“We all make mistakes I suppose.” Sharon raised the glass of Merlot to her lips, her eyes fixed, almost glazed, somewhere between the next table and the tacky wallpaper behind the waitress station some twenty feet away. A sip, then half the glass drained. “I’ve made a few mistakes.”
Her fingers tapped the tabletop; she bit her lip. Her bright green eyes darted this way and that as if to catalogue everything in the room. She had the look of a little girl in a confessional, ready to spill everything. I sat in silence, wondering if I really wanted to know. I watched the candlelight reflected in her eyes, lit my third cigarette. The person who speaks first loses.
“You know,” she pushed her long brown hair behind one ear, folded her hands on the table, “sometimes I wonder if anything really matters.”
“How do you mean?” I tapped an ash into the tray.
Sharon wiggled in her chair, pushed aside the remains of a half-eaten Greek salad. “I mean,” a little frown leant a crease to her cheek, “I mean, you devote your life to believing in something – in someone – and you think everything’s fine. But then…”
I waited; my cigarette sent long blue trails into the dark. Sharon drew a deep breath, as if she were planning to sink below the surface of the overly unnecessary fishpond next to the doorway and hide there.
“But then, you find yourself doing something stupid: something you never saw yourself doing – something you told yourself you’d never, ever do.”
“Is everything OK?” The waitress appeared as if from a dense fog. Sharon jumped, almost spilled her Merlot, raised the glass to her bow-red lips and drained it.
“Wonderful, but I think we’re ready for another round.” I gestured to indicate Sharon’s empty glass. “Are the two-thousand Bordeaux’s out yet?”
“Yes, but we have a hard time keeping stock. The reds are all gone. We still have a few bottles of the white, it’s a Mouton Cadet.”
“Sounds lovely.” I didn’t sound convincing so much as a tad petulant. Sharon didn’t look like she cared. “-But I think we’ll stick with the Merlot.” I was irritated by the interruption but pasted a warm smile on my lips. The waitress hurried back to the bar. Sharon and I sat, eyes locked, until the waitress returned with a fresh bottle and clean glasses, balanced our used dinnerware on one hand and disappeared.
I stubbed out my cigarette, waited for the tale to continue. Sharon took another deep breath and resumed.
“I never planned it, you know. I never thought about it, never went looking for it. It just happened.” A drop of wine escaped the rim of the glass. It trailed down her chin to splash on the top of her breast and then disappeared into her blouse, unnoticed. I lit my fourth cigarette, listened to it crackling in the dark.
“I cheated on him.” She leaned into the table, lowered her voice to a whisper. “I cheated on him and I loved it. Do you really want to hear this? I hope you do, because I really need to tell someone – someone who won’t judge me for it.”
“We all make mistakes.” I set my cigarette in the ashtray, took her hands in mine. Cool and wet, still trembling. “-And if you think it’ll make you feel better, I’m happy to listen.” I loved to hear her talk.
The beginnings of a tear misted her eye; she released my hands, rubbed it away, locked her fingers on the edge of the table. Little folds in the cloth radiated outward from her fingers like a web. She looked around the room once more. We seemed the only customers left in the place.
“It’s been years since Bill and I slept in the same bed, though we still fuck now and again. Nothing dramatic – just kind of mechanical. We don’t talk much either. Hello, goodbye, I love you: all just empty words. I don’t think either of us feel much anymore, and if not for the kids we’d have called it quits years ago. Still, having sex with someone else was something I never seriously considered. I was raised a good Catholic girl – your marriage is what it is and it’s forever - no option out.
“I knew Steve from work. He was a client, traffic manager for one of my biggest accounts. We went to lunch once a month, but it wasn’t like work – I really enjoyed his company; he talked to my eyes, not to my tits. We liked the same movies; the same tired old classic rock. He was fun to be with, that was all. He’s married too, you know.”
Sharon drained her glass again. I poured another.
“Everything was fine for a couple of years. Everything would still be fine if not for the snowstorm. It was a freak – starting in the middle of the day and all. We were trapped in traffic for hours, only moving inches at a time, barely able to see a few feet beyond the front bumper. I never should have taken the goddamn expressway. I’m like an idiot at times.
“So there we were, stuck and running out of gas. We both tried to phone home, but the network was overloaded and our batteries died trying. It was nearly midnight when the motor gave its last gasp. We rolled up the windows to keep in the heat but it was useless. Before long we could see our breath – the windows were completely fogged. I was shivering, trying to pull my coat around me – but it was no use.”
Sharon took a long, uneven breath. I could see her nipples beginning to push against the thin fabric of her blouse as she squirmed against the long, leather bench-seat. She caught my eyes, looked at the table then back at me and continued.
“Finally I asked him to do it. “Can we sit closer?” I asked. “I’m freezing,” I said to him. He looked a little uncomfortable, but I didn’t need to talk him into it. Our lips must have been turning blue and we weren’t dressed for a walk out of there. He was wearing street-shoes, I had a knee-length skirt and pumps and the snow was bumper deep and still falling and there was nothing, no one around for miles and miles.
“I slid from behind the wheel. We were hip-to-hip; he slipped an arm around my shoulders, I held his other hand in both of mine. His hand felt hot. I could smell his after-shave, could smell the wind on his jacket and that kind of familiar coming-out-of-the-cold scent took me back to my dad coming home late from work in the Wintertime. I was warming up a little. I felt safe.
“We sat like that for a while: me rubbing his hand, his other hand rubbing my shoulder. We talked about all kinds of things. We talked about things we shouldn’t have talked about. Somehow, I ended up telling him I hadn’t slept with Bill in over three years. Stupid of me, don’t you think?”
I broke my silence, refilled our glasses. “Well, it was an unusual situation, Sharon.” The bottle was half gone. She swirled her wine around in the bottom of her glass. He cheeks were beginning to show some extra colour.
“We started talking about sex then. He didn’t down-talk his wife at all, but I could read between the lines. Turns out his wife wasn’t exactly a sexual adventurer. Man-on-top, in and out and over with, that sort of thing. I wanted to comfort him – no, I’m full of shit – I wanted to comfort myself. I let one of my hands rest on his knee.
“He stiffened a bit, but didn’t make any move to break contact. I hadn’t planned for any of this to happen, still wasn’t really planning anything at all. On the other hand, I wasn’t planning for it not to happen either. I could feel myself getting wet down there, and try as I might I couldn’t keep from squirming around in my seat. I let my fingers trace little circles on his knee. We moved closer. I could feel his breath on my cheek, warm and sweet. The air felt warmer too; I couldn’t see my breath anymore.
