When I put up the link to my blog post about becoming friends with Emily, I tried not to read it. But I couldn't help myself. And just as I'd feared, it made me cry.
There was one little thing I remember now that I hadn't paid attention to back then. I remember Emily saying that the umbrella she gave me—the umbrella with the ducks, which I've now put away in a back closet because the reminder of those early days is so painful—was one of a kind. But when I got to her house that afternoon, I noticed, in the front hall, an umbrella stand in which there were a dozen duck umbrellas. It looked almost like an art piece. Of course I didn't ask her about it at the time—we'd just met. And then I forgot about it. But now it makes me wonder. Was I already misunderstanding her, hearing her wrong? Was she lying about the umbrella? But why would she tell a lie that would be exposed the minute I walked in the door?
Anyway, that was the least of the things that bothered me. Reading the post, I felt horribly guilty. Because I was beginning—just beginning—to have feelings for Emily's husband.
There is that period of time when you're pretty sure you're going to have sex with someone, though you haven't yet. Everything is clogged with desire. Everything feels like that hot, thick air that weighs so heavily on your skin on the swampiest day of summer. Especially when it's someone whom, for lots of good reasons, you're not supposed to have sex with.
Maybe one problem with my marriage was that we never had that sense of anticipation, that gradual buildup of desire. Someday I will tell Miles all the reasons not to have sex on the first date. Like his mom and dad did. Though I won't go into the specifics.
My first date with Davis wasn't even a date. It was supposed to be an interview. We met in a coffee shop in Tribeca, near Davis's studio. His firm was called Davis Cook Ward, which was his name, all three of them. His architecture and design career was going extremely well. He designed houses for rich people and, for fun, beautiful but affordable garden furniture from recycled materials. He'd designed some wooden furniture that was going to be featured in the magazine I worked for. We had coffee, then lunch. Then we went to his loft, where we stayed until the next morning, when I had to go back to my East Village apartment and get changed and go to the office.
My relationship with Davis was comfortable. It was fun. It was easy. But there was never a moment when I felt that I would die if I couldn't have him. Maybe because I'd already had him. The long, slow, delicious waiting had ended before it began.
Or maybe my problem was that it was safe. Maybe I need that thrill of the forbidden, the taboo, that sense of doing something that I know is wrong.
One evening Sean came to pick up Nicky and stayed for dinner. During dinner, a violent thunderstorm began. I invited Sean to spend the night in the guest room instead of going out in the weather. And he agreed.
Sean and I talked until it was so late and we were so tired that our eyes were closing. We exchanged a freighted but chaste little peck on the cheek. He went to his room, and I went to mine. As soon as I got into bed, I was wide awake. The thought of him there in the dark, in my house, was almost like having sex. I masturbated, thinking about him. I wondered if he was doing it too, thinking about me.
Just knowing he was a few rooms away was like phone sex without a phone. It took every ounce of self-control not to go to his room. Meanwhile I was still telling myself that nothing was going to happen, that I wasn't the sort of person who sleeps with the husband of her disappeared best friend.
I knew that even if we could do it without anyone finding out, we would feel so guilty that the next time we saw the police, they would pick up on it and maybe mistake it for guilt about something else. I knew this was ridiculous, but still . . .
