Douglas Kennedy - Woman in the Fifth

‘So the next obvious plot twist of this story is … like your mother, she gets pregnant?’

‘Bravo.’

‘Well, what else would she do, being now out of work and thirty … ?’

‘Thirty-two to be exact. And yes, within two months of not getting tenured she was pregnant. Though we both adored Megan straight away, it was Susan who was around the house most of the time — and within a year or so, the strain started to show.’

‘Didn’t she try to get other work?’

‘Of course she did. The problem was, with all her regional theater opportunities dried up, the only directing jobs around Eaton, Ohio, were high-school productions. Totally rinky-dink stuff which further played into her growing despair.’

‘And that despair continued to grow for the next … how old is Megan now?’

‘Fifteen.’

‘So for the ensuing thirteen years, she floundered?’

‘Well, she did have our daughter, and she was a very attentive mother. But as Megan got older and entered school, not only was there less and less for Susan to do, but she also hinted from time to time that she resented being a mother and wife … telling me several times during a squabble that, if she wasn’t rooted to Eaton because of her husband and daughter, she’d be having a proper high-flying career in a big city like Chicago where they would naturally appreciate her high professional standards and wouldn’t get offended by her acerbity.’

‘Such a happy woman. How did you deal with all that?’

‘I chose to ignore it … especially as it always came out when she’d had a few glasses of wine.’

‘So she was drinking heavily?’

‘Hey, we were living in a small town with not much to do at night — and she was, for all intents and purposes, depressed. So what else do you do but drink? Like I started to hit the hard stuff a bit as well. Largely because her own negativity was beginning to corrode things between us …’

‘So you decided that the only way to combat this negativity was to have an affair?’

‘It was actually she who had the first affair … though I didn’t know that until some time later.’

‘And who was the lucky man?’

‘Around two years ago, the college got a new Dean of the Faculty — a true smoothie named Gardner Robson.’

‘They actually name people such things in the States?’

‘White Anglo-Saxon Protestants do. This guy was a real Mr Preppie. Ex-Air Force. Ex-management consultancy. Early fifties. Super-fit. Super-straight. Super-corporate — and brought in by the Board of the College to “streamline management”, whatever the fuck that meant. There was a reception for Robson when he became Dean — and, having already met him briefly at some administrative thing, I remember telling Susan on the way over to the party that she was bound to loathe him — as he stood for everything Republican and conservative that she hated about Bush’s America.

‘There were a lot of people swirling around Robson that night, but Susan did manage to spend some time talking with him. Only later did I realize that there was a moment when I saw their eyes meet …’

‘How romantic.’

‘I thought nothing of it at the time. On the way home, Susan’s only comment about him was, “He’s not bad … for a Republican.”’

‘Around a week or so later, she came home and told me she now had a private drama student — some local highschool junior who was trying to get into the Julliard acting program. She said she’d be doing intensive dramatic training with her every Tuesday and Thursday from four to six.’

‘And you didn’t suspect anything?’

‘No. Maybe that was completely naive of me, but there you go. I was simply happy that Susan had something to do with herself.’

‘My, my, you were so trusting.’

‘I just wanted my wife to stop being so bitter and selfloathing and, in turn, critical of me. The thing was, once she started to “teach” this private course, her spirits began to improve. Susan even began to sleep with me again. On the surface, things were better between us. Until something curious happened. Out of nowhere, the woman who replaced Susan in the Drama Department left to take a job offer at another college. Susan was offered a one-year contract to replace her.’

‘Engineered by the Dean of the Faculty.’

‘Once again, I suspected nothing. Susan was naturally thrilled. Once back teaching she seemed to mend her ways. No more of the old aggression or perfectionism toward her students or the other faculty members. Instead, she was a real “team player” …’

‘A transformation also brought about under the tutelage of the Dean of the Faculty.’

‘Well, all tracks were so carefully covered that I still had no knowledge that she had a “ jardin secret “. Even the following year, when she was suddenly promoted and actually became a tenured professor, I still didn’t suspect …’

‘Did others?’

‘Being a small college, I’m sure there was a lot of talk about this promotion — because it’s absolutely unprecedented for someone who has been denied tenure to suddenly get a second chance. Still, I heard nothing of this talk — because the rule of gossip is that you don’t tell the person being gossiped about that they are the subject of whisperwhisper talk. But, as I found out from a faculty friend much later on, their liaison didn’t become official until well after my—’

‘Downfall?’ she asked, finishing the sentence.

‘Yes — after my downfall.’

‘And that came about … ?’

‘When I met a student named Shelley. But before I turn to that …’

‘Susan gets her tenured job — and suddenly the domestic balance of power shifts again? She becomes arrogant and very preoccupied and busy, and begins to push you away?’

‘Bull’s-eye. Now that she too was a tenured professor, Susan started playing the arrogance card. As in, telling me that her time was now more important than mine, and that I had to be at home every day at four when Megan got home from school. And she stopped wanting to have sex with me. Or we’d be in the middle of the act and she’d push me away and say something like, “You’re useless.”’

‘Charming.’

‘That was one of the milder things she hurled at me. One night, mid-act, she grabbed my head in both her hands and looked up at me and said, “Do you have any idea how boring this all is?”’

‘Did you think it boring?’

‘Not particularly — but she let it be known that I now turned her off.’

‘So she made you feel unwanted, unloved and all that. And you still didn’t suspect … ?’

‘Of course I suspected something . I even came out one night and asked her if she was having an affair. You know what her response was: “I should be so lucky.”’

‘And you still — still! — didn’t suspect?’

‘I was naive, OK? Or maybe I just didn’t want to really see what was going on.’

‘And then this Shelley student came into your life?’

‘Shelley Sutton. From Cincinnati. Super-bright, superprecocious. A complete film nut and very pretty — if you like the artsy intellectual type.’

‘Long black hair, little Lenin-like glasses, black jeans, a black leather jacket, and a dreadful family background?’

‘And someone who was far too bright to be at Crewe College — but was a self-admitted screw-up in high school …’

‘And she was in one of your lectures and came up to you afterward and started talking about …’

‘Fritz Lang.’

‘How romantic.’

‘Listen, it’s not every day that you meet a very attractive freshman student who knows everything there is to know about Lang’s Hollywood noirs.’