Fidelity Files

  And Jamie and I had both felt every single one of them.

  As hard as I'd tried to define it for the past two years, and probably even longer than that, the truth was infidelity wasn't black or white. It was a million shades of gray. And among those million varieties there was only one that filled the space between us now.

  And, I had to admit, our particular shade of gray looked pretty good amid my world of white.

  "I wanted to tell you," I insisted, begging him with my eyes to believe me. "I really did. But for so long you were the only thing in my life that didn't have anything to do with this tangled-up mess I had gotten myself into. I could think about you and it was like escaping from everything else. My blank page in a notebook full of illegible scribbles. I didn't want to bring you into that. I didn't want to taint that perfect feeling I had when I was with you. Plus, I was pretty sure if you knew, you'd leave anyway. So I had nothing to lose by keeping it a secret – and everything to gain."

  He reached out to grab my hand, and he squeezed it in his own. "I wouldn't have."

  "I was going to tell you in Paris. I swear. I had it all planned out. I had even decided to retire, and then..." I let my voice trail off, fairly confident that Jamie already knew the rest of that story.

  He nodded. And then, after a moment of heavy silence, we both broke out into uncontrollable laughter. "How's that for crappy timing," he finally said, wiping his eyes.

  "I know! Unbelievably crappy!"

  "I can't even imagine what that must have been like for you when she hired you."

  "She completely blindsided me!" I cried out. "I actually threw up!"

  He laughed. "You threw up?"

  "Twice! In your house!"

  His hand slid down my arm and landed firmly on top of mine. "In my ex-house," he clarified.

  "So..."

  "It's over," he whispered. "Finally."

  "Like really over?"

  Jamie beamed. "She finally signed the papers this morning. Trust me, it's over."

  I looked at him as a sly smile crept across my face. "So that means..."

  He nodded slowly. "Yes, it does," he confirmed with a flirtatious grin.

  THE TRAIL of clothes that led from our exact location on the couch in the living room all the way to my bedroom looked like a perverted reenactment of "Hansel and Gretel." Except with one important distinction:

  The "bread crumb" pathway of my shirt, Jamie's belt, my bra, his jeans, my skirt, his polo, and so forth was not exactly left behind so we could find our way back. In fact, it was quite the opposite. We didn't want to go back to where we had come from. We only wanted to stay in the place that we were now. A place created by pure honesty, unconditional forgiveness... and truly mind-blowing sex.

  Yes, it's true, I hadn't exactly had any sex in, well...let's just say, a very long time. But if memory served, I was quite certain that sex with Jamie was amazing.

  "So," he said, rubbing my bare shoulder as I curled up close to his naked body.

  "Yeah?" I asked, lifting my head up and staring adoringly into his eyes.

  "Tell me. This fidelity inspection thing of yours. How does someone even get involved in something like that? It somehow doesn't strike me as something they offer in the career development office at college." He pulled his head up long enough to kiss me before plopping it back down on my white satin pillowcase.

  I laughed and pressed myself closer to him. "Maybe we should save that story for another time."

  He chuckled. "Always a mystery, Jennifer H. Always a mystery."

  He kissed my forehead and squeezed me tighter as we drifted off to sleep.

  My very first all-night slumber party.

  36

  Woman Full of Wonder

  I'M CONVINCED that the concept of brunch was invented for three reasons: (1) to entertain in-laws; (2) for Saturday night clubgoers who don't get up until one o'clock in the afternoon and still crave breakfast food to nurse their hangovers; and (3) for meeting the future husband of your best friend who was supposed to have rejected you in a bar three weeks earlier.

  As I walked into Chez Michel, a French/American fusion bistro in Beverly Hills, to meet Sophie and Eric for brunch, I could feel my heart start to pound.

  This was either going to go really well...or really terribly. I had a feeling there was no in-between.

  Sophie was either going to keep her mouth shut as we had agreed earlier or fish for small hints of details by saying things like, "Hey, Eric. Does Jen look familiar to you at all? I think she has one of those faces."

  And then, of course, there was the possibility of total catastrophe. That I would show up, sit down across from them, and my radar would jump off the charts. My magic little men-reading device, which I had vowed to keep locked up in the closet for a long, long time to come, would start beeping furiously, alerting me to unmistakable cheating tendencies in the surrounding area. And the only man in the surrounding area would be Eric.

  And that would not be good.

  "Um, I think the reservation is under 'Sophie,'" I said to the hostess. She checked the book sprawled out in front of her. "Yes," she said with a charming smile. "The rest of your party has already arrived. Right this way."

  I followed her through the crowd of in-laws and recovering clubgoers until I spotted Sophie sitting at a table against the far wall of the dining room with a tall, dark-haired man who I immediately recognized from the photograph Sophie had given me. The one I was supposed to use for Eric's inspection.

  "Jen!" she said, scrambling over and giving me a hug. Then she turned eagerly behind her and said, "This is Eric. Eric, Jen." I reached out and shook his hand as I watched Sophie glance nervously back and forth between us, studying Eric's face for any flash of recognition.

  And just as I had originally suspected, there was none.

  "Nice to meet you... finally!" I said with an animated smile.

  "Same here," he replied.

  Satisfied with our initial encounter, Sophie sat back down at the table and gestured for me to take the seat across from them. "Isn't this fun?" she said, her face lit up like a halogen lightbulb. "My best friend and the love of my life meeting for the very first time." She tossed me a knowing look and winked playfully.

  Eric and I both laughed at her endearing enthusiasm. "Yes, hon," he said, patting her leg affectionately. "It's nice to finally meet the famous Jennifer."

  "You look better," Sophie pointed out.

  I nodded, trying to keep the excitement from spreading over my face too fast.

  Sophie was apparently oblivious to it, because she was too busy turning to Eric and explaining diligently, "Jen and her um... boyfriend. Or the guy she was dating, got into a fight a few days ago, and they broke up."

  She then looked at me with sympathy, ready to receive my nod of approval at her flawless cover story, but instead she noticed something else. Sparkles dancing in my eyes. A glow radiating from my face. And she cocked her head to the side and asked, "Didn't you?"

  "Well," I began, pulling my napkin onto my lap. "Actually..."

  "Oh my God!" she nearly shouted. "You guys got back together, didn't you?"

  I felt myself flush with exhilaration as my head fell into a humble nod. "Yes, we did. Last night."

  Sophie clapped her hands ecstatically, as if she was a mother sitting in the front row at her child's first school play. "Oh my God. Tell me everything. What happened?"

  I eyed her warningly. "It was just a misunderstanding."

  She took the hint and nodded back at me. "Textbook case of Mars to Venus interplanetary communication failure," she confirmed, and then turned to Eric and kissed him on the cheek. "Well, no reason to bore you with all the juicy details, baby. Jen can fill me in later."

  I smiled as I watched Eric turn to her, look adoringly into her eyes, and then kiss her on the lips. To my great satisfaction there were no bells going off. No warning lights. No radar beeps. He probably didn't have one unfaithful bone in his entire body.

/>   But something inside of me refused to let it go. I no longer felt confident in my normal devices. Yes, I had essentially been right about Jamie all along. He wasn't the cheating type. But the whole experience had left me feeling unsure of myself. Uncertain of my abilities. Insecure, even.

  And as I sat across from the loving couple, soon to be husband and wife, and listened to them take turns fondly rehashing the events of their very first wedding planning weekend, I knew I had to know for sure.

  If there was even the slightest margin of error in my internal prediction software, it wouldn't be good enough for me.

  Because seeing Sophie so happy, so in love, so hopeful for the future, I knew that "probably" wasn't going to cut it.

  I needed a "definitely."

  And for the first time, I also knew exactly how to get it.

  OCTOBER 31. Halloween. Time for goblins and ghouls and ghosts and monsters to come out of their dark hiding places into the open night air among the rest of us and beg for candy.

  Hannah, having proclaimed this Halloween to be her very last one of trick-or-treating, had invited everyone to meet at my mom's house for her official "send-off."

  Halloween was one of my favorite holidays. It always had been. And not just because it was a good excuse to eat bucket loads of candy without regret, but because I'd always loved the concept of dressing up. Pretending to be someone else, even for one night. Hell, I'd even managed to make a living out of it for a little while.

  I pulled into the driveway at 1355 Mayfield Circle, my childhood home, and killed the engine. Before going inside I fished out my Treo and placed a very important phone call to someone who would hopefully prove to be a very important individual.

  "Hello?" Lauren Ireland's voice came on the line.

  "Lauren. Hi, it's... Ashlyn. What the hell, it's Jen. My real name is Jennifer. But most people call me Jen."

  "Hi, Jen," she said respectfully.

  "So, have you found your sanity and decided against becoming a fidelity inspector yet?"

  She laughed. "No, not yet, unfortunately."

  "Well, that's good to hear. Good for me, at least. Because I need your help."

  "You do?"

  "Yes. Truth of the matter is, I think I might have an assignment for you... should you choose to accept it."

  "Definitely!" I could feel her excitement spilling through the phone. As if I had just told her I would be giving her the most rewarding, fulfilling, satisfying gift I could possibly give her.

  But in all actuality, it was she who would be giving that gift to me.

  "What's the assignment?" she asked eagerly.

  I took a deep breath and started listing all the details I had once made a living collecting: occupation, hobbies, tastes, schools, fraternities, clubs, drinks of choice. But the first and foremost had always been a name. And today that name was "Eric."

  "CAN YOU guess who I am?" Hannah asked with excitement as soon as I walked in the front door. She leaped off the couch and came running over to greet me. I took a step back and examined her outfit carefully, taking in every stitch and every seam. She was wearing a short denim miniskirt, knee-high red boots, and an off-the-shoulder black sweater with a large red flower pinned to the front. Her curly blond hair was half up, secured by an entire box of bobby pins.

  "Um . . ." I started to speculate. I knew from experience that incorrectly identifying a child's Halloween costume is about the worst insult you could possibly give them.

  Thankfully, Hannah was too impatient to wait for my erroneous speculation. She leaned in close to me and whispered, "I'm Carrie from Sex and the City."

  "Ah," I said, examining the outfit for the second time, with new eyes. "Very good."

  She leaned in again. "Olivia is being Samantha. Rachel is being Charlotte, and our friend Michelle is being Miranda, 'cause she's the only one who has red hair."

  "That sounds fun," I said.

  "My mom doesn't know," she continued stealthily. "She thinks I'm dressed up as Hannah Montana." She rolled her eyes at me and let out a mocking giggle.

  I stepped farther inside the house and briefly greeted my mom and Julia before plopping my stuff down on the dining room table and taking a seat on the couch. I was somewhat concerned that it might be awkward between me and my mom, given the way our last phone conversation had ended, but she seemed to be acting fairly normal.

  "Wait!" Hannah shrieked just as my butt hit the sofa. "I have to show you something."

  I reluctantly stood back up and followed her into the kitchen where, after checking that no one was behind me, she pulled out a folded-up piece of paper from the pocket of her denim skirt and handed it to me. "Here's that other letter I got," she whispered. "From that guy." She appeared very proud of her secret detective work, and I offered her a grateful smile.

  But just as I was about to unfold the paper and take a look at whatever new situation Raymond Jacobs had managed to secretly photograph me in before my little surprise visit to his office, I suddenly realized that it really didn't matter. He was of zero importance to me now. So why give him the satisfaction of even looking?

  So instead, I scrunched up the letter and tossed it into the garbage under the kitchen sink.

  Hannah looked at me in astonishment, as if I had just destroyed the last piece of evidence that had any hope of convicting a known serial killer. "Why'd you do that?"

  "Because it doesn't matter," I said matter-of-factly. "I've taken care of it."

  "But who was that? And why'd he call you that other name?"

  I'd spent the last three weeks trying to come up with a believable story to answer those very questions. One that would cover all my tracks and keep me safe from discovery, while at the same time protecting Hannah from the cold, hard truth that she wasn't ready to hear and the harsh, outside world that she wasn't ready to see.

  But I suddenly realized that my essential problem didn't lie in coming up with a story that successfully answered all of her questions, but rather in the fact that a story like that didn't actually exist. Because it was based on a misconception, on a wrongful assumption that lies are better than cold, hard truths. When in all actuality they are just as destructive.

  Unfortunately for Hannah, there were some things she was just too young to know. And if keeping them from her made me that much less "cool," then so be it.

  I looked down at her with adoration and gently pushed a loose strand of hair out of her face. "I'll tell you when you're older. How about that?"

  And then, just as I was expecting her to start grumbling and griping and tossing me disapproving looks that accused me of betraying her and turning into her mother, she shrugged her shoulders and wrote the whole thing off with a simple "Whatever." And then hurried back into the living room to start her night.

  "You ready?" Julia asked, grabbing her keys and purse as Hannah and I reemerged from the kitchen.

  "Mom," Hannah groaned, "for the last time, you can't come. We're all meeting at Rachel's house and then we're walking around her neighborhood."

  "You know, Hannah," Julia began tactfully, "for someone who's nearly 'too old' for Halloween, you certainly are making a big deal about it."

  Hannah turned to me and shot me a look. "She's driving me crazy," she said through gritted teeth.

  I flashed her a warm smile and then leaned in and whispered, "Go easy on her. She cares a lot about you."

  Hannah pulled her face into a frown and then reluctantly turned back to her mom. "Fine, you can drive me to Rachel's. But that's it."

  Julia cracked a smile and shook her head as she started toward the front door. "All right. C'mon, Hannah Montana. Let's go."

  The door closed behind them and my mom and I stood awkwardly together in the living room. I walked over to the couch, took a seat, and then began rummaging through the large candy bowl until I located a Butterfinger and snatched it up.

  I sat in silence, avoiding her eyes; the only noise in the room was the crinkling of the plastic candy bar wrap
per as I removed it and bit into the chocolate.

  I chewed nervously as I glanced around the living room, the very place I'd witnessed my dad's infamous act of infidelity. Before I even knew what infidelity was. Before I even understood what it meant.

  The couch was, thankfully, a new couch. My mom had replaced it years ago. The curtains had been selected to match it. The coffee table was purchased a few years after that. Even the carpet was new. But the guilt? The guilt was the same as it always was.

  And despite the new decorations, new color scheme, new furnishings, the guilt still seemed to match everything.

  "I'm sorry if I upset you on the phone, Jenny," my mom said, walking over and taking a seat next to me. She pulled a Milky Way bar from the bowl and unwrapped it.

  "You didn't," I began softly. "I mean...you did, but it's not your fault. You were right. I need to learn how to forgive him. I just don't know how."

  My mom reached out and tenderly stroked my hair. I fell into her, the tears slowly starting to make their way down my face as she held me close to her and kissed the top of my head.

  Little did she know there was a lifetime of secrets trying to push their way out of my mouth. Secrets that could have changed everything. Secrets that might have given her happiness instead of stealing it away.

  But just as I'd always done, I would keep them inside. Maybe for another few days. Maybe forever.

  She rubbed the top of my head and cooed into my ear. "Shhh. It's okay. It's all right, sweetie."

  "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," I whimpered into her chest.

  She laughed lovingly. "You have nothing to be sorry about."

  I wanted to lift my head and cry out, "But I do! I have everything in the world to be sorry about! I ruined your life! Please just let me be sorry for it!"

  But instead I simply laid in her arms and wiped the tears away from my cheeks.

  "People are people," my mom said softly. "People make mistakes. In fact, life wouldn't be life without them. Your father made a mistake. And true, I would never be his wife again. I could never love him the way I used to love him. And I don't regret leaving. But leaving isn't what allows you to move on. Forgiving is."