Scott Turow - Identical

The condo they shared was in a new building, thirty stories of glass. They had chosen the apartment together, although Evon had paid for everything-Heather basically wore every dollar she made. Heather had furnished, twice now, with the same spare elegance with which she dressed. There was a full wall of windows over the river, and a lot of tidy minimalist furniture that required the place to be neat as a pin to achieve the desired effect. It was beautiful in the perfect way Heather was beautiful, but Evon never felt fully at home. Left to herself, she’d prefer overstuffed chairs and a couple of dirty socks on the floor amid a scatter of magazines. Her discomfort was greater when she was here by herself.

She went downstairs and worked out for an hour, then, still in her sweats, turned on SportsCenter and ate a Lean Cuisine. As usual, work was on her mind. She remained impressed by the commercial featuring Georgia and continued to suspect that Hal, in that goofy intuitive way of his that often served him well in business, might be onto the truth.

But eventually, something bigger began to force its way on her. You couldn’t be a trained investigator and play dumb forever. And a fatal recognition had begun to form a few weeks ago, when they returned from Francine and Nella’s wedding. Heather had departed with Tom Craigmore too often on last-minute trips, had been gone on too many late nights with Tom, after which she seemed to return trailing the fresh scents of a shower. Evon knew she should have suspected long ago that Heather was sleeping with him.

When they had met, Heather had confessed that every once in a while, when she wasn’t in a relationship with a woman, she’d have sex with a man. Heather was insecure enough to think she had to do this to cement her place with the client. But Evon couldn’t pretend any longer that it wasn’t happening.

Love was the biggest thing on earth. But it seemed almost inevitably to end up twisted and bleak. Was that the truth? That this feeling everybody longed for and believed in and wrote songs about led nowhere good, down this sinkhole into the blackest part of yourself, into screaming battles and hearts that would have hurt less if they’d been split with an ax? Was that the truth of love? That it was the surest way to end up hating someone else?

By ten o’clock, Evon was in bed, and fell asleep with a book about Sandy Koufax on her chest. She woke again near midnight and snapped off the light, and roused once more two hours later when Heather arrived. Evon’s girlfriend was clearly drunk and blundered around in the bathroom, knocking things over, the steel cup by the sink and, from the sounds of it, some cosmetics. In the dark, Evon said, “Hi,” and reached for the light.

Heather stood still with a hand drawn over her chest, her eyes startled and large. She was otherwise naked, lovely with her long slender shape.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Heather said. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Not really. Sort of restless. How was tonight?”

“I can’t make up my mind about whether Tom is a total hoot or a complete asshole.”

And what kind of fuck is he? Evon nearly asked. There was a time, years ago, when she would have done that. But anger no longer accumulated in her until it became potent as a bomb. Instead, she was willing to experience the welling force of her own hurt.

“I can’t do this any more.” Evon thought she had said that to herself, until she observed the way Heather again stopped mid-motion, standing over an open drawer in the Eames wardrobe, a nightshirt in her hand.

“And what is it that you can’t do?”

“Watch you stumble in here after you let some guy paw you or screw you or God knows what else.”

“Oh please.”

“I think that’s my line.”

“I mean,” said Heather, who was crying instantly, “you don’t know what you’re talking about. I mean, accusing me.”

She didn’t bother to answer for a second.

“You’ve basically admitted it to me half a dozen times when you were blitzed. You’ve laid in that bed when I’ve asked where you were and said, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ How many times is that? I was just willing to pretend I didn’t know what you meant.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Heather cried. Evon knew how Heather would explain herself, because Evon remembered what Heather said she got out of her occasional dallying with guys in the past. She liked to laugh at them, Heather claimed, and she probably meant it. She wanted them to see that they couldn’t have her, didn’t reach her. But that didn’t mean it didn’t matter to her. It just mattered in a different way from when she lay in Evon’s arms. That was screwed-up stuff, but it was how Heather was. With sex, everyone was screwed up, or at least a little different in their secret treasure chest of wishes. But whatever her behavior meant to Heather, it mattered to Evon. That was the only issue. She told Heather that again.

“You want me to stop seeing the men I work with?” Heather asked. She was being dramatic now, crossing the room while she spoke and sweeping her arms about. “Is that what you want? I will. I mean, this is just batshit-crazy lesbian bullshit, but I won’t hang out with the people I’m not attracted to.”

“I don’t think you’ll stop. I think it’s important to you. I think you don’t know why, but you won’t stop. And you’re tearing my heart out, and so we have to stop.”

“I love you,” Heather said. “And you love me.”

Now that Evon was fully awake, she realized how close to the surface this had been, how thoroughly she’d considered the alternatives and made her plans.

“I’m going to sleep at Janet’s tonight. And tomorrow. A few nights. You’ll have to be out of here by the end of the weekend.”

Heather dissolved. She cried with total despair. Her nose ran. She left her beautiful self behind. She’d been too drunk to remember to take off her makeup and the muddy streaks ran from her eyes to her chin.

“I can’t leave here. This is where I live. This is my house. I love you. Please. I’ll change. Rebecca has a shrink. I’ll see a shrink. I will, I’ll change. I swear, I’ll change. Please.” She began shuffling toward Evon on her knees, with her arms outstretched. It was wrenching to see, in part because of the little secret piece in Evon that gloried in Heather’s debasement. Heather had been hurt back, she’d been destroyed almost. She reached the bed and clutched Evon by one calf. I love you, she said. Please, she said. Evon now was crying, too.

They had done this before, three or four times, albeit with different provocations. Each of them had played her part now, Evon angry, Heather abject. Evon had scared her, Heather had promised to repent. They could resume, with the hope that it would be better.

There was a richness to that, to hoping. Evon had always been desperate with hope when it came to the people she loved. But by now, she realized her optimism would shatter. The drama that engaged both of them-I love you, I hate you, I want you, I don’t-would start again, only to lead back here. Evon knew enough about herself by now, had been taught enough by good therapists, that she realized this was a piece of her, too, wanting someone, like her mother, who would never fully accept her, for whom she would never be good enough. That was the mythology the old Evon believed in, the resident programming. And to step away from it, she had to wrestle herself. It was like she had to hold the old Evon-the DeDe piece-right down on the bed and rise up out of her body like the filmy spirits that levitated from corpses in old-timey movies. It took a strength that seemed almost physical. But she knew what was right. She knew what was needed. She wanted to be happy and the first responsibility for that fell to her.