Vision in White
Page 67

“No, that was Bob.”
“If you’d had possession of the single brain men seem to pass around among them, you’d have introduced me to her—as the woman you’re involved with. Not like I was just some delivery girl.”
“You’re absolutely right. I mishandled it. My only excuse is I was completely out of my depth. Everything was confused and inexplicable, and I’d burned the grilled cheese sandwich.”
“You made her a sandwich?”
“No. No. I made myself a sandwich. Or I was making one when she came over, and I forgot I had the pan on the stove because she . . .” As it occurred to him mentioning what happened between Corrine’s arrival and the burned sandwich wasn’t a particularly good idea, he took a long drink of wine. “Interrupted. In any case, do I understand you ran into Corrine and Stephanie Gorden while you were shopping?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Somewhere in there,” he mumbled. “I see. That certainly explains . . .” Boggy ground again, he realized. “Can I just say, bottom line, I didn’t want her there. I wanted you. I want you. I’m in love with you.”
“Don’t pull out the love area when I’m having a crisis. Do you want to make me more crazed?”
“Is that actually possible? But no, I really don’t.”
“She had on seduction wear.”
“I’m sorry? What?”
“Don’t think I don’t know why she ‘dropped by.’ She takes a look at me and thinks, pfft, as if I can’t outgun that one, puts on the seduction wear and comes over. She came on to you, don’t deny it.”
His shoulders wanted to hunch. He had to make a genuine and physical effort to straighten them. “I was making a sandwich. Doesn’t that count for anything? I was making a sandwich and thinking about you. How could I possibly expect or prepare for her to come over and kiss me?”
“She kissed you?”
“Oh God. I should’ve bought the shiny thing. She just—it all caught me off guard.”
“And you got a really big stick to defend yourself from her unwelcome advances?”
“I didn’t—Are you jealous? Seriously jealous over this?”
She folded her arms. “Apparently. And don’t take that as a compliment.”
“Sorry, I can’t seem to help it.” He smiled. “She means nothing to me. I thought of you the whole time.”
“Very funny.” She picked up his wine, took a sip. “She’s beautiful.”
“Yes, she is.”
She seared him with a glance. “Do you know nothing? Do you need Bob’s list to tell you you’re supposed to say something like she’s nothing compared to you?”
“She’s not. She never was.”
“Please. Bee-stung lipped, sloe-eyed D cup.” She took another sip, pushed the wine back to him. “I know it’s shallow for me to hate her for her looks, but I don’t have much else. And they’re a lot. I get she caught you off guard. But the fact is, Carter, she blindsided me. Both times. All I know is you had a serious, live-together relationship with this woman, and she broke it off. You didn’t, she did. You loved her, and she hurt you.”
“I didn’t love her. And the hurt? I suppose it’s relative to the circumstances. I realize I’ve made this more complicated, and more important, because I’ve avoided talking about it. It’s not my finest hour. I met her at a party at the Gordens. The mutual friends. I hadn’t been back long, just a few months. We started seeing each other, casually at first. Then, ah, more seriously.”
“You started sleeping together. I’m on to your semantics, Professor.”
“Hmmm. She thought I’d eventually go back to Yale, and couldn’t understand why I wanted to teach here, to be here. But that was a small, subtle thing initially. Living together just, well, it just sort of happened.”
“How does that just sort of happen?”
“She was moving to a new place. A bigger apartment. Something fell through there, I can’t remember the details. Exactly. But she’d already given notice where she lived, and had to move out. I had all that room, and it was only going to be for a few weeks, maybe a month. Until she found another place. And somehow . . .”
“She never found another place.”
“I let it happen. It was nice, having someone there to have dinner with, or go out to dinner with. We went out to dinner quite a bit now that I think about it. I liked the company, having someone to come home to. The regular sex. And apparently I do need Cyrano.”
“Everyone likes regular sex.”
“I thought about asking her to marry me. Then I realized I was thinking about it because it was expected. Everyone just assumed . . . Then I felt guilty because I didn’t want to ask her to marry me. I was living with her, sleeping with her, paying the bills, doing—”
Like a traffic cop, Mac threw up her hand. “You paid her bills?”
He shrugged. “Initially she was trying to save for her own place, then . . . It got to be a habit. What I mean to say is we were living together very much like a married couple, and I didn’t love her. I wanted to. She must have felt it, and I could see she wasn’t completely happy. She went out more. Why should she be stuck at home when I was buried in books and papers? She realized I wasn’t going to be what she wanted, or give her what she wanted, so she found someone else.”
He stared at the wineglass on the counter. “I might not have loved her, but it’s painful, and it’s humiliating to be cast off for someone else. To be cheated on. She had an affair, to which I was oblivious. Which I wouldn’t have been, admittedly, if I’d been paying more attention to her. She left me for him, and while it was hurtful, and embarrassing, it was also a relief.”
Mac took a moment to absorb. “Let me just sum all that up, take it down to its basic formula. Because it’s one I know very well. She maneuvered you into providing her with housing—for which she paid nothing.”
“I could hardly ask her for rent.”
“She shared none of the household expenses, and in fact sweet-talked you into fronting her for her expenses. You probably lent her cash from time to time. You’ll never see that again. You bought her things—clothes, jewelry. If you balked, she used tears or sex to smooth that out and get what she was after.”