The woman they were after was in a house shrouded by pines. Rather, the woman after his, but the reversal in their minds was natural enough, given the last few days. Or was it?
As Russell edged their car around the gravel lane banking the lake, in the heatered air of the Honda he could feel Lauren’s muscles coiling beside him. She was tightening, her slender legs pressing together, arms crossed under her breasts, shelving them in a way he could never ignore, finger twisting a lock of chestnut brown hair. For a sullen moment the thought of her trying to talk him out of this in Tyra’s own driveway threatened his mind.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said in a way he knew to mean ‘No, but ask me later.’
They pulled up in front of the house, eyeing the dark windows in the mid morning costal haze. Russell killed the engine and was met by a silence so complete it felt loud. His own stomach tightened, and he sensed Lauren’s eyes on him. He could see the nerves he was showing in her gaze.
“Are you all right?” she asked, and smiled.
“I… I’ve never had to do anything this with a friend. Some jackass at a bar, sure…” he said. They smiled, remembering the date so long ago where he’d fended off a brooding lush. This is different.”
“We don’t’ have to do this,” Lauren offered, with a smile shy and hopeful. “We can still go.”
“True.” Russell rolled the idea in his head, but it was soon buried by the remembered motivations drawing them here. The image of Tyra’s lips brushing behind Lauren’s ear came onto his mind’s center stage, even though he had not witnessed it, and Lauren’s flushed embarrassment, giddiness, as she revealed Tyra’s indiscretion and said she hadn’t provoked it. She said Tyra claimed it was a birthday kiss. At that point it seemed like a sweet opportunity.
Then Russell’s own memory, of Tyra’s hand finding his on the patio banister at Lauren’s 34th birthday party. Her green eyes locking on his, steady with her special self-possession, daring him to leave his hand and daring him to take it. When Lauren’s mother saw him, he jerked it fast. He saw through his flushed haze Tyra’s smile, holding not amusement, not regret, not pity, not promise, but somehow recalling all those things. At that point, it seemed like a head game, or worse.
“I don’t really know how to go on with this… the way it is,” he said. “She feels like a third person has shoehorned into us. Ask your mother,” he added, as a pale joke. Her hand curled into his, a hot, svelte shimmy of fingers lacing between his. “Do you want to go?”
“No,” Lauren said, then surprised him by cracking her door open and lifting out. Russell exhaled and followed.
They walked steadily up the pebbled walk to front door, and smelled the rain that was coming after the mist. Lauren watched the windows, slowing her nervous stride so Russell could stay at her back. She wished they’d come at night, and she’d worn better than hiking pants and a sweater. She wanted to be in a dress and perfume, and she wanted to not be there at all. Before she knew it, she’d rapped on the window of the oak front door, and was in one of those moments, less and less frequent in her tenth year of marriage, when it seemed anything could spring from the upcoming minute.
Russell came up behind her, curling his arms around her, a palm on her stomach, a bolstering kiss on her shoulder. Lauren wondered what Tyra would have seen had she opened the door at that moment: Russell clutching her, Lauren’s nervous breathing, the way his grasp tightened the sweater fabric over her breasts. They spent most Sunday mornings in languid, caressing moods like this, but today they pulled themselves from bed for this grim task.
Before he could detangle, Tyra opened the door. Not exactly the front of rigid indignation they hoped to project.
Lauren could feel Russell’s frame stiffen behind her.
“Hi,” Tyra said, a lick of red hair pressed to her forehead, shoulder draped in a purple towel, the smell of the shower on her. Her smile changed. “Russell, you look like someone just stole your wife.”
In an instant, Lauren felt like a mouse between two ally cats. Russell’s chest and legs became like wood behind her.
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
Tyra’s smile widened and curled, “Yes. Why?”
Russell made the choice between silence and a naked unpleasantness, and held in.
Tyra stepped aside and knitted a curious frown. “Come on in.”
They stepped into the foyer, unsteady on where to head. Russell was feeling more wound by the moment. Lauren tried to start softly.
“Tyra, we…” she trailed off.
“I was just making some coffee,” Tyra said. She lifted the towel from her shoulders, rubbing her hair, flashing the perfect angles of her collarbone, the entwined muscles capping her arms and back. “Lets go into the kitchen.”
She lead them into the kitchen facing the lake, bright with white appliances, a windowed roof, and the gauzy light of morning sun shot through fog.
Tyra poured three cups, nimble hands moving over a cream and sugar tray, while Lauren took a seat on one of the tall stools at the counter. There was a silence they all considered while Tyra handed them their mugs. Russell took his, and somehow the edge was coming off, and he felt like a dupe. If a man had done this, he’d know exactly how to handle it, and of course Lauren wouldn’t even be here. But there was another possibility…
Tyra plunged in. “So what brings my favorite married couple this morning?”
Russell calmed himself before he spoke. “I think you know.”
Tyra’s smile returned in its most wicked form. “Goody.”
“What?” Russell said loudly. “I thought you were my friend.”
“I am,” Tyra shot back.
“Then how could you do that to me?”
