Chapter Seven
Aisling had given Michael a huge hug when they split up, and although he felt empty for a little while once she had gone, he knew from many, many past experiences that they will probably remain friends, at least until she moves on to a new boyfriend, after which time she will disappear out of his life, reappearing if and when she splits up with the next one.
They may or may not then end up sleeping together again, but it will be understood by both of them that it is merely physical, and there will be no chance of either of them falling for the other, and the cycle will continue.
At forty-two Michael has to admit he rather likes his life. His closest friends have been friends for years, and although most of them are now married with kids, and he doesn’t get to see them nearly as often as he would like, when they do get together it is always life-affirming, and he counts himself lucky to be surrounded by good people.
He likes his job, is lucky to have his apartment, and enjoys Manhattan far more than he ever expected to. True, he misses being able to get out of the city every weekend in the summer— his salary can’t quite manage the Hamptons—and when he talks to his mother he misses Nantucket hugely, but all in all he has to say his life is a good one.
None of his friends can understand how or why he is still single, and people are forever trying to fix him up on dates, but although there are times when he thinks it would be nice to have a significant other, he has never felt as though he has missed something.
After all, his father died when he was only six, and he was raised by a single mother who may have had numerous flings but never had a serious relationship that he was aware of. How could Michael possibly know what he is missing when he has never had it, nor borne witness to it, in the first place?
“Are you all right, darling?” Nan can tell, within the first few seconds, that something is up.
“I’m fine,” Michael says and sighs. “Aisling and I are over.”
“Oh love. Already?”
“Well, she clearly wasn’t the One.”
“Don’t worry, Mikey,” she says, reverting to his childhood nickname. “One of these days you will find someone who is perfect for you and all the pieces will fall into place. You’ll see.”
Michael smiles. “I’m not worried, Mom,” he says. “I just feel, you know, a little sad. Just the constant disappointment of realizing that the person you are getting to know is not the person you hope they’ll be.”
“And that’s fine,” Nan says. “It’s all part of life’s rich experience. Why don’t you come and see me? Spend a few days on the island? That would make you feel better.”
“Maybe I will,” Michael says non-committally. “Work is tough right now, but let me see if I can get some time off.”
“Tough? How can it be tough? It’s approaching summer, aren’t all those rich clients of yours off on vacation? This must be your quietest time, surely?”
“Unfortunately there’s never a quiet time here, but I will try, Mom. Promise.”
“What are you doing tonight?” Jordana comes into the workroom, her eyes sparkling.
“Why?”
“That new jewelry store on Sixty-fourth is opening and they’re having a party. I thought we could go and check out the competition.”
“You want me to go with you?” Michael is surprised. Despite working together all these years, despite numerous occasions when they have socialized together, it has rarely been just the two of them, and there has been an energy of late, a charge in the atmosphere, a tension that is not entirely comfortable.
“Would you? Jackson’s staying in Long Island tonight and I don’t want to go myself. Plus it would be helpful to have my jeweler there in case there’s anything interesting our clients might like. I need your expert eye.”
“Oh it’s my expert eye you’re interested in now, is it?” Michael raises an eyebrow, then looks quickly back at the loop in his hand. He didn’t mean it to come out like that, like a flirtatious question. Good Lord, no. He doesn’t know where to look.
Jordana steps back in surprise, then smiles at his embarrassment. How unexpected. Michael flirting with her. How . . . sweet.
“That and your company,” she says gently, and he looks up with relief.
“What time?”
“It’s six o’clock. Shall we go as soon as we shut up shop?”
“Sure thing.”
And as she walks back upstairs he can’t help but wonder why it is that this suddenly feels like a date.
“Here.” Michael comes back from chasing a waiter through the crush, holding two glasses of pink champagne high above his head.
“Cheers!” Jordana grins at him, then looks around. “There are an awful lot of people here.”
“Only because of the free food and drink.” Michael smiles.
“So what do you think of their stuff?”
Michael shrugs. “A little ordinary, although I like the insect collection.”
“You do? I always find insects a little creepy.”
“Depends what they are. The diamond tarantula isn’t quite my thing.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Jordana smiles.
“But I love the ladybird and the emerald dragonfly.”
“Could you do something like that?”
“Of course, but actually I’d love to do fish.”
“Fish?”
“Yes, fish.” Michael grins. “I grew up on Nantucket, remember? I spent my childhood out on our little Boston Whaler catching fish.”
“I know you’ve probably already told me this a million times over the years, but tell me again how you ended up a jeweler? It sounds like you would have been happier being a fisherman.” She has known Michael so long, but realizes she has never paid him much attention before. All of a sudden, she is seeing him in a different light, is interested in what he has to say.
“I’ve been asking myself that question for years. My mom had wonderful jewelry she inherited from my grandmother, and I was always fascinated by the stones.”
“So . . . fish. Do you think it would sell?”
“I don’t know, but I’d love to make something and see what people think.”
“You know, I think that’s a really interesting idea. Let me talk to Jackson and see what he thinks, but I like it. I see how it could work.” Jordana drains the rest of her glass as Michael watches in surprise, then grabs another couple of glasses from a passing waiter. “Oh don’t be so stuffy,” she says. “We’re here, so we may as well enjoy ourselves.”
Michael watches her, catches her eye for just a few seconds too long, and quickly looks away. He isn’t planning on doing anything. Jordana is his boss. And she’s married. Even if he were into married women, which he isn’t, she wouldn’t be his type. So why is there suddenly a frisson between them? These glances that go on a split second too long. Secret smiles into her glass. Her giggling and leaning into him.
Michael likes her. Has always liked her. Just not in that way, and how could he possibly entertain these thoughts, how could he possibly even think about . . . that . . . with his boss? Michael shifts guiltily and tries to focus on something else, moves away when she leans in the next time and places a hand on his arm. He tries to act as if their relationship is the same as it has always been: friendly, professional, cool.
But she’s lonely, and he’s lonely, and there are just the two of them, or at least that’s how it feels, and there’s so much champagne, and they’re laughing at the silliest things, and he walks her back to her apartment a few hours later and she asks him to see her upstairs in the elevator, and he becomes acutely aware, standing in the elevator, of every breath, every muscle, every fiber in her being, and when the doors open they turn to one another and, truly without knowing how it happens, Michael finds himself kissing her.
Michael wakes up, disoriented. The sheets feel too soft to be his, the room is too dark, and turning his head, feeling the dull ache of a hangover, he sees a mass of dark blond hair on the other side of the king-sized bed.
It takes him a few seconds, and then he sits up with a start. F*ck. Jordana. She is still asleep, and he reaches over quietly and picks up his watch. Almost six a.m. He could sneak out of here, get out before she wakes up, go home and have a shower, wash the guilt and unease away.
What was he thinking? He pads out of bed and into a bathroom, closing the door softly so he can pee in private. Oh shit. Jordana. His boss. A married woman. Married to his other boss. Not good news. Not good at all.
So what was he thinking? He wasn’t. He had had too much to drink and although he’d always thought Jordana was attractive and pleasant, and hell, okay, a little sexy, he’d never thought of anything else.
But Michael had always been an expert at rescuing women. If there was a call for a knight in shining armor, Michael would be the one knocking at the door. If there was a woman in distress, Michael would leap in to make it all better. His heart was too big, his mother always said, but he liked that he was able to help, to make a difference. Which was probably how he’d ended up in this mess. Jordana had seemed so tough when he had started working for them all those years ago, but recently he’d seen another side to her, he’d seen her as lonely, as sad, and it had resonated with him.
He tiptoes back into the bedroom and goes flying over a high-heeled shoe, kicked off in abandon last night as they collapsed onto the bed, frantically pulling off one another’s clothes. “Shit.”
As he lands with a thump on the floor, Jordana sits straight up in bed.
“Ja—Oh.” She was about to say her husband’s name, catching herself just in time as she sees Michael. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Michael stands awkwardly, not sure what to do, wishing he hadn’t fallen into such a deep drunken sleep, wishing he had had the foresight to get out of here long before Jordana woke up.
“How are you?” she says. “Did you sleep?”
“I slept like a log. You?”
“Me too. The champagne, I imagine. Are you . . . okay?”
“Let me get dressed,” Michael says, vulnerable suddenly in his nakedness. “Let’s get some coffee and we’ll talk.”
Inside the café Michael orders two cappuccinos and, as an afterthought, a couple of almond croissants. He leans against the counter while he waits and turns to see Jordana sitting at the table. It still feels surreal. He hasn’t a clue what to say to her. He knows this can’t be repeated, that there are many sins you are never to commit, and sleeping with the boss is the primary one.
Not to mention that Jackson would kill him. And he likes Jackson, has always liked Jackson. What the hell is he doing?
“We can’t . . .” They both start speaking at the same time, and laugh awkwardly.
“This is wrong,” Michael says finally. Gently.
“I know.” Jordana’s smile is rueful. “Wonderful. But wrong.”
“Have you ever . . . ?”
“Done this before?”
Michael nods and Jordana shakes her head. “I can’t believe I’ve done it now. I’m not the type to be unfaithful.”
“Do you think it counts if it was just a mistake, one night that will never be repeated?”
“I’m hoping it doesn’t.” Jordana sighs, and takes a bite of her croissant. “You’re so lovely, Michael. I’m sorry this is so awkward, but thank you for making me feel so special last night.”
“You’re lovely too,” Michael says, and he stretches across the table, takes her hand and squeezes it, looking her in the eye. “I know things are difficult with Jackson now, but, even though I’m not the answer, you’ll find your way through it. I know you will.”
“I know,” Jordana says. “I’m not sure how, but I’m sure you’re right.”
Jordana knocks on the door of the workroom and comes in with a smile. “Mrs. Silverstein just came in. She said she didn’t have time to see you today but she’ll pop in tomorrow to thank you personally. She adores the ring, said to tell you you’re a genius.”
“The lady obviously has impeccable taste.” Michael grins at Jordana, relieved that there is no tension from last night, that they truly are able to be grown-up about this, to put it behind them and carry on as if nothing ever happened. “What do you think of this?” Michael beckons her over and Jordana looks down to see that he is already working on a sketch of a fish pendant.
“I love it,” she says, delighted, tracing the outline of the fish. “I love the gills in—what are they, yellow diamonds?”
“I thought yellow sapphires. I want these to be fun, a mix of diamond and semiprecious, but something that might appeal to a younger audience.”
“It’s beautiful,” Jordana murmurs, and Michael turns his head to smile at her and finds himself looking at the curve of her breast through her unbuttoned shirt, and he feels a rush of blood to his head, and the world stops, yet again, and this time, when Jordana leans down and kisses him, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.
“I’m sorry,” he gasps, feeling as though he is swimming up for air.
“I’m sorry too,” she says, stepping back and adjusting her shirt, running her fingers through her hair and wiping off the smudges of lipstick around her mouth.
“Oh f*ck,” he groans, wanting nothing more than to sweep everything off the worktable, throw her on it and drive himself inside her.
“This isn’t a one-night stand, is it?” Jordana says slowly, and Michael sinks his head in his hands before looking up at her.
“What are you doing tonight?”
“I was going to Manhasset,” she says. “But I can get out of it.” There’s a long pause. “If you want me to.”
Michael looks at her, helpless. “Yes,” he says finally. “I want you to.”
For someone who has always been a terrible liar, Jordana is finding it surprisingly natural to lie to her husband about where she is and who she is with. She is discovering that if she tells him some of the truth, she will not flush and look away, and he will not question her.
Under different circumstances, she would never have an affair, but this doesn’t feel like an affair. For starters, this is someone she knows, someone who has always, until very recently, felt like a brother to her. Twenty years, she has known Michael. In the beginning, she will admit to having had a huge crush on him. Jackson even used to tease her about it, but he was never really threatened, never worried that Jordana would actually do anything, and Michael, despite how attractive women found him, never posed a real threat, was too nice a guy, too clever to ever have an affair with the boss.
And because Jordana is not the type to have an affair, to weave a tissue of lies to prevent her husband suspecting anything, because she is not the type to do all of the things she suddenly finds herself doing, she starts to think that perhaps this is different.
Perhaps this is not just an affair. Perhaps Michael—as unlikely as she ever would have found this up until a few days ago—but perhaps Michael is The One, perhaps she made a terrible twenty-year mistake with Jackson, and God has made this happen because Michael is the one who listens to her, who understands her.
Michael is the one she is supposed to be with.
Dr. Posner leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers together, peering over the top at Daniel, who is shifting uncomfortably in the corner of the sofa, and he waits.
The seconds become minutes, and still Daniel doesn’t say anything.
“Daniel?” Dr. Posner starts, gently. “You wanted to see me alone?”
Daniel nods, looking miserable.
“Is there something you want to talk to me about?”
He nods again, his eyes flickering up to meet Dr. Posner’s before he looks away.
“I think . . .” Daniel starts, his voice almost a whisper before he stops and sighs. “There’s something I haven’t ever been able to talk about . . .”
Dr. Posner waits.
“Oh God.” Daniel’s voice is a moan, his pain and confusion evident, and Dr. Posner knows what Daniel is about to say, has suspected it from the first.
Daniel closes his eyes, unable to look at Dr. Posner, his guilt and shame too much to say the words while looking someone in the eye.
And his voice, when it emerges, is broken and hoarse.
“I think I might be gay.”
It is something Daniel has always known. His big secret. The one he has spent his life running from. He has spent his life trying to pretend that it is not the case, that he can be what he thinks of as “normal,” that he can be the son, the husband, the father that everyone expects him to be.
He has known since he was a boy, even before his teenage years, those years when he pretended to be interested in girls even though alone, at night, the fantasies that aroused him most always featured boys and, more specifically, his best friend at school.
He would lie there, trying to push the fantasies aside, terrified of being different, terrified of anyone finding out, trying to convince himself that he was interested in girls, that as long as he had a girlfriend, stayed around women, he would be like all the other boys, he would be normal.
And he loved women. Surely that must mean something, he would tell himself. He had always been so much more comfortable with women so surely he must be straight, like everyone else, even if he never developed a fascination with breasts the way the other boys did, even if the girls he dated were, well, boyish.
Then, at college, he remembers trying to date a girl who didn’t seem to know they were dating. The night he first attempted to kiss her she had pulled back in surprise.
“But I thought you were gay,” she said, and he had recoiled in horror.
“Why?” he demanded. “Why would you think that?”
“I just assumed,” she said, and she never gave him the reasons.
He built himself up. If he looked masculine, macho, there would be no doubt, for he assumed she had thought he was gay because he was skinny.
He made sure he always had girlfriends. Lovers. Women around him all the time. Long-term relationships. Being with a woman meant he didn’t have to think about it, didn’t have to think about the hard bodies that he felt so drawn to in the gym, the men who occasionally gave him searching looks, the men he tried to ignore.
Until Steve.
Friends for years, they had gone to Amagansett the summer he met Bee, and the night before they met Bee, he and Steve had got drunk together, and, despite thinking about every detail, every second of that night for years, despite thinking of it still, he is not sure how it happened, but he and Steve ended up sleeping together.
What he remembers most about that night is how every bone and every fiber of his body felt as if it was on fire. This is what I’ve been missing, he remembers thinking. This is what it feels like to be turned on. This is what I’ve been waiting for my entire life.
And it didn’t feel unnatural, or strange, or wrong. It felt like he had come home. It felt like the most wonderful, thrilling, incredible night of his life.
In the morning they could barely look at each other, and when they did Daniel found himself announcing he wasn’t gay, and Steve agreed. They said it wouldn’t happen again.
Daniel noticed Bee later that day. A woman. Safety. Bee meant not having to travel down a path Daniel wasn’t ready to travel down. Bee meant security. She meant not having to think about his night with Steve, what it really meant, not having to shock his parents, tell his friends, live a life that Daniel didn’t want.
Because he didn’t want to be gay, and he thought if he didn’t want to enough, then he wouldn’t be.
For years it was easy to keep running. At night he would replay that one night with Steve, and the temptation to find it again was sometimes overwhelming. On an overnight trip in Boston to inspect a building the company was thinking of buying, he walked past a gay bar with a few men standing outside, eyeing him up and down, giving him that look that he doesn’t know, but he knows . . . oh how he knows.
In many ways it would be so easy to go inside, he thought, to be led into a back room, to have a nameless, faceless encounter that might put some of these fantasies to rest, might allow him to put it behind him. No one would know, no one would be hurt. But he’s married now, he has his beautiful girls, and if he started down that path there is a part of him that knows there would be no going back.
Secrets become harder to keep the older you get. The things you think you can suppress, those idiosyncrasies and fantasies you hope no one will ever discover, become harder and harder to hide as the years advance.
Partly it is maturity—the fear of discovery grows smaller, less significant, for you learn that none of us is perfect, that human nature is flawed, that life twists and turns in all sorts of unexpected ways and it is okay to end up in a different place to where you expected.
In Daniel’s case the secret is like a tumor, growing larger and firmer deep inside him, refusing to go away by itself, refusing to lie dormant, metastasizing last month when he got a phone call from Steve. Steve, whom he hasn’t seen since his wedding day. Steve, whom he has tried very hard to forget.
“I’m in your neck of the woods.” Steve’s voice was so familiar, but different. “It’s been so long but I thought I’d look you up.”
“It has been years.” Daniel laughed. “How great to hear from you. How’ve you been?”
“Life’s been good,” Steve said. “So how about it? Drinks? Dinner? I’d love to see Bee and I hear you’ve got two beautiful girls.”
Steve came for dinner. Bee made loin of pork stuffed with apricots and prosciutto, and Steve brought two bottles of Pinot Noir.
As soon as he walked in, Daniel knew. Steve hadn’t run with fear from the life that had been calling him for years, Steve hadn’t pretended to be someone he wasn’t. Steve had struggled with it, and then had given in.
“These are our dogs—” he passed photos around as they sat at the table, the girls having gone off to bed—“Mimi and Bobo.” Small Westies sat on the doorstep of a beautiful colonial house. “And this is Richard.” An older, bearded man, smiling on the deck of a boat. “My partner,” he added, although he didn’t need to.
“Not husband?” Bee rescued Daniel from his crippling awkwardness, his heart pounding fast, color rising to his cheeks.
“Not legal in our state, sadly,” Steve said. “But one day we will. We’ve been together almost ten years. The love of my life.” And he looked up and caught Daniel’s eye, and this time Daniel felt shame for a different reason. He felt shame for not being brave enough to do what Steve had done, and envy—oh God, so much envy for Steve having the life that all of a sudden Daniel realized he had always wanted.
They went out after dinner for a drink at the bar at Tavern on Main. Daniel recalled seeing Brokeback Mountain, looking longingly at the characters played by Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger embracing furiously at their reunion, and he parked the car on Main Street, hoping that that might happen for him, that Steve would grab him and take him into an alley.
Brokeback Mountain. He had seen it with Bee, then seen it by himself. Six times. He had sought out gay films, gay literature, programs on television with a gay bent, glazing over at the love scenes, trying to reassure himself that he was turned on just because it was sex, not because it involved two men.
Perhaps he was bisexual, he had started to think, but then he would lie in bed at home and watch Bee, so feminine and womanly, her breasts so full, her secrets and wetness so utterly repellent to him that he almost shuddered at the thought of her.
“I am lucky,” Steve said, nursing a beer as they sat at a quiet corner table. “Lucky because you changed my life, you made me see that I wasn’t being honest, and I couldn’t carry on living a lie. I have meant to thank you many, many times, but it has been so many years, and I guess life just got in the way. So how are you? How has life been for you?”
With hindsight it would have been so easy for Daniel to open the floodgates, to let it all come pouring out, and who better to talk to than Steve? But he found he couldn’t, couldn’t admit that he was living the very lie Steve was talking about, had lived it for years, had almost, almost accepted it, until Steve had phoned out of the blue, had turned up to show him what his life could have been had he been brave enough to embrace his true self.
“I’m great,” he lied that night. “Couldn’t be better. I adore my girls, and seem to be living the American Dream.”
Steve stared at him hard, and they left after that beer.
“You take care,” Steve said. “Look after yourself.”
And although Daniel hadn’t confessed, it was seeing Steve again, seeing how comfortable he was in his skin, that made it impossible for him to suppress those feelings anymore.
He loves Bee, but can’t love her in the way she needs. He has always known that, but has thought that what they have is enough. He has assumed that if he stays, and he is going to stay, has no choice but to stay, they would make it work. And then there are the girls. He doesn’t want to be anything other than a full-time, present father. He is terrified of what might happen should they get divorced, terrified that Bee might turn into one of those crazy women who poisons their children against the father.
How can he possibly tell her why he is leaving? How can he get those words out, tell her that he is gay? Yet sitting here in Dr. Posner’s office, saying those words out loud to someone else, it is as if a cloud has lifted, a cloud that has been sitting on him his whole life, and he knows now, without a doubt, that there is no going back.
Daniel has never felt he had any other choice, but suddenly, since seeing Steve, he has realized that there might be another option after all. That simply accepting the truth, which had always seemed so terrifying, so utterly overwhelming to him, may be all he has to do if he ever wants to know what it is to be Steve.
What it is to be happy.