Douglas Kennedy: The Pursuit of Happiness

Then he poked his head into my office late one afternoon. He asked me out for a drink. We repaired around the corner to a little bar. As soon as we started talking we couldn't stop. We talked for two hours - gabbing away like people destined to be gabbing to each other. We connected, spliced, fused. When he eventually threaded his fingers through mine, and said, Let's get out of here, I had no second thoughts on the matter. By that point, I wanted him so desperately I would have jumped him right there in the bar.

Only much later that night - lying next to him in bed, telling him just how much I'd fallen for him (and hearing him admit the same to me) - did I raise the one question which I hadn't wanted to ask earlier. He told me that there wasn't anything terribly wrong between his wife, Jane, and himself. They'd been together eleven years. They were reasonably compatible. They loved their girls. They had a nice life. But a nice life doesn't mean a passionate life. That part of the marriage had ebbed away years ago.

I asked him, 'Then why not accept its cozy limitations?'

'I had, sort of', he said. 'Until I met you'.

'And now?'

He pulled me closer. 'Now I'm not going to let you go'.

That's how it started. For the next year, he didn't let me go. On the contrary, he spent every possible hour he could with me. Which, from my standpoint, was never enough... but which also fueled the intensity of the affair. I actually loathe that word, 'affair' - because of its cheap, sordid connotations. This was love. Pure, undiluted love. Love that took place between six and eight p.m., twice a week, at my apartment. And frequently at lunchtime in a midtown hotel, three blocks away from our office. Of course I wanted to see more of him. When he wasn't with me - especially late at night - I actually pined for him. The longing was insane. Because I knew that I had found the one person on the planet destined for me. Yet I was determined to remained outwardly disciplined about my feelings for Peter. We both knew what a dangerous game we were playing - and how everything could fall apart if we became the hot subject of office gossip... or worst yet, if Jane found out.

And so, at the office, we remained rather formal with each other. He covered his tracks carefully on the home front - never arousing suspicion by staying out later than expected, keeping at my place the same toiletries he used at home, never letting me dig my nails into his back.

'That's the first thing I'm going to do on the first night we move in together', I said, gently caressing his bare shoulders. It was a December evening, just before Christmas. We were lying in bed, the sheets askew, our bodies still damp.

'I'll hold you to that', he said, kissing me deeply. 'Because I've decided to tell Jane'.

My adrenalin went into overdrive. 'You serious?'

'As serious as I've ever been'.

I took his face between my hands. 'Are you absolutely sure?'

Without hesitation he said, 'Yes, absolutely'.

We agreed that he wouldn't break the news to Jane until after Christmas - which was, after all, just four weeks off. We also agreed that I'd start apartment hunting for us straight away. After wearing out a lot of shoe leather, I actually found us a really cute two-bedroom place with a partial river view on Riverside and 112th. It was a few days before Christmas. I decided to give Peter a big surprise the next night (when, per usual, we were due to meet at my apartment around six) by bringing him to see our future home. He was over an hour late getting to my place. As soon as he walked in, I was scared. Because I could see that something was very wrong. He slumped down into my sofa. I immediately sat down next to him, and took his hand.

'Tell me, darling'.

He refused to meet my eye. 'It seems... I'm moving to LA'.

It took a moment or two to register. 'LA? You? I don't understand'.

'Yesterday afternoon, around five, I got a call at my office. A call from Bob Harding's secretary, asking if I could pay our company chairman a little visit. Like tout de suite. So up I went to the thirty-second floor, and into the great man's office. Dan Downey and Bill Maloney from Corporate Affairs were both there. Harding asked me to sit down, and cut straight to the chase. Creighton Anderson - the head of the LA office - just announced that he was off to London to run some big division of Saatchi & Saatchi. Which meant the job of LA boss was now open, and Harding had had his eye on me for some time, and...'

'They offered you the job?'

He nodded. I took his hand. 'But this is wonderful, darling. This is, in a way, what we wanted. A clean break. A way to establish our own life. And, of course, if there's a conflict about you hiring me to work in the LA office, no problem. It's a big market, LA, I'll find something. I can do LA...'

He interrupted this manic, scared rant. 'Katie, please...'

His voice was barely a whisper. He finally turned toward me. His face was drawn, his eyes red. I suddenly felt ill.

'You told her first, didn't you?' I said.

He turned away from me again. 'I had to. She is my wife'.

'I don't believe this'.

'Bob Harding said that I had to give him a decision by the end of today - and that he knew I'd need to talk things over with Jane first...'

'You were about to leave Jane, remember? So why didn't you talk first to the person with whom you were planning to start a new life? Me'.

He just shrugged sadly and said, 'You're right'.

'So what exactly did you tell her?'

'I told her about the offer, and how I felt this would be a great career move...'

'You said nothing about us?'

'I was about to... but she started to cry. Started saying how she didn't want to lose me, how she knew we'd been growing apart, but was terrified of even talking about it. Because...'

He broke off. Peter - my confident, secure, dauntless, always articulate man - was suddenly tongue-tied and sheepish.

'Because what?' I asked.

'Because -' he swallowed hard, ' - she thought there might be someone else in my life'.

'So what did you say?'

He turned away - as if he couldn't bear to look at me.

'Peter, you have to tell me what you said'.

He stood up and walked to the window, staring out into the black December night.

'I assured her... that there was no one else but her'.

It took a moment or two for this to register.

'You didn't say that', I said, my voice hushed. 'Tell me you didn't say that'.

He kept looking out the window, his back to me. 'I'm sorry, Katie. I'm so damn sorry'.

'Sorry's not good enough. Sorry is an empty word'.

'I am in love with you...'

That's when I stormed off into the bathroom, slammed the door, bolted it, then sank down to the floor, crying wildly. Peter pounded on the door, begging me to let him in. But my anger, my grief, were so volcanic that I blanked him out.

Eventually the banging stopped. Eventually I regained a modicum of control. I forced myself back on to my feet, unbolted the door, and staggered back to the sofa. Peter had gone. I sat on the edge of the sofa, feeling as if I had just been in a major car crash - that same weird, extra-worldly shock, during which you find yourself wondering: did that just happen?

Operating on auto-pilot, I remembered putting on my coat, grabbing my keys, and leaving.

The next thing I knew, I was in a cab, heading southbound. I didn't remember much of the ride. But when we arrived at 42nd and First Avenue - pulling up in front of a large elderly apartment complex called Tudor City - it took me a moment or two to recall why I was here, and who I was planning to visit.

I got out of the cab, I walked into the lobby. When the elevator reached the seventh floor, I marched down the corridor and pressed the bell by a door marked 7E. Meg opened it, dressed in a faded light blue terrycloth robe, the usual cigarette plugged into the side of her mouth.