David and Diane have been married for years; then there is Julie, the young secretary whose axis collides with the couple’s in ways none of them saw coming
JULIE
After Kenneth left, I stayed in the living room for another hour before heading to bed where I tossed and turned till the early hours of the morning. My mind was racing with all sorts of thoughts, the main one being how unfair the whole situation was, and how cruel fate could be.
I could never regret having Junior because he was my whole world, but I wished I had had him with Kenneth, and not David, who would not only always belong to someone else, but who had turned out to be an abuser as well.
Furthermore, he and his wife appeared to have ironed out their differences, so he now had his little perfect family back, while I was left cooped up in this prison of an apartment on my own. It just was not fair. Why should David be able to have his cake and eat it too, while I was left with nothing? Surely, just like him, I had the right to love and be loved.
I had pushed Kenneth away out of some perverted sense of loyalty to David, but why be loyal to someone who at that very moment was no doubt busy being loyal to his wife?
The more I thought about it, the more unfair it seemed, the more rebellious I felt, and by the time the sun rose the next morning, I was beginning to think that turning Kenneth down had been a mistake.
After all, like he had pointed out, we would be in his apartment, not David’s, so it’s not like I would be disrespecting him or anything like that. And besides, occupied by his wife, David would never even have to know in the first place. Once I allowed this train of thought to take hold, my mind fixated on it, and suddenly, an idea that had seemed totally out of the question yesterday, did not seem so outlandish today.
DAVID
Although I told myself Diane’s insinuations about Junior’s paternity were nothing more than the spiteful allegations of a slighted wife, they, nonetheless, kept me up for most of the night.
When I found that rather than fade away with the morning light the next day, they were still as loud and persistent as they had been all night, I knew that there was only one way to silence them – I would humour Diane, and as she had suggested, dot my i’s and cross my t’s; so, after no more than a quick cup of coffee, and no explanation to Diane about where I was going, I left the house and headed for the apartment.
I was just about to take the turn to her street when I saw her – in the co-driver’s seat of a car headed in the opposite direction, with Junior on her lap, and that bloody doctor at the wheel.
My blood froze, and then began to boil; how dare she! I still was not prepared to believe Diane could be right, but the sight of Julie and our son, in his car, looking like a happy little family only amplified the sound of her voice in my head, telling me that everything I believed to be true, could be nothing more than a cold, scheming lie.
For a few minutes I was so blinded by rage that I was not sure what to do, but then my indecision irritated the traffic I was holding up, and as the cars behind me started hooting impatiently, I pulled myself back together, and with a sudden flash of decisiveness, I took the turn and drove on to the apartment.
Even though I knew Julie and Junior were not there, I had a key, and although I did not know what I was expecting to find, or even what I was going to look for, I did know that I needed to get into the apartment and see what secrets – if any – it held.
DIANE
I knew exactly where David was going when he left the following morning, and I would have given anything to be able to be a fly on the wall witnessing that meeting.
For a minute I even considered following him, but knew that would not accomplish anything, as all it would do was confirm he was going to the apartment, which I had already worked out, but it would not give me the details of what transpired when he got there, which was what I really wanted to know.
Nonetheless, the mere fact that he had taken my suggestion seriously enough to apparently go and follow up on it, was a win as far as I was concerned, as it proved that despite his dismissive attitude the previous night, there was a part of him, no matter how minute that part might be, that believed I might be right.
Why else would he bother going to see her? He was gone for almost two hours, during which time I tried to distract myself with the children, and giving the maid her instructions for the day, but the truth was I could not focus on anything but the thought of what was happening in that apartment.
Was his whore denying everything and telling him he was crazy for even entertaining the thought? Probably. The real question, however, was whether she would be able to sway him with her denial, or if he would stick to his guns and insist on having a DNA test performed on her bastard
son.
If it were the former, I was not yet quite sure how I would handle that, but if it were the latter, I had a plan. If there was one thing having money in this country had taught me, it was that everyone had a price, especially overworked and underpaid civil servants, who did not really give two hoots about their jobs and were constantly on the lookout for how to make an extra buck to supplement their paltry salaries.
Here, money truly could buy anything – probably even a ‘favourable’ DNA result.
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