When they were a few hundred yards away from the house, Eli stopped. He turned to her and said, “We’ve met before.”
“Yes,” said Rosa. Her voice was faint.
“In 1999,” said Eli.
“Yes,” Rosa said again.
“You—we…” Eli spluttered and finally said, “You came to my apartment. You told me you were pregnant. You asked me for money for an abortion.”
“Yes,” Rosa said, for the third time.
“I am guessing,” Eli said, biting off each word, “that you didn’t have that abortion. Which means that Gabe…” Rosa watched his mouth working, like he was tasting something sour. “That Gabe is my…”
“No!”
He glared at her. Rosa made herself meet his gaze, even though she felt faint, sick with shame and weak-kneed with fear. “No,” she said again, more quietly. “He isn’t.”
Eli grabbed her by the forearms, pulling her close. “What do you mean? How do you know?”
“I mean,” Rosa said, “that I was already pregnant when you and I… met.”
She watched him absorb the news, pupils getting big, face going slack. “What?”
Rosa sighed. “I was pregnant, and I was broke. I needed to find a man who looked like he had money, so he could pay for an abortion.” She looked at Eli. “I found you.”
Eli let go of one of her arms but kept his grip on the other as he started walking again. “Tell me everything,” he said.
Rosa nodded and sent herself back in time; back to when she was just twenty-one and had never been more beautiful, or more afraid. She’d just learned that she was pregnant, and she knew she was in no position to provide for a baby. Worse, she knew what a baby meant: the end of her dreams. Sweet, dopey Benji had no money for an abortion and no one to ask, with a dead father, a mother even more devoutly religious than Rosa’s, and two brothers just as broke as he was. Her choice was really no choice at all.
Find a guy, Amanda told her. Rosa took the subway to Manhattan with the explicit goal of seducing someone’s husband. She found a likely-looking bar full of an after-work crowd, self-assured guys with expensive haircuts drinking top-shelf Scotch and yelling to each other about sports and how much money they’d made. Rosa stationed herself by the jukebox, telling herself that she’d know her mark when she saw him. A responsible man, a good guy. Someone who would feel guilty ten seconds after the sex was over; someone who would do anything to keep his wife from ever finding out.
She’d watched and waited, and then she’d seen Eli, with his curly hair, shoulders a little slumped, twisting his wedding band around his finger as he sat at the bar. It had been as easy as Amanda had promised. Rosa walked over to him, putting a little extra swing in her step. She touched his arm, she licked her lips, she tossed her hair, and saw hunger animating the poor guy’s features, like he’d been starving and she was an all-you-can-eat buffet on legs. She wondered what his story was, this good-looking man with his blue-green eyes and his pale, freckled body; because it was very clear from the way he fell on her, first by the jukebox, then in the elevator, and then, finally, in his apartment, where he tore at her clothes and plunged himself inside of her, that this man hadn’t gotten laid in a long time.
They’d done it up against the wall, the first time. When he’d managed to try to slow things down, she’d told him—cringing inwardly—that she was safe. When he’d tried to stop, she’d made sure he hadn’t. Are you proud of yourself? a voice inside of her inquired, when she’d taken his hand and put it between her legs. Feeling good about this, Rosa?
When the sex was over, they ended up on the floor. From her vantage point, she could see dust bunnies underneath the sofa, and the carpet made her skin itch. She forced herself to ignore it, to act like this was the best sex she’d ever had, like he was the lover of her dreams.
“So what’s your name?” she asked.
That was when the guilt grabbed him. His face had gone pale as he’d pulled his sweaty body away from hers.
“What?” she’d asked.
“I’m married,” he’d said. As if she didn’t know. As if she hadn’t seen the ring, or the framed photo of the man and a woman, in front of City Hall, holding a marriage license; the man in a suit and tie, the woman with a scrap of a veil perched on her head.
Rosa told him that his wife was a fool, that it was her fault for letting such a handsome man out alone. He’ll never believe a line that cheesy, she’d thought, and she’d been astonished, and the tiniest bit disgusted, when it was clear that he had. It’s her fault, Rosa told him, and twined herself around him, thinking the more times they did it, the more likely the man was to believe her eventual lie.