Revolution Infidelities
Nora
hesitated before the shut door. She had
no idea what to do – while her heart insisted that she comfort her friend, but
her sense of delicacy lay scorched and wounded.
She should have stepped in with an opinion at some point, expressed her
displeasure. But her friend was not a
listener and would probably have ignored her, probably with a hearty “fuck you”
thrown in for good measure. At least she
had been left the option of helping now.
Against her better judgment, Nora knocked, rapidly and without cadence.
“Amy? It’s me.”
Behind
the nondescript wood, the plain plastic numbers reading “24”, a watery moan sounded. Nora wondered what her friend had to cry
about -having two men at your beck and call wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Nora knew too much about the business to play
that kind of game – politically, it was an unwinnable
game for a woman. An unhappy ending
guaranteed for all involved.
For
someone who had been a silent witness to the entire sordid affair, she felt
oddly detached from Amy’s sorrow.
Nora
would never be able to remember how it had begun - affairs in her line of
business had a way of materializing and dissolving rapidly, and she was never
one to find much to take joy in gossip.
Small signs had appeared in their shared rooms, ones that should have
alerted Nora to the situation; Adam’s cell phone, lying on the nightstand after
an evening of drinking. Trojans wrappers
tossed into the trash, crumpled and almost invisible among the empty Evian
bottles and take-out containers. But
Nora had ignored them all, not wanting to understand, until Amy plainspokenly told Nora that she had been sleeping with
Adam Copeland on the road.
Nora
wasn’t sure how to react to her friend’s confession. Amy seemed to be rather blasé about it, as
though the sex she had been having was a necessary biological function.
“Do
you love him?” Nora had asked.
“He
dives well.” Amy responded. “We’re just friends.”
To
Nora, the explanation seemed incomprehensible - sex without love wasn’t part of
what she considered a healthy relationship.
The world worked differently for others, and she understood that. So Nora sat by - making herself
unavailable by absenting herself in the evenings.
As
with all things dangerous, Amy and Adam’s momentary
“Come
on, Amy. Let me in.”
Something
shuffled behind the door - a raw-sounding rumble of noise. The lock slipped open abruptly, and the
redhead filled the door, wearing her sorrow almost prettily.
“You
need to eat something - you look pale.”
“I
can’t move.”
Amy’s voice - the tremble hidden in those words - made Nora take pause. “Give me your hand.”
“I
can’t move I can’t move…”
Nora
did the walking for her, helping Amy into bed.
“Drink this.”
She
shook her head. “Matt knows everything –
Lisa told him - that bitch had such a big mouth on her.”
“I
can’t say I blame her.” The words slipped out unconsciously.
Disbelief
showed on Amy’s face. “You call yourself
my friend?”
“It
was a dirty secret, Amy – it was causing you pain.”
“I
only wanted a few more days…”
“If
it was just sex, why does Matt care?”
“What
are you, Nora, a fucking robot?”
A
glimmer echoed in Nora’s expression, like a rock breaking through water. “I’m sorry I’m not rah-rahing
for your extra-relationship affair.”
“It
was only sex, Nora,” she whispered. “Sex. Why didn’t Matt
understand?”
“I
thought you’d have learned something about the business by now. Or at least of the way men think.”
“But
this is just as much Adam’s fault as it is mine.”
“No
one else is going to see it that way. Besides Adam’s wife.”
“But
why -“
“Don’t
you realize what kind of business we’re in, Amy? Haven’t you ever looked at what kind of
people sign our checks every week?” She tossed the pizza onto the bed. “They’ll always take Adam’s side over yours -
and it doesn’t matter who started it.
You’re going to be the whore who blew a big-money angle, and he’s going
to be the good old boy who knows how to play the game. Good girls don’t cheat - men can do whatever they
want, but women are raked over the fire for every little mistake. That’s the way it’s always been.”
“I
signed my contract - I knew what I was getting into, backstage. But Matt and I had our lives planned,” Amy
said. “We had it all figured out, for
years ahead. Now I don’t know where I’m
going and what I’m going to do when I get there.”
“Tomorrow,”
Nora sat on the bed as she said this, “You’re going to
“But
then I have to go home - no, I have to buy a new house.”
“And
you’re going to need someone to help you move, aren’t you?
“I’ll
call my father.”
“No,
I’ll help you. I’ll help you move, and I’ll
help you eat this pizza.”
Amy
seemed dazzled by this sudden turn of events.
“Why would you want to do that?”
“Because I should have done something to stop you when I had the chance.”
“I
never would have listened.”
“I
know. But I would have made you.” Nora opened
the box. “The girls in this business
have to stick together. It’s the only
way to survive.”
Amy
dabbed the corner of her eye with a thumb.
“Adam never bought me pizza. You’re
already a better lover than he is.”
“Flatterer. I hope you like pepperoni.”