Who wants to be the bearer of such tidings? If Charlie believed him he’d be devastated. If he didn’t-and that was obviously a possibility-he would think Matthew was deliberately stirring up trouble. Either way he would almost certainly resent him. And it wasn’t just the summer that stood to be ruined as a result, but their whole, precariously reconstructed friendship, which for all its stresses and imbalances had become as important to Matthew this time around as it had been the first time.
So he prevaricated: told himself he needed more evidence before doing something so potentially destructive; that he’d perhaps misconstrued the episode at the motel; that Chloe and the man might have been transacting some perfectly legitimate business in his room; that even the seemingly undeniable element of deception-claiming she was going to yoga, changing her clothes-had some innocent explanation. He tried to convince himself that even if he found rock solid evidence of an affair, his duty was actually to protect Charlie rather than inflict pain on him. Or else that it was to find some way of quietly bringing the affair to an end: confronting Chloe, dropping a hint or just somehow making her feel he was watching her… All of which seemed to him equally impossible and repugnant.
What he settled on, in the end, was the formula that it was simply none of his business. None of my business, he would tell himself firmly as Chloe left the house, and the agitation started up in his heart. None of my business, as the unruffled contentment of Charlie’s demeanor prompted that sudden sharp urge to shatter it. None of my business… And after a while a fragile calm would descend on him.
One morning he was at the Greenmarket in Aurelia, waiting to pay, when he became aware of a presence at the next register. Before even turning he caught a familiar signal on his antennae. A direct glance confirmed it. There was the beefily built figure, the Vandyke beard, the gray-streaked dark hair falling in wiry clusters on either side of the broad, sharp-tipped chin. The untucked shirt, pink this time, was worn in the same billowing style, over knee-length breeches. It was the man from the motel.
He stared, unable to stop himself.
The man looked solidly in his forties; hale and undimmed, but with no trace of the youthful uncertainty men in their thirties still project. His blocky nose jutted. His eyes were small but lively, glancing around the store with a ready-to-be-entertained look. It didn’t surprise Matthew to hear him comment on what a gorgeous day it was to the sales clerk when his turn at the register came. What did come as a surprise was the accent: it was the self-delighting twang of a Southerner used to being found charming in the North. As his purchases crossed the scanner, Matthew observed them closely, and with growing consternation: bread, milk, coffee, olive oil, eggs, sea salt: not the purchases of someone staying in a motel. A bag of kumquats and some bars of chocolate appeared; still more disconcerting.
“Paper or plastic?” the clerk asked.
“Oh, I think I’ll take the paper, miss. A day like this makes you want to save the planet, dudn’ it?”
He left, carrying the bag against his stomach. Matthew, who was still waiting in line, considered jettisoning his own shopping so as to drive after him, but resisted, not wanting to draw attention to himself.
As it happened the man was walking, not driving. Leaving the store, Matthew saw him at the upper exit of the parking lot. Matthew put his own shopping into the truck, and walked after him, keeping well back. After crossing Tailor Street the man cut through a passageway next to the hardware store into a quiet back alley that led past a communal vegetable garden to the bridge across the Millstream creek. Matthew followed him over the bridge, where he turned left along Veery Road, the street that ran parallel with the creek. It was a residential street of houses in large private yards with tall hedges and fruit trees and rustic split-rail fences. There was no sidewalk. The houses on the left backed onto the high bank of the creek, and it was into the driveway of one of these-a simple whitewashed A-frame with a screened-in porch-that the man now entered. He was lifting the domed black lid off a Weber grill with his free hand as Matthew reached the driveway. The same hand a moment later stuck a key in the front door of the A-frame, opening it. The maroon vintage car Matthew had seen outside the motel was parked in the driveway. It was a Chrysler LeBaron.
Matthew walked on to the end of the road, which eventually curved around to intersect with the county road, and made a left onto Tailor Street. From there he crossed to the Greenmarket parking lot and climbed back into his truck.
So, he was here. Not ten miles away in an East Deerfield motel this time, but right here in Aurelia. Staying here, it appeared; renting or borrowing that A-frame. Buying supplies for himself. Stocking up (the thought sent its own painful reverberation through Matthew) on Chloe’s favorite snack.
All of which implied what, exactly? Was there any difference between a lover who lived far away and had to rent a motel room to visit, and a lover who moved right in under the husband’s nose? No. Infidelity was infidelity.
But as he drove back up the mountain he felt the encroachment of new disturbances. He found himself imagining the progression of feelings between the two lovers that must have taken place in order to bring about this development: tender exchanges about missing each other; increasingly bold proposals for how to be together more often. It seemed to him he could hear, almost as if it were taking place right there in the car, the conversation the lovers must have had, breathless with the thrill of illicit passion: I want to be with you all the time… I want that too… What if I had a place of my own up here…? What if I found you somewhere in the listings…? None of his business, he repeated mechanically to himself, and yet it seemed to him he could feel, on his own senses, the mounting excitement at the new intensities of passion, intimacy, danger, that such a move would bring about. And by the time he got back to the house there was no doubt in his mind that things had taken a serious turn for the worse.
The next day at breakfast, Chloe asked Charlie what he was planning to do that morning.
“I have a conference call. Why?”
“There’s a preview for an estate sale at one of those mansions across the river. I thought you might want to help me pick out some things.”
“Sorry, Chlo. I have the call scheduled. I did tell you about it.”
“Did you? I forgot. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The preview’s on all week.” She yawned. “I think I’ll go to yoga, in that case.”
She cleared a few things off the table and called goodbye from the kitchen.
“Are you coming right back?” Charlie asked.
“Yes?”
“Grab me a watermelon juice, would you?”
“Sure.”
She left in the Lexus. The sense of something catastrophic arising inside him gripped Matthew. Some explosive force seemed to be coming at him from within. He stood up, staggering a little as he pushed back the chair. Charlie glanced up from his iPad.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m actually going to head off too. Do the shopping before it gets too hot.”
“All right, Matt.”
He drove straight to the Yoga Center, a barnlike wooden building down a cul-de-sac at the back of town. The Lexus wasn’t in the parking lot. He’d predicted it wouldn’t be, and yet its absence genuinely shocked him. He couldn’t quite connect Chloe with the blatantness of her lie.