Erin's entire world ended at ten-thirty in the morning on a Tuesday in early July. Later on, she realized she must have blacked out for awhile, because two days later, a package arrived for her—at her office.
Not at her home, where all her usual Amazon impulse-buys arrived.
But at her prim-and-proper office on the campus of her Traditional Southern State University. At her dignified and spacious, sun-drenched attorney's office that never, ever received personal deliveries. Oh no. Not Erin. Dignified, businesslike and professional, daily and occasional Saturdays as work-flow demanded over the years.
But there it was, two days later, that recognizable Amazon box.
But before the box arrived, there was the shock. The real and palpable shock she felt at ten-thirty on Tuesday morning in early July. Heightened by, of course, by how unprepared Erin was for it.
That morning was a typical Tuesday morning for Erin. Daughter dressed and into the bus to Church Camp. Breakfast of cinnamon toast and coffee perfectly creamed-and-sugared by her early-rising husband. Husband kissed and out-the-door. And then, Erin had time to go from robe to luxurious morning shower to luxurious morning lotioning routine.
Time for getting dressed in her conservative but expensive Talbot's suit pants with Tory Burch flats, a Macy's store-brand white blouse and a long-loved green J.Crew cardigan, listening to the drone of Housewives Gossip from her favorite Housewives Gossip podcast.
A slow, leisurely morning before work was one of Erin's pleasures and privileges for being the Queen of Firing People at the Traditional Southern State University. They had fired all of the staff and faculty whom the administration wished to fire at the end of the academic year the prior week, and so Erin, as Chief Legal Counsel In-Charge of Ending People's Jobs, could take her time readying herself to return to the work arena.
Even though there was coffee left in the pot that her husband has made that morning, she dumped the rest and treated herself to a Venti Superlatte at her favorite drive-thru coffee chain between her new-construction suburban mid-level starter home and her corner office in the square, modernist office building just off center-campus that contained all the bureaucrats and professionals and bean-counters that truly made the Traditional Southern State University run.
At ten in the morning, the privilege of her rank, Erin was climbing the wide concrete stairway from the parking area to her Office Building's front portico, enjoying the blue sky and the temperate Southern morning, miraculously cool and, for a change, only slightly humid.
Erin noticed there was no line of sweat forming under the band of her bra as there was most mornings in the summer, even from the mere walk from her car to her office.
She smiled and said hello to the other women in the elevator, even though she did not know them by name, only by face, and they doubtlessly knew what a reputation she had throughout the Campus Office Building.
How a summons to her office on the fourth floor was the final journey of most employees of the University.
But she even greeted the receptionist with a smile when the elevator let Erin off on four, and she sat down in her office chair that morning, looking forward to some Erin Time. Browsing the Housewives Gossip blogs, sipping her Superlatte, maybe doing some shopping for new Mom Jeans, but definitely focusing on her.
Her work computer was on, her lip gloss was sipping-off brighter and brighter on her Superlatte's rim, her inbox was all routine and non-urgent, and then she saw the email:
Don't Forget! Choose Your Choice for this month's selection.
Sincerely, A Book of the Month Club.
Erin reached for her phone immediately.
She opened her Book Club App.
Living in an unsophisticated and often illiterate southern college town was made a little easier for the life-long book nerd that Erin was by the Monthly Book Club's operation—a new book in the mail, any one she chose, by a fresh and often female author, already pre-selected—and selecting the book each month was one of Erin's little pleasures that made her suburban splendor so soothingly electric.
Erin loved the new and Erin loved the choice and the choosing and as she swiped her manicured finger down the choices she saw the name and the picture and the title and it swiped past but then she swiped back up to it and oh my god oh my god oh my god.
Heart palpitations.
That band of her bra, keeping up her already-large-but-now-mom-sized breasts? No doubt a line of sweat forming underneath it now.
Oh my god it was—HIS!—name.
Oh my god it was—HIS!—book.
On the book of the frickin' month club.
Her book of the month club.
Oh no. Oh so very no, Erin thought.
Two days later, the Receptionist who brought the package back to her office was surprised.
Other than flowers from her husband on her birthday and on their anniversary, Erin never received deliveries at the office.
But she thanked the receptionist and put the box down on her desk and closed and locked the door behind the receptionist after she left.
And Erin opened the box.
When she saw what was inside, she covered her eyes with her hand and mumbled something out loud.
But she did not return the package, she did not box it back up and drop it off in one of the Amazon lockers on campus, just steps away from her office, simply another return of an impulse buy. She did not take it back, and she did not mention it to her husband.
But as soon as she saw it, she knew she must have blacked out from shock and purchased it, like her drunk mommy-friends would do shopping on wine on late evenings. When she saw what she had bought for herself, she had no doubt that her subconscious was the culprit.
The matching underwear set, wrapped in discreet and sterile plastic, as well as the pair of maryjane heels in their shoebox, were not reminiscent of any of the outfits she had ever worn for her husband, he who was the dutiful and dull father of their little girl. Oh no. Not for Husband.
II.
Erin knew she could not handle hearing him read. Or speak. Or be spoken about, there, smiling, receding all the accolades. Erin knew that would be too much for her.
So she arrived as late as she thought she could get away with.
It was no surprise that he was going to be at the campus book store, mainstream fiction writers regularly trekked through this Southern Belt of university towns packed with the main demographic for contemporary fiction: women over forty with some or all of college completed.
It was no surprise that as she squeezed into the capacity crowd at the back of the store, she first heard the sound of the crowd's laughter, heavily female by its sound, but then when she heard his voice, the warmth in it, the rhythm, that old rhythm she knew so well, as he accepted how the crowd laughed at his joke and liked it, as Erin found it hard to stand upright for a split second, as he on the small stage set-up for authors doing readings at the bookstore went from his joke to explaining the backstory of something else obviously from earlier in the reading.
It was a surprise how long the line of book-signers took to get to Erin, so inconspicuously at the very end of that line, thanks in part to her position at the way-back of the store due to her strategically late entrance.
She played fifty rounds of Candy Crush before the long snake of mostly women over forty made its full journey, and there she was, at his table, surrounded by Official Book Store People and stacks and stacks of His Book tastefully, triumphantly, commercially displayed.
When he caught Erin's eye, he was taken aback.
Good, she thought. He looks better now than he ever looked when we were together, but I shocked him by being here. Good, she thought to herself, and smiled at him.
III.
He was staying at the chain hotel on campus. That meant Erin only had to worry about being seen walking to the hotel with him, which she would never do. Erin could leave her car parked in her official parking space, and walk over to the hotel alone, right across from the Basketball Stadium, as if she were going on some work errand, perhaps going to fire the manager of the Campus Chain Hotel, perhaps demand some official inspection of The Books and Records.
Erin explained to him how to come to the back door of the hotel and to open it for her at just the right time. How she would text him when to come down the back stairs. He was obedient and dutiful. His reading and signing at the Book Store had ended at two, and from two-fifteen to four p.m., they each had three drinks discreetly in her office, which she eagerly invited him to, so she could show off her professional success to him with pride.
Showing him the bottle of scotch she kept in her desk drawer.
She chastely behind her desk, he the author sitting in one of her
client chairs. Erin sipped the scotch and looked at him over her desk.
By their second round, they were reminiscing about the Saturday in his office years ago when he bent her over his desk and fucked her there, the papers on his desk sticking to the flesh of her tits, which had been pulled out of her top.
