of indignation. I hope that at the very least, I am the backup should Daphne die, too. I decide this probably isn't the right time to delve into guardianship matters. Instead I drop the subject and say, "So it wasn't Jane?"

"No. It wasn't Jane. And I know Jane would never do that. But stranger things have happened… I think the only people I fully trust in this world are you and Daphne. But I guess I'm lucky to have two, huh?"

A scene from Hannah and Her Sisters flashes into my head, which is one of the most disturbing movies I've ever seen for that very reason. I simply can't fathom Daphne or Maura betraying me in such a way. Or Jess for that matter. But to Maura's point, the list is short.

Maura continues, "So I think that whole initial shock of thinking Scott was with Jane worked in my favor. I mean, I was so unbelievably relieved when I saw that girl's face and realized it wasn't Jane after all. It was almost like a small battle victory in the middle of a war you're losing badly… Besides, in a sense, there's no new information here. We already knew Scott was a disloyal asshole. So I'm just dealing with gradations of that right now. He's a slightly grander and more consistent asshole than I previously thought." She laughs.

I smile, impressed at my sister's ability to keep her sense of humor.

"Have you confronted him?" I say. "Does he know you know?"

"No… And let me tell you, it's really something watching him act all innocent around the house, like Joe Good Husband." She imitates him: " 'Say, Maura, want me to whip up some blueberry pancakes?'"

"Disgusting," I say, knowing that no matter what happens to my sister's marriage, I can no longer keep up the pretense of liking Scott.

"Yeah. It really is. But a small part of me also takes perverse pleasure in having the goods on him. It's like I got the last laugh, you know? It's like, 'Who's the fool now?'"

"So, what next?" I say.

"I haven't decided on strategy. I don't want to act impulsively. What do you think of giving him a chance to come clean and confess?"

"You mean, tell him that you suspect that something is going on and see if he fesses up?" I say.

"Yeah. Something like that. You know, without telling him I have proof."

"Sounds like a good idea," I say. "And if he confesses?"

She exhales into the phone and says, "I don't know. More counseling, I guess. Maybe we could apply to be on Dr. Phil."

I laugh. "You wouldn't, would you?"

She says, "No! I can't fathom why people would expose themselves like that. I mean, the worst part about this is probably the humiliation."

I think to myself that if the humiliation is the worst part about this then she really doesn't love Scott anymore. I ask her if she does.

"Oh, shit, I don't know," she says. "I'm so far beyond that analysis. I mean, I guess I love the man I thought he was. Or the man he used to be. And occasionally, I still have a faint glimmer of love for him when I see him with the kids. He's a great father, if you can be a great father when you're doing this to your family…"

She pauses as I think of our mother. Maura is likely thinking of her, too. I can't believe my sister has to go through all of this again.

She continues, "But no, I don't love him anymore in the way you're asking about. I don't love a man who can make my life feel so seedy when I've done nothing wrong." Her voice cracks for the first time, so I try to ward off her tears by speaking crisply, as a mother does to her child who has just fallen down and is considering whether to cry. "Okay. So what if he denies everything?"

My strategy works because Maura's voice sounds strong again when she says, "I don't know. But I'm thinking I'll just pack up the kids and get the show on the road."

"You should tell him to leave. And with that video, you'd totally get the house."

"I don't know if I even want the house," Maura says. "Our life in that house is a joke."

We sit in silence for a long stretch until Maura says, "So Daphne told me about the egg donor stuff. And about Ben."

I have a split second of discomfort, wondering if Maura cares that Daphne and I confided in each other first. I wonder how old my sisters and I will be before we no longer compete at all in our circle of three. Then I say, "Yeah. It was hard to tell her no, but I had to."

"Because you want Ben back?"

"Among other reasons… But to be honest, that was the main issue… I think I made a mistake. I really miss him."

"Yeah," Maura says. "I'm not surprised. I thought you might change your mind."

Maura's I told you so is subtle but annoying. It occurs to me that I could do the same to her. I could tell her that I had my suspicions about Scott from the very beginning. That I thought he was way too charming and smooth to be believable. I think of their engagement when Scott hired an airplane to fly with the WILL YOU MARRY ME, MAURA? banner along the coast in East Hampton. I remember telling Jess that I didn't trust any man who turned a proposal-what should be a private, intimate expression of love-into something so public. I considered telling Maura the same-expressing my worries that she was marrying a shameless show-off, the sort of man who thrives on the chase, the hunt. But I don't think it would have changed anything. And what would be the point of telling her all of this now? Maura must know in her heart that she made a mistake marrying Scott. Just like I know that I made a mistake leaving Ben. So I say, "Yeah. I guess sometimes you have to find these things out for yourself…"

"Are you going to tell him how you feel?" "Yeah," I say. "As soon as I can work up the nerve." Maura sighs and says, "Isn't it strange that a baby was the only thing keeping you and Ben apart? And the kids seem to be the only thing keeping Scott and me together?"

"Yeah," I say. "I should have had a baby for the right guy." "And I had babies with the wrong guy," she says, confirming my theory that women are always, at least subconsciously, aware of their big life mistakes. Sometimes it's just not worth looking too closely. Unless those mistakes can still be fixed.

"Well," I say, wondering if it's too late for my sister and me. "Aren't we just the pretty pair?"

"We sure are," Maura says with a fragile laugh. "We sure are."