The Affair. Colette Freedman
the mirrored doors bounced the light back, making her squint, deepening the lines on her forehead and around her mouth. Even the peach-colored duvet looked pale and washed-out. She’d go to Benjamin Moore and get some color charts after Christmas, adding it to the growing list of things she was going to do “after Christmas.” She also knew that the list would probably not survive into the second week of the New Year.
Kathy spread out the cards on the bedspread and reached into the pocket of Robert’s jacket, which was thrown across the end of the bed, and pulled out his cell. Thin and sleek, it was a combination phone and pocket computer, with a large rectangular color screen. When he had first gotten it, he’d sat up in bed beside her one night and demonstrated several applications that he had eagerly downloaded, only giving up when she finally fell asleep.
Kathy turned it on. The Apple icon lit up on the screen, then gave way to his screen saver: a picture of their dead cocker spaniel Rufus. She shuddered. It was morbid to keep the picture; why would he want to relive the loss, everyday? Her lips twisted in a wry smile. Robert always had trouble letting things go.
Kathy unlocked the screen, revealing brightly lit rows of colorful icons. She touched the little brown Contacts icon at the top of the screen, and a listing of names and addresses appeared. She started to scroll down the names to the B’s, looking for Burst Post-production.
Bryant, Edward.
Burford, Kenneth.
Burroughs, Stephanie.
The name stopped her cold. Burroughs, Stephanie.
For an instant, a single moment of time, the room shifted, all the colors becoming brighter, sharper, though the sounds were muted. For the space of a single heartbeat her entire concentration was on that name glowing black on pale blue on the screen.
Burroughs, Stephanie.
Stephanie Burroughs.
There was a name she hadn’t come across in a long time, a name she had never thought she’d see again.
There was a tiny red flag on the screen beside the entry.
The shower changed tempo and then died, Robert’s off-key singing becoming louder.
Moving quickly now, fingers fumbling, she turned off the phone. Shoving it back into Robert’s jacket pocket, she darted from the room.
“Kathy? Were you looking for me?”
Robert’s voice trailed her down the stairs. But all she could hear was the thundering of her blood in her ears, thumping in time to the name echoing inside her head: Stephanie Burroughs.
CHAPTER 2
Kathy’s heart was hammering so hard in her chest that she could actually feel the flesh tremble beneath her skin. She stood in the kitchen doorway, gasping for breath in the chill December air. Stray snowflakes spiralled out of the darkness and kissed her cheeks and forehead. She was blinking furiously, but she would not cry. Not yet. Not now.
Stephanie Burroughs.
With a little red flag beside her name.
The conscious part of her brain suggested that it might be nothing. Stephanie Burroughs was in advertising; Robert was sure to have the names of just about everyone in the business in his phone. But instinct and emotion kept flashing back to the little red flag icon beside the name. You only put a flag beside something important, didn’t you?
It could be perfectly innocent.
But she knew it was not.
Kathy shook her head savagely. She brushed at her eyes with the palm of her right hand, pushing away the threatened tears. She could be wrong. She might be wrong. She wanted to be wrong.
But she knew she wasn’t. Not this time. Not now.
Stephanie Burroughs was back.
Six years ago, around about the same time they’d moved into this house, Robert had had an affair with Stephanie Burroughs. He’d denied it, but Kathy knew—she knew—he’d had an affair. She’d always been slightly nervous about Stephanie’s association with her husband, and then, when a friend—who was no longer a friend—had spotted Robert and Stephanie together at the Stones concert at Fenway Park and had gleefully told her, her suspicions had been confirmed. Three months of too many lame excuses, too many late nights at the office, too many weekend business trips. All of it had suddenly made sense. Everything had pointed to one inescapable conclusion: Her husband was having an affair.
On one terrible summer evening, with the sun low and red in the New England sky, she had turned and faced him. He’d been standing over the barbecue in the backyard, head wreathed in smoke, hamburger meat crisping on the grill. Without preamble, she had asked him flatly if he was having an affair with his researcher. In the instant when his eyes had slid from hers she’d known the truth even before he denied it. Flat-out denied it, with enough anger and outrage to rattle her convictions. She’d brought out her suspicions, and he’d managed to counter every one of them with a rational excuse. She’d never managed to prove it, and weeks of recriminations and anguish had followed. Then Stephanie had left the company and moved away, and with her departure a lot of the heat had gone out of the argument. Things drifted, then Robert and Kathy had settled back into their old routine.
Kathy had almost, but not quite, forgotten about the woman. It had been a long time since Stephanie’s name had flitted across her consciousness, though she still felt that little shiver of insecurity when she saw her husband looking at a pretty woman at a party.
But now, Stephanie Burroughs’s name was in his new phone, with a little red flag beside it.
“Hey, what’s up—it’s freezing out here!” Robert came up behind her, wrapping his strong arms across the top of her shoulders, resting his chin on the top of her head. He smelled fresh and clean, of soap and water and a hint of some cologne she didn’t recognize.
Kathy pulled away and stepped back into the kitchen. “Just getting a breath of air; the kitchen was stuffy. Nice cologne.”
“Yeah. It’s new. I didn’t know if you’d like it.”
“I do,” she said curtly as she closed the door and spun away from him, not looking into his eyes, fearful that he would see something in her face or that she would see something in his; after eighteen years of marriage it was difficult to keep a secret. She began to put return address labels on the last few cards. They were tacky wreath-decorated labels sent from a charity in their annual plea for money. Kathy always wondered if it was bad karma to use the preprinted labels without actually donating to the charity. “I left a couple of cards on the bed,” she began.
“I saw them. . . .”
“I don’t have the addresses, and besides they’re personal cards—it would be better if you wrote and signed them.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked quickly.
Kathy glanced sidelong at him. “Nothing.”
He’d been thirty-one when she married him, tall and gangly with a shock of black hair that refused to stay combed. The hair had remained more or less intact and he’d filled out some, but in truth he’d aged well. Extremely well. Unlike her, she thought bitterly. He’d matured; she had gotten old.
“Why do you ask?” she added.
Robert smiled, the corners of his lips creasing, and he tilted his head to one side, a movement she’d once found endearing, but which now irritated her. “Because you’ve got the tone in your voice.”
“Which tone?”
“That tone.” His smile deepened. “The tone that tells me that you’re pissed off at me.”
Kathy sighed.
“Oh, and the sigh is another