Marcia Talley - This Enemy Town

I couldn’t wait to get away from her. I retreated, facing down the flight of stairs that would take me to the dressing room. My hand rested lightly on the pipe that served as the handrail, and it felt icy and cold as my heart.

If not now, Hannah, when?

I wheeled around. “You’re Jennifer Goodall, aren’t you?”

“Who wants to know?” Her voice was flat, almost bored. I wondered where the “Yes ma’am” had gotten to, but figured she only trotted out the courtesy when she was in uniform.

“I’m Hannah Ives.”

At the mention of my name, Jennifer said nothing. She didn’t nod. She didn’t even blink. She simply laid her newspaper aside.

“Perhaps you remember my husband, then.” I clamped my teeth together, trying to keep a lid on my fury.

“Oh yes.” A slow smile crept across her face and she relaxed into the cushions. “I remember Paul.”

I wanted to smack that supercilious smile clean off her face, but I dug my fingernails-such as they were-into my palms. I didn’t trust what might come out of my mouth next, so I stood there, staring at her like a dummy.

“I see him around,” she continued with a maddening I-know-something-you-don’t-know expression. “He hasn’t changed a bit.”

That smile again. She looked me up and down, taking in my paint-splattered jeans and T-shirt with a look of such distaste that I imagined her thinking: What does a hunk like Paul see in a hag like you?

Until Jennifer Goodall turned up to complicate my life, there had been times that I could go for days without thinking about her and the damage she had caused. I realized I’d been carrying this woman around like an albatross, and I needed to rid myself of her once and for all.

“Tell me, Jennifer,” I said at last. “Was it true?”

“A midshipman doesn’t lie, cheat, or steal,” she quoted.

“Neither does my husband, Lieutenant Goodall, so one of you has to be lying through their teeth.”

Her smile didn’t waver, but at least I made her blink.

“I’m just too tired to play games with you, Lieutenant. After all these years, the least you can do is tell me the truth.” I drew a deep, steadying breath. “Did you have an affair with my husband?”

Jennifer Goodall fished a necklace up from her cleavage, hooked it with an index finger and ran her finger around the inside of the chain, back and forth, back and forth, idly toying with it and, it seemed, with me. “You really want to know?”

“Of course I want to know!” I shouted. “I wanted to know then, and I certainly want to know now! The truth, Miss Goodall! Did you sleep with Paul?” I spat it out, punching every word.

Jennifer studied me with cool, unblinking eyes, a technique she probably learned in terrorist boot camp.

“Oh, he was one of a kind, your Paul.” She crossed one leg casually over the other and draped an arm languidly over the back of the sofa. “A real tiger in bed.”

That wasn’t the answer I expected, and I must have gasped. It took every ounce of control I could muster not to launch myself across the room, wrap both hands around her pudgy neck and squeeze and squeeze until her eyes rolled back and those fat, pink lips turned blue and she stopped breathing altogether.

“Paul likes it kinky. Did you know?” She tilted her head. “No, I can see that you don’t. That time at Army-Navy? He just about wore me out, and that takes some doing.” She smiled, as if remembering.

I swallowed hard, biting back the bile that was rising in my throat. Paul had attended that Army-Navy game alone when I’d been too sick to go along. Jennifer had testified that it happened in a Meadowlands hotel. That they’d met in the bar for a drink. That one thing had led to another.

Could it possibly be true? Had Paul been lying all along, to protect our marriage and his career?

I didn’t want to hear it. Like Emily as a child, I wanted to press my palms hard against my ears and chant at the top of my lungs: I’m not listening to you!

Jennifer was studying me with morbid fascination, taking cruel pleasure at seeing my marriage and the trust I put in my husband erode, buried in an instant, like a home in the path of a California mudslide. One hot tear ran down my cheek, and I hated myself for it. This wasn’t the time to show any weakness.

I could imagine why Jennifer would hate my husband enough to want to hurt him -she had been failing his course, and Paul refused to give in to her blackmail in exchange for a passing grade. But what did this young naval officer have against me ?

“He said he was lonely,” she elaborated. “He invited me up to his suite.”

Suite! The word alone was a knife in my heart. Last time we’d stayed in a hotel it was the $69 special.

“Such an appetite!” she continued, twisting the knife for all she was worth. “He came for me on all fours, and he threw back his head and roared! Does he roar for you, Mrs. Ives?”

“What did you say?” I sputtered.

She opened her mouth to speak again, but I flapped my hand, waving her lies away. The last thing I needed was corroborative detail, particularly details on a jungle theme. Because now I knew, like a refreshing wave of water washing over me:

Jennifer Goodall was lying!

When he was seventeen, Paul had injured his back in a tractor accident on the family farm. As a result, several disks in his spine had been fused. He could no more crawl on his hands and knees, throw his head back and roar than he could fly from BWI to Heathrow without benefit of an airplane. Our lovemaking had always been special, but no acrobatics were involved. It’s a good thing I didn’t carry a gun, because I would have shot Jennifer then and there, square between her lying eyes.

And yet, I had to be sure. Not 99 and 44/100th percent sure, but 100 percent sure.

Fight fire with fire, to coin a phrase. If Jennifer could make up a pack of lies, so could I.

“You make me sick!” I screamed, so loudly that it made my throat ache. “You both make me sick!” I fell against the wall, sobbing. “We got matching tattoos, special, just for us. That’s why Paul got it on his… his…” I choked, as if unable to continue.

“Paul is such a generous man,” she said. “Would you like to see my tattoo?” She tugged at the corner of her shirt, which was tucked carefully into the waistband of her khakis, but I knew she was bluffing.

Why is there never a tape recorder around when you need it? I wanted our encounter on tape so I could play it back for Paul, so he could hear Jennifer Goodall damn herself in her own words. I couldn’t imagine what Paul had done to her that would engender such hate, a hate that burned just as hotly now as it had half a decade earlier. I could only assume she was mentally ill.

I confronted her, my eyes like slits. “Paul doesn’t have any tattoos, you lying bitch! I don’t know why you’re doing this, but I swear to God, I’ll get even with you, even if it takes the rest of my life. I’m contacting my lawyer, you’re going to retract everything, and if you ever make up baseless lies about my husband again, I’ll… I’ll…”

“Everything all right, Mrs. Ives?”

I spun around, both flustered and annoyed by the interruption. It was Midshipman Small, sweet, serious Gadget, standing on the stairway behind me.

The silence was heavy with unspoken words.

The auditorium above me was silent, too. No talking, no singing. No happy scrape of bow on string, no friendly trumpet blare. Rehearsal must be over.

“I heard shouting,” Gadget said, moving closer. “Is there anything I can do?”

My hand dug into the handrail as I struggled for control. “No, thank you, Gadget. I was just leaving. Lieutenant Goodall and I were having a friendly disagreement, is all.”