Annoyingly, when she said anything, he’d snap, ‘just business stuff’, and stalk off into the study, dismissing her, which she hated.
But this shouting – this was new. Something was up? Was it Jason himself?
It was a niggle in the back of her mind, a shiver of awareness that something in their relationship had shifted. If his irritation was just business, fine. Yet in some deep part of herself that Callie didn’t want to look too closely into, she wondered could her husband – faithful always – be straying?
Brenda, who was so cynical she should have run for election, would probably say she wasn’t in the least surprised.
And Evelyn ... Telling Evelyn would mean admitting that, after years of watching Evelyn get over Rob, finally Callie was in the same boat.
The next day, she and Evelyn went to Pilates, and afterwards, Callie was ready: ‘Coffee?’
‘Definitely,’ said Evelyn.
They walked down the road to a chichi little café that served every coffee known to woman as well as a wonderful variety of paleo/gluten-free/dairy-free snacks. God forbid that any woman in her lululemon gear ordered a plain old bun.
‘We are about to undo all the good work we did,’ Evelyn said cheerfully, looking at the menu once they’d found a table and ordered coffees.
‘Yeah,’ said Callie absently.
Ev, who had known her for a very long time, said: ‘What’s up?’
Callie rested her elbows on the table.
‘It’s Jason, isn’t it?’
‘I, oh – I don’t know. I might be imagining it,’ blurted out Callie.
‘Tell me.’
‘You’re the only person I can tell. He’s so distant lately, he’s out a lot and—’
‘You’re wondering what that means,’ Evelyn finished for her.
‘Yes.’ Callie couldn’t help it, she nibbled her thumb, working her way at a tough bit of skin.
‘Go on.’
‘I hoped that maybe it was a hassle with work and things he needed to do at weekends and late-night dinners and—’
The coffee arrived and Callie put off finger-nibbling for the relief of stirring a quarter spoon of sugar into hers.
‘And?’ pushed Evelyn.
‘I feel something’s wrong. I have nothing to go on, Ev, but itfeelswrong ...’
Evelyn fiddled with her coffee spoon for a moment. Displacement activity.
‘You think he’s got a girlfriend, right?’
Callie looked down and hoped she wouldn’t start crying, not now, with half the Pilates class close by.
‘First, I don’t know anything, Callie, and if I did, I’d tell you. I wished I’d trusted my instincts from the start. It was always like that with Rob when he was seeing someone new. He’d become totally involved with her and there would be lots of’ – Evelyn put her fingers in the air to make quote marks – ‘dinners with clientsandlast-minute meetings.’When I found out the first time, there had been a weekend trip away because someone they were working with had tickets to the opera in Milan and they needed to cement the relationship. Rob. Opera. As if!’ She rolled her eyes.
Callie drank some of her coffee as she listened but it tasted bitter.
She had consoled Evelyn plenty after she and Rob had broken up, but there was a difference between listening to your dear friend talk about betrayal and facing it yourself.
‘I knew for years that Rob was a serial cheater – not that we ever discussed it, how stupid was that? – but the real Rob would eventually come back to me and the kids. We’d have a glorious few months before it would all start again.’
