Tricia sat down in the Saab. She closed her door quickly. The wind had
picked up sharply out of the north and it was suddenly cold, biting and
unpleasant. Bob jumped in on the driver’s side and closed his own door and
that was when she realised that she was smelling something different in his
car. Something unmistakable.
‘Someone’s been smoking in this car,’ Tricia said, her voice suspicious.
‘You can smell that ?’ he asked, shocked.
‘Who was it ?’ Tricia asked, her voice edgy.
He looked at Tricia and frowned. He wanted to talk about this to someone
and Tricia was both the right and the wrong person. It would be another step
down the betrayal path, perhaps, but if he didn’t tell her, who would he tell
?
Not that she was likely to understand. He knew that he didn’t.
‘Come on, be honest.’
‘Jenna. It was Jenna.’
‘Your daughter ? How do you know ?’
‘Because I was in the car at the time,’ he snapped.
‘You mean yesterday ? You haven’t told me how all that went yet. It so
unds like something strange happened.’
She took a pack of Marlboro Lights 100s from her purse and lit a
cigarette as he backed out of the parking space.
‘What are you doing ?’
‘Well, if your daughter can smoke in your car, I figure I can too.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t,’ he said, his voice strangled by a request he
didn’t really want to make but felt compelled to anyway.
‘You know you don’t mean that,’ she said, stroking his arm with her hand.
‘At least crack your window then.’
‘Tell me what happened,’ she said as she obediently cracked her window
and exhaled smoke out of the car.
And that was what he did. He told her the whole story on the way to the
restaurant.
They talked about other things before they ordered and while they were
waiting for their food to come. Tricia sat and smoked, Bob made small talk
about the office and other things. They studiously avoided the topic as they
ate, because they had so many other interests of a common nature. They didn’t
need it to find things to talk about, but as the waitress cleared the dishes,
it settled over them like a cloud and they knew they had to talk about it.
Not Jenna. The money. Wanda. What comprised the us they had become a part of.
‘You understand we’re talking about a million dollars each. That’s a
million for me- for-‘
The word ‘˜us’ caught in his throat the way it always did in men of
conscience who dabbled in cheating on their wives.
Tricia was at a crossroads. Sleepless nights and other dark moments were
clouding her judgment and yet making it clearer than it had ever been and she
decided to do something hard.
The only perfect dreams were the ones that hurt the most.
‘I’m going to tell you exactly what you need to do here, Bob. I-‘ Tears
brimmed at the edge of her eyes, but they were bright and hard, like diamonds
that caught the murky light, stinging jewels.
‘I never thought I would be the other woman. Family means a lot to me,
and I know it means a lot to you. It’s funny. When I think about you, one of
the things I’ve always been attracted to is your integrity. The way you carry
yourself at work, with people. Yeah, you have been cheating on Wanda a little
with me, but I don’t think your heart is in it the way that- the way that you
get inside me sometimes. You’ve been holding on to Wanda, not because you’re
selfish and want two women but because deep down you love her and you know
right from wrong. And so do I-‘
‘What are you doing ?’ he asked, the question anguished.
‘I’m not breaking up with you, but you need to do something- for me, for
us, for our sanity and probity and everything else that fucking matters in
life.’
‘What’s that,’ he said, feeling pieces of some morality play falling
into his lap.
‘You need to let Wanda smoke.’
‘What ?’
‘Come on, Bob. You’ve admitted it to me. You are attracted to me in part
because I smoke. You said it yourself- that first day I finally felt
comfortable enough to smoke at work- you saw me smoking when you came in that
day and five minutes later you asked me to lunch. You’ve told me the only
reason you asked Wanda to quit was because you wanted to have a kid and you
thought it would easier-‘
‘You’re overreacting.’
‘I want you to level the playing field. If in a day or a month or a year,
you still want to- want to- I want Wanda to have a fighting chance. We are
going to stop on the way back to the office and you are going to buy your
wife a carton of cigarettes and you’re going to put a big fucking bow on them
and give her a fair chance-‘
And that was just what they did.
Coincidence is by nature a strange thing. The convenience store they
stopped at to buy the cigarettes was walking distance from where Wanda worked.
She had forgotten to bring a lunch. Given the excitement of the previous day,
that was understandable. She was in the back of the store, which was empty.
It was after one, the lunch crowd had gone back to work, and she was at the
dairy case in the back corner debating whether she felt like raspberry or
peach yogurt when she heard them gone in. Their voices were just low enough
that she was unsure what they were saying, but something Tricia said made
Robert laugh, that low, hearty laugh of his she almost never heard these days.
She asked for a carton of Marlboro Lights 100s and as the clerk reached under
the counter, Robert opened his wallet and he was the one who paid for them.
Tricia was hanging on his arm and after he got his change, she leaned over
and kissed him, half on the cheek and half on the lips. He slung his arm
around her and they walked out, never seeing her.
She delayed her choice a bit longer, giving them a chance to leave without
seeing her. She carried her yogurt- peach- up to the counter and placed it
and a diet Coke down.
‘Will that be all ?’ the clerk asked. She looked bored, as if she was
unaware of the scene that had unfolded in front her, which of course was the
truth of the matter.
‘No, can I have a box of Marlboro Lights 100s ?’
‘Sure. Popular brand today.’
Wanda smiled at the irony of that, paid for her purchases, and walked out
of the store. She successfully fought back her tears.
Jenna had called to say that she was going over to Belinda’s house. Her
voice on the answering machine had been filled with joy because she didn’t
know. She had said that she had already smoked two cigarettes and would do
the rest of her smoking at Belinda’s to avoid upsetting Daddy. Of course,
there was little change of that now, since Daddy was fucking another woman.
You didn’t drop that kind of money on cigarettes for a woman you weren’t
fucking, after all, did you ?
She was sitting at the table, staring at the still unopened pack of
cigarettes. She wanted one, just to calm her nerves. But that wasn’t the
reason to light up. No, she promised herself there would be more to it than
that and she intended to keep her promise even if others could not keep
theirs.
The sound of the garage door opening and a car driving in arrested her
thoughts and then the door closed. There was the sound of a car door opening
and closing and before he could walk into the kitchen the cigarettes were
returned to her purse.
His voice echoed loudly in the hall.
‘I have a surprise for you,’ he said, and she thought that too was
ironic. He’d already surprised her. Or had he merely confirmed something she
had known ? No, not surprised. Disappointed.
‘I’m right here in the kitchen.’
He walked into the kitchen. He was holding something behind his back as
he walked over and kissed her with those well-exercised lips of his.
‘How was your day ?’
‘The usual,’ he said.
‘You smell a little smoky ? Did you have lunch with Tricia ?’ she asked.
Her tone was neutral, even inviting, and she felt that strange rush people
sometimes feel right before they accuse their spouse of cheating on them.
‘Yes, I did. In fact, this was kind of her idea.’
The object behind his back was produced.
She looked at it, perplexed, her whole world suddenly tilting from its
angry axis.
It was a carton of Marlboro Lights 100s with a large red bow on it.
‘These are for you,’ he said, handing her the carton.
‘This is Tricia’s idea ? How-‘
‘When we got in the car to go to lunch she noticed someone had been
smoking in the car. I told her what happened yesterday and she suggested that
it was time for me to put aside my objection to your smoking.’
She held up the carton. ‘So this represents your permission for me to smo
ke ?’
‘Not permission,’ he said. ‘It’s your decision. But I know the only
reason you ever quit was because I requested it.’
‘Demanded it,’ Wanda corrected, but her carefully constructed suspicion
of him was suffering from her doubt as to her ability to define his
infidelity. She was sure, and yet this-
‘Okay. But if Jenna is going to smoke anyway-‘
‘What makes you think-‘
‘You never wanted to quit. Your mother clearly was never happy about it.
I can’t undo what I did, but I am trying to make amends here.’
‘Do you want me to start smoking again ?’
‘Want you to ?’ he asked, as though the idea hadn’t occurred to him.
‘You are giving me a carton of cigarettes. Do you want me to smoke ?’
And there was a look in his eyes.
Lust.
It was a beginning.
She got up and took a lighter from a drawer, opened the carton, opened a
pack, and lit the cigarette.
It had been almost a week since she’d had one. She occasionally bummed a
cigarette from a friend at work, her own assistant Lisa. He had never known
that she had been doing that on and off for the last five years. She’d been
very careful, even scrupulous, about doing it only when she would have a
chance to clean up afterwards.
She walked over to him and placed her free hand on his crotch and she was
not at all surprised to find that he was a little bit hard. That reawakened
her suspicions, but for now, that was not going to be the focus of this. She
inhaled, held the smoke deep in her lungs and exhaled straight at him. He did
not flinch from the smoke, did not try to move away or even change his
position.
He just looked at him with his pale blue eyes.
Wanda began rubbing him and he continued to harden. He was wearing jeans
and they constricted his ability to grow large, but she kept at him anyway.
She positioned herself so that she could reach the ashtray on the table to
trim- the ashtray she was now glad she had not made use of before he’d gotten
home.
This way was better. Whether he was willing to admit it to himself and
her or not, what he had done was to give her permission to smoke, and if that
was the end result of whatever he had been doing with Tricia, then she was
going to make the very best of it.
‘How long has it been since you and I had sex ?’ she asked.
‘We made love last week,’ he said, somewhat sheepishly.
‘I didn’t ask you that. I asked you when we last had sex. Real sex.’
He understood the distinction she was making because sex was what he
sometimes had with-
‘Too long,’ he answered.
She drew on her cigarette, the style of her smoking every bit as enticing
as it had been back in the day.
‘And you don’t mind having sex with me even though I’m smoking ?’
‘Jenna is out of the house. I think having sex with you is the very best
thing that could happen right now.’
She had undone the snap of the jeans and carefully unzipped the fly. The
head of his penis was poking out from the tangle of underwear and pants, its
single eye staring up at her unseeing.
‘You understand that I am going to smoke. Not just this cigarette,
either. I am going to be a smoker from now on.’
‘I did give you a carton of cigarettes, not just one,’ he said. She
finished an exhale and he leaned forward and kissed her hard. She could feel
his engorged penis pressing against her and as they kissed, he started dry
humping her. She pressed against him and kept kissing him until he came.
And then they went upstairs.
It was a bright and sunny February morning. Wanda and Jenna walked
outside into the cold, crisp air. Jenna took a pack of cigarettes from her
purse, extracted two cigarettes, lit them both, and handed one to her mother,
who drew on it gracefully and arched her head back. A long stream of smoke
trailed upwards from her lips.
Jenna looked across the street. A woman in a black Jetta held a digital
camera up to her face. In her right hand she was also holding a cigarette.
She snapped several shots. In the last one, Robert would also appear. He came
out on the front porch and put his arm around his wife and daughter. Jenna
waved genially at the PI, who waved back and then drove off, smoke escaping
from the open window of the car.
‘I wonder how long she is going to keep hanging around,’ Jenna said. ‘I
swear, every time I light up outside the house, I expect to be photographed.
Maybe I should be trying to land a spot in one of those magazine ads.’
‘They don’t take fifteen year olds, honey,’ Wanda said, speaking as she
exhaled smoke.
‘Are my two favourite women ready to go ?’ Robert asked, squeezing them.
Wanda slipped her arm around his waist and hugged him back. The change
over him was palpable. The last two weeks the distance between them had
receded. It wasn’t entirely gone, but it was no longer an obvious part of the
family dynamic.
‘I can’t believe you’re going shopping with us, Daddy.’
‘Well, I think it’s safe to say that we are going to be coming into
money in the not so distant future, so we can at least look. But we are going
start by pricing 60 inch televisions, not clothes or jewelry.’
‘That’s fine by me,’ Wanda said. ‘After all, I’ve always wanted to be
able to count Callista Flockheart’s nose hairs.’
‘That’s so gross, Mom.’
They got in the car and drove off, not realizing that things were about
to change dramatically.
Gretchen walked into Jackson’s office. He was on the phone, doing
business. It amased her- apparently, six days a week he was here and always
busy. It was too bad. He seemed like a nice guy- attractive, laid back in a
stuffy sort of way. But a definite workaholic. They’d met half-a-dozen times
and always he was working.
He motioned for her to sit down. He then pushed the ashtray on his desk-
Waterford crystal- in her direction- and she lit a VS 120 and settled in. He
looked at her as she drew on it and a wry smile crossed his face.
‘Well, that’s my advice. I have a meeting right now. Call me back when
you make your decision and I’ll draw up the papers. Good day.’
He hung up the phone.
‘My apologies. I’m afraid that was a bit rude of me.’
‘Not at all,’ Gretchen said.
She handed over the manila envelope and he took out the fresh prints. She
had made them right in car and come straight to his office, as he had
instructed her to do if the particular event depicted in the photographs came
to pass.
‘Well, this does change the situation. Unfortunately, it means that I
will no longer require your services in this matter, but I am going to pay
you a sizeable bonus to offset the early termination of our working
arrangement.’
‘That’s fine with me,’ Gretchen said. ‘Can I ask what this means ?’
‘Well, I am not supposed to reveal details to anyone. I have a
responsibility to-‘
‘I’ll buy you lunch,’ Gretchen blurted out, surprised by her own
forwardness.
He was writing out a check from a business ledger. ‘Well, you can afford
it.’
He handed her the check- ten thousand dollars, almost half what she was
to be paid for the entire year.
‘I must be honest, though. I believe I was not forthcoming enough about
the possibility to your employment would be cut short.’
‘That’s true,’ Gretchen said, sensing an opportunity to put Jackson on
the hook. ‘So perhaps you should buy me lunch- and of course, any other work
of this sort you might have-‘
‘Actually, that would be a good reason for us to lunch together. I do
have a few other smaller assignments you might be interested in.’
He paused, looked at the photographs again. They were excellent shots-
good composition, well rendered.
‘Am I safe with you ?’ Gretchen asked.
‘Whatever do you mean ?’ he said, tearing himself away from the photos.
‘Well, you certainly seem to be enjoying yourself. I think you like
looking at pictures of women smoking.’
Jackson would have blushed if such a thing had not been entirely outside
the bounds of propriety.
‘They are attractive women, and you are an excellent photographer.’ He
watched Gretchen draw on her cigarette, studied her milky white exhale. ‘But
I do prefer the live version.’
‘So, there’s more where this came from, but tell me what happened ?’
He thought about that and finally smiled. ‘Well, you don’t know the
principals personally and you are bound by the same confidentiality that I
am, so I suppose no harm can come of it. As you know, the condition on the
inheritance was that the girl Jenna take up smoking and maintain the habit
for one year. But there was an acceleration clause as well.’
‘If the mother started smoking again-‘ Gretchen guessed.
‘Not precisely- but very close. The clause was to be activated only if
Wanda began to smoke openly again. These photographs, of the two women
smoking outside their house, in plain view of the husband, well, that
satisfies me that the hidden condition has been met, and I am the sole
arbiter of the conditions. Let me make one quick phone call and then if the
family is not home, I will indeed take your for an excellent lunch over which
we can discuss doing additional business together.’
He picked up the phone and dialed the Thompson’s number. The answering
machine picked up.
‘Hello, this is Jackson. I need to speak with you as soon as possible
regarding the will. We need to meet at your earliest convenience. I promise
you that this meeting will be brief and highly beneficial. Please call my
cell phone number and we can arrange a get together at the earliest
opportunity.’
He hung up the phone, took Gretchen by the arm and led her out of his
office.
‘What do you think it means ?’ Jenna asked.
‘Well, I would hope that highly beneficial means that for some reason
he’s ready to execute the conditions of the will,’ Wanda said. ‘This is just
like Mom- full of surprises.’ She said it lightly but her brave face broke
after that and her eyes brimmed with tears. She reached out, took a cigarette
from her pack, and lit it.
Bob hugged her, not seeming to mind the way her exhale shrouded them both.
‘He said he would be over in ‘˜a few minutes’, so, we’re about to find
out,’ Robert said.
‘I don’t know. It sounded like he was in the middle of something,’ Wanda
added.
Something or someone, but they didn’t know how Mr. Jackson had been in
the middle of a most unusual Saturday afternoon distraction.
Moments later, there was a knock on the door. Bob and Wanda were sitting
in the living room but both were too nervous to answer the knock. Jenna
finished lighting a cigarette- her seventh of the day- and she bounded to the
door with the energy of youth. She swung the door open, smiled at Jackson,
and held up her cigarette as he walked in, saying ‘See, I’m being a good
girl and smoking, just like I’m supposed to.’
‘I’m sure you are,’ Jackson said dryly, but he found himself returning
her infectious young smile.
She put her hand on his shoulder and fairly guided him into the living
room. He could immediately see how nervous the girl’s parents were.
But they stood up when he walked in and Robert offered him a drink.
‘Imported beer, if you have any,’ Jackson said.
Robert left the room and Wanda drew on her cigarette.
‘I see that you’ve taken up smoking again, Wanda.’
Wanda smiled, then reached out and trimmed her cigarette. ‘I really
missed it, you know. But Bob brought these home to me yesterday and well- I’m
a smoker again.’
‘And that is precisely what brings me here.’
Bob came back into the room, carrying five open Bass Ales on a tray. He
distributed them and then Jackson asked him to be seated.
‘I’ll be brief,’ Jackson said. ‘There was an hidden acceleration clause
in the will, which by nature of it being hidden, required that I not inform
you of it until after it was met. As you know, a condition of the will was
that Jenna smoke for a period of one year. However, in the event that you,
Wanda, began to smoke openly again-‘ he paused briefly, letting her know that
her mother knew she had been smoking secretly (that pause having been written
into the hidden clause) ‘- after Jenna began to smoke, then I was to consider
the conditions met, and pay out the inheritance without delay.’
He reached into his briefcase and pulled out three checks.
‘Now, before I hand over these checks, which can be drawn on as soon as
the bank open Monday, I will tell you that it was your mother’s wish that you
meet with a financial advisor of her choosing to invest the majority of these
funds. This was a wish, not a condition, but I will let you know that I have
retained this advisor and I highly suggest that you follow this wish of hers.
The woman you will meet with an excellent advisor and I am confident that she
will be able to help you realise significant returns on your initial
investment.’
He handed over the checks. Robert shook his hand, Wanda sat teary-eyed,
and Jenna hugged him like a long-lost boyfriend.
He sat down again and methodically siphoned beer from the bottle.
‘I want to apologise for the abruptness of this, but-‘
‘That was Mom,’ Wanda said. ‘Thank you.’
‘Well, if Robert brought you home those cigarettes yesterday, he’s the
catalyst and therefore you should thank him.’
‘Don’t worry, I plan to.’
He finished the beer quickly, shared some brief pleasantries, and then
drove home at speeds he rarely attempted in his car.
‘I can’t believe how this worked out,’ Robert said, tracing lines on his
wife’s naked chest. Jenna had gone over to Belinda’s to tell her the news
and show off her check, and Wanda had thanked Robert- twice. She was lying
naked on the bed, relaxed and smoking.
‘You didn’t know that you were making a million dollar decision to bring
me home some cigarettes, did you ?’
‘A three million dollar decision, honey. But I think with all of these
changes you and I have some things that we need to discuss.’
Bob was dreading this. He knew that his wife was right, that there were
things they needed to discuss. But he hardly wanted to. Especially not right
now. Sex and a check for one million dollars were not exactly foreplay for
the discussion they were about to have.
‘I’ll start. I’ve been sneaking cigarettes with Lisa ever since she came
to work for me. Not on a regular basis, but just one or two now and then.’
‘I thought as much,’ Bob said. He saw some surprise in his wife’s eyes
but not too much.
‘You were very circumspect about it- always days where Jenna was staying
after school for one reason or another- but I’d come home and your hair would
still be wet from a shower and the washer would be running. Or we’d be
somewhere with Lisa and she’d light a cigarette and give you that ‘˜sure you
don’t want one ?’ look of hers.’
‘But you never said anything-‘
‘Well, it seemed to be an occasional thing and as long as I didn’t
actually say anything about it-‘
‘You could pretend that it wasn’˜t happening, right ?’
‘Yes,’ Bob said sheepishly.
‘Lisa was always pestering me to tell you. But I didn’t.’
They looked at each other, knowing a little secret smoking was not the
heavy debt which lay between them- unpaid.
‘I-‘ Wanda finally said, after finishing her cigarette. ‘This is the
hard part, so I should be honest. I always resented you making me quit. When
Jenna was really young, it didn’t bother me as much because deep down I knew
it was the best thing for her. But as she got older and I started sneaking
cigarettes from Lisa, it got to me. I know that I’ve been colder and more
distant to you, and that was a direct result of how I felt about your making
me not smoke.’
‘I wish you had said something to me before now. The last day before-
well, this may seem silly, but you seem much happier since I brought that
carton of cigarettes home, and I don’t mean because of the money.’
‘Well, I am fucking ecstatic about the money, Bob. But you’re right.
It’s a great weight lifted off my shoulders. Or one of them. Now, let’s talk
about the other thing. It’s your turn, and I’ve said what I’ve said not to
excuse what you are about to say but as a way of saying that there were good
reasons. This right here, what we are doing- too much paying bills and
parenting and hiding from one another and not enough sex makes for bad blood.
We’ve made a lot of progress in the last few hours and the last two weeks.’
Bob wasn’t sure where to start and he surprised himself by blurting out
‘If you think going to a marriage counselor will help-‘
She reached out and stroked him gently.
‘I think that depending on what gets said- and doesn’t get left unsaid-
in the next few minutes, plus this-‘ and she continued here to stroke him-
‘is all the counseling we need. Honesty is remarkable curative for a
marriage. And I still love you.’
‘Tricia and I- we’ve fooled around a little bit. More than we should
have but maybe less than you think. Without blaming you, because you don’t
deserve that, she-‘
‘Gave you something you weren’t getting from me ?’
‘Yes,’ Bob said, shame in his voice.
‘When you found out that you were going to be rich one day not so long
from now, did you talk about-‘
She had said one hard thing for him but now she was going to let him say
the next thing.
‘We talked about it, but neither one of us was looking for that ending to
this story. Tricia is really a wonderful person and she didn’t want to break
up our marriage or our family.’
‘So she sent you home with a carton of cigarettes for your wife to level
the playing field. And that makes me think she thought you were attracted to
her because she was a smoker. Do you know how mad that makes me ?’ Wanda
asked, bright hard tears in her voice and her eyes.
Bob picked up the pack of cigarettes and took one out. He put the pack
down, picked up the lighter, placed the cigarette between his wife’s
attractive, pouty lips, and lit it.
Wanda drew on it, pulled it from her mouth slowly, exhaled.
‘Was she right ?’
‘I- you know, I hadn’t really thought about it until she- or hadn’t in a
long time. But I remember back to when I met you and- you smoked- I- yes, I
liked that. You have to understand the only reason I asked you to quit was
because I wanted to have a child almost as much as I wanted to marry you. I
thought that as long as you smoked, you would want to put it off and then
Jenna came along and at first I thought ‘˜When she’s a little older, maybe-‘˜’
‘I used to think the same thing,’ Wanda said.
‘You never stopped wanting to smoke ?’
Wanda inhaled, held the smoke, exhaled a milky white cloud.
‘Never.’
‘I-‘ he didn’t know what to say now. This thing was lying between them
like a poison and he felt sick about himself.
Wanda felt it as well. The past loomed up, carved in stone and unchanging.
‘Well, that’s what we can’t change. What we can change- you have to
change. If you need a friend, someone to talk to, well, Tricia has been that
to you as well, I think, and I can’t deny you that. But when you want love,
when you want to make love-‘
‘I will come straight to you,’ he finished. It was easy to say. But he
meant it as well.
‘You have to mean that, Bob. Saying it is the easy part, but when you
touch her, you are going to feel that- between you and-‘
‘I will think of you, of this-‘
‘Is that enough ?’ Wanda asked.
He circled her in his arms, naked flesh melding in a bond that was
somehow ageless, a part of what he was.
‘More than enough.’
‘Good. So let’s talk about how you’re going to take us on a long
vacation this summer with some of your money-‘
He smiled. The storm had past, leaving behind only the smoky wisps
trailing from his lovely wife’s pretty mouth.