Infidelity: A Novel

Infidelity: A Novel

by Stacey May Fowles
Infidelity: A Novel

Infidelity: A Novel

by Stacey May Fowles

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Overview

This novel probes the reckless impulses behind an extramarital affair, from an author who is “an heir to Updike and Cheever” (Robert Wiersema, author of Bedtime Story and Before I Wake)

Ronnie is a hairdresser who has tried to become a better person to please her fiancé — healthier, well behaved, free of her old bad habits like smoking cigarettes, eating red meat, and indulging in the occasional line of cocaine. As the wedding date approaches — and the pressure to get pregnant intensifies — she finds herself with a sense of unsettled yearning. Then, at a party her husband-to-be is catering, she meets Charlie.

An anxiety-ridden, award-winning writer, Charlie feels suffocated by his bread-winning wife and the needs of his autistic child. His torrid affair with Ronnie plays out on office desks and in Toronto hotel rooms. Each is getting something from the other, but as the relationship grows ever riskier, they must decide what it is they truly want, and truly need, and what they’re willing to sacrifice to get it.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781770411418
Publisher: ECW Press
Publication date: 10/01/2013
Pages: 232
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)
Lexile: 940L (what's this?)

About the Author

Stacey May Fowles is a writer and magazine professional. She is the author of the novels Be Good (Tightrope, 2007) and Fear of Fighting (Invisible, 2008), and her essays have been widely anthologized in collections like Yes Means Yes, First Person Queer, and Nobody Passes. She is a regular contributor to the National Post and currently works at The Walrus. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Read an Excerpt

Infidelity

A Novel


By Stacey May Fowles

ECW PRESS

Copyright © 2013 Stacey May Fowles
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-77090-433-0


CHAPTER 1

Ronnie knew the moment she saw Charlie that she would follow him somewhere. It didn't really matter where, she just knew it would happen sooner or later — that one day she would desert everything important and chase him down. And that somehow it would be worth it.

Ronnie wasn't the kind of girl who had ever felt that way about anyone. Ronnie was the kind of girl who rarely felt anything. Since she was young, Ronnie had always been quite skilled at numbing herself to external influence.

She was wearing a short black strapless dress and open toed shoes despite the fact that it was the middle of a Toronto December. Her legs were bare, and every time the front door on the two-storey Annex house swung open to let in another reveller she would shiver slightly. Ronnie never dressed this way, generally wore blue jeans, beat-up brown boots, T-shirts and cardigans, but Aaron had asked her to dress up. She had styled her short brown hair, when normally she would have simply let it dry after the shower. She had put on perfume, from an old bottle she found in the back of the medicine cabinet behind a row of prescription medication — a bottle that was a gift from Aaron two Christmases ago.

The party, a university affair full of scholars and students and assholes, twinkled with tinsel and blinking white lights. Everyone betrayed the slightest hint of discomfort, straining to have conversations with people they couldn't conceal their contempt for. They were drinking heavily to ease into the situation, and as the night wore on discomfort evolved into inappropriateness. Ronnie felt the burning stare of lechery on the hem of her dress and the curve of her cleavage.

Standing alone, far from the mistletoe that was trapping and tormenting some of the female guests, Ronnie tipped back a third glass of red wine and lamented agreeing to come.

Three glasses of wine meant she was drunk.

She had come for Aaron, who had needed her help carrying the many platters of food he'd prepared for the party. It was money, and they needed money more than ever now. Aaron was firmly set in "planning for the future" mode and was taking every extra catering job that came his way, even if it meant Ronnie had to assist.

"You'll have a great time, Ronnie, I promise. These are smart people. Like, smart famous people."

Ronnie wondered if there was such a thing as "smart famous people." The glossy pages of the magazines at the hair salon where she worked always suggested otherwise.

When her glass was empty again and she decided to go for a fourth, she saw him across the room. Through the maze of tweed coats, pencil skirts, and loud Christmas cheer, she spotted him slowly chewing something and staring blankly into the bottom of his whisky tumbler. He was a robust, rosy, bearded man with a slightly timid and mostly awkward look on his face. He looked decidedly lost, as if he might get swept away by the bumping shoulders of stodgy academics and earnest doe-eyed students. Despite his confused expression, it appeared that all eyes were on him. Ronnie overheard people whispering about him with a sense of awe, glad to be in his company yet afraid to approach him.

He was scanning the titles on a bookshelf while an angular and severe-looking blonde with a blunt-bang haircut and red-rimmed glasses was talking at him without any concern that he was paying attention. He looked up from the last drops of his whisky mournfully, as if it were the last whisky available in the world, and caught Ronnie in a stare. It should have been awkward, should have made her blush, turn on her heel, and clip off to the kitchen, but he seemed to derive so much pleasure from the eye contact that his mouth spread into a wide, welcoming grin immediately, and hers did the same.

The look on his face, his slight eye roll referring the blonde — in that moment she knew that he would have the capacity to make her do stupid things.

She put her wineglass down on a coffee table carelessly, without a coaster (a party grievance Aaron had warned her against), and, walked boldly toward him. Ronnie wasn't generally shy, but in situations where she had to be on her best behaviour because Aaron's job demanded it, she made careful exceptions to her generally animated personality. But for some reason this man and his canapé seemed a safe bet. When he saw her approaching, he raised a hand to excuse himself from the angular blonde, gesturing in Ronnie's direction in a way that suggested they had met before.

For some reason Charlie thought to put his left hand in his pocket so Ronnie wouldn't see his wedding ring as she approached.

Harmless, he thought.

He had a few brief moments to lament the mustard stain on the left breast pocket of his beige long-sleeved shirt, a shirt that his wife had picked out for him that morning.

"It's so good to see you again," he said at full volume.

"Don't worry, I don't think she can hear you anymore," Ronnie said in a half whisper, looking over his shoulder at the blonde. "She looks really fascinating."

"That's Sarah. She's a wench. And sort of my boss. I told her you were an old friend," he said.

"Well, maybe I will be."

"Charlie," he said.

"Ronnie," she said.

"Ronnie?"

"Veronica."

"Pretty."

Pretty.

They shook hands lightly. Then, reaching into his pocket with his right hand, he withdrew an oatmeal cookie.

"Why do you have an oatmeal cookie at a cocktail party?" she asked.

"I brought it with me. You can get all sorts of things from the fish at these things. Botulism. Ebola. Scabies," he said. "And who calls them cocktail parties anymore? What, were you born in the twenties?"

"Were you?"

"Ouch. Are you mocking me?"

"It's not hard. You smuggled in an oatmeal cookie in your pants pocket."

"And you can have half."

He carefully unwrapped the cookie and split it in two, handing her the bigger half. When he bit into and realized it was actually oatmeal with chocolate chips he playfully told her he wouldn't have offered it to her if he'd known. "A waste of good chocolate," he called it. She smiled and snatched the remainder of his half from his hand and shoved it, along with her half, into her mouth with both hands.

"Naw you haf nuffin," she said with her mouth full. Cookie crumbs tumbled from her lips and onto the front of the black dress Aaron had made her wear. He looked at her mouth, full of half-chewed cookie, and wanted to kiss it. He reached out to brush the cookie crumbs from the front of her dress but quickly stopped himself.

Things they would find out later:

He was more than ten years older than her.

She was an Aries and he was a Leo.

She knew what that meant and he didn't.

She cut hair for a living and looked in the newspapers for her horoscope every day.

He wrote poetry and she did not.

"So what brings you to this party then, Ronnie?"

"I know the caterer. You know, the one who prepared the scabies fish that you're so afraid of."

You know, the one I share a bed with, she thought.

Three and then four drinks in, with Aaron in the adjacent room, she suddenly longed for the thickness of Charlie's flesh, the width of his chest to curl into, the breadth of his arms around her, warming the skin exposed by strapless dresses and open-toed shoes. Admittedly this was not an uncommon occurrence for Ronnie, as alcohol always made her want to fall into strangers.

"We should do shots," she said.

"I'm close to fifty, Ronnie. I don't drink shots."

"Yawn."

"It's called being a 'grown-up."'

"Again. Yawn. How close to fifty?"

"Close enough."

"Don't worry, old man. We'll just do girl shots."

"Girl shots?"

Ronnie flagged down one of the party's servers, a petite blonde whose buttery flesh was both awkwardly and sensually spilling out of an ill-fitting waistcoat, and exuberantly requested two B-52s. The girl, clearly out of her element, stared at her blankly.

"I don't think we ..."

"Peach schnapps? Can you do that?" Ronnie suggested.

The blonde nodded and scurried off to the kitchen.

"Peach schnapps? What are we? Teenage girls at Bible camp?" Charlie asked.

"O-M-G Charlie. L-O-L."

"By the way, nobody orders shots at a cocktail party."

"Oh, Charlie. No one ever calls it a cocktail party."

"Touché."

The shots arrived and they drank them, toasting "Bible camp" and "a time when they called them cocktail parties" while the other party-goers eyed them strangely, their faces still expressing a strange awe over a man Ronnie knew nothing about. Ronnie was swaying now, the liquor impeding her balance and increasing her volume. Also warmed and buoyed from the inside, Charlie suddenly told Ronnie that her hair was nice. Pretty, he said.

"There's that word again," she said.

"Well it is. Pretty. It's shiny. Very Vivien Leigh. Natalie Wood. Elizabeth Taylor."

"Well, you mean young Elizabeth Taylor, I should hope."

"Bloated, wheelchair Elizabeth Taylor."

"Hey. Also, don't be awful."

"Don't be silly. A Place in the Sun, Elizabeth Taylor."

"Does that make you Montgomery Clift?"

"God, I hope so."

"You like old movies, then?"

"Oh yes. Simpler time. They don't make them like that anymore."

"The movies or the women?

"Both."

Ronnie could take a doctor's pressing questions much better than she could take compliments. She looked at her shoes and then back at Charlie. In doing so she noticed a chocolate chip cookie crumb still lingered in the corner of his mouth. She reached out to wipe it away and then, like him, stopped herself, realizing it was too intimate, her hand hovering between them.

"Cookie," she said by way of explanation, motioning toward the corner of her mouth.

"I'm sorry, did you just call me Cookie?" Charlie smiled and wiped the crumb away himself.

The angular blonde returned suddenly, obviously deviously curious about the identity of Charlie's young companion. "Charlie, there are lots of people you need to be meeting tonight," the woman said, momentarily ignoring Ronnie's presence.

"Yes, you've mentioned that a number of times, Sarah."

"You're not just here for the drinks, you know," she snapped back.

"Well, they don't even have B-52s."

Sarah ignored him and turned her attention to Ronnie. "Who's your friend? A student of yours?"

"This is Elizabeth. She's an actress. But don't bother talking to her. She doesn't speak any English," Charlie said without pause.

Ronnie attempted to stifle her drunken laughter while the blonde stared angrily at them both, quite aware that she was being lied to.

"Oh, I meant to ask you — how's your wife, Charlie?" Sarah asked. His grin quickly faded. Ronnie turned away from them slightly, wishing she had bothered to refill her wine glass.

"Tamara's doing very well. Thank you for asking."

"Oh, and your son? Noah? How is his treatment going? Elizabeth, are you aware that Charlie has a very sick child at home? He's such a devoted husband and father — oh I'm sorry, how rude of me. You can't understand a word I'm saying, can you?" Sarah was being cruel now, clearly intent on ruining Charlie's good-natured flirtation.

"Noah's not 'very sick,' Sarah. He has autism," Charlie spat, suddenly too offended to be embarrassed.

"Well, I do know it's been quite the struggle for the two of you. You and your wife."

"That's enough."

"You've had enough. I suggest you excuse yourself."

"I should get a refill," Ronnie offered, meekly trying to diffuse things.

"Yes. Maybe you should," Sarah retaliated.

"No. Ronnie, you stay. Sarah? If you could excuse us?"

"Please remember that you are here on behalf of the department."

Sarah exhaled noisily and then offered a dramatic exit, throwing Ronnie a mocking, loud, and slowly sounded out sooo niiice tooo meeet you before scurrying off to a more accommodating conversation elsewhere.

Ronnie gazed toward the kitchen, visibly uncomfortable. "Maybe I should go get that refill."

"I think she told me I should go, and as much as I'm loath to admit it — too much whisky I'm afraid," he said, again looking deep into his tumbler.

"No such thing," she said, raising her shot glass.

"I'm likely embarrassing you."

"I think I may be embarrassing myself. And the caterer."

"Please don't be put off by her. I told you she was a wench."

She smiled. "Maybe it's for the best if the fish gives everyone botulism."

"Ronnie, would you like to run away with me?"

"Where are we going?"

"I don't really care. Away from all of these godawful people."

"All these godawful people you're supposed to be meeting tonight?"

She looked around the room and, after deciding no one was eyeing them, she stepped forward, lightly pressing her body against him while slipping her empty shot glass into the same pocket the plastic-wrapped cookie came out of. She let her hand linger briefly inside the pocket before pulling away. He panicked slightly, but then eased into the moment letting his clumsy fingertips graze the hem of her dress, and then the outside of her bare thigh. Then the inside of her bare thigh.

"I'd like to see you again. Please," she whispered.

"Yes."

When she stepped back they both noticed the blonde staring.

"I should go find that caterer I'm embarrassing."

"We should run away."

"I should go find the caterer."

"Okay, then I suppose I should go find my wife. At home. It was nice to meet you Ronnie."

She had already turned away.

CHAPTER 2

"Who was that you were talking to out there?" Aaron asked when Ronnie pushed through the swinging doors of the kitchen and desperately scanned the room for more peach schnapps.

"Some old guy," was her nervous response.

"I think he's supposed to be important or something. Like they're having this party for him."

"He didn't mention that."

"Couldn't you tell by the way all of them are staring at him?"

"I didn't really notice."

"What were you two talking about?" he asked. The question came less from a place of jealousy and more from a concern that she was jeopardizing his well- paying catering gig with her drunken conversations.

"Old movies," she managed to reply, supporting herself on the kitchen counter as the room began to descend into a slight spin.

"Oh Rons, you must be bored out of your mind. These academics are a snooze fest, but thankfully have money to burn on hors d'oeuvres."

"Yeah. Yawn," she lied, pushing a recently prepared salmon canapé into her mouth. "Actually, I think I'm going to go home."

Aaron looked disappointed for a moment and then smiled thankfully. "You do look tired."

"The dog needs to go out anyway."

"Well, thanks for coming with me, babe. You want me to call you a cab?"

"No, I want to walk a bit. Then I'll just hop on the streetcar."

Aaron wiped his hands on his apron and leaned over and gave her a kiss, hovering over a cheese platter ready to be brought out to the living room. When he pulled back he made a face. "Have you been drinking peach schnapps?"

Ronnie nodded.

"You know you really shouldn't be drinking. Just in case." He gently patted her belly, still speckled with cookie crumbs, and broke into a grin. "When can you take a test?"

She flinched, stepping back slightly. "Aaron, don't."

"But ..."

"Don't. Not here."

"I'm sorry. Call me when you get home."

"I won't wait up."

"Take the cheese plate out with you while you leave."


Charlie loved his wife. He would go home to her that night and fall asleep next to the familiar comfort of her aging body, listening to her noisy sighs while he slipped in and out of vivid dreams of Ronnie — an Angela Vickers look-alike in a little black dress, a pale girl with the most piercingly beautiful laugh he'd ever managed to pull from someone with the minor wit he was able to muster.

He would never tell his wife about what happened at the party, about those dreams he had in their bed that night. Instead he slipped out of their bed and crept noiselessly past Noah's bedroom door and into the bathroom. He found his prescription sleeping pills, washed them down with tap water from his cupped palms, and only briefly wondered if it was unwise to mix them with drink. He returned to bed and lay staring at the ceiling, waiting for the pills' gentle wave to take him, hoping that he would sleep deeply enough to avoid further thoughts of Ronnie. But when his eyes opened and his whisky and peach schnapps hangover set in, her face was all he could think about.

The next day he called the party's host and found out that Ronnie was "no one. Just the caterer's girlfriend."

"Bit of a crush, Charles?" the party's host said good-naturedly.

"At my age you get your thrills where you can, I suppose."


(Continues...)

Excerpted from Infidelity by Stacey May Fowles. Copyright © 2013 Stacey May Fowles. Excerpted by permission of ECW PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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