My boyfriend was having sex with a woman who worked at a boutique supermarket we’d been frequenting for sixth months, or perhaps it was eight.
One Wednesday morning I received an e-mail from an unfamiliar address—one of those addresses that consists of a phrase that is supposed to be amusing and clever. Usually if the sender is unknown to me the message turns out to be spam—advertisements for some product that is supposed to improve my appearance, sex life, or make me more wealthy.
This e-mail salutation used my first name. The sentence that followed said the man I was living with, and used his first name, was involved with a woman who works at Dario’s. It was signed, “A Friend.” I felt sick, my heart rate shot up as if I’d been sprinting, and I grew angry—not at my boyfriend, but at the sender. I didn’t recognize the ISP, closed my mail box, ran the ISP’s name on a search engine and discovered it was a local provider. Taking down the phone number on their website, I called. I wanted to get through to technical support, hoping I’d speak to a tech who either didn’t know better or care, and would give me the account holder’s name. I was told curtly that that kind of information about their customers isn’t given out. The woman I spoke to implied I must be somewhat crazy or stupid for asking such a thing.
That evening when I confronted my boyfriend about it he became indignant. A week later he moved out.
In the weeks that followed I walked into Dario’s almost daily and wandered about trying to deduce which one she was—the overweight dark-haired woman in the flower department, the blonde who wrapped gourmet breads? I went through every checkout stand, peering into the faces of the female workers. Was he now openly dating or living with one of these women?
For several months I thought he’d try and contact me, talk of starting over, suggest couples counseling, but I never heard from him again. I stopped going into the market, took different streets to the subway and to my job, so as not to go near the place.
Unless I used a great deal of discipline, a scenario would run through my mind—had he been with this woman before he and I went into the market in the early evening, had they exchanged furtive smiles while I was waiting in line to buy fish? If I didn’t force myself to think of something else I would imagine other possibilities: did he have sex with both of us on the same day? While we went for a walk or when we were home together in the evenings, did thoughts of her frequently run through his mind? And did I subconsciously make myself oblivious to it for self-protection?...
