chapter 7
Her
“You’re packing it wrong.” Craig stands next to me, his hand on his hips, his head shaking.
“It’s fine.” I shut the suitcase lid and lean on it, struggling with the zipper.
“Kate, stop.” He bats at my hand. “We need to pull everything out and repack. You don’t need so many clothes.”
“What I don’t need is you telling me how to pack. Go in the living room,” I say crossly. “Let me zip this up.” I push on his shoulder and watch as he steps back, a pained look in his eyes. It’s cruel to not let him pack, to not let him use his T-shirt folding board to ensure that all of the edges are crisp and similarly sized. But letting him pack would mean that he’d see the red lace lingerie that I tucked inside, a new Marks item that hasn’t even rolled off to stores yet. I’d like to keep it a surprise, something to pull out on Saturday night, in celebration of my birthday.
I get the suitcase closed, the zipper straining but holding, and I lug it into the living room, giving a ta-da! motion that goes completely ignored by Craig, who zeros in on each of my suitcase’s wheels, examining and then lubricating them, using a tiny squeeze bottle that he returns to a Ziploc bag upon completion. “Ready?” I say dryly, glancing at my watch. It doesn’t matter if he isn’t. We’ve got a good five hours until the flight. There is no Earthly reason why we would leave the house now, except that Craig doesn’t like to leave anything to chance. I thought he overdid it when we went to San Diego for the night. It turns out that international travel puts him on a whole new plane of neurotics. I eye Craig and wonder if I’m making a mistake bringing him. This is a work event after all, a shopping trip to purchase leftover inventory from an old undergarments factory. Our four-day trip, if the inventory is quality, could save us a few hundred thousand dollars. In my initial mention of the trip to Craig, I could have just left it at that. Instead, fueled by wine and a $200 scratch-off ticket win, I’d invited him along.
“I’m ready.” He tests out the wheels, rolling the suitcase in a quick circle. “I’ve got our itinerary and travel documents in the car already. Let’s go.”
I smile and loop my arm through his. “I’m excited.”
He returns the smile, leaning forward and giving me a quick peck on the lips. “Me too, sweetie.”
“Bon voyage!” I cheer, throwing my arms into the air.
“Allons-y,” he corrects. “Bon Voyage is wishing someone else a good trip.”
“Sure. Whatever.” I grab the handle of my suitcase and skip toward the door.
Hong Kong is both everything I expected and like nothing I could have imagined. I stand in the middle of a busy street and lift my arms, spinning in the crowd, the neon lights everywhere, the air full of foreign smells and sounds, the clatter of languages like a comforting blanket of anonymity. I catch Trey’s eyes and wave, the corner of his mouth pulling up in response, his eyes dropping back to the cash in his hand, his discussion with the street vendor continuing, a back and forth negotiation about scooter rentals, a conversation that Craig is panicking over, his repeated attempts to get my attention ignored. “Relaaaxxxx,” I call out to him. He doesn’t trust Trey; that is the problem. He hasn’t learned the carefree ease with which Trey manages to handle things. It’s been nine months, and I’m just now learning to leap when he offers his hand. Because that’s how he is. He doesn’t ask you to risk, unless he is taking that journey alongside you. If I fail, he fails. And if a street peddler in the biggest city in the world screws Craig over, he’s screwing over Trey Marks also. And that scenario is as unlikely as, well … a tiny speck of moisture hits my cheek and I look up in delight, a kaleidoscope of white flurries drifting down. I jerk forward, waving my hands in big circles to get their attention. “Guys! It’s SNOWING!”
Trey stands, and Craig and I watch as he lifts his glass toward us. “A toast,” he announces, that trademark grin pulling at the edge of his mouth.
I glance down at my own wineglass, surprised to find it half empty. Hadn’t he just topped me off … what, five minutes ago? Or ten? It was when we’d been telling Craig that story—the one about Marie from Accounting, and her Halloween costume. I giggle, and lift my glass. We should drink more. We should travel more. With my latest raise, and Craig’s … well, Craig never spends any money so he should have mountains of it — there is no reason why we don’t have more fun. Like this. Halfway across the world, in a place where foreign languages bounce off exotic walls, and we are eating fried silkworms for God’s sake. Why, in three years together, are we just doing this now?
Trey clears his throat, and looks at me in an almost stern fashion. “Kate, I do believe that you are drunk.”
I giggle again, a completely uncharacteristic act, and stop myself, analyzing my alcohol consumption and present mood. I am drunk. I feel almost proud at the fact, and that itself is even further testimony to the fact that I must be drunk. I, Kate Martin, eternal good girl and dotter of all I’s, am officially drunk. In Hong Kong. With two of the best guys—
“She’s about to cry,” Craig blurts out, looking at Trey with concern.
I sniff. I can’t help it. They are so different. Craig is so good to me. And he tries so hard to be the best partner; he’s going to be a wonderful father, and he’s suuuuch a good person on the inside. And then you have Trey, who is, like, this perfect sexy unicorn—not that he has a horn sticking out of his head or anything like that—he’s just so … I close my eyes and try to find the right word, the one that embodies how special and unique he is. How he can make my day by just smiling. Like how, right now, he is looking at me, in the kindest, sweetest way, as if—
“DON’T CRY,” Craig says, very loudly, his face close to mine, my nose catching a whiff of the tuna tartare he had for an appetizer.
“OKAY,” I say back, just as loudly and exaggerated as he had, as if being drunk made me deaf in some way. “I WILL NOT CRY.”
My eyes meet with Trey’s, and he winks.
2 AM. My buzz peaks, then falls, my joy ebbing into something else, something dark and contemplative, where all of my thoughts bubble to the surface and demand to be examined. Craig and I step into the elevator, and I watch the floor numbers rise.
I think there is something fundamentally wrong with my relationship.
In three years of dating, we haven’t had a single fight. In three years, we have fit together easily, me overlooking any imperfections, and hiding any qualities that I thought he wouldn’t approve of. I love him, but I’ve never been passionate about him; I’ve never obsessed over him. Shouldn’t a woman, at some point, obsess over the man she is going to spend the rest of her life with? Once, when I was looking up an email on Craig’s phone, I had the momentary idea to check his text messages, to see who he was communicating with, and what was being said. I hadn’t, the idea preposterous that Craig would be cheating on me, or flirting with someone else. A waitress once hit on him, and he got so worked up about it that he made the poor waitress sit down and listen to him explain the history of our relationship. We stopped going to that restaurant, just to avoid another uncomfortable interaction with her.
Our hotel room is dark, no lights left on, the curtains drawn. I open the top drawer of the dresser, moving aside my sweater and consider the lingerie set hidden underneath it. I replace the sweater and sit on the bed, listening to Craig brush his teeth, then floss. When he comes into the room and unzips his pants, I watch him remove them, hanging them neatly back on the hanger, his body slowly unwrapped as he removes his shirt and follows the same process. His body is the perfect specimen for a doctor’s office: well-exercised, no flab, but only moderate muscle tone, nothing bulky enough to stress the heart. He comes to me naked, gently pulling me to my feet and we kiss, his tongue tasting of wintergreen, his skin cool beneath my fingers. He pulls at the zipper of my dress and I help him. He goes to his knees, and I lie back on the bed, one leg over his shoulder, his mouth gentle against me, and I dig my fingers
into his hair when I come.
I think it’s the alcohol that has numbed me. There is no reason, when he moves to the bed and pushes inside of me, that I don’t emotionally react. No reason why, when we finish and I roll over in bed, my dress still on, hair still up, that I should feel alone.
But I do. I lay my hand across the dark grey sheets, the diamond glinting at me, and I feel the deep certainty that I am making a mistake.
At 4 AM, I wake up Craig and tell him everything.
Him
I end the call and nod to the waiter, waiting for him to replace my drink. I eye the third place setting, and regret, for the hundredth time, allowing her to bring her fiancé along. Initially, I had thought it a good idea. I thought that seeing her happy, seeing her future—it might make everything between her and I a little clearer, a little less tempting. That plan backfired as soon as they arrived. This guy isn’t right for her. Hell, he’s completely wrong for her. But I can’t tell her that. If I do, she’ll dismiss it, and then there will be animosity, and as close as we’ve become during the past nine months, I’m not certain we can bury that conversation and move on.
I run a finger over the tines of my fork, pushing down on the silver, irritated by the fact that he is here, putting a damper on everything. Today, we should be celebrating, the merchandise purchase complete, a chunk of money saved, everything continuing to move toward success. Instead, I’ll be staring across the table at him, and pairing all of the ways he is wrong for her against all of his strengths.
Unfortunately, he does have a few strengths.
He’s attractive, in a Brooks Brothers, men’s catalogue sort of way. Perfectly neat hair, straight teeth, boyish good looks.
He’s successful, assuming she’s happy as middle-class.
He’s smart, annoyingly so, something he has gone out of his way to point out.
He also seems oblivious to the fact that I want to fuck his future wife. He seems to have no concern over our long hours, or casual familiarity, or the moments that our eyes meet across the table, wordless communication in just the tiny movements of a smile or glance.
He shouldn’t be this calm, or this friendly. He should be questioning our friendship, and subtly asserting his dominance. There should be a healthy distance between us, a squaring off of masculinity, a rolling up of sleeves in the fight over this woman. My woman.
That is how all of this should play out. That is the game I know how to fight.
I can’t fight a nice, well-mannered pushover. It would make me look like an ass. It would push her away.
I reach for my glass and mentally correct myself. It doesn’t matter how he reacts, or how the game should be played. I can’t fight him because I shouldn’t have her. It’s the mantra I keep forgetting, the plan that keeps going astray.
The restaurant door opens, and I know it’s her from the smile on the maître d’s face.
“Where’s Craig?” I pull out her chair, glancing toward the front of the restaurant. It’s terrible, but a part of me hopes that he is sick, some sort of stomach bug that will keep him in their room and out of our hair for the next two days.
“Something came up, late last night. He’s on the way to the airport now. He has to go home.” She picks up the napkin and spreads it in her lap, her eyes on the motion. Something is wrong, her voice too forcibly light.
I sit down and smooth my own napkin, keeping my gaze on her. “Do you need to go with him? I can handle the rest of the meetings without you.”
“No.” The shake of her head is short and quick, almost a shudder. “It’s fine. I’ll see him when I get back.” She smiles at me, and something is definitely wrong, the lines of her face pulling at the wrong places, her eyes avoiding mine, her study of the menu uncharacteristically focused.
I fight a war between protective aggression and giving her space, my tongue poised, unsure of how to act. I catch her eyes and there is a flash of raw vulnerability, silently begging me to leave it alone. I reach forward, passing her the basket of bread, and eye the ring that still sits on her finger. “So, no Craig.”
“No.”
“And our meeting with the factory rep is at ten?”
“Yes.”
“I hope you use bigger words in our meeting. You’re the only chance we have to sound intelligent.”
The corner of her mouth twitches, and it feels like a monumental victory. “Okay.”
“And you know you’ve piled a lot of extra work on me.”
Her eyebrow raises, and a hint of life enters her eyes. “In what way?”
I let out a heavy sigh. “Now I’ve got to entertain you for the next two days. Play host, get you drunk on Hong Kong sake, and give you a vacation you’ll never forget.”
She rolls her eyes and picks up the menu. “Shut up. We both know I’ll be getting room service tonight, and you’ll be banging some Chinese whore.”
“I’m canceling the Chinese whore,” I say with a hurt tone. “I mean, I was going to bang her, but you and your inconvenient loneliness just cost her the greatest orgasms of her life.”
“Oh my God.” She lifts the menu higher to hide her smile. “Please stop.”
Her foot bumps against my leg, and I look at my own menu, wishing that ring was off her finger and this restaurant was deserted.
Her
“I’m not drinking that!” I call up to Trey, hoping he can read lips because the noise in the club is deafening. He smiles down at me and I tug on his dress pants, smacking a hand across the top of his shoe to get his attention.
Standing on top of the bar, he calls out something and the crowd erupts into cheers, a chant starting which I can’t understand. I raise my hands in question and he points to the girl next to me, yelling something at her. The girl, a pig-tailed sexpot with cat eyes and combat boots, leans forward and presses her mouth to the ice block, her eyes flicking up to Trey. He tilts a bottle and red liquor flows down a gulley, through the ice and into her mouth. It looks unsanitary and extremely sexual, two directions I have no plans of stumbling down tonight. She closes her eyes and swallows, lifting her mouth from the ice and wiping across her lips with the back of the hand. She gestures me forward.
“No!” I wave my hands at Trey, shaking my head emphatically, but the crowd chants louder, fists pounding the bar top, bodies beginning to jump in concert. He winces, as if he is innocent in all of this, then holds up one finger.
“One shot,” he yells. “Just one!”
I can’t. If I do this, if I yield to him, he will be hell. It will be like giving the devil keys to my kingdom. He will know that if he flashes me that smile, and gives me that wink, that I will bend, will behave, will do whatever he wants me to do. And I do mean whatever. His eyes catch mine and he crouches, smoothly setting down the liquor and swinging off the bar, landing beside me, his hand cupping the back of my waist and pulling me against him. He lowers his mouth to my ear. “Just one, Kate. For me.”
Maybe it is the proximity to him, or the way his voice softens on the last two words. Maybe it is the fact that I have to turn away from him and take that shot or I’ll tilt my chin up and kiss him. Whatever the reason, I step away and up to the ice.
I tell myself that ice is sterile, and it doesn’t matter that I’m putting my mouth in the same place where a stranger’s was.
I tell myself that because I didn’t tell Trey that I broke up with Craig. It makes this night fine, removes any romantic layers, and drinking with my boss is as inappropriate as this will get.
I close my eyes and wait for the alcohol, and tell myself that I don’t care if I look sexy, or if Trey is proud of me, or impressed, or anything else.
The liquor hits my tongue and it’s ice cold. I swallow it and stand, some leaking from the side of my mouth. As I go to clean it, Trey’s hand is there, his fingers soft against my chin, and our eyes meet as he wipes away the liquor and then moves his hand up, gently sucking the edge of his thumb into his mouth.
Good Lord. This man will be the death of me.
My flight to Hong Kong had been bearable, Craig and I lucky enough to be seated next to one of those scrawny teenagers who wears headphones and doesn’t hog the armrest. But flying back, Trey upgrades me to first class, an expensive transition I initially balk at. The mid-flight neck massage, private television, and sushi softens my resistance. The full bed, privacy curtain, and seven-hour nap have me swearing off coach forever.
“Is everything okay with Craig?”
I consider the question without turning to look at him. “He’s fine. It was a work emergency. I think he’s handled it.” It’d be easy to tell him the truth; I should tell him the truth. Trey isn’t just my boss—we have become friends. It’d be weird not to tell him.
But telling him I’ve broken off my engagement will lead to questions, ones that I haven’t quite worked out in my head. Maybe, back in the US, I will change my mind. Maybe, after cataloguing all of the decision-making factors, I’ll realize that I shouldn’t have made such a life-altering decision while drinking. Maybe I’ll call Craig and tell him that I’d made a mistake.
Or maybe I won’t. I feel absolutely zero regret over my decision. If anything, I feel better—the knot of anxiety over our future gone, my possibilities wide open. Last night, I had the best night of my life. At some point, we had danced, in a dark club off a side street, one where drag queens greeted us at the door and disco pumped through the speakers. I’ve never danced. Not in college, definitely not in grad school. The formal events that Craig and I sometimes attended had a few slow songs we’d swayed to, in the most dignified manner possible. But nothing like last night. That had been arms up, ass shaking, gyrations. We had moved deep into the crowd, in a place of rough, jam-packed movement, his arms protectively wrapping around me, my body occasionally brushing against his to the tune of the techno. When we made it to the upstairs bar, we took tequila shots and found a jukebox. I put on a country song, managed to mix it with an Irish jig, and Trey laughed and told me that I was a terrible dancer. He also, over tapas in another bar, brushed my hair out of my face and told me that I was brilliant. I don’t remember my response. I don’t remember much of the rest of the evening, except that I fell asleep in a taxi, and he ended up carrying me to my room.