Triangle, p.8
Triangle, page 8
Chapter 6
After Amanda’s last text telling Olivier she wouldn’t see him, she didn’t hear from him again. Day after day rolled by, and he didn’t send her emails or texts. He wanted her to miss him and to give in to what he wanted. He was hoping she’d change her mind. He wanted her to be his mistress, but she was just as determined not to be. She couldn’t make her peace with it. She thought about it constantly but it was against her morals and everything she believed in. She missed hearing from him and seeing him. Her life felt empty without him now. It annoyed her that she was already so hooked on him, and she hadn’t even slept with him. She felt him in every fiber of her being, and his absence was a physical pain somewhere between her stomach and her heart. She tried to keep busy at work, but he crept into her thoughts, night and day.
After the first week, Tom Quinlan showed up at the gallery at lunchtime and invited Amanda to join him at a nearby restaurant. She was going to turn him down, but he looked so forlorn that she went with him in the end. She hadn’t been eating lunch recently and Pascal could see that she had lost weight. She was still very pale and hadn’t been wearing makeup to work. She was in mourning for Olivier, but she stuck to her guns and didn’t call or text him, and he was staying away too. Their miraculous affair was over, and she just had to get used to it. There was no other way.
Amanda had a nice enough time with Tom over lunch, but it wasn’t the same as Olivier. They had less to talk about with a twenty-year void behind them, and Tom had no relationship to her world, nor she to his. She was willing to be friends during his sabbatical in Paris, but she wasn’t attracted to him. When he pressed her, she tried to express it as gently but clearly as she could. He interrogated her again about Olivier during lunch.
“So is the guy in the suit with the dark blue tie at the opening your boyfriend?” he asked her.
“No, he’s not,” she said, with an edge to her voice. “He’s a friend, but I’m not seeing him right now.” She didn’t tell Tom it was over, to avoid giving him the impression that she was available to him.
“Why not?” Tom looked surprised.
“We have a difference of opinion about something I think is important. What about you? Have you met any nice women?”
“Not really. There’s one in my building. But she doesn’t speak English so all we do is smile and say ‘Bonjour.’ ”
“Maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” she said. “Fewer disagreements.” He laughed.
“I’m sorry you had a falling-out with your friend. He seems like a nice guy. And he’s crazy about you.” Tom had watched Olivier closely whenever Amanda was around. Pascal had noticed Tom watching her keenly and intensely. But Tom seemed more relaxed with her at lunch, and less intense. He gave her the impression that he had finally gotten the message that she was not going to rekindle their romance, twenty years later.
“How’s the book coming?” she asked him, wanting to change the subject away from Olivier, which was a sensitive topic for her right now, even more so since she wasn’t hearing from him. He had vanished as soon as they returned from London. He was gone, presumably for good, which was what she had said she wanted, but it hurt anyway. She wasn’t trying to force his hand to get divorced and marry her. They didn’t know each other that well. She just didn’t want to be his mistress, which was the only position he had open. Amanda had too much pride and was too ethical for that. The days were long and hard, and the nights were sleepless.
Tom walked her back to the gallery after lunch. He hung around with nothing to do, and clearly wasn’t working too hard on his book. He was still visiting museums and tourist attractions, which made Amanda wonder if he was serious about writing, but he said he was. She really didn’t know him anymore, after twenty years.
* * *
—
When she got back to the gallery after lunch with Tom, Pascal was in a full-blown argument with one of their artists, an American who called himself Johnny Vegas. They had been having trouble with him for a while. He had a drinking problem, and had previously been on drugs. Pascal was sure he was using substances again, and he was two months late delivering two paintings he owed them. The artist was shouting obscenities at Pascal when Amanda arrived. She was wondering if she should call the police, but Pascal insisted he could handle it himself. Johnny Vegas took a swing at Pascal and missed him, and Pascal finally lost his temper, told him he was fired, and said they would no longer represent him. Pascal physically pushed the artist out of the gallery and locked the door.
The artist pounded on the glass door until Amanda thought he would break it, and then staggered away and disappeared around the corner.
“He needs to go back to rehab,” Pascal said, smoothing his shirt down. “His girlfriend left him and he’s going crazy. He’s talented but we can’t afford to represent him.” His last gallery had fired him too. Amanda hated to see it end badly, but there was nothing else they could do.
* * *
—
It was a full ten days after their return from London when Olivier walked into the gallery at the end of the day, looking uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure what Amanda’s reaction would be, but he wanted to see her. And Pascal noticed that he looked as sick and worn out as she did. Olivier was carrying an armload of flowers, and Amanda walked right into him when she stepped out of her office.
“What are you doing here?” she said in a low voice.
“I came to see you,” he said, handing her the flowers. She walked them over to her assistant, handed them to her, and asked her to find a vase. There were at least two dozen red roses mixed in with lilacs and lavender hydrangea. They were beautiful, and Margo scurried off with them to find a vase big enough to hold them.
Amanda let Olivier follow her into her office against her better judgment. Her heart had taken a leap when she first saw him, and she could still feel it pounding when they both sat down with her desk between them. She didn’t want to hear anything he had to say, seeing him was hard enough. She had thought she would never see or hear from him again.
“I’ve been going crazy, thinking about you,” he said. She looked at him and didn’t respond. What could she say? He knew her position, and his situation was clear to her now and wasn’t going to change.
“Why don’t we see how things work out with us for a year? And if we’re still in love a year from now, I’ll get a divorce. That would give me time to move some money around so I don’t get slaughtered. How would you feel about that?” It was a major step for him to get divorced in a year, but she doubted he’d ever do it. She assumed that his wife, his children, or his wife’s family would lean on him heavily, and he would wind up telling Amanda he couldn’t get divorced after all. But his offer was a major concession for him. He wanted to find a way to make it work that she’d agree to. He didn’t want to lose her, and Amanda didn’t want to lose herself. She had already lost him, as soon as he told her he was married.
“Can’t you give us a chance, Amanda? I’ve never known another woman like you.” She was straightforward and loving and honest and trustworthy. She was everything his wife wasn’t. “I don’t want to lose you. Will you at least have dinner with me so we can talk about it?” He looked desperate, and she didn’t want him to leave either.
“It won’t get you anywhere,” she warned him, and went to get her coat and put it on. They went to L’Avenue, which was familiar and easy, and sat on the terrace, discussing the situation. They went around in circles and came out in the same place every time. By the end of dinner, they were both too tired to argue about it anymore, and he could see that he wasn’t going to convince her that his being married was acceptable to her. They left the restaurant after he paid, and walked a few blocks. The evening air was warmer than it had been, and it was nice to be out with him again. She had missed him fiercely for the past ten days, ever since he had dropped the bomb of his marriage on her in London.
She started to call an Uber and he stopped her.
“I’ll take you home.” He had left his car with the valet and when he brought it to them, Amanda slipped in next to Olivier and looked at him. Their glamorous perfect courtship had disintegrated and had become a life-and-death battle over a crucial issue: whether or not dating a married man was okay. To her, it wasn’t. But he had waited to tell her, so that she had fallen for him by the time he did. They hadn’t been together for long, but long enough for her to get attached to him, and she already had dreams of the future when he told her. She didn’t want to give those dreams up. But dating a married man, and being in love with him, would be an enormous challenge if she moved forward with him, and a potential heartbreak in the future for her if he never left his wife. Olivier claimed that his wife wouldn’t care, but Amanda found that hard to believe. He was interesting, intelligent, successful, kind, and handsome. She couldn’t imagine any woman being willing to give him up. And it all mattered to her. She also didn’t want to break up a marriage, but he swore that his marriage had been dead for years. It was painful for Amanda to think of giving him up, even now. For the past month, they had seemed like a perfect match.
He drove her home, as she mulled over what they’d said during dinner, and when they got to her building, he pulled over and couldn’t stop himself. He took her gently in his arms and kissed her, not sure how she’d react. But her passion was as powerful as his. He couldn’t stop kissing her and she didn’t want him to. They were breathless when they stopped.
“What are we going to do?” he whispered to her.
“I don’t know.” She didn’t have the power to resist him, and no matter how free and available he said he was, he was still married, and it mattered to her. She believed in the sanctity of marriage, and she didn’t want to hurt anyone else as she’d been hurt before.
They sat in the car kissing for a long time. She had missed him so acutely for the past ten days that she didn’t want to leave him now. He suggested they go for a walk, just to be with her a little longer. They both got out of the car and ambled slowly down the street, his arm around her. He stopped to kiss her under a streetlamp, and she felt the magic of his touch as she stood in the circle of his arms, and when they stopped, she had an odd feeling that someone was watching them. She stiffened and he looked at her, concerned. He thought she was thinking of his being married again, but she had an odd, distracted look as she glanced over her shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her gently.
“Nothing. I’m just being paranoid.”
“About what?” He was instantly alert and protective.
“We had to fire one of our artists a few days ago. He’s been on drugs before, and we think he is again. He’s an alcoholic and he’s been on and off heroin for years. He’s late with everything. We’ve given him a million chances, but we had to sever our representation of him. He took a swing at Pascal and threatened to get even with us. I just got a weird feeling that someone was watching us. I’m sure it was my imagination and has nothing to do with him.” She had a horrifying feeling then that it was Olivier’s wife. Or maybe just her imagination. She already felt guilty.
“You need to be careful, Amanda,” Olivier warned her, and pulled her closer to him as they walked back to her building and picked up the pace. And when they got to the front door of her building, Olivier kissed her again.
“I wasn’t going to do that tonight,” she said to him with a small smile. “You have a way of transporting me. I forget everything when I’m with you. All reason. The problem isn’t solved, you know.”
“I know it’s not, but it’s not insurmountable either if you give us some time. I suppose I could move out, and only stay at the house when the kids come home. They know their mother and I don’t get along. They’ve never known it any other way. Our problems started before they were born.” It still seemed to Amanda like an ugly way to live. It reminded her of her parents’ fights and the unbridgeable chasm between them before they finally gave up and filed for divorce, and she and her mother had moved to New York. It was a sad time, but it was better than all the tension they had lived with before the divorce. And it was all because of her father’s infidelities, which was another reason why she felt so strongly about married men having extramarital affairs. She was a staunch believer in fidelity, married or not.
Olivier waited at the door while she used the code to unlock the outer door to her building and got out her key for the apartment door upstairs.
“Can I see you tomorrow?” Olivier whispered to her, and she wanted to resist him, but she couldn’t, and as they stood there, a car suddenly pulled out of a parking space not far from where they stood and peeled away with tires squealing. She was sure the driver had been watching them, but he disappeared too quickly for her to get a good view. “Was it your drugged-out artist?” he asked her.
“I couldn’t tell.”
“He wouldn’t come to your home, would he?”
“In theory, I think he’d more likely break a window at the gallery, but who knows what he’s capable of. Someone may have given him my address without my knowing.”
“I don’t like this,” Olivier said, frowning. “Should you hire a guard?”
“We’ve never had a problem before. I don’t know what you do in a case like this. I think he’s too mentally disordered to do any real harm, but you never know. He’ll probably calm down in a few days. I think getting fired was a real shock to him. We were going to give him a show in the fall, but we couldn’t anyway. He was way behind on his paintings.”
“Art is a dangerous business,” Olivier said, teasing her.
“So is love,” Amanda whispered back. But so was life. There were risks around every corner. You never knew what could happen.
She managed to tear herself away from him and slip into the building after Olivier kissed her again. She went upstairs to her apartment where Lulu was waiting. She barked and wagged her tail at Amanda, dancing in little circles on her hind legs. She was happy Amanda was home.
She got a text from Olivier as soon as she took her coat off, and then two more. They told her how much he loved her and how grateful he was to see her and spend the evening with her. She could tell that he was treading gently with her, afraid to scare her off.
She went to brush her teeth and was putting on her nightgown when the phone rang. She was sure it was going to be Olivier again, with one last thing to tell her. She didn’t look at the caller ID and smiled when she answered.
“You can’t miss me already,” she said when she picked it up, but there was no voice on the other end. She could hear breathing, but the caller didn’t speak. He just held the phone and breathed, and the caller ID said it was a blocked number when she looked. She thought either it was the fired artist, Johnny Vegas, though he never identified himself, or it was a prank of some kind.
She had three more calls from a blocked number that night and didn’t answer them. They woke her up each time. She reported it to Pascal at the gallery the next day. Amanda wanted to call the police, but Pascal pointed out that they had nothing to report since all the calls were from a blocked number. She was beginning to think it really was Johnny Vegas, who had sworn revenge on them for firing him. The breathing call had been tame, and no threats were made. So, there wasn’t much to say to the police if she called them.
It was a busy week after that. She didn’t see Olivier the next day, or she would have mentioned the calls. She was still trying to decide what to do about him. She felt herself sliding inexorably toward him, and wondered if she should just accept the situation as he described, and see if his wife was as unengaged as he claimed. It wasn’t an ideal solution, but it was one option she had that didn’t entail losing him immediately. She didn’t want to give him up yet.
* * *
—
She was tidying some things in one of her closets on Saturday, when the doorbell rang. It took her a minute to put down some items she was holding, and when she went to the door no one was there. She looked down and saw a long white florist’s box, the kind that held long-stemmed roses, and she smiled. She guessed immediately that the flowers were from Olivier. He was still courting her, hoping to overcome her concerns. She bent down to pick up the box, and it was surprisingly heavy. She juggled it awkwardly, as she stepped back into her apartment, and lost her grip on it from the excessive weight of the box. It burst open, and a long gutted fish the length of the box dropped onto her entrance floor and the carpet, its bloody entrails spilling everywhere, as a foul odor of dead fish filled the hall. She jumped back as it splashed on her, and started to cry when she saw it. She couldn’t imagine who would do something like that, and she instantly thought of Johnny Vegas again. She went to her bathroom, pulled off her nightgown, covered in fish guts and blood, and stood under the shower to get the smell off her.
She called Pascal and told him what had happened. He was at the gallery. She had been planning to join him there and he told her not to come in.
“The guy’s a lunatic. It’s just the kind of thing he would do. I’m glad we fired him. Can you get someone to help you clean up the mess? I don’t want to close the gallery to come over in case he shows up to do some mischief here.”
“I can handle it,” she said, revolted at the thought of the gutted fish.
The phone rang as soon as she hung up with Pascal. It was Olivier, and he could hear the panic in her voice.
