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    Monday, January 23rd 2006: Start affair with Jim. 5:32 PM.

    Wait, no. That’s not how it happened. This isn’t the sort of thing you plan. Though she did say to her reflection in the bathroom mirror one morning not long before then, “I’m thinking about having an affair with Jim.” Just to try it out, as if she might ever say it to someone out loud, her mother, her sister, Phyllis drunk at some office event. She’d shrugged when she said it like it was no big deal, just something to do.

    She’d been thinking about being reckless, doing something hugely irrevocable, making a massive mistake that she couldn’t undo. She’d also said to the same reflection (once the steam from the shower had been wiped away with her palm), “I want to fuck up completely.” Again, just trying the words out on her tongue. She thought the language wasn’t really her, but it felt good when she said it and she smiled at herself after.

    It wasn’t so much that she was bored, just that she felt suddenly claustrophobic in her own life. The walls of the apartment she shared with Roy were moving in a few inches every day. The wedding date started to feel more like a deadline than a day of celebration. Wedding prep was more like a chore, something she was obligated to do. She found herself one night picking table settings with her eyes closed, whichever one her finger landed on was the one they’d use.

    Still, this wasn’t something she planned. Or she at least never expected she would ever actually go through with it. She mostly just watched his shoulders and wrists and didn’t bother tying to keep herself from fantasizing. She mostly just stopped feeling guilty for the flirting and the glances and the lingering touches as she walked past him on her way to the bathroom. It was liberating enough just to let herself not care if anyone noticed or, more importantly, if he noticed.
    
    A part of her was dying to have Roy accuse her of something. She wouldn’t deny it. She said to the mirror which was now a stand in for her fiancé, “Jim and I, we’ve been sleeping together for a while now.” She imagined him throwing things around their apartment, his face red with anger. She would sit there quietly on the couch until he’d gotten it all out of his system and then he’d leave.

    Really, she was looking for a way out, but she knew she could never see Jim as just some exit sign so she decided he would have as little actual involvement as possible. What she had planned was just some sort of imaginary affair that he wouldn’t even have to know about. To her steamed over reflection she said, “So I was wondering if I could come over to your place after work. Just hang out for a while,” and she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth in that way she knew he liked, she saw the way his eyes darted to her mouth whenever she did it. And he would say yes.

    For two weeks, this was going on in her head, this pretend affair. Tuesdays and Thursdays were the days she imagined she would find herself half naked in Jim’s lap on his couch while Roy was playing poker with the guys or having a beer with his brother. It would be frantic and rushed and she’d get home by 9 at the latest, hair slightly out of place and one of her socks still under his coffee table. In reality, she was at home, folding laundry or watching TV. She would go to the bathroom just before Roy was supposed to be home and take her hair from her barrette, redoing it with a few misplaced chunks. It was subtle enough that she didn’t think he would ever actually notice, but daring enough that she felt emboldened.

    And obviously it wasn’t something she planned because it started on a Monday and Mondays were never part of the original plan.

    But it had snowed all day, four inches by the time they got out, and Roy had to stay late because one of the deliveries was late getting there and there was Jim with snowflakes falling softly into his hair and his eyes even greener when put against the surrounding pure white and he had smiled and laughed gently as she made her way across the parking lot to him, slipping a little as she went.

    “Need a ride, Beesly?” He was clearing snow off his car and he looked at her over the roof, his eyebrows raising and his nose red from the cold.

    “You’re adorable,” is what she might have said if he was simply her own reflection. There in the midst of falling snow she said, “Um, yeah. If it’s not too much trouble.”

    He pushed a pile of snow over the side of the car she was standing on and she had to quickly step back to avoid it. He was laughing at her and she tried to feign anger. “Sorry, you’re just kind of in the way there.” And it was probably that grin of his that did it.

    She bent down and carefully balled a clump of snow in her hands. He had gone back to clearing off his car so it was easy for her to hit him with it right in the chest. When it hit him, he turned to her with hands in the air in mock surprise as he looked down at the snow all over his black wool coat.

    “How dare you,” he said and she was suddenly close to him. And her hands were suddenly gripping his coat’s lapels and she was kissing him. She felt the cold, wet snow from his coat falling down inside her own as his arms went around her.

    “Get in the car,” she said as he pulled back from her. She didn’t wait for his answer, just walked around to the other side and got in. She watched him stand there for a second before he finally tossed the ice scraper into the backseat and got in the car.

    As he turned the key in the ignition, he said, “You really should not have done that before I had to concentrate on driving in the snow.” She watched his hands shake a little as he put the car in reverse. “Fuck,” he said under his breath, closing his eyes for a second and shaking his head before turning to look out the back window as he pulled out of the parking space.

    She was smiling to herself. She felt powerful and confident and beautiful and this was no longer just an idea in her head, just something make believe that she hoped would get her out of her own life. This was happening now. He was driving slowly on the unplowed roads in the industrial park and at a stop sign he turned to her, “Where are we going?”

    She turned her face to the window and caught her muted reflection among the shimmer of untouched snow on the ground. She saw the flush in her cheeks and the persistent smile on her lips and said, “Anywhere.”


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