In Too Deep

Why did he have to yank on the rifle?

The sand is like sugar, melting between every crevice of my toes with the passing seconds. I feel the warm seawater—it’s a glass flowing over the sand, making me sink even further. I hold my arms out at my sides to keep my balance and acclimate to the ebb and flow of the dizzying waves. With every step I take, I turn to watch the water make a smooth palette where my footprints once imprinted the earth. They disappear, going back into the sea, as if my steps were never there at all.

That’s why I’m here. To walk into the sea like it never even happened.

I didn’t know when I met Jack Albern five years ago that he’d be so much trouble. I was a student at his architecture firm, and he was my supervisor. I swear, that’s all he was. I thought he was pretty, and we flirted often. It meant nothing. We were both married.

When the internship ended, Jack pulled me aside. “Cait, I’ve loved having your work here. You’re truly talented. There’s enough space for a permanent position if you’re interested.”

“Thank you, Mr. Albern. But with the commute, I—”

“I’m not your supervisor anymore. Call me Jack.”

I loved working beside him, but it was too hard to pretend I could keep my eyes on my work. I think he was secretly happy I said no—he couldn’t keep his eyes off me, either.

Bradley, my husband, accused me many times of running my slender fingers through Jack’s mess of soft, brown hair. I did eventually, just not back then. Even though I wanted to be Mrs. Romlin more than anything in the whole world at twenty-one, we married too young. I saw Bradley’s icy blue eyes and curly blonde hair as youthful and charming, but he got bored with me, and I outgrew him. He looked better under the Texas sun. When we moved to Chicago for my internship, he settled into a job as a middle-school teacher. I just didn’t know “settling in” meant he would no longer look at me with those bright blues, or touch me with the passion we once had. I needed more, and he didn’t give a damn when I told him so.

After graduation, I started work for Connie Hayes, the owner of a high-end architecture firm on the north side of the city. For someone who was supposed to be good at seeing angles and design, Connie never had a sense of style—she topped off her overweight, redheaded form with lipstick too orange for her skin tone. Her toothy smile only made the shade more severe. I always had to resist going at the woman with a Kleenex. Connie never respected my vision like Jack did, and stuck me at a desk doing secretarial duties and building model trees.

Jack invited me to the Australia project two years into my tenure with Connie’s firm. He wanted my input for a prospective resort on the coast of Brisbane. “Come to the site at Coolum Beach. Build this hotel with me. If it works out, you can be a freelancer with my firm. I’ll pay your way.”

“I don’t know. Will Anna be there? Wouldn’t I be imposing on—”

“Come on, I’m not flying my wife here for this. You’d only be here for five days. It’s just business, Cait. Please consider it.”

How could I say no? To avoid a fight with Bradley, I lied to everyone about my destination, then flew into Brisbane with the frigid March wind behind me.

We met at a small café overlooking the ocean, not far from a row of old houses that the hotel was set to replace. I walked in straight from the taxi, still rolling my suitcase behind me and travel-tired. We shook hands and sat to discuss the week’s plans while sipping coffee. I did the best I could to remain attentive, despite the fact I hadn’t slept more than a few hours on the plane. His voice is deeper than I remember. I could easily fall asleep just listening to him. The barista smirked at me when we left, lightly bobbing her head in approval of my companion.

He really is something to look at, isn’t he?

The next few days were a blur of meetings. I sat at Jack’s side like a statue, wanting to be an appropriate accessory to his smooth salesman approach. Every night I made small sketches of what was discussed, intent on putting together suitable drafts back home.

Between appointments, I snuck down to the ocean in my black bikini and soaked in the waves. I caught him, just once, staring from the bar outside. My dark, curly hair was wet and I tied it in a bun—I admit, I pretended not to see him when I arched my back and feigned a stretch. It was like letting a voyeur watch me undress. My stomach flipped over itself, but I loved it. If Bradley won’t look at me the way I want him to, Jack will.

One final dinner with the marketing team waited before my flight home. Jack said I should look nice to make the best impression. Unsatisfied with what I brought, I chose a dark blue dress from the gift shop, shorter than anything else I owned. It had a boat neckline and flowy, short sleeves. I let my hair dry as much as possible in the natural air before wrapping it in a clip, excepting a few tendrils that framed my face. My heels were supposed to make me as tall as Jack, though I did not succeed.

I walked through the lobby of the hotel to the restaurant at the far end, behind the exit that led to the beach. Only Jack waited for me. His black business suit, sans tie, was far less formal than his typical attire. The button-down shirt he wore inside was open to the third button, exposing a few black hairs on his chest. He stood and held a seat open for me.

“Cait, thank you for joining me. I wanted to celebrate on your last evening here for all the work you’ve done. It’s just the two of us tonight.”

The work I’ve done? I haven’t done anything. I sat next to you at meetings and scribbled on napkins. “You’re welcome, Jack. It’s my pleasure.”

“How has the water been? I haven’t been able to get out for a swim.”

“It’s been lovely.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of ocean mist coming through the windows. “I’m going to miss the warmth when I get back to the freezing lake air.”

Jack only nodded. He spent more time buttering the roll in his hand than he needed to.

We had dinner and I ordered one cocktail too many. I no longer cared if I stared at him. His hair is starting to look speckled with salt. Makes him look distinguished—a silver fox. He’s only, what, ten years older than I am? I don’t even remember.

“Do you want to take one last look at the site before you go?” Jack stood and offered his right hand. His brown eyes reflected the tiki torches that surrounded the restaurant for ambience.

“Yes.” I took it and rose from the table, wobbling slightly in my high heels when we walked out onto the boardwalk behind the hotel. The waves beckoned, even in the dark, and I stepped off the wooden platform thoughtlessly, sinking into the sand.

Jack caught me, and we laughed. He supported me while I stood on tiptoe. His eyes met mine and our voices got quiet. Then he sank his lips into mine. They were warm and full, absent of stubble I was sure I saw earlier.

Did he shave again before dinner?

Jack grasped at the giving material of my dress while I pulled on his shirt. He lifted me into his arms and carried me back to the elevator, only stopping to push the button and open his room.

We submitted to our passion. His hands deftly explored every curve on my body, not like Bradley, who fumbled like a teenager even after eight years together. Jack called out my name and I screamed his in return. Even though we fell asleep by midnight, he woke me again four hours later to do it again. And again.

The Chicago air bit more than usual when I stepped off the plane at O’Hare. My whole body tingled, and I wrote down every last detail I could remember on the flight home. Before stepping on the Blue Line train for downtown, I ditched my handwritten notes just outside the MetroCard station. I don’t need any more evidence than the hickey on my shoulder. I want to show it off like a badge of honor in front of Bradley, and make him wonder where it came from. If he knew it was Jack’s lips that graced my skin, he’d throw a fit.

A week went by. Jack didn’t call. The bastard didn’t fucking call me. He didn’t email me. He didn’t text, either. I kept checking news sites to make sure a plane hadn’t gone down over the Pacific. Nothing. I had to go back to my same crappy job with my same evil queen for a boss. The tree figurines she tasked me with were sloppy. I don’t give a shit about doing this. Why am I still here? Wasn’t this supposed to be a huge breakthrough for me so I could be a freelance worker and more independent?

I used my lunch break to draft an elevation of the hotel we dreamed up while looking at the beach. Drawing smooth, straight lines helped me feel more in control of my life and less jilted. None of the work removed the memories, though. I couldn’t forget how Jack whispered while panting after climax.

“Cait, you are fucking phenomenal.”

“Are you talking about my talent or my blowjobs?” I dragged my middle finger across my lower lip to clean up the edge.

“Is there a difference?” he laughed.

“I think you like knowing I enjoy your taste.”

“My god, girl. Have you always talked like this?”

“Why, does it bother you?”

“No.” He pulled me off my knees to meet his chest. “Keep talking.”

I played our exchanges in my head like a movie all afternoon while staring at the clock. Just get to five o’clock and go home. You’ll have the whole house to yourself. I dreamed of soaking myself in the bathtub and turning my skin lobster-red without the pressure of avoiding Bradley, who had plans to be away for the weekend. Jack’s voice kept talking.

“I see that the facility has adequate space for good drafting.”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Albern. We have some of the finest—”

My god. That isn’t in my head. Jack’s here. I thrashed through my desk drawers looking for a compact to compose myself. I only had seconds before Connie came around the corner with him.

“Cait Romlin. You know Jack Albern, don’t you?” Connie’s teeth were half-covered in her orangey lipstick but she still smiled widely, even though she could surely taste it. She leaned over the top of my cubicle and I focused on her face while I stood up.

I cleared my throat. “Yes. Mr. Albern was one of my internship supervisors—”

“See, I knew you were already familiar with some of the staff, Jack. Come with me and I’ll show you where some of the elevations are modeled.”

Jack glanced my way before following Connie down the hall.

I’m sure I looked like a deer in headlights. Why the hell are you here?

I tried to sneak out of the building unnoticed, but Jack waited for me on the ground floor outside security. His black wool trench coat somehow made him sexy even though it covered every part of him. He stood from leaning against the wall when I came off the elevator.

“Cait. Good to see you.”

“Yeah. Good to see you, Jack.” I didn’t stop.

“Don’t you want to know why I’m here?”

“I don’t know, do you want to tell me?” I walked out of the revolving doors to the street and was hit with a blast of cold air. Holy shit it’s cold. I tried to steel my expression so he couldn’t see my discomfort while I turned to the right for the train.

“Cait, stop.”

I turned on the sidewalk to face him. “What. What do you want, Jack?”

“I—” He stammered with wide open eyes.

“Yeah, looks like you don’t know what you want.” Serves you right for not calling. I marched away, determined not to make the same mistake again.

He yelled after me. “Cait, let me drive you home. Please.”

The prospect of sitting on the bedbug-ridden train was far less appealing than Jack’s comfortable Beemer. Or maybe it was his lips that were truly appealing. Or his hands. Or his eyes. I turned around and glared at him while nodding, and he led the way to his parking spot.

“I’ve decided to partner with Connie’s firm for the Australia project,” he revealed on the drive to my house. “It’s a better use of the resources.”

“Yeah, I bet it is.” I stared out the window. I’m such an idiot. It was a fling that had nothing to do with work at all.

“I did that because of you.” He turned the radio off. “I wanted to be close to you.”

I focused on the road noise. Don’t. Don’t start.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he said.

Don’t. You’re married. So am I.

“I missed you. I want—”

“God dammit, Jack. Why didn’t you fucking call me? You have a good answer for that?” I huffed.

“I’m trying to be subtle about this, okay? Anna checks my phone. Everything has to be by-the-book, legitimate. Working with you through Connie is the easiest way to do that without her finding out.”

“Well, why do you care if she finds out anyway? You can’t still be in love with her, or what happened wouldn’t have happened.”

“I can’t leave her, Cait. You know she’s sick.” His voice was firm and finite.

“She’s not dying yet. You think she’ll keel over so fast, you won’t get caught?”

“Don’t talk like that.” He chewed the inside of his lip and stopped talking. We were silent the rest of the drive.

Bradley’s car wasn’t outside. He already left.

Jack parked and I tried to open the door, but he locked me in. “I’m trying to talk to you.”

“I don’t know what you want from me, Jack. It’s not fair that you have to stay with Anna. I would leave Bradley for you. Shit, I would leave him for a spare tire if it asked me nicely.”

“Things aren’t going well for you?”

I folded my arms and glared at him. “Don’t ask me stupid questions.”

“Is this really because I didn’t call? Is that all this is?”

“I don’t know. I’m confused. You should’ve known better, and I should’ve known better, but we did it anyway. Now what?” I pulled up the lock and opened the car door.

He followed me out. “Is Bradley home?”

“No. He’s gone all weekend.” I didn’t turn my back to him while I fiddled with my house keys.

“Can I come in, then?”

I didn’t answer, but he followed anyway. Once inside, I threw my purse on the hall tree to the right and kicked off my shoes.

Jack slammed the door and grabbed my biceps when I turned around, kissing me forcefully. He moved one hand up to my face and I shuddered from his cold glove on my skin. I pushed his coat off and undressed him, piling his clothes on the linoleum. He fucked me against the wall by the stairs and on the kitchen table. We took off our rings and let our voices ricochet throughout the house.

The grandfather clock chimed seven times.

“I’m not going anywhere, Cait,” he said, kissing my forehead before getting dressed. He went home that night to Anna and never stayed with me, but I knew by the glimmer in his eye that our affair was far from finished.

Sex fueled an adolescent drive for rebellion. I asked him to give me obvious love bites that I hid with makeup and scarves every morning. I often crouched under his desk at Connie’s firm, so he’d return from coffee breaks to find me beneath it, ready to service him. Jack never said no, even when I surreptitiously touched him, or myself, during phone calls.

Bradley was none the wiser. He didn’t care that I didn’t come home on time anymore, and he never asked about it. Summer turned to Fall, and he made himself just as scarce as I did.

He told me he was heading north to Wisconsin for a hunting trip with a few friends over Thanksgiving.

“You aren’t going to stay here for the holiday?” I asked.

“Why? You cookin’?” Bradley folded his arms.

“Well, no—”

“ Then I’m going hunting. I used to go hunting every Thanksgiving with Dad. But you moved me up here, so I don’t get to do that anymore.”

I fumed. “Moving here wasn’t only my decision. But fine. Go hunting. Hope you shoot straight. God knows you can’t when you’re taking a piss.”

We glared at each other, and he slept on the couch the night before he left.

Good. More room for me.

Thanksgiving morning I woke up refreshed and ordered Chinese food. I called Jack without thinking, then quickly hung up. Shit. No business calling him today. Shit. I hoped nothing would come of it.

At five o’clock, there was a loud banging on my front door. I saw Jack through the peephole. His face was bright red and I could tell he was gritting his teeth.

Shit.

I cracked open the door. “Hi Jack. Nice Thanksgiv—”

“What the hell were you thinking?” he yelled through the sliver. “I told you Anna checks my phone. Are you trying to get me busted?”

“You know what?” I threw open the door, tired of the charade. “You come to my house. You came to my work. Bradley won’t divorce me because of some bullshit religious conviction, and you won’t leave your wife because she’s diseased. At least she still gives enough of a shit about you to check your messages. Where does that leave me? In limbo. Alone.”

“Cut the crap, Cait. You aren’t alone, and you know it.”

“No, I am alone Jack. I’m left alone on Thanksgiving because my husband would rather shoot birds.” I stormed straight into the den on the left where Bradley kept all his guns. “Look at this place. I hate guns, but he brought his whole damned arsenal. I should just put myself out of my misery.” I pulled the rifle from the gun rack above the door. It was an antique, from World War I, one of Bradley’s most prized possessions. I put my right hand near the trigger and pointed the gun up towards the ceiling. “I know how to shoot. I’ll do it, Jack. Nobody would miss me, not even you.”

He took a gingerly step forward and held his hands out to me. “Stop. Please think.”

“I’m tired of being jerked around. You either leave me, or I want you to leave her.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Well, you sure can do everything else. Get out, Jack. Get the fuck out.” I started to move the gun down from the ceiling, and mimed as if I was going to put it in my mouth. I knew I couldn’t reach it—the angle was all wrong. But I wanted to scare him.

“No, stop,” he yelled. Jack grabbed the barrel and yanked it forward.

My right hand was still too close to the trigger. Bang.

Why did he have to yank on the rifle? Why would my husband store a loaded gun at all? Why didn’t I check it? Oh god, what have I done?

He slumped to the ground. The last breath escaped his lips. Jack didn’t suffer. It happened so fast.

I didn’t touch him. I couldn’t go near. I watched Jack bleed out on the linoleum by the front door. I watched as life cleared his beautiful brown eyes, and a sick pool of crimson surrounded him, leaking into the lines of the diamond shapes below. I dropped the rifle and stepped over his body. My purse and my passport were just within reach.

I stood on the street and hailed a taxi. “O’Hare. Now!”

By the time the plane hit Queensland, I was already a day ahead. Bradley wouldn’t be home until Sunday, but who knows what Anna did when Jack didn’t come home. I didn’t sleep at all, or write, or do anything but sit in shock while I waited for the plane to slam down on the ground.

So I stand on the beach where he caught me that night, in the spot where I wish the world’s turning would end. Each step I take forward melts back to the sea, under the water that flows all around. Surely they’ve found him. Anna is screaming, Bradley’s being questioned. And yet here I am, on the beach.

I can feel Jack’s arms wrapped over my belly, his lips firmly planted on my neck. I move out again and again—now the water comes up to my chin. I am not afraid. His voice echoes in my ears. I swim out in the waves, too far out to be seen. It’s less messy this way, maybe I won’t be found. Like my footprints, my sins are washed smooth in the current. I relax and let the undertow pull me in.

I can’t catch a breath.

Down I go.