Jim liked to stop on the highway at Bob’s Big Boy for lunch. He positively adored Bob’s Big Boy; he always ordered the catfish sandwich and the strawberry pie. But this time, when Ann suggested stopping, he said, “Not hungry.”
Ann said, “Well, what if I’m hungry?”
Jim shook his head and kept on driving.
Ann remembered gathering with the group in the expansive green field; she remembered her heightened sense of anticipation. Along with Ann, Helen Oppenheimer seemed the most excited. She had been positively glowing.
Ann remembered the gas fire, the heat, the billowing balloon, the stomach-twisting elation of lifting up off the ground. She recalled the incredible beauty of the patchwork fields below them. The farmland, the woods, the creeks, streams, and ponds below them. She filled with pride. North Carolina was the most picturesque state in the nation—and she represented it.
The basket was eight feet square. Their group was packed in snugly. Ann, at one point, found herself hip to hip with Steve Fairlee and Robert Lewis as they leaned over the edge and waved to children playing a game of Wiffle ball below. It was only bad luck that caused Ann to turn around to see how Jim was faring. She happened to catch the smallest of gestures—Jim grabbing Helen’s hand and giving it a surreptitious squeeze. Ann blinked. She thought, What? She hoped she’d imagined it, but she knew that she hadn’t. She hoped it was innocent, but she knew Jim Graham. Jim wasn’t a hand grabber—or he hadn’t been—with anyone except for Ann. He used to grab Ann’s hand all the time: when they were dating, when they were engaged, the first few years of marriage. It was his gesture of affection; it was his love thing.
And at that moment, it all crashed down on Ann. The champagne party, the port party, Jim coming home at three in the morning, the absurdly long bike rides. He rode to Helen’s loft, Ann knew it, and they fucked away the afternoon.
Ann came very close to jumping out of the basket. She would die colliding with North Carolina; her body would leave an Ann-sized-and-shaped divot, like in a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.
Instead she turned. The fire was hot enough to scorch her. She called out, “Hey, Cutter!”
Jim and Helen both looked over at her. Guilty, she thought. They were guilty.
Once back on the ground, Ann drank the exceptional wine Shell had selected, but ate nothing. She tried to keep up with the conversation swirling around her, but she kept drifting away. Jim—and Helen Oppenheimer. Of course, it was so obvious. Ann had been so stupid.
She shanghaied Olivia, pulling her away from the picnic blankets to the edge of the woods. She said, “I think my husband is having an affair with Helen.”
Olivia gave her a look of sympathy. Olivia knew. Possibly everyone knew.
After the picnic was eaten and every bottle of wine consumed, they all piled into a van that drove them back to where their cars were parked. When they arrived, it was ten o’clock. The other couples were all making the short drive to the bed-and-breakfast for the night. Ann and Jim had booked a room at the B&B as well, but there was no way Ann was going to spend the night under the same roof as Helen Oppenheimer. She was certain Jim and Helen had made plans to meet in Helen’s room in the middle of the night to fuck.
When Jim and Ann got into the car, Ann said, “Jim.” His name sounded unfamiliar on her tongue; she had been calling him “Cutter” for weeks.
“Yes, darling?” Jim said. The wine had significantly lightened his mood, or seeing Helen had. Ann wanted to slap him.
Ann said, “You’re sleeping with Helen Oppenheimer.”
Jim froze with his hand on the key in the ignition. The other couples were pulling away. Helen, in the lipstick-red Miata she had bought herself upon leaving Nathaniel, was pulling away.
Jim said, “Annie…”
“Confirm or deny,” Ann said. “And tell me the truth, please.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Are you in love with her?” Ann asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I think I am.”
Ann nearly swallowed her tongue. Her head swam with wine and the fumes from the balloon.
“Drive home,” Ann said.
“Annie…”
“Home!” Ann said.
“She’s pregnant,” Jim said. “She’s pregnant with my child.”
Ann had started to weep, although the news didn’t come as a surprise. Ann had known just from looking at Helen that she was pregnant. The glow.
Jim drove the four hours home; they arrived in Durham at two in the morning. Ann took the babysitter home, and by the time she returned, Jim had a bag packed. The very next day he moved into Brightleaf Square with Helen, and when Chance was born, he bought a house in Cary. Ann was certain he did this so that he and Helen would no longer be Ann’s constituents.