“Why this secret meeting in the dark?” I asked, wishing he’d say it was all for nothing, that he’d been wrong about everything.
“This was in Nat’s purse,” Harvey said, putting a heavy metal rectangle in my hand. I brought my phone up to examine it, but I already knew what the inscription on the side of the silver money clip would say. It was my present to Greg on our 1stwedding anniversary, engraved with our wedding date and the words, “Forever, Audrey”.
“I didn’t want to question her because she could make up an excuse about Greg having left it at our house at some point and her wanting to take it to him at work. Let’s not forget they are salespeople. They know how to improvise and make us see what they want us to see. Not to mention that Natalie met me when she was with her fiancée. This wouldn’t be her first rodeo.”
It was true. Natalie wasn’t feeling as happy as she should when she got engaged to her high school sweetheart, Ben. She told me she had met a ruggedly handsome new bartender, Harvey, at the place she was waitressing. They ended up hooking up, her not telling him she was engaged, and him not bothering to ask. Eventually, she told him when he asked her out on a proper date. When he said he didn’t want to play second fiddle to anyone, she promptly dumped her fiancée. Natalie followed Harvey to the ends of the earth, or so be it to this town, where she started off as a lowly customer service rep for a large company and grew through the ranks.
“We need real proof. I need something they can’t lie about,” I said, fiddling with the money clip.
“I’ve been thinking of hiring a private detective to follow them during the business trip,” he said.
I put my hands on my face. “I can’t believe this.” We sat in silence for a few moments, and I asked him, “Do we really need a PI? What if we can just catch them somehow?”
“I’ve been trying. She calls me to tell me she’s staying late at work, and I call her while she’s there, and she tells me she’s busy, but she answers. The only thing I haven’t done is follow her myself. It’s likely they’re… hooking up at work, which you know we can’t go up there unless you’re with someone who has the ID badge. But why did you agree to meet me here? Have you found something?” He asked. I hesitated in telling him about what Greg said last night, but I figured if we were both going down this rabbit hole together then I might as well come clean.
“Greg said something sexual to me last night, something I don’t do, and I thought— what if he’s been talking like that to someone else?” I knew I wasn’t giving him all the information.
“What did he say?” He asked at once. I was turning bright red, I knew, but thankfully it was too dark to notice.
“OK, so to tell you I have to start at the beginning. I have never… gone down on Greg, and we never ever talk about it. I don’t like it, and he promised he would never bring it up. Last night he was in the shower, and I was in the bathroom. Since I had my miscarriage and can’t have sex, he suggested that I…” I left it hanging there, assuming he understood where I was going with it.
“Oh.”
“Yes, I was so upset, thinking he could have said that because he’d been doing stuff like that with someone else, but I don’t know. I mean, maybe they haven’t slept together or done much. Maybe they’ve just been flirting and getting close, and we’re blowing this out of proportion.”
I saw him staring at me in the dark. “Maybe. But then again, your husband was asking you to do something to him that my wife used to do for me often enough.” As soon as he said it, I felt as if I’d been punched in the stomach. It hurt, it physically hurt. I felt the tears stinging the back of my eyes, but I furiously blinked them away.
“OK,” I said, “Let’s do it. How much will this cost?”
“I already talked to a guy who says he can either be paid $500 plus travel expenses in cash, or he can make the statement on a credit card say anything we want. I was thinking about how I could put a few hundred on the credit card as if it was a charge from Lowes and tell her I’m working on the yard. I doubt she’d ever even question me on it, but anything nearing $1000 she’d probably ask about.”
“I have around $800 cash stashed in the house for emergencies,” I offered.
“He won’t miss it?”
“Not unless there’s a catastrophe where we can’t use our credit cards.”
“I think we’ll be safe then, and slowly we’ll work on replenishing that cash afterward.”
“If...” I started to say.
“Hey, it’s possible I’ve been a fool this whole time and pulled you into my psychosis. We’ll be laughing at ourselves pretty hard in a week’s time when we’re out over a grand. I’m sure you’ll never trust my judgment again.”
I laughed, but it was a nervous and uncomfortable laugh. In a week’s time, we were all supposed to be on our way to St. Thomas. Harvey walked me back as far as the path to the street where I’d go around to my front door. We whispered about meeting for lunch tomorrow at noon with the PI at a chain restaurant across town and said goodbye. Walking home, my thoughts were a big muddled mess.
Back at home, I tried to act as normal as possible when Greg jumped in the shower with me. That is until he pulled me towards him and pushed his penis toward my butt.
“I’m still bleeding, babe,” I said, moving away from him.
“Yuck.” He then washed his penis under the stream of water and smiled at me in his goofy grin sort of way. I laughed because that’s what I always do when he’s being funny, but I wondered if this may be one of our last silly moments together. Actually, those last moments were gone already, because this was now tainted with possible lies and suspicion. My marriage might have ended, and I wasn’t aware of it yet. The tears threatened to come out, and I pushed him out of the water so the water could spray on my face, camouflaging any tears that might escape.
The next dayI woke up, and as always the space next to me was empty since Greg leaves early in the morning. My nerves messed with me as I was getting ready and then were on high alert as I drove to the restaurant.
Maybe it’s better if I don’t know, I thought. It was a mistake, and he’s learning from it and will never do it again. I considered how the $800 in my purse might be wasted on nothing. As I parked, I saw Harvey leaning against his car. He was lost in thought, but then he cracked a smile when he noticed me getting out of the car. I forced a smile back. My anxiety was the only thing I could focus on at that moment.
“Let’s go in,” I said, resigned to what my life was becoming. Soon I’d confront my husband about the sleazy pictures the private investigator would inevitably take, and Greg would beg for forgiveness. I’d yell at him things about vows and trust and betrayal, storm out of the house, and fly to my mother’s until I could get back on my feet. What would I do? Get another crappy office job? Be the divorcee? It was overwhelming, and yet I saw it laid out so clearly, it must be so.
A short, slender man named Gus introduced himself as the private investigator, and the three of us sat down at a bar table. He told us his estimated cost based on the information given to him and asked for more details on each Natalie and Greg. He said he’d be on board the same plane as them tomorrow morning. Harvey looked at me, and I wondered if he felt as tense as I was. He must have been, with that stare he gave me. He was waiting for me to give the final OK and give the guy the money. So I did.
