16: Elephant In The Room
With Zooey and Justin’s trip to Boston being mostly a success, it seemed that their affair was showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, he had a nagging, sinking feeling that he was more himself on that trip to Boston with Zooey than he had been in a long, long time. It scared him to know that he married someone he hadn’t been himself with.
In the simplest sense, he wasn’t so different, but underneath all those layers of the lighthearted guy that didn’t take himself too seriously, there was a man that yearned for more than a perfect relationship. Sometimes, he wanted something sad and complex. He needed something to go wrong so that he could appreciate when it was right. His life was turning into a fairytale, when most people’s lives were a documentary.
And perhaps that’s why Zooey intrigued him so much. Being able to see her at home, where she came from, he kind of enjoyed that things weren’t so easy. And while it wasn’t necessarily difficult, it certainly wasn’t the cakewalk that he was accustomed to. Her mother was cold and hardhearted, while her father was attentive and loving. He realized that it must have been quite the contradiction to grow up in. How do you find yourself when the two people that mold you are polar opposites?
Things like that were what amazed him about Zooey Levin. She was a mess, a mystery, a movement that he could never quite figure out. And while he knew how insanely wrong their relationship was, he just wasn’t ready to give her up. And so, they kept it going.
“Dinner was fantastic,” Justin sighed, reentering Zooey’s living room after washing her kitchen full of dishes. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she grinned, watching him take a seat next to her. “Thank you for not leaving any leftovers.”
“I know how you hate leftovers,” he contended, as she’d told him many a time that she did not like old food in her refrigerator.
“Just because I know I’ll never eat it. I like fresh crappy food.”
“Day-old potstickers just don’t do it for you, huh?”
“Not quite,” she grimaced at the thought.
“What are we watching tonight?” he questioned, noticing that she had a Netflix package sitting on the end table next to her. “Please tell me it’s not Avatar.”
“I have some weird aversion to James Cameron, so no. Never.”
“Thank god.”
“You don’t like him either?”
“He’s an asshole,” Justin stated as though he had confirmed it as fact. “And Titanic sucks.”
She offered him a spirited high five and pulled the actual movie they’d be viewing into view. “How do you feel about ‘It’s Complicated?’”
“A chick flick? Really?”
“It’s Meryl Streep. And Alec Baldwin. And Steve Martin.”
“And John Krasinski. In a chick flick,” he maintained.
Looking at him with feigned disappointment, she asked, “Are you really gonna ruin movie night?”
“I’m not.”
“It’s a good movie.”
“You’ve already seen it?”
“I did. I support my coworkers in everything they do.”
“The ones that are nice to you, you mean.”
“Clearly.”
“Do any of the nice ones know about us?”
“John does,” she nodded, remembering their conversation a couple of months prior. “He’s very perceptive.”
“Awesome.”
“He likes you, though, don’t worry.”
“I like him, too.”
“You want me to set you guys up?” she joked with raised eyebrows. “Maybe you guys can do a man-date?”
With a matching expression, he offered, “Maybe you can put the movie in.”
“Aye, aye, capteen,” she agreed, pulling herself from her couch. Just as she pressed the Eject button on her Blu-ray player, the sound of her doorbell rang throughout the house, startling both of them. “Who the hell,” she wondered, peeking towards the front windows to see if she could get a glimpse of a car.
“Maybe it’s the police.”
“Don’t even joke about that. You know I have a fear of the po-po.”
“My apologies.”
“I’ll be back,” she promised, scurrying to her foyer to see who the visitor could possibly be. She was pleasantly surprised to see her friends, Tennile and Lacey, standing in her doorway. “Wowwww,” she greeted them, giving her best impersonation of Flavor Flav.
“Oh, so you are alive,” Lacey scolded, annoyed that Zooey never seemed to answer her phone anymore. “We were positive that you’d been kidnapped.”
“Bitch, whatever. You disappear when you want to, too,” she reminded, pulling her inside with a huge hug. “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.”
“Hey you,” she glanced over to Tennile, whose perfect smile lit up at the sight of Zooey. “Where the fuck have you been?”
“I’ve been around,” she nodded as they motioned to embrace one another. “Just finished my stint on Top Chef.”
“What!” Zooey marveled, not even realizing that her friend was a contender. “That’s fantastic.”
“I was the second to go home, but... it was fun,” she shrugged.
Figuring Justin wouldn’t mind the interruption, she directed them towards the living room. “Okay, come on in, you guys. You have to tell me all about what you’ve been up to and what not.”
As soon as Justin heard the several voices approaching, he rose from the couch nervously, unsure of who was about to walk in on him.
“Oh wow, hey,” Tennile greeted him, a bit stunned to see him there. They’d only met once, and he seemed nice enough, but she certainly did not think they would meet again, as uncomfortable as he appeared the first time.
“Hey,” he waved to her from where he stood. “Tennile, right?”
She nodded. “Sorry to intrude. We didn’t know Zooey had company.”
She was soon followed by Lacey and Zooey. “Hey, Lacey,” he appended, suddenly feeling very ambushed. “Good to see you again.”
“Same to you,” she grinned coolly, avoiding his gaze. Lacey didn’t necessarily like Justin, but she couldn’t figure out why. By any measure, he should have been intolerably smug with his list of “I’m perfect” attributes, but he was shockingly humble, even-tempered, and thoughtful, from the little she knew of him. Even so, Lacey just didn’t feel comfortable around him. Perhaps because he was making a play for her best friend when he had a ring on his finger. And while she wasn’t traditional or prudish in many senses, she did have a grasp on right and wrong. She knew that Zooey’s relationship with Justin was wrong, and it made her look at him “ or not look at him “ oddly. “Didn’t expect to see you here,” she eventually added.
“It’s movie night,” Zooey inserted, seeing the tension mounting on both of their faces. “We’re just chillin’.”
“Nice,” Tennile smiled, her eyes darting back and forth between the two of them. “What were you watching?”
“’It’s Complicated.’”
“Fitting,” Lacey commented, taking it upon herself to sit down on the loveseat beside her.
“Yes, everyone should sit,” Zooey took her lead, trying to navigate through the awkwardness. “Justin, sit down.”
“Actually, I’m gonna go,” he decided suddenly, already feeling like this visit was a bad idea. “I should let you ladies enjoy your time together.”
“What? No, sit down.”
“Yeah. I’m gonna go.”
“Why?”
“You guys should spend some time together,” he decided with a small smile. “You got your chick flick, you got your chicks. Enjoy.”
“Well okay,” she hopped up once again, prepared to walk him to the door.
“Ladies, it was good to see you again.”
“Same here,” they replied in unison, smiles to match.
Zooey caught up with him as he headed for the front, taking his hand into hers before he could leave. “You all right?”
“Yeah.” He stopped to look at her comfortingly, but let go of her hand. “I’ll call you later.”
She nodded and held the door for him once he opened it. “Later, Levin.”
With a sigh, she turned back into her home, ready to entertain her two buddies. When she reentered the living room, she found them both staring at her knowingly. “What?” she grinned.
“He sure knows how to make an exit,” Tennile noticed, chuckling mirthlessly.
“He’s just private.”
“He’s arrogant,” she countered, popping a few kernels of leftover popcorn in her mouth. “He didn’t appreciate us stopping by and intruding. His plans were interrupted.”
“He’s not like that.”
“Does his wife know he was here?” Lacey wondered tersely, annoyed that her friend had clearly ignored her advice.
“No.”
“What the hell, Zo?”
“Listen, I like him, all right? I can’t help it.”
“You gotta be kidding me.”
“I’m not.”
“He’s married!”
“I fucking know that,” she shouted as loudly as her voice would allow. People kept saying that, as if it were brand new information, and it was driving her crazy.
“Then what are you doing?”
“I’m not in love with the tragedy of this whole thing, Lace. If I could make him leave her, I would,” she admitted, looking down sadly. “I can’t.”
“Zo, he is the most dangerous kind of guy to be in a relationship with.”
“I know that!”
“And not just because it is completely lacking in propriety,” she made sure to add. “He’s gonna flip out when you least expect it,” she prophesized.
“What?”
“She’s right,” Tennile finally jumped in, already knowing exactly what she was referring to. “He’s a quote-unquote nice guy, and nice guys are scary.”
“You guys sound ridiculous.”
“Nice guys are infuriating. Men who don’t think about meaning well, they’re predictable. They’re assholes through and through.”
“But mean-well-men?” Lacey went on to explain. “They’re the most destructive types. They’re in the business of making others happy before their own needs.”
“That’s clearly not Justin,” Zooey smirked.
“No, let’s go with that.”
“The problem is,” Tennile began to finish, “those needs never surface until they explode in a seemingly out-of-nowhere burst of selfishness.”
“Okay…”
“So I’m sure he’s been the mean-well-man to his wife all this time.”
“Probably.”
“And now, all of a sudden, he’s cheating on her.”
“The same thing is gonna happen to you,” Lacey nodded. “And we don’t wanna see that.”
“Okay,” Zooey chuckled uneasily. “And I appreciate your concern, but I’m well aware that this is a so-called ‘burst of selfishness.’ On both our parts. I’m okay with that.”
“Are you really?”
She nodded silently, sick to death of having different versions of this conversation repeatedly. And while she wasn’t really okay with it, she didn’t have many other options, so she accepted it. “You know what they say. If you can’t have a happy home… wreck one.” She winced at the feeling it gave her to even utter those words.
“Nobody says that,” Lacey deadpanned.
She rolled her eyes at her best friend and grabbed the remote from her coffee table, ready to turn on the movie. “Let’s just leave it at… it’s complicated.”
_____________________
After Justin’s awkward run-in with Zooey’s friends, he had been comforted to come home and see that Scarlett had returned from her Iron Man promotional duties in Europe. They hadn’t seen one another in almost a month, since the closing weekend of her play, and he’d missed her a little more than usual. However, he was a disappointed to find that she was in no mood to be bothered.
“Lucy, I’m home!” he put on his best version of a Cuban accent to greet her when he entered the house.
Unamused, she only stared at him from her usual spot at the kitchen table. “Desi was a terrible husband,” she returned sullenly. “An alcoholic, a drug addict, a womanizer. And he was inanely jealous of Lucy’s success.”
Avoiding her glare, he looked down to the floor. “O…kay.”
“Don’t be a Desi.”
“I was just being dorky and cute,” his expression dropped. He motioned to place a kiss on her forehead before heading to the refrigerator. “You all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“You look exhausted.”
“I just flew across the country,” she reminded him. “I am.”
“Well why are you sitting here? Why don’t you go get some sleep?”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Take an Ambien,” he suggested, finally deciding on a bottle of water and joining her back at the table. “No use sitting here miserable.”
She smirked at the notion. “I need a cigarette.”
“Scarlett.”
“Where did you put them?”
“No,” he maintained, beginning to frown at her. “What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re acting… strange.”
“I don’t know why that’s so unheard of. Smokers relapse all the time.” She sat back in her chair, indignant, pulled her hair from its lopsided ponytail, and stared at the wood of the table. “I want a cigarette.”
“No. Take an Ambien and go to bed. It’s late.”
“It’s nine o’clock.”
“But you just came from New York, where it’s midnight,” he offered. “You should go on to bed.”
“I’m fine, daddy.”
“Scar.”
“Are you going to tell me where the cigarettes are, or do I have to go out and get some?”
He sighed in disappointment, resting his hand over hers that sat on the tabletop. “Why are you doing this?”
“Why are you being so dramatic?”
“Because you’ve done so well with quitting. Why are you suddenly going back to this disgusting, not to mention deadly, habit?”
“Because I fucking want to!” she shouted abruptly.
Justin almost jumped out of his seat due to her outburst, as he was not at all used to her yelling outside of a film set. He was stunned. “Umm… okay. They’re out in the guest bathroom, beneath the sink.”
Silently, she rose from the table and left the house through the back door while Justin watched her cross the backyard, barefoot, to retrieve her death in a box. He didn’t know why it bothered him so much that Scarlett wanted a cigarette when he knew that Zooey easily smoked a few a day, and he didn’t even bat an eye. He had different standards for the two women in his life, it seemed.
She returned a few minutes later, cigarette already in her mouth, and headed for the stove to light it. Without any other words, she sat back down.
“Tess, are you sure you’re all right?”
A stream of smoke escaped her lips before she answered. “I’m fine.”
_____________________
Justin was lost as to what might have been wrong with his wife, and he hated that maybe he’d been missing some kind of lingering signs due to all the time he’d been spending with Zooey. Maybe she was attention-starved, or maybe she really was just tired, but he felt like he owed her more than just passing worry. He thought it important to whisk her away for a bit, so they could get back to the two of them. And what better place to do that than the city of love?
“Paris is gorgeous when you’re not racing through it for a promo tour,” Scarlett commented happily, admiring their extraordinary view of the gorgeous city.
Justin joined her at the window, inhaling the sight of La Tour Eiffel at night. “What do you wanna do tonight?”
She took his arm into hers and leaned into him with a contented sigh. “Everything.”
“Let’s get dressed, we’ll go out to dinner.”
“Can we eat downstairs?” she asked with a childlike hopefulness. “We’re at the best hotel in the city, we have to eat here.”
Hotel Le Bristol Paris was definitely deemed the finest of the fine. Their prestigious suite was so decorative and classically regal, it would’ve been fit for French royalty. Or in this case, American royalty. It only made sense to dine in such a nice place.
“Yeah, of course.”
“All right, well you get dressed first. I wanna surprise you.”
“Surprise me?”
“Yeah,” she grinned. “We never go all out for each other. I wanna go all out.”
“Okay,” he nodded encouragingly. “Let’s go all out. But… I did wanna talk to you first.”
She immediately began to snore loudly to signify her boredom. “Justin, please.”
“You don’t even know what I wanna talk about.”
“I’m pretty sure I do, and I’m not in the mood for it.”
For two days, he’d kept quiet about her apparent desire for cancer and/or emphysema, but he would only be able to suppress his feelings for so long. And while he knew the whole smoking thing was most likely stemming from something deeper, what troubled him most of all was that she wasn’t even willing to talk to him about it.
“When will you be in the mood for it?”
“Not tonight,” she subtly pleaded. “I’m not in the mood for serious, I can’t do heavy shit tonight. Let’s just have fun and be happy and we don’t even have to be ourselves if that would make you feel better about it, but I just… don’t wanna do serious, okay?”
He searched her blue-green eyes for some sort of sign that this was nothing grave, but they seemed to tell him the exact opposite. They appeared so empty… so sad. He didn’t know what to do but relent. “Okay.”
____________________
About an hour later, Justin was sitting alone in the breathtaking Restaurant Gastronomique, waiting for his wife’s arrival. The wonderfully large dining room, oval in shape, like a private theater, was almost excessively beautiful, made up of gorgeous oak, floor-to-ceiling floral tapestries, and crystal chandeliers. He was so busy taking in his surroundings that he didn’t notice Scarlett enter the room.
She was dressed to the nines in a bold black cocktail dress, highlighting her legs and the loveliness of her porcelain skin. Her hair, back to blonde, was swept up from her face in a complicated updo, which successfully showed off her most important feature “ her face. Made up with dramatic smoky eyes and a light pink lip color, she was flawless.
With a mischievous smirk on her face, she approached Justin, their eyes finally locking, and she stood above him. “May I join you?”
“I wish you would,” he offered, standing up to assist in seating her.
She was pleasantly impressed with his look “ a well-fitted black suit, white shirt, skinny black tie; his curly hair was tamed but not too groomed, as was his facial hair “ he looked chic and sexy. Their friends, and even strangers on occasion, tended to jokingly ask if the two of them were sold separately, and on nights like this, it was clear why. They looked like they belonged to one another.
As a waiter came to serve Justin his second glass of Pinot Noir, he made sure to ask Scarlett what she would like.
“I’ll have a Pinot Grigio,” she nodded, adding, “billed to the Suite Paris.”
“Bien sur, madame.”
“That’s right near my room,” Justin offered, unable to stop staring at her.
“Really? I haven’t seen you up there…”
“I just got in today.”
“Ah, and when do you leave?”
“Tomorrow.”
She narrowed her eyes at him in disbelief. “You’re only in Paris for one night?”
“It’s safer that way.”
“Is that so?” she wondered, watching her white wine being served. “Merci.”
“I won’t have my heart broken.”
With a small smirk, she raised her glass for a toast to her dashing husband. “To no broken hearts.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Rapt, he took a short sip from his glass, still staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. “So what do you do?”
“I’m a singer,” she decided, eyeing him for his reaction. “I like to sing.”
“Is that right?”
“That is right,” she nodded. “That’s not to say I’m any good at it, but… I like it.”
“There’s no way you’re bad at anything,” he grinned.
“You’d be surprised.”
“Would you sing me something?”
“Right now?”
“Yeah, why not.”
Her eyes studied him, trying to figure out if he was serious, or just testing her. But she was in character and certainly didn’t need any other excuse to make a fool of herself, so she thought of one of her favorite songs, and began to sing.
“This is our last goodbye. I hate to feel the love between us die. But it’s over,” she sang quietly, the unique tone of her voice enriched by its faint gravely-ness. She sang like an old school jazz artist, reminiscent of Billie Holliday or Anita O’Day. It was a lovely thing to witness. “Just hear this and then I’ll go. You gave me more to live for, more than you’ll ever know.”
Justin closed his eyes, listening to his wife sing a sad goodbye to him, and it made him ache in places he didn’t even know he had.
“This is our last embrace. Must I dream and always see your face,” she went on, unknowingly killing him. “Why can’t we overcome this wall? Baby, maybe it’s just because I didn’t know you at all. Kiss me, please. Kiss me…”
He got up from his side of the table, full of more emotion than he knew how to handle, and did exactly that.
____________________
Scarlett and Justin’s roleplay ended with her song, and they spent the rest of the night being happily married. They enjoyed exquisite cuisine, light conversation, as she’d requested, and then took their party back upstairs, where the sex was inexorable, the two of them completely in sync and insatiable. For Justin, things finally felt right between them for the first time in a long time.
Now, they laid in bed together, silent, but not asleep, as the sun began to rise over the city, sending a warm glow through their room, almost angelic in feeling. Sometimes, he couldn’t believe his life and how indecently lucky he was.
Scarlett, on the other hand, felt an odd detachment from her husband, and she feared that her instincts had led her to a sad, sad conclusion.
Lying next to you, wishing I could disappear
Afraid “ or perhaps, unwilling “ to look at him, she broke the silence to find out if he was still awake. “Justin?”
“Yeah?”
Let you fall asleep, and vanish out into thin air
“I’m gonna ask you something. And no matter what the answer is, I want you to be honest with me, okay?”
It’s the elephant in the room and we pretend that we don’t see it
It’s an avalanche that looms above our heads, but we don’t believe it
He took a deep breath, almost knowing what was coming. He wasn’t ready to have this conversation, he hadn’t prepared for the heavy shit. The demons he’d created, he couldn’t face them yet. But the fact was that he had created this. This was his doing; he made a conscious decision to cheat on his wife, and whatever came next, he would have to deal with. “Okay.”
“Are you cheating on me?”
Even though he was expecting some rendering of that exact question, his breath caught in his throat when he heard it. “What?”
Trying to be perfect, trying not to let you down
Honesty is honestly the hardest thing for me right now
“Christmas.”
“Wwwhat about Christmas?” He nervously wondered if she somehow found out that he’d held hands with Zooey on his heartbreakingly wonderful flight to New York on Christmas Eve.
“Christmas day… you came home a little happier,” she recalled. “And at the time, I thought maybe it was just because you hadn’t seen me in a few weeks and you were sweet enough to be excited. But after a while,” she sniffled as tears ran down the sides of her face, falling into her hair, “after thinking about it, I don’t think that’s what it was at all. From that day to this one, you’ve been in better moods and worse ones than I’ve ever seen. You take better care of yourself, put more thought into your clothing, you wear different cologne. You’ve started locking your phone and closing the door to use the bathroom. Since Christmas, you’ve turned into a slightly different person, slowly, but obviously. So I have to ask, are you cheating on me?”
While the floors underneath our feet are crumbling
The walls we built together are tumbling
I still stand here holding up the roof
Was there any way to deny it? He turned his head away from her, sad for his wife, and his marriage, and for what he’d let it come to. This was the kind of mistake that made your heart ache. Still, he knew he had to answer her. “Yeah.”
‘Cause it’s easier than telling the truth
Lyrics: “Last Goodbye” “ Jeff Buckley (Grace)
“The Truth” “ Kris Allen (Kris Allen)
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