Saved by the silence

Thursday: the morning after

Last night, Matt was waiting in the bar of San Giusto, nursing a neat scotch, fiddling nervously with his phone.

"I was about to call -- I thought maybe you weren't coming," he said, in a humble voice that disarmed me.

"Why would I stand you up like that?" As I spoke, I felt a twinge of guilt over the extra time I had spent obsessing in my mirror. Matt's wistful, tormented gaze made me flinch.

"You don't trust me," he said, flatly -- mournfully. I sipped some wine to steady my nerves and buy a few seconds of silence. "The other night, you ran off," he said quietly. "And suddenly, it all made sense. I realized why."

I sat very still, praying he wasn't saying what he seemed to be saying. He gulped some more scotch and said, in a controlled, bitter voice: "I know why you don't trust me. I've been in denial about it for months and yet --" he looked at me sadly "-- I knew it on some level."

My hands began to shake. Suddenly, everything was converging to a point of no return. I held my breath.

"When I told Elspeth --"

"Your sister?" I exploded. "You told your sister? How could you do that to me?" I stared at him in numb rage. His sister -- the assistant prosecutor!

"Well," he said pathetically, "I had to talk to someone who knew us both -- I made a mistake, OK? I thought I could put it behind me -- because it was just -- just a fling -- you're the one I care about, Nancy. If you would just let me explain --"

Stunned, I began to realize what I had almost done to myself -- and to him. He's not here to confront me with my past -- he wants to confront me with his!

"Please," he said, reaching for my hand. "It's hard to tell you the truth but I have to because I love you. I know I've been unfair to you --"

"But how," I asked him, backtracking furiously, "could you tell someone else you were cheating on me? You made me look like a total fool!"

"Elspeth warned me about that," he conceded miserably. "You're not supposed to know that she knows. She says it's a woman thing."

"Oh, great," I said warming to my theme of outrage. "So that's why she was making all those pseudo-nice comments. When we had dinner with her --"

"Look, can we focus on one problem at a time?" he demanded. "Leave my sister out of this for now --"

"You're the one who included her," I pointed out, on the verge of tears -- partially of relief.

"Please don't," he begged, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have told you here," he added in a gentle voice. He could see that I wasn't getting up to leave and I sensed that he was more than a little flattered by my reaction.

"You're a sadistic bastard!" I whispered, dabbing my eyes with a bar napkin. "All this time you've been -- you've been projecting your own sneaky motives onto me, and I suppose you thought you were being clever, didn't you?" I tried to control my rampaging impulses but I couldn't help adding: "Who was it? Do I know her? Did I ever meet her?"

He sighed sheepishly. "I ... look, maybe we shouldn't get into -- it's over, OK?"

"For how long?" I demanded, blowing my nose. I thought back to the party at Miranda's -- where I overheard him, talking about another girl. Tearfully, I consoled myself -- my long silence had saved me in a way. "Were you lying to both of us?" I added, quietly. "What was she like?"

He winced. "I don't think you ever met -- she was working for Pam," he said, alluding to his boss, "and she came onto me when we went out West for the pitch -- she's back in school now."

"Larissa R_________!" I gasped, without thinking. Spooky's daughter, I realized, was Pam's summer intern!

Matt stared in surprise. "How did you know?"

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