“Well, you did, and here I am.”
Sitting down on a rickety chair across from her, I clutch my purse on my lap. The bartender walks by and pushes through the door to the men’s washroom. A terrible odor wafts out as the door swings shut, and I press the back of my hand to my nose to keep from gagging.
“Do you often come here?” I ask, because I still can’t believe she chose this place for us to meet.
Paula can barely hold her head up. It’s obvious that she’s drunk. “I know . . . it’s pathetic, but it’s the only place where I’m sure I won’t bump into anyone I know.”
Paula reaches for her wineglass, tips it back, and swallows the entire contents in a single gulp.
I shake my head at her. “You’re not planning on driving anywhere, I hope.”
“Definitely not.” She sets the glass down, slides it away, and burps like a trucker, then glances toward the bar. “Where did he go? I need another one.”
The doctor in me can’t help but try and talk some sense into her. “If you keep this up, you’re going to be sick, or worse. I’m sure you know that people die of alcohol poisoning. You should drink some water.”
Her glassy-eyed gaze meets mine, and she merely shrugs.
I notice her clammy skin and greasy honey-colored hair. I doubt she’s showered since the night I saw her at the funeral home. Nevertheless, despite her poor personal hygiene, she’s still a naturally beautiful woman with a dewy complexion and big blue eyes—the type who doesn’t need makeup. Personally, I have to work at my appearance, and this contrast makes my insides squeeze like a fist.
“Where’s your car?” I ask, remembering the clunkers I saw in the parking lot.
She gestures inelegantly. “That way.”
“You’ll have to leave it, wherever it is. I’ll take you home. We can talk while we drive.”
She shakes her head. “No. I’m not going home.”
“Why not?”
Her speech is so badly slurred I can barely make out a word she says. “Because my husband can’t see me like this.” She reaches for the empty wineglass, picks it up by the stem, peers inside, and tries to suck out a few remaining drops. “Thanks to you.”
“And why is this my fault?”
“Because you went to my house, and now he’s suspicious. Not that he wasn’t suspicious before. He probably was.”
My stomach muscles clench tight with dread. “Suspicious of what?”
Paula looks up at me drunkenly, as if I’m a fool. “What do you think? It’s the reason you’re here, isn’t it? The reason you’ve been texting me. The reason you went to my house.” She sits back and waves a hand through the air. “Because you’ve figured it all out. You know what was going on between Alan and me.”
I feel a bit sick, because she appears to be admitting flat out that she and Alan were having an affair.
I’m not sure what to say or do. I’m in shock, and I can’t speak.
“I need another glass of wine,” Paula says, squinting toward the bar.
At this point, I could probably use a stiff drink too, but I resist the urge because I need to keep my wits about me and get the whole story out of her.
“I think you’ve had enough,” I say.
“You’re probably right.” She tries to get up but staggers sideways and almost knocks over the chair.
I leap out of my seat to grab hold of her. Just then, the bartender exits the washroom. “If you’re done, Paula, and I really think you ought to be, you’ll need to settle up at the bar.”
Swaying on her feet, Paula reaches for her purse and fumbles with the zipper. She pulls out her wallet and hands it to me. “Pay my bill, will you? Use cash.”
I take the wallet from her limp grip, move to the bar to ask the amount she owes, and hand over a wad of twenties. Paula can barely stand, so I return to help her. The bartender sees me struggling, comes over, and helps me get her to the door.
“Do you have a car here?” he asks me.
“Yes.”
As soon as I push the door open, bright winter sunlight blinds me. I’m forced to squint as we drag our drunken cargo to my mother’s vehicle.
We manage to get Paula settled in the front seat. Then the bartender says, “I don’t know who you are, but go easy on her, all right? She’s going through a rough time. She just lost someone.”
I want to scoff, because I’m the one who lost someone. Paula’s someone was never really hers to lose. Or maybe I have that backward. I don’t know anymore.
I buckle Paula’s seat belt, shut the car door, and face the bartender.
“Where are you planning to take her?” he asks as I begin to dig through my purse for my keys.
“Home.”
The bartender regards me hesitantly, then follows me around to the driver’s-side door. “You can’t take her there. Not like this.”
I stop and stare. “Why not?”
I have no intention of hauling her to my mother’s house to sleep this off. Not with my family there—my mother, my son, and my nieces.
The bartender rubs at the back of his neck. “Her husband can be a jerk sometimes. Alan had a place here in town, just a few blocks away. That’s where she’d want to go.”
“A place . . .” Alan had a place? “Can you give me the address?”
Again he hesitates. He studies me painstakingly. “Jesus. Are you Alan’s wife?” He points at his own face and draws a circle in the air with his finger. “I’m guessing because of the bruises. You were in the accident . . .”
This is unbearable. I feel like I’m the only person in the world who knows nothing. “You knew Alan?”
He nods and looks down at the ground. “Yeah. He was a good guy. Came here a lot. He helped me last year. He noticed a lump on my neck and told me I should have it looked at. I doubt I’d be here today if he hadn’t pointed that out to me. So . . . I’m sorry about what happened. It’s a real pisser.”
By this point, I feel like I might throw up, because it’s just been confirmed that my husband was cheating on me and this man seems to know more about his extracurricular activities than I ever did.
The bartender’s cheeks flush with color, as if he’s realizing only now the enormity of what he’s just revealed to me. I imagine what he must be thinking: Don’t kill the messenger.
I might not want to kill him, but I sure as hell would like to yell at him and shake him until his teeth rattle, just to vent some of my anger, because I feel like a pressure cooker with the lid about to fly off.
He glances over his shoulder. “I gotta get back inside.”
He gives me the address of an apartment in town. Apparently it’s within walking distance, a few blocks away. Not that Paula’s in any condition to walk. She’s passed out cold.
I look in at her and feel an extreme antagonism building up inside of me. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so outraged by anyone. Not even Lester.
I get into the driver’s seat and can’t think about inserting the key into the ignition because I’m angrier than a bull. All I can do is stare at Paula—she’s so gallingly pretty—and wonder about the lies my husband must have been telling me over the past few years. Or maybe during our entire marriage.
Was Paula the only one? If he had a place of his own in this town, there might have been others.
I have no idea what to do or how to go on living the life I thought I knew. That life is over, not only because my husband is dead but also because my marriage to him wasn’t what I thought it was. He was a stranger, a cheater, a liar, and he betrayed me.
How could I not have known? And how can I possibly grieve for him now? Part of me wishes he were alive so I could kill him myself.
Suddenly I feel like I’m hanging upside down by my ankles and I don’t know which way is up. It takes all my concentration to turn the key and start the car, because I want answers from the woman passed out in the seat beside me and I’m determined to get them.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Come on—get up. You have to walk,” I say to Paula as I open the passenger-side door, unbuckle her seat belt, and try to wake her by tugging at her arm.
Her head swivels like it’s on one of those bobblehead toys, and she looks up at me in a daze.
“That’s right—time to walk.” I pull her to her feet. “Do you have a key to the front door?”
“Pocket,” she drawls, seeming unable to retrieve it on her own. I’m forced to slide my hand into her coat pockets to find it.
A moment later, she’s staggering up the walk in her camel-colored wool coat and jeans, making her way to the entrance of a run-down three-story brick apartment building with dilapidated wooden balconies. It’s a far cry from the expensive South End home Alan and I shared in Halifax. Nor does it hold a candle to Paula’s tidy little house in the Lunenburg subdivision full of families.
She opens the door to a security entrance with an intercom to each unit. I glance at the names and see “Sedgewick” handprinted in ballpoint pen on a little piece of white paper. My stomach burns. If this is Alan’s secret love pad, how long did he have it, and how was he paying for it? Was he using our retirement fund? Or did he have a private bank account I didn’t know about? Where did the secrets end?