Alienation of Affection

The bitter long-term consequences of adultery.

With one finger and her thumb, Kate enlarged the space between the slats on the fake wood blinds so she could peer out, unnoticed, at the damp expanse of parking lot and the late February drizzle. March was coming but wouldn’t be much of an improvement. What Kate needed was a jolt of sunshine, a week—maybe two—on the beach in Kauai, alone with just a trashy romance novel and a Guava Mimosa to keep her company. Rather terrible that her notions of what constituted happiness had reached such a low ebb.  She closed her eyes and tried to conjure the sound of waves pounding the beach. But she couldn’t. Her mind was stuck in this lousy excuse for an office.

 Cheap furniture, shabby mauve carpet, an imitation leather loveseat—a bit of a misnomer in her line of work--but at least her clientele didn’t glance around the office and think she was overcharging. She dropped into the chair behind her desk and cast a fleeting look at her schedule on this most recent upgrade, Practice Panther Legal Software. Her twenty-seven-year-old partner was all about tech which was convenient as she wasn’t. This highly efficient software reminded her that the rest of her day, her one o’clock, one-thirty, and three o’clock appointments were a collection of divorces in various stages of awfulness. Her two o’clock appointment was a bare knuckled custody battle. Over a Golden Doodle or a child? She couldn’t remember.  Family Law? She mused. More like internecine warfare.

Coming through the door, her one o’clock was something of a surprise. A still married dentist, in danger of losing what was left of his hair and his property, sat across from her wearing a navy sports coat, shiny on the elbows, and a sincere expression on his face. Wire rimmed glasses balanced on the bridge of his nose, the man was in his late forties; and for the life of her, Kate could not imagine this paunchy person in an aqua lab coat groping his hygienist between dental exams. Did he remove his latex gloves before lavishing kisses on her young cheeks? How had the affair begun? Did the hygienist complain of a misbehaving molar? Performing the exam gratis for a devoted employee, did he seat her in the dental chair until her feet were higher than her head, and with both hands in her mouth as he scraped plaque off her molar, did he declare his love? His desire? How could the hygienist whisper “I love you too” with all those fingers in her mouth?

When winter days stretched long, Kate concocted the narratives behind the agitated faces on the other side of her desk. Safe to assume the hygienist was a younger version of the dentist’s wife--that was the norm--but Kate reminded herself of a case three years earlier when the other woman was in her late sixties. Obviously, a mother substitute, but that wasn’t what Kate typically saw.  The messes usually began with a compliant subordinate who did the man’s bidding never voicing a complaint. That was clearly what this dentist had wired in his head. And the girl? What was in it for her? Flattery? Attention? Financial security? Whatever the reason—pick a number—the hygienist was complicit, because the wife had filed for divorce and named the hygienist as party--what an odd term--to the proceedings. Tapping her mechanical pencil on her desk blotter, Kate fixed the dentist in her sights. 

“At the risk of losing a considerable retainer, I’m going to offer you some valuable advice.”  That startling intro always got men’s attention, although nine times out of ten, errant husbands didn’t believe her, but it generally prevented them—these almost ex-husbands—from launching into harangues she’d heard too many times, so in her estimation, the advice was worth repeating.

“This is what you are going to be telling me in a month or six weeks.” Kate stood behind her desk to heighten the drama. “The relatively pleasant woman you’ve been married to for twenty-one years (she adjusted the particulars with each case.) has turned into a harpy, a furious irrational woman who is determined to ruin the happiness you’ve found with—excuse me, what is her name? Grace?” Of course, it was Grace or Felicity, or Becky Boo Hoo. “Your wife refuses to understand and will not accept this new reality--that you’ve moved on--which creates an opportunity for her to do the same, find happiness as a single woman.” A humiliated pariah who is immediately excluded from all her lifelong friends who come packaged as couples. “Your soon-to-be ex-wife will demand and receive half of your assets. If your wife financed your education by working in some menial job,” The dentist’s face blanched. She’d hit his last nerve not anaesthetized by infatuation. “there was a mutual expectation she would share in the proceeds from that education, which translates into a sizable portion of your income until you retire or die.”  Kate took a deep breath. “She will poison your relationships with your children and vilify your new partner--their soon-to-be evil stepmother--as the cause of the marital split. She will regale the neighbors, acquaintances, and any of your patients who will listen, with your tawdry behavior. In short, she will be a thorn in your side and in your check book—forever.”

Kate leaned her hip against the side of her desk and softened her tone. “Marriages that begin as affairs have a notoriously low success rate. Less than twenty percent. In eighteen months, two years at the most, you will realize this new wife is not what you anticipated. Believe me, she will not continue being your adoring subordinate. Her moods and whims will irritate you. The price tag associated with this new relationship will weigh on you. In short, you’ll arrive back in my office to split your significantly reduced assets—a second time.”

The dentist looked positively pained. He quit holding in his stomach and withered into the chair. A few clandestine kisses would probably revive him, but for the moment, he was realistically assessing his options.

“My advice to you,” Kate continued, “is to go home, beg your wife’s forgiveness, and help the girl find new employment. You’ll be doing yourself a monumental favor.”

The dentist cleared his throat. She’d surprised him, something she enjoyed doing, and she waited to hear his response. He straightened in his chair, “You come highly recommended.” Kate smiled. She knew where this was going. The man wasn’t swayed by what she’d said. He thought the euphoria he was feeling for the masked hygienist was legit and saw blooming happiness arriving in April—post divorce decree.

 “Thank you,” Kate said. “That’s nice to hear, but I don’t wield a magic wand. I’m constrained by the law, and you need to understand that as we go forward.” Because that was the direction he was determined to take, poor man. Was it something about his eyes or the set of his jaw that caused her a thimble-sized dose of empathy? She usually steeled herself from emotional involvement, cordoned off her heart, because she knew all the players in this age old three-some would pay a terrible price. She knew something about that. She certainly did.

The rest of her day was not particularly pleasant. The participants in the custody battle achieved a level of hostility she rarely saw. When the door closed after her last appointment, Kate reached into her top drawer for a raspberry cream chocolate next to the snub-nosed handgun she kept within easy reach, a constant reminder that irrational adversaries could go right off the rails when they turned their fury on her and threatened her with a knife, a gun, or allegations of malpractice. Their vicious accusations could escalate beyond the realm of TV movies, as though she were personally responsible for poor behavior in marital disputes. Her mouth full of chocolate, Kate huffed, but no one was there to listen.

This dead-end travesty was not what she’d planned for her life. Oh no. The bright-eyed girl she’d been had envisioned a future in intellectual property law, or complex corporate litigation, or a brilliant career with the DOJ trying civil liberty cases before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. And what had she been wearing in those winsome imaginings? Thousand dollar suits and Jimmy Cho heels, not this rag she’d snatched off the sale rack at Macy’s. She didn’t ask herself how she’d come to this place, this storefront practice in a strip mall in Fort Collins, because she knew. She’d replayed the scene in her mind, too many times.

On a Thursday evening, the summer of Nineteen-Ninety-seven, in their shared office that felt more like a closet, the summer interns celebrated the lucrative offers Marjorie and Roger had received from McMasters, Kibbie, and Collingwood, a prestigious firm by anyone’s reckoning, in Salt Lake City, the Crossroads of the West. The first time Kate heard that inflated designation, she smiled, because the place was just one big desert with illusions of grandeur.  Of course, that sweltering summer, there were other compensations; and twenty-four-year-old Kate had foolishly smiled about what she’d assumed those advantages were. She was waiting patiently for an offer of her own, which would open the door to the future she was imagining in more delightful detail each day, her life with everyone’s favorite junior associate, Finn Strong, who’d been assigned as her mentor in early June. Their affair had begun innocently enough. Lunch once a week to discuss cases became lunch every day. Jokes became private. His warm touch on her hand led to a kiss in the stairwell, and then things got crazy. The fireworks on the Fourth of July couldn’t eclipse the late night on the Third in the firm’s library on an expensive leather couch. That night she and Finn shared a hormonal explosion like nothing she’d experienced before or since. Kate was madly, deliriously in love with the office heartthrob, a Harvard grad, and a married man.

            Two weeks later on a Friday afternoon, the standoffish receptionist waylaid Kate with the curt message that Collingwood’s secretary had been searching for her for an hour, and would Kate please call. ASAP.  This was it. Her turn. Collingwood, the managing partner, was going to give her an offer.

            “No problem.” Smiling, Kate picked up the phone on the receptionist’s desk.

            No pleasant chitchat, just the brusque message, “Collingwood needs to see you at five.” That was it. No sinister warning, no subtle alert, and so it was easy for Kate to convince herself that everyone, including the managing partner, was in a rush to begin the summer weekend--no rain in the forecast. He’d slide a sheet of paper across his desk, the lucrative offer of employment, and she’d pretend she’d received other offers to up the bidding, but then again, maybe she wouldn’t.

Kate dashed into the women’s room, sprayed a single squirt of perfume at the base of her throat, straightened her white blouse, backcombed her thin, brown hair to add a little volume, and gave her reflection a demure smile, her MO when dealing with powerful males. Regardless of what her sister said, Kate’s eyes were not crooked, but she lifted her glasses-- not much of a correction; she wore them for effect—out of her purse and put them on. She appraised the look, thought the glasses made her seem more serious, more professional, and she snapped the case shut. She painted the outline of her mouth with a lipstick pencil before she filled in the rest with a soft shade of pink. She pouted at her reflection and blew herself a kiss. For luck, which she didn’t need.  She was on the twelfth floor at four-fifty-five waiting outside Collingwood’s office door.  At two minutes before the hour, she knocked, politely, but she felt like dancing.

            The office was huge. A wall of windows framed Temple Square. Striding across three thick Persian rugs past a leather couch and a couple of upholstered chairs took longer than crossing South Temple. Mr. Collingwood, who had to be pushing seventy, didn’t stand when she entered, which she thought was odd and frankly a bit rude, but she smiled and took the chair opposite his massive desk. Not only was this man the managing partner, another intern, born and raised in Salt Lake, had whispered that Collingwood was in The Second Quorum of the Seventy. The title didn’t mean much to Kate—she was a lapsed Catholic--but the junior associates, and some of the partners, would genuflect when he passed in the carpeted halls. She didn’t know what came after being a Seventy, maybe an Eighty? A Ninety? She’d made a joke about it in June. No one had laughed, not even Finn. He’d tugged on a lock of her hair and said, “You don’t get it. Collingwood leaves here and goes to another fulltime job.” She didn’t get it then, but she was starting to get it now. Salt Lake City was a maze, and clearly a company town.

 A short stack but neatly done, her summer’s work sat in the middle of Collingwood’s green desk blotter. He’d obviously been perusing the documents she’d been assigned to produce. Collingwood was generally such a nice guy. Office gossip said he’d played pro-football before he’d been sidelined with a demolished knee. Now he was staring at her over the top of his rectangular glasses as though she were an unsavory specimen on a Petri plate. She picked at a hangnail on her middle finger.

            When he didn’t speak, she continued smiling, but her cheeks felt stretched and a bit stiff. She crossed her ankles neatly but didn’t tug on her pencil thin skirt which had ridden up her thighs when she’d sat down. Why draw attention to the length of her skirt? If she’d known this was Job Offer Day, she’d have chosen a different outfit, something lightweight and linen—with a stripe. She kept smiling, but her heart was staring to thrash around in her chest. Her neck felt warm.

            Finally, after three minutes that felt more like ten, Collingwood cleared his throat, “Miss Livesey. We won’t be offering you a position at McMasters, Kibbie, and Collingwood. Your summer employment is terminated. After careful consideration, the other partners and I have also decided that you won’t be receiving a favorable recommendation from this firm. I’ll accompany you to remove your personal belongings when we conclude this meeting.” By way of explanation, he added, “The security personnel leave at five.”

            Her mouth gaped open. What had she done? Why was she being dismissed so abruptly? In such a cruel manner. Her hands trembled. An intense burning sensation made its way up her neck and flooded her pale cheeks.

            “Why?” she sputtered.

            He sighed, “Your work product is marginal.” She thought he shrugged, but it was hard to tell because his white shirt was so starched it was like a shield covering human responses.

            “I can improve,” she gushed. “I’m near the top of my law school class. I graduated from Colorado College magna cum laude.”  I’m no slouch, she was trying to communicate, but that craggy face across from her looked like it had been peeled off Mt. Rushmore and loaned for the afternoon to the top of Mr. Collingwood’s neck. And then the rigid lips cracked open as he turned off the recording device on his desk.

            His face softened a bit. “Miss Livesey, your personal issues have nothing to do with this dismissal, but let me give you a word of advice. We handle multiple issues at our firm, but theft is one of the most difficult; intellectual property theft, corporate theft, criminal defense, and interestingly, theft involving family law.”

            Here it comes. Her heart was racing. Her cheeks were on fire. She knew where this was going.

            He continued, “Three days ago, Reed Johnson of Stole Greaves called to inform me his client is suing our firm for creating a situation that has caused an alienation of affection. The case doesn’t have merit, but it will cost our firm thousands of dollars and a significant number of otherwise billable hours to mount a defense. Unless we choose to settle which will also be expensive.” 

            “Mr. Collingwood,” Kate sputtered, “Nothing happened. A few weeks ago, I started getting a strange vibe from Mr. Strong, but it’s all been pretty innocent.” She stopped herself from saying a few quick kisses in the stairwell. Nothing to write home about, because this man wouldn’t believe her.  Collingwood was furious. How had she missed the signs? The flared nostrils, the knowing glare, the red splotches on his neck. She could feel the starch drain out of her own shirt.

            “In my experience,” His voice was emphatic. “young unmarried women who engage in relationships with married men have three things in common: they are selfish, amoral, and have no empathy for the wives they’ve injured.”

            She unclenched her fists and tried to return the demure smile to her face.  “I wasn’t the only one involved,” she choked. “Finn was coming on to me. Not the other way around.” A lie she hadn’t told herself until that moment.

            “This type of behavior undermines the professional culture we strive to build at McMasters, Kibbie, and Collingwood. Infidelity is a disease that can rip through a firm.” He bit the edge of his lip. “I’ve been observing your behavior since I received the call from Mr. Johnson.”

            Observing? Lurking was more like it. An extremely tall Sherlock Holmes minus the pipe. A few days ago, she’d ducked into Finn’s office after lunch—no one was in the hall—and a half hour later, when she’d stuck her head out of the door to check if the coast was clear, there was Collingwood standing adjacent to a framed photograph of Delicate Arch--for no apparent reason. Quick on her feet, she’d called over her shoulder, “Thanks, Mr. Strong, for clarifying that point.” Collingwood didn’t buy it. She tried to remember if her lipstick was smeared ear to ear or a button on her blouse was undone. Did anyone else notice? What was the gossip? Now she remembered sly smiles, knowing glances, frank stares. Was everyone talking?

            Collingwood shook his head sadly. “Mr. Strong has no future with our firm, but he will not be leaving our employment today.  You will. And Miss Livesey, men my age are rarely fooled by feigned innocence. Something you might want to consider as you seek future employment.”  He stood.  “Any discomfort you might be experiencing is nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the torture you’ve inflicted on Barbara Quayle.”

Barbara Quayle? Finn’s wife? Quayle must be her maiden name. Salt Lake is such a small town, she thought and glanced up at the ceiling. Not hard to imagine the conversation this Seventy had with Finn. Grueling.

“You know her?” Kate whispered.

 Collingwood’s voice was infused with gravitas, “Since she was a girl. I was her bishop.” He pushed back his chair. “I’ll go with you to collect your belongings.”

 Bishop? She’d heard the term tossed around a few times but was unclear on the concept. Was it like being a godfather? The parish priest? A friend of the family? But titles didn’t matter, because she was being dismissed, swept out the door like a bit of trash. Her eyelashes were wet.

Walking past the couch and chairs, she had a fleeting thought, Was this the arena where Collingwood sat when he was devouring Christians for lunch?

            He followed her—eight feet behind—as she marched down the hall. The spiky heels, that had been fun and sassy that morning, felt like a biohazard now. She nearly crashed into the wall, but she didn’t cry until she hit B for basement and the elevator doors closed. A box of her scant possessions in her arms, she leaned against the elevator wall.  What was she going to tell her parents, but more importantly, what was she going to tell Clyde? The apartment they’d shared for the past year was merely a train stop on her journey to better days, but what now?  Her mind was blank. Summer interns didn’t get fired. Never. She’d liked Clyde, thought maybe she loved him, until that first week in June when she’d glimpsed Finn Strong, adorable, funny, handsome Finn, Harvard Law, and the world’s best kisser. And if Barbara Quayle didn’t make him happy, the man was fair game.

            What now? What would Clyde say? What story could she concoct that he might believe?  Could she and Finn move in together? The new relationship was still tenuous. This mess with Collingwood could toss it either way. She sat in the front seat of her ancient Toyota in the parking garage and bawled.

*****

            Much older and certainly wiser, Kate popped another raspberry cream into her mouth and told herself to breathe. She should go home. Her feet ached. Her daughter would be feasting on Twinkies if Kate wasn’t there to fix dinner. She glanced at her watch. Her son’s basketball practice ended at five. In another hour, Clyde would roll through the door expecting dinner and a modicum of sympathy for his difficult day. She should go home, but not yet. She hit Google on her computer and typed in Finn Strong; no longer her lover, just an elusive memory she’d held onto for years, but in the last two weeks Finn had become more than a handful of images twenty years in her past.  He was a candidate, Utah’s Candidate for the United States Senate, a handsome pillar of a man, touting integrity, Constitutional principles, and upright moral values, with a strong jaw and traces of grey hair at his temples.

For half an hour Kate watched his face and listened to his deep voice streaming from a press conference in the ballroom of a hotel. She continued listening to an informal interview in the living room of his home. She froze the screen. The room was lovely, painted in soft shades of pale yellow.  Dusty rose and light green plaid pillows festooned an off-white couch.  A baby grand piano stood in front of a paned window. Completely charming. Kate unfroze the screen. Wearing a navy cardigan and sitting on a wingback chair, a relaxed Finn leaned forward to make a profound point. And Barbara? The wife. In a few minutes, Barbara entered the room, but this wasn’t the woman Kate had been cyber-stalking for years. No, this woman looked like her skin had been shrink wrapped over her skull by some unseen hand in a vile spa. Had some campaign aide locked her in a hotel room and slid lettuce leaves and carrot sticks under the door for a month? The woman was a virtual shadow of her plump former self, but Kate didn’t waste much thought on Barbara. Finn was who she wanted to see. Finn Strong, whose life wasn’t in tatters. Finn, whose seat in the United States Senate was assured. Finn, who didn’t arrive at a shoddy office each morning to wade through the messes made by incredibly stupid people.

What had she done that he hadn’t? Nothing. She’d paid a nasty price for a summer’s indiscretion, and he’d gotten off Scot free. She had been badly used. How could she have known an apologetic late night phone call, an effusive recommendation, and a cluster of replicating cells were Finn left in his wake?  He’d demolished her life, and for what? Social status and that woman?  Seething, Kate reached for her third chocolate. She couldn’t go home while she was this angry. She used a fingernail to extract a seed from the food trap between her molars.

            When her son was small, she tried to convince herself that his head shape, the color of his eyes, and his adorable smile resembled Clyde; but now, denial was impossible. She squeezed her eyes shut, but her son was fixed in her brain, her tall athletic son, the spitting image of the candidate on the screen. One click on his Facebook page was more conclusive than a positive DNA test. The boy was a clone.  

Collingwood was long dead, but would ancient office gossip resurface? Become a tool? Opposition research? Was this going to culminate in another life sentence visited on her and her son? Would she spend the next ten years being an off-color cliché? How could she face her children? Her husband?

The candidate oozed sex appeal in such a wholesome way, Kate wanted to gag. Twenty percentage points ahead in the polls, a shoo-in, but was there a bull’s eye fixed to his back? She dropped the chocolate on her desk. She didn’t lick her fingers.  She wanted to puke.

From the gilt frame on the corner of her desk, images of her family glared at her; her daughter’s wide smile full of wires, her husband in a striped shirt that looked a little dorky, and her son, whose height and soft brown eyes jumped out of the frame like an accusation. How could she protect him, shield her daughter, and save her boring marriage with her cheerful husband of twenty-two years who never knew she’d strayed? Her thumbs under her chin, all eight fingers pressed against her mouth.

Her phone buzzed. She stared at the screen. Karma was on the line. The Salt Lake Tribune. She flipped on silent mode and dropped the phone face down on her desk.