JASON STARR - Panic Attack

Dana stared at her husband, slack jawed, her hands on her hips. “Who the hell are you?” she said. “I feel like I don’t know you at all anymore.” “Oh, stop it with your melodrama.”

She continued, “You shoot one guy and you suddenly think you’re so tough, you’re some kind of Mafia hit man or something? Acting so rational, so in control. You’re not afraid, and you won’t run away, you’re just gonna keep shooting people with your gun- your gun’ll keep us all nice and safe.” Shaking his head, he said, “I’m going to the gym,” and left.

That was so like him- just walking out of the room in midargument with everything unresolved, leaving her all pent up and frustrated. It was so controlling, so manipulative, and she knew exactly why he was doing it- to push her buttons. She used to complain about it all the time when they were in marriage counseling, but he kept on doing it anyway. If that wasn’t an indication that he didn’t care about her, what was?

A little while after Adam left, Dana heard Marissa going downstairs, and the door slammed again. Dana was alone in the house, and she felt alone. She just wanted some emotional support at a difficult time; was that too much to ask for? Things were going to get worse, she just knew they were going to get worse, and no one was going to be able to help her, not the police, and not even her own husband.

Then she did something that she knew she’d regret- she got her cell phone from her purse and called Tony.

He picked up and said, “It’s so great to hear your voice, baby. I miss you so much.”

She thought, What the hell am I doing? She wanted to hang up- she knew that it was the right thing to do, that this wasn’t going to solve anything, that in fact it was going to make things even more complicated- but she heard herself say weakly, “I miss you so much too.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to call,” he said. “Where are you?” She wanted to feel his body against hers so badly. She wanted to feel him inside her.

“When do you get off?” she asked.

“I’ll get off for you anytime,” he said.

If any other man had said that to her, she would have assumed he was making a bad pun, but she knew even a bad pun was beyond Tony. It was usually hard for her to hold conversations with him that didn’t involve bodybuilding, protein supplements, or sex. Not that Dana usually had any objection to this, especially the sex part. She was interested in Tony for sex and sex only, and she’d made this very clear to him.

They arranged to meet at four at his place. Dana didn’t want to have to see

Adam again when he got back from the gym, so she left the house early and killed time at the Starbucks a few blocks from Tony’s. She was dressed casually, jeans and a black turtleneck, but underneath she was wearing a hot pink satin halter from Victoria’s Secret. Adam didn’t like lingerie- one time she’d worn sexy underwear to bed and he’d actually told her that it looked silly on her; way to make a woman feel great about herself- but it always turned Tony on. Heading toward Tony’s building, she tried to talk herself out of going. She reminded herself that she was jeopardizing her marriage, and did she really want to lead Tony on more than she already had? Although she’d told to him many times that they had no future together, that she had no intention of ever leaving Adam for him, when he said things to her like “Wouldn’t it be great if we were living together?” or “Imagine if it could be like this forever,” she’d felt like she wasn’t getting though to him at all.

It was still hard for her to believe she’d gotten into this situation. For years with Adam, even when things weren’t great, she’d never even thought about cheating on him. She’d seen the way affairs had destroyed families in her neighborhood, and she imagined growing old with Adam, for better or for worse.

But she’d had opportunities to be unfaithful. Mr. Sorrentino, Marissa’s fifthgrade science teacher, used to flirt with her at parent- teacher conferences, and a few years ago, Scott Goldberg, an old boyfriend from college at Albany, had contacted her. He’d recently gotten divorced and was going to be in the city on business, he said, and he asked her if she wanted to meet at the bar of his hotel for a drink. She made up an excuse and didn’t go. There were other opportunities now and then, but any time she sensed a guy was coming on to her she always maintained boundaries and let him know she was married and not interested.

But over the past several years her attitude had gradually changed. Part of it, she had to admit, may have had to do with empty nest syndrome. When

Marissa went away to college, Dana and Adam had more time to spend together, but it was hard for her to shift gears, to become just a wife again instead of a wife and mother. It was hard to remember what she liked about Adam, hard to remember what they used to talk about, and they actually spent less time together than they ever had before. Adam always seemed to be wrapped up in work, and she started to realize how lonely she was. For years she’d defended her life as a stay- at- home mom- she refused to use the word “housewife”- by telling her working friends, “I love doing nothing,” but secretly she regretted not going back to work years ago and was jealous of her friends who had careers. She was bored at home, and it was getting harder to fill her days. Last year menopause had started setting in, so she had to deal with the emotional ups and downs, and for a while she’d been on Prozac for what her psychiatrist had called “a mild depression.” When Marissa graduated and decided to move back home, Dana was actually thrilled. Things had been getting tense with Adam, and it was nice having her daughter around again.

Around the time Marissa moved back in, Tony started working as a trainer at the New York Sports Club. He was very friendly and flirty with Dana from the get- go, smiling at her all the time and saying hi, or coming over when she was using machines and saying things like “What you want to do is get some more extension,” or passing by smiling, commenting, “You look sensational today.” She thought he was just being nice and there was nothing more to it, but she had to admit, it stroked her ego to hear those compliments, especially from a guy in his twenties. She looked good for a forty- seven- year- old woman who hadn’t gotten any work done. She was slim, still had nice legs, and though she sometimes felt self- conscious about the lines around her eyes and mouth, most people who met her thought she was in her early forties, even late thirties. But it had been years since a man had paid any attention to her. When she was younger and passed a construction site, guys would whistle at her and make crude comments; yes, it had felt like harassment back then, but now she missed getting male attention, even the negative kind. She liked how when she was using the elliptical StairMaster she’d look in the mirror ahead of her and see

Tony checking out her ass and then looking away quickly when their gazes met. The most attractive thing about Tony was that he was attracted to her. He wasn’t bad- looking-he had a cute, pudgy Italian face- but his interest in her, the way he made her feel like a young sex object, was irresistible. When was the last time Adam had told her she was pretty or paid attention to her the way

Tony did? She felt like Adam took her for granted and barely listened to her half the time. She’d be telling Adam about something that had happened during the day, or something interesting she’d read about in the paper or seen on

TV, and she’d see his eyes wander and she’d know that even though he was answering her, saying “Really?” and “Okay,” he was thinking about something else and couldn’t give a shit about her. She started looking forward to going to the gym and seeing Tony, craving his flattering comments and the feeling she got whenever he smiled at her.