Free Lying With Strangers by James Grippando Page A

It’s just…something happened on the way over here that makes me think that I may have already lost Peyton.”
    “You mean she figured us out on her own?”
    “No. Someone left a red rose for Peyton on our doorstep this morning. No card, no note.”
    “Did you ask her about it?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “If I had, she could have turned the tables on me and I would have ended up telling her about us.”
    She made a face. “There always has to be a winner and loser with you, doesn’t there? You’re so competitive with Peyton it’s crazy.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Every time you talk about her, it comes out. She has a more rewarding job than you, she went to a better school than you, she has more successful friends than you. You have one of those marriages that should come with a scorecard.”
    “That’s ridiculous.”
    “Is it? Maybe it actually explains your interest in me. You went out looking for something you were dead sure she didn’t have—a lover on the side. You’d finally have the edge. Or so you thought. Now this mysterious rose shows up, and you can’t stand to admit she beat you at your own game.”
    “Look, I understand that you’re angry.”
    “I’m not angry. I’m hurt. I’m disappointed. Because I know what you’re thinking: If Sandra were ten years younger, maybe things would be different.”
    “That’s not what I’m thinking.”
    “I know you,” she said. “I just wish you could see that if I were Peyton’s age, I’d probably be playing the same stupid games that the two of you waste so much energy playing. That night in Providence, I thought maybe you finally understood that. But I was wrong. And I’m tired of this. So go back home and go the full sixteen rounds with Peyton. You two can compete and compete till you’re tired of competing anymore. And when one of you is left standing, call me. Maybe we can see where we are.”
    “Please don’t be like this. The two of us still have to work together.”
    “Like you said, there is no ‘us.’ At least not until you’re ready to leave Peyton behind. Really ready.”
    “I’m sorry that’s the way you see it. Because you’re dead wrong about me and Peyton.”
    “Am I?”
    “I don’t compete with her.”
    She smiled flatly and shook her head. “Funny. I thought you were going to say you don’t love her.”
    Their eyes met, but he suddenly realized just how far apart he and Sandra were.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Could you please just leave,” she said.
    He wanted to say something to make her feel better, but things were too confused with Peyton to be controlled by Sandra’s sensibilities. He slid out of the booth in silence, grabbed his coat, and started toward the door.
    On his way out he passed that couple in the booth—the other cheaters—and suddenly thought of Peyton and Mr. Rose trading glances at some bar, caressing each other’s hands, moving on to his apartment, kissing and groping all the way upstairs, ripping their clothes off and grabbing for hot flesh like…like his one night with Sandra.
    He felt another pang of guilt but refused to let this be about him. Sandra was a symptom of their problems, but Peyton was the root. It seemed silly, but it had really all started with that pathetic Ivy League football game they’d attended on their first visit to Harvard and that obnoxious cheer she’d chanted at the top of her lungs with all the other snobs, even though she knew that her husband couldn’t find a decent job. That’s all right, that’s okay, you’re gonna work for US someday! Sure, Peyton had apologized later, and maybe it wasn’t fair to fault someone for getting caught up in the stadium hoopla after too much rum from the flask. But lately, the people she’d counted as friends didn’t need liquor to cop an air of superiority.
    It was bitter cold outside, and he struggled to button his coat as he left Murphy’s. A gust of wind whipped up the snow and knocked him off