LITMIR.BIZ

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sorry. I don’t mean to be harsh. It’s just that he deserves it.”

      Silence trickled into the room. Outside, on the Spanish Steps, the sound of a woman’s laugh rang out.

      “Sorry,” Kit said again.

      “No, it’s all right.” In truth, I liked that Kit was protective of me. “It’s really not about getting back at him, though.”

      But of course it was. Because I thought he was probably doing it again. Right now, possibly. I thought about telling Kit my suspicions, but my shame stopped me. Before I’d come to Rome, I had been sick of being the one who was right for so long, the one who sat on the moral high ground of our marriage. With regret seeping in, I now wished to return to that spot.

      Kit studied me. I sat on the bed, feeling the satiny-smooth cotton sheets beneath my legs. I thought of Roberto’s hands on those legs, on my thighs, parting them.

      “How was your night?” I said.

      Kit smiled. “Wonderful. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you got back.”

      “It’s okay. I was gone all day.”

      “Wait until you meet this guy.”

      “What’s he like?”

      “Gorgeous. Sweet. Perfect.” She chuckled. “But you’ll have to judge for yourself.”

      “You’re seeing him again?”

      She gave me a beseeching look. “If it’s okay with you. I mean, I told him no, but he’s called three times.”

      “Wow. That’s great.”

      “Yeah. He’s a doll. I mean, I really feel like he could be someone special.” Her eyes were bright with hope.

      “Well, of course, then. You should see him.” Kit was always looking for the man who could make her happy, the way her family never had.

      “Join us,” Kit said. “We’re going to some emperor’s house. Nero, I think. I guess it’s really interesting. It’ll be great.”

      “No, thanks. I’m just going to sleep.”

      “No, come with us!”

      We went back and forth, the exhaustion crawling over me, until Kit finally relented.

      We sat silently for a few moments, the sun surging through the windows and filling our room.

      “Are you okay, Rachel?” Kit said at last.

      I felt something trembling inside me. “It’s ironic, isn’t it?”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Well, you know. Nick with that woman and now…” I raised a hand, as if I was in a classroom, identifying myself. I felt a strange, mortifying pride at what I’d done, but more than anything I felt twisted with guilt.

      “I guess so,” Kit said simply.

      “Did Nick call?”

      Kit shook her head.

      

      But he did.

      The bleat, bleat of the phone startled me out of sleep like a smack to the head. It took me a few long moments—the persistent bleat still sounding—for me to remember Rome. And Roberto. I thought he was calling me again. And, in that instant, I was happy. Schoolgirl, pulse-skidding happy.

      I rolled over with a little grin, and I lifted the phone.

      “There she is!” Nick said, as if he’d been calling me over and over instead of the other way around.

      I froze.

      “You there?” he said.

      I pushed myself to a sitting position, leaning against the tufted headboard. “Yeah, I’m here.”

      “How’s Italy?”

      Why did he sound so cheerful? I could only think of one reason.

      “Where were you yesterday?” I asked, my voice steely.

      “When?”

      “Yesterday. All day. I called you at the office, and they said you were golfing. I called you at home and on your cell a million times.”

      “You left one message,” Nick said.

      “One message on your cell, and one at home.”

      “Right. And by the time I got them, it was the middle of the night over there. I just woke up, and I called you first thing.”

      I glanced at the nightstand clock. Two in the afternoon, which meant it was six in the morning at home. “What were you doing all day that you didn’t have your phone on?”

      “I…I was working.”

      “You weren’t working. I told you I called your office.”

      “Yeah, well, I was working on something here.”

      “What?”

      He sighed.

      “Nick, where were you?”

      Another silence. “I don’t want to tell you.”

      I laughed, harsh and bitter. “I bet.”

      “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      “I think you know.”

      “Rach, c’mon.”

      “No, you c’mon. Again, Nick? Again? I’m gone a couple goddamned days, and you’re at it again? Who was she? Why don’t you just make us a grand cliché and tell me it was your nurse?”

      The silence now was eerie. Do not speak first, I told myself, aware, vaguely, of how childish this was but not caring.

      I heard him breathe out, hard. “Rachel,” he said in his practiced, doctor’s voice—composed despite disaster, “I can’t tell you what I was doing. It’s a surprise.”

      “What do you mean?” I tried to untwist my legs from the sheets.

      “I took the day off work. I put my pager on in case the office called, and I turned off the other phones because I was doing something for my wife.”

      My wife, my wife.

      There was too much sun in my room. Too damned hot. I stood, intending to close the drapes, but my brain seemed to slosh about in my head. I nearly lost my balance, as if I were standing on a boat in rough seas. And then there was my husband. Talking still, saying something, far away. He sounded calm, but angry and disappointed. I could tell. It was the way I’d sounded for much of the past year.

      “Rachel?” he said. “Are you there?”

      I sank onto the floor right next to the bed. I noticed the black satin sandals I’d worn the night before. They lay where they’d been kicked off. Carelessly. Wantonly.

      To believe or not to believe.

      “Why don’t you have some faith in me?” Nick asked on the phone.

      I retorted something about losing my faith in Napa. I said I thought I’d left it at a restaurant.

      Neither of us said anything for a long time. I kept glancing at the sandals—glittering black on the thick cream carpet. I chucked them across the room, out of sight.

      I heard the distant beep of Nick’s pager. “Shit,” he said. “I’ve got to get to the O.R. Rachel, listen. Enjoy your last day over there, and we’ll talk about this when you get home. I’ll show you then.”

      “You’ll show me?”

      “I’ll show you my surprise.” He paused. “And I’ll show you how much I love you.”

      I took a breath.

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