“No worries there. I’ve always dreamed of an intimate wedding. I wanted to be your wife, not play Cinderella in a ball gown.”
“Those options weren’t mutually exclusive.”
“Are you having regrets?”
“No. None at all,” Andrew said, looking off down Hudson Street.
His fourth lie.
They had dinner at Mr. Chow’s, a Chinese restaurant Valerie liked for its refined, avant-garde cuisine. It was a boisterous meal. Colette and Simon were getting along famously with Valerie’s parents. Andrew said little, and his wife couldn’t help noticing that he seemed miles away. She declined her father’s suggestion that they take the party elsewhere. When he complained he was being deprived of a dance with his daughter, she told him she was sorry, but she couldn’t wait to be alone with her husband.
Valerie’s dad put his arms around Andrew and hugged him.
“You better make her happy, my boy,” he whispered. “Or you’ll have to answer to me,” he added jokingly.
It was nearly midnight when the taxi dropped the newlyweds off at Valerie’s apartment. She ran up the stairs ahead of him and stood waiting on the landing.
“What is it? What’s up?” he asked, rummaging in his jacket pocket for his keys.
“You’re going to pick me up and carry me over this threshold. Without banging my head on the door,” she replied with a wicked smile.
“See? There are a few traditions you’re still attached to,” he said as he obeyed.
She took off her dress in the middle of the living room, unhooked her bra and slipped off her panties. She strolled naked across the room to where Andrew was standing, took off his tie, undid the buttons of his shirt and put her hands on his chest. She stood pressed up against him as her fingers slid down to unbuckle his belt and pull down his zipper.
Andrew took her hands in his. He caressed her cheek tenderly, then picked her up and carried her over to the sofa. He knelt in front of her, dropped his head in her lap and began to sob.
“What is happening, Andrew?”
Andrew looked up at her. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“You’ve been acting happy all day, but it’s clear you’re not. On our wedding day! Are you having money problems? Is it work? Tell me.”
Andrew took a deep breath. “You made me promise I wouldn’t ever lie to you or cheat on you, remember? You made me swear I’d tell you straight out if something went wrong between us one day.”
Valerie’s eyes filled with tears as she stared silently at Andrew.
“You’re my best friend, my lover, the woman I feel closest to . . . ”
“We were married today, Andrew,” Valerie said in a choked voice.
“I beg you. From the bottom of my heart. Forgive me.”
“Is there someone else?”
“Yes. No. A shadow . . . but I’ve never felt this way before.”
“You waited for us to get married before admitting to me and to yourself that you’re in love with someone else?”
“I love you, I know I love you, but not like this other love. I was too cowardly to acknowledge it or to talk to you about it. I couldn’t muster the courage to cancel our wedding. Your parents were coming all the way from Florida. Your best friend was coming from New Orleans. Then there’s this article I’ve worked so hard on these past few months. It’s turned into an obsession. I couldn’t think of anything else. And I lost my way. I tried to bury my doubts. I wanted to do the right thing.”
“Shut up,” Valerie murmured.
She lowered her eyes. Andrew’s gaze was drawn to her hands, which she was twisting together so hard her fingers had turned white.
“Please don’t say another word. Get out. Go home. Go wherever you want to. Just go. Leave this apartment.”
She got up. Andrew made as if to move towards her, but she backed off. She backed away as far as the bedroom and shut the door gently behind her.
* * *
Outside, a drizzle fell from a gloomy sky. Andrew pulled up the collar of his bridegroom’s suit and trekked across town to get back to his apartment in the West Village.
Time and again he had to fight the urge to call Simon. But Andrew, who had always thought he wasn’t afraid of anything, suddenly found he was scared to hear what his best friend would say.
Time and again he wished he could confide in his dad. He wished he could show up at his parents’ place and tell them everything; hear his mom tell him it would all work out in the end, and that it was better to admit the marriage had been a mistake, however cruel that was, than to live a lie. Valerie would probably hate him for a few years, but she’d end up forgetting him. She was an amazing woman; she wouldn’t stay single for long. If she wasn’t the woman of his dreams, he probably wasn’t the man of her dreams either. He was still young, and even if it felt like he’d never get over what he was going through right now, one day it would just be a bad memory. Andrew wished he could feel his mother’s hand on his cheek and his father’s arm on his shoulder and hear them talking to him. But his parents were no longer alive.
It was his wedding night, and he’d never felt lonelier.
* * *
When the shit hits the fan, it goes everywhere. That was Freddy Olson’s favorite saying. Andrew kept muttering it to himself as he sat working on his article that Sunday. He’d got an e-mail from Olivia first thing. She’d said some very flattering things about his investigative skills, assured him it was one of the best pieces she’d read in a long time, and congratulated herself on entrusting him with it. But she had also sent it back full of comments and underlined passages. She wanted to know how authentic his sources were, and whether he’d checked every last detail. He’d made some pretty serious accusations and the legal department would undoubtedly want to make sure they were all well-founded.
As if he would have taken all those risks just to make up stories. He’d blown half his salary following up on the leads the barmaid at his seedy hotel had given him, and tracked down some reliable but rather cagey sources. He’d nearly got beaten up in the outer suburbs of Buenos Aires, but luckily he’d managed to give the slip to the thugs who’d been on his tail for two days. He’d almost ended up in prison, not to mention put his personal life on hold for the sake of this investigation. He wasn’t a rookie! He grumbled all day as he sorted through his notes.
At least Olivia had ended her message with more praise, and told him she wanted to have lunch with him the next day. That was a first. Andrew would normally have been convinced the invitation meant he could expect another promotion, or maybe even an award, but he was in such a funk he was sure it wouldn’t be anything good.
That evening he heard hammering on his door. Andrew thought it was probably Valerie’s father come to smash his face in. He opened up, almost relieved: maybe a good thrashing would make him feel less guilty.
Simon pushed him roughly aside and strode into the apartment.
“Tell me you didn’t do it!” he shouted, heading for the window.
“Did she call you?”
“No, I called. I wanted to stop by and give you guys your wedding present, but I was scared I’d walk in on you having sex or something. Man, was I wrong.”
“What did she tell you?”
“What do you think? She’s heartbroken. She doesn’t get it. All she knows is that you’ve messed her around, and that you don’t love her. Why did you marry her? Couldn’t you have called off the wedding? You’ve acted like a total bastard.”
“Look, you and everyone else said I shouldn’t say or do anything, just go through with it. Everyone told me I was just imagining how I felt!”
“Who’s ‘everyone’? Who else did you confide in? Fallen for a new best friend, have you? Are you going to leave me too?”
“Don’t be an asshole, Simon. I talked to my tailor.”
“Oh
, terrific. Couldn’t you just try being married for a few months, at least give the two of you a chance? So what happened last night that was so serious you had to go and screw it all up?”
“If you really want to know, I couldn’t make love to her. And Valerie’s too smart to believe it was only because I’d had too much to drink.”
“Do you feel like it’s impossible for you to go see her and tell her you’re sorry, that you made a mistake, and that this is all just some temporary madness?”
“I don’t know what I feel anymore. I just know I’ve never been this unhappy.”
Simon got up and went into the kitchen. He came back with a couple of beers and handed one to Andrew.
“I’m sorry for you, old buddy. Do you want to spend the week at my place?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m much better company than you are.”
Simon put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“Remember that story about the guy who was being tried for the murder of his parents and pleaded with the judge to let him off because otherwise he’d be sentencing an orphan?”
Andrew looked at Simon and the two of them laughed the way only good friends can when a situation is dire.
* * *
On Monday Andrew had lunch with his editor, just the two of them. She had chosen a restaurant some distance from the office.
Olivia had never shown this much interest in his work before. She had never interrogated him about his sources or the people he’d met or the way he’d carried out his investigation. Through lunch, she barely touched her food, hanging on to his words as he described his time in Argentina like a little girl listening to an adult reading her a heartbreaking story. Andrew thought she seemed on the brink of tears a couple of times.
When they’d finished lunch, she took Andrew’s hand in hers, thanked him for the exceptional job he’d done and told him he should write a book about it one day. As they were getting up to leave, she informed him she was delaying the publication of his story by a week to get him a front-page lead and two full pages within the paper. A headline and two inside pages in The New York Times—it wasn’t the Pulitzer, but it would certainly win him recognition. And when Olivia asked if he had enough material to flesh out the story, her tone making it clear she didn’t doubt it in the slightest, Andrew assured her he would get to work straight away.
That’s what he’d do all week, he promised himself. He’d get to the office early, grab a sandwich at lunchtime and work late into the night, except maybe to have dinner with Simon.
Andrew stuck to his schedule—until Wednesday, when, as he left the office, he was overcome by a sense of déjà vu. At the corner of 40th, he thought he glimpsed the face of the stranger from Novecento at the rear window of an SUV parked in front of the building. He started running towards her. In his haste, the folder he was carrying slipped out of his hand, spewing the pages of his article all over the sidewalk. By the time he had gathered them up, the car had disappeared.
From then on Andrew started going to Novecento every evening after work in the hope of finding the woman who was haunting him. He waited in vain, returning home each night disappointed and exhausted.
On Saturday he found an envelope in his mailbox, addressed in familiar handwriting. He placed it on his desk and promised himself he wouldn’t open it until he had put the final touches on the article Olivia had been waiting for since the previous evening.
After he had sent it to her, he called Simon and told him he couldn’t make dinner because he was still working.
Then he went to sit on the window ledge in the living room, breathed in great gulps of the night air, and finally opened Valerie’s letter.
Andrew,
This Sunday without you was the first time since I was a teenager I spent wallowing in the pain of separation. I ran away at seventeen; you at nearly forty. How can I get used to not knowing how you’re doing? How can I emerge from the depths of your silence?
I’m scared of my memories—they take me back to the way you used to look at me when we were young, to the sound of your voice brightening my day when we met again as adults, to the reassuring beat of your heart when I put my hand on your chest and listened to you sleeping at night.
Losing you, I’ve lost a love, a lover, a friend and a brother. It’ll take me a long time to mourn them all.
I wished you dead for making me suffer so. But I want to be happy, and I know that I wouldn’t be if you were not alive. So may your life be happy.
I’ll sign off this short note by writing, for the first and the last time, “Your wife.” Or rather, the woman who was your wife, for one sad day.
6.
He slept through most of Sunday. He had gone out the previous evening with the firm intention of getting monumentally drunk—he’d spent quite a few years honing that particular skill. Shutting himself away at home because he didn’t have the guts to go out would have been even more unbearable.
He had pushed open the door of Novecento later than usual, drunk more Fernet and Cokes than usual and tottered out of the bar in a worse state than usual. And to top it all, he’d sat at the bar by himself the whole time, and only talked to the bartender. Wandering around the deserted streets in a drunken haze, Andrew had found himself breaking into a fit of hysterical laughter, which turned quickly into overwhelming sadness. He had sat sobbing for nearly an hour on the edge of a sidewalk with his feet in the gutter.
When he woke up with a hangover that reminded him he was long past the age of binge drinking, he found himself missing Valerie. He missed her intensely—as badly as he missed that apparition of a single night who had, for whatever reason, put him under her spell. But Valerie was his wife, and the other woman was an illusion. And Andrew couldn’t stop thinking about Valerie’s letter.
He had made a terrible mistake—one of the worst he had ever made. He thought about his article; if it brought him some fame and recognition then he wanted to share his sense of satisfaction with Valerie. He had to make things right with her again; he needed a second chance.
*
On Monday morning he went out for his run, going down Charles Street as he did every morning and jogging towards the river.
He waited for the lights to turn red and crossed the West Side Highway. When he reached the central traffic island the little illuminated figure was flashing, but Andrew stepped into the road anyway the way he did every morning, responding to the blaring horns by lifting his fist, his middle finger pointing to the sky. Then he turned into the Hudson River Park path and picked up his pace.
He’d knock on Valerie’s door that very evening to explain and ask her to forgive him. He no longer had the slightest doubt about his feelings for her. He felt like hitting his head against a wall; he asked himself what madness had possessed him to make him act like he had.
A week had gone by since their separation—a seven-day nightmare he’d inflicted on the love of his life because he was a selfish bastard. But it would never happen again; he’d promise her that. Starting now, he’d do everything he could to make her happy. He would beg her to put it all behind her. And if she wanted him to jump through hoops before she’d forgive him, he’d do it.
When he got to Pier 40 there was only one thought running through his mind: how he could win back his wife’s heart.
Andrew felt a sudden, vicious bite on his lower back and then a terrible tearing sensation inside, all the way up to his stomach. If the pain had been higher up, in his chest, he’d have thought he was having a heart attack. His breathing felt restricted. His legs gave way under him, and he had just enough strength left to stretch out his arms and protect his face as he fell.
Lying facedown on the asphalt, he tried to turn over and call for help. He couldn’t understand why there was no sound coming out of his mouth. Then a terrible coughing fit brought up a thick liquid.
&
nbsp; Andrew realized the pool of reddish liquid trickling along the Hudson River Park path in front of him was his blood. It was draining out of him as if he were an animal in a slaughterhouse. His vision blurred and darkened.
He thought he’d probably been shot, though he couldn’t remember hearing a gun go off. Maybe he’d been stabbed. But who would want to kill him, Andrew thought, as he struggled to stay conscious.
He was now finding it practically impossible to breathe. His strength was ebbing out of him. He resigned himself to his fate.
He thought he would see his life flash before his eyes, a bright light at the end of a tunnel, a divine voice guiding him to some other world. None of it happened. His last few moments of consciousness were just a long and painful plunge into nothingness.
At 7:15 on a Monday morning in July, Andrew Stilman realized he was dying.
7.
Freezing cold air rushed into his lungs, and an equally icy liquid was flowing through his veins. A blinding light was making it impossible for him to open his eyes. He was terrified of what he’d see if he did open them. Where was he waking up: in purgatory or hell? Heaven was probably too good for him, considering the way he’d treated Valerie.
He could no longer feel his heart beating. And he was cold, terribly cold.
Death was supposed to last for eternity, and he could hardly stay in the dark the whole time. He plucked up his courage and managed to reopen his eyes.
To his amazement, he found himself leaning up against the traffic light on the corner of Charles Street and the West Side Highway.