Chase was between victories. So begins this tale of a husband who rides every edge, and the wife who's had enough of it. She leaves him the house she never wanted in Connecticut, and takes a flat on the Upper East Side. Can they be more, separate, than they ever were together? And how separate can they be, with a teenager between them? Barbara used to think walking out was the biggest move she'd ever make; now she knew it was the not going back. If she went back, she'd know what she was getting into, for she knew Chase like nobody did. And she knew the deal was there for the taking-knew it even if Chase did not. But did she want that deal? Was the alternative so scary? Years from now, would she look back on choosing the ambiguity of the unknown as the best move she ever made-or the worst?

STRAYS

A NovelBy Matthew Geyer

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Matthew Geyer
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4697-4660-9

Chapter One

Half-Empty House

Chase was between victories. Just off a conference call with his trial team, he was about to tee off an hour-and-change behind schedule, with a new member he'd heard could play and a taciturn teenager in tow.

He wheeled his fifth BMW in as many years into the lot at the Ridgefield Country Club. He'd looked hard this time at the Mercedes, but still he thought it made him look older, and he found even less courage this time than last to make the change. Spotting a parking space next to the handicapped section, under an alder that shaded the sun without sapping his latest trophy, he pulled in.

While Thad wrestled his clubs out of the trunk, Chase paced nervously in his white linen shorts, the curve of his quads cradling the knees beneath the hem. The drape of his golf shirt set off the muscularity of his torso, a braided black belt girded the flat of his mid-section. Chase loved the feel of fine golf gear on a fit frame, and he lived in a world where he didn't have to apologize for that. He looked back at the trunk, jaw set and strong, hair cropped close to control the gray that infiltrated in his thirties and now threatened to take over the field.

"While we're young, buddy."

Thad stood his bag upright next to Chase, and said, "One of us, anyway." The boy's latest pleasure was towering over his father—by about an eyeball—at just over six feet and just under sixteen. He wore slouchy black-denim bad-boy shorts and one of his father's rattier polos—just enough to get by the dress-code mavens without looking like he was buying into any of it. His build was slight, like Chase's before football. His grunge-blond hair ranged round his ears, and swung forward as he ducked back into the trunk for his father's clubs.

While Chase fingered a head-cover his wife knitted for Thad, he spotted a plain white four-door inching its way into the lot. Strays in a rental car, he thought. What part of "Members Only" hadn't they understood when driving past the stone pilasters flanking the front gate? The car rolled to a stop and the window slid down, loosing a rush of air conditioning. "Excuse me," said a woman riding shotgun. "We're looking for the Ridgebury Golf Course."

A public course, Chase judged from the name. But he couldn't place it in the long list of courses within lost-tourist distance of where he stood. "Do you have an address?"

"Miller's Pond Road," said the driver from within. Chase bent low at the waist, and saw a middle-aged man in Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian shirt looking up from what seemed like Internet directions. "My son here has his clubs," the man nodded toward the back seat, "and wants to play a round. He called ahead and they're able to fit him in, but I've passed several courses now and can't seem to find that one."

The phone on Chase's belt vibrated, and he checked the number on the screen—a call he couldn't very well take just now, for a number of reasons. Instead he stood and looked out over the white sedan, mentally surveying the roads he'd need to steer these people through, to get them back on course for one he'd never played. He glanced into the back seat, where the son sat behind his mother. The boy seemed younger than Thad, but wore a collared shirt that looked every bit as borrowed. Thad might prefer him to one of the geezers the starter would assign as a fourth if they checked in with only a threesome.

"Can you play, big guy?" Chase said through the mother's open window.

The bill of the boy's cap dipped as he nodded. You had to like a kid who took up the game on his own, Chase thought, judging the man behind the wheel lost in the world he'd just driven into.

"Well we could use a fourth," Chase said, "and my son here is playing. Why don't you join us and round out the foursome?"

The boy turned to his father, who looked back at the boy and then to the mother, doming his eyebrows as if to say this seemed like a pretty good idea. The boy touched his mother's shoulder, and she laid a hand on his.

"Sure, I'm game," the boy said, turning to Chase. His father searched for the unlock button, and the trunk latch as the boy got out. Then he unhooked his seatbelt to reach for his wallet.

"It's on me," said Chase, spotting the move at inception and waving it off. "He's my guest." He glanced at the pearl gray face of his latest TAG Heuer. "Let's see, nine-fifteen. Why don't you plan to pick him up at, say, three o'clock—that ok?"

The parents agreed, with an enthusiasm that struck Chase as odd until he considered the difference in their circumstances. As the boys dug their golf shoes out of the side pockets of their bags, Chase gave the parents directions back to their rental on Candlewood Lake, using a map they fished out of the glove box.

"Thad is it?" the boy said, employing a common mispronunciation based on the spelling on the head cover. "I'm Pat."

"It's Tad," said Thad, for the thousandth time since his parents hung a name on him without asking and he'd taken it on himself to do something about it. "Hard T, silent h."

Chase was glad to hear Thad say this with grace and not ennui; maybe he was coming out of the funk that followed turning off the PlayStation. It had been months since they'd played a round of golf together, Chase in trial through the spring and most of the summer. Too long, too, since they rode together into the city on the way to Thad's prep school and Chase's midtown firm. Chase wondered whether he could change any of this now that the case was over, and whether Thad would care if he did.

As the sedan pulled away, the boys stood next to each other and three sets of clubs, hands in their pockets and backs to the BMW. The guest returned his parents' wave with a no-hands nod, the bill of his cap bobbing like a buoy on a summer swell. Chase liked the boy—something about him recalled less complicated times between himself and his son—and as he reached for his golf bag with one hand, he extended the other to introduce himself. "I'm Chase Pendleton."

"Pleased to meet you," said the boy, looking Chase in the eye. "I'm Patrick Mackey—call me Pat."

Chase liked the firm handshake and the eye contact, and tried to see Thad acting the same way when meeting someone like this. He slipped out of his driving loafers and into his golf shoes, then led the way toward the clubhouse stirring small talk as they crossed the blacktop.

In the caf, the waitress who called herself Lady Di—her black bob slicked back today, like a combat boot ready for inspection—had Chase's bottled water up, and two more in response to his three-finger signal, before he reached the counter.

"You're too good," he said, and took the pen she held for him to sign the chit.

"I guess you'll never know," she said, eyeing the boys at what she gauged was a safe distance. Chase frowned to let her know he saw it differently, and didn't appreciate such repartee around his son.

A glance in Thad's direction revealed he liked it even less. He'd caught the sly exchange, for he looked away in evident disgust. Chase had seen disagreement from his son before, disenchantment too; some early on, more with the teenage years, none of it unexpected. But disgust was something Chase hadn't counted on, and it felt in an instant like everything he had been hoping to avoid. Seeing his flaws reflected back to him in the eyes of his son felt infinitely worse than coming across them in the mirror now and then.

He turned back to the counter, stacked the water bottles like firewood in his left hand and rejoined the boys. He offered one to each, Thad took his without looking back, and the three of them headed for the starter's shed in a clatter of golf spikes. As Chase previewed the course for Pat, he enlisted comments from Thad with little success.

Chase bristled at this, but he knew he had it coming. For even if the exchange with Lady Di was entirely innocent, a pair of legs—long and lean and criss-crossed on the white lounge of a beach-house veranda like a pair of chopsticks on a plate of fine china—had been in Chase's head since he'd let the call go unanswered in the parking lot. They didn't belong to Lady Di.

But they didn't belong to Thad's mother, either.

Barbara stood surrounded by suitcases on the circular drive, her light cotton camp shirt already damp, the humidity still rising. She thought of changing, but anything she wanted was packed away, and the air conditioning would kick in once she got rolling. Which she'd better.

She hefted the bags into the M-Class. All she'd wanted was an SUV, but Chase had insisted on the Mercedes. Barbara didn't care who made it so long as it wasn't black, which would roast her in these Connecticut summers, or white, which could kill her by camouflage come winter. She heaved the "Breakwater Blue" hatchback shut, then turned to look out over the lawn, sloping down past the grove-planted maples, and spotted Savino's pickup motoring along on the far side of the low wall at the front of the property. She'd never liked that rock wall: Too formal for her tastes and connected to nothing at either end, it reminded her of the false fronts on movie sets she once toured with Thad while Chase tried a case in Los Angeles. She waved to Savino as he came up the drive, then turned back to the clapboard Colonial sitting tall and wide atop the rise. She hadn't needed a home that looked like an estate, anymore than she'd needed an SUV that looked like a Mercedes. And though she'd grown accustomed to each, she wondered again whether all this hadn't somehow stood in the way all along.

She would have preferred to do this when Chase was away. But they no longer talked much while he was traveling, and she rarely felt sure when he'd return. Not like the early days, when she felt half-there and the house half-full whenever he was on the road; when Chase was just working long hours, doing his best by them on both ends. Somewhere along the way, the phone became just a tool to run the house, the connection between them fraying. Now he was like some distant relative, showing up on the occasional weekend.

He'd strayed again, she knew, and this time was different. Longer for one thing, and quieter, too. Barbara hadn't seen it in the eyes of women around town, hadn't heard it in lines his friends swallowed when they realized they were betraying something. She couldn't be sure, but somehow it seemed like this time it wasn't local.

And somehow, Barbara liked this even less. He'd always come back before—he'd look her in the eye as he hadn't in months, smile without pretense or subtext, and she'd know. Letting him back in seemed better than any of the alternatives. In time she'd learned to cultivate a sort of scar tissue over the worst of the wounds, which resolved over time as they had another good run. But if Chase didn't need to be wary of the watchful eyes of locals—of doing something that might get back to Thad, even if not to her—could he be counted on to keep it within limits? Somehow this time, his return seemed less assured. And, in the end, less essential.

She could hire someone to find out more, Jackson had said. But she knew enough already. She didn't need to see it in the eyes of others, for she saw it in his. Saw it in the way he moved, circling unclose to her, not engaging even when he stuck around on the odd weekend.

When she reached the foyer Barbara picked up the phone, but couldn't come up with the number. On her way past Chase's piano, she couldn't come up with the last time he did anything but set a cocktail on it. As she drifted across the living room, her shirt cooling her as the air conditioning blew through it, a thought came to her sideways—sitting up until dawn in the chair by the fireplace, after breaking the news to Thad about the baby who would have been his sister. They got through that long night in the new house alone, Chase caught on the other coast, taking it hard and solo.

Barbara sometimes wondered if he'd ever come back from that. It wasn't that he stopped making love to her; he took her with abandon, in fact, Barbara perched here on the cool granite of the kitchen countertop one afternoon the next spring, her legs wrapped around his waist as Chase stood heaving himself into her. What he stopped doing, is hoping anything would come of it. It was as if, after losing the baby he said would keep him young, he went looking for something similar in the sex alone. And once he learned to fuck that way, he could do it with anybody.

He never owned up to it, though he'd had his chances. Perhaps he thought admissions to his wife might get back to his son; but Thad figured it out on his own. Chase knew the twelve-year-old he'd coached one year in Little League, and saw only the superficial changes since—the disaster-zone bedroom, the glued-on headphones, the tiresome petulance. The signs of real growth—getting to his homework without being badgered, opening up one time out of three when something was troubling him—were too subtle for a weekend lodger to catch.

So Barbara had stopped hoping, too. First that another baby would come, then that Chase would own up to anything, finally that he'd even come out of it again. Too many years had gone by, and Chase had done with them what he would. Now Barbara would do what she would with the rest.

She found her purse in the corner of the counter, dug deep in an inside pocket for the business card, and punched the number.

"Jackson Law Office."

"Hello, Susan. It's Barbara Pendleton. Is he in?"

"He just stepped out. Can I have him call you?"

"Just tell him to go ahead."

"I have the letter right here, signed and ready to go." Susan fell silent a moment, then added, "You're sure, of course."

"I'm sure."

"To his law office?"

"With a copy delivered to the house, by one o'clock at the latest."

"I'll get right on it."

Barbara put down the phone and picked up her keys, slung her purse over her shoulder and walked on down the hall. She took the card with the long letter to Thad from her purse and laid it on his bed, retreated to the door and looked back from the hallway. His Walkman was sitting on his desk; he'd reach for that first on returning from the club, might not even notice the card until turning in. So she gathered the Walkman and set it on his pillow, then propped the note up against the headphones, his name flowing in blue cursive across the white field of the third envelope she'd used getting it right.

Face-to-face would be better. But Barbara didn't owe that to Chase, and she liked the way she'd worked out for telling him. And while she would prefer to tell Thad in person—confirming what he already knew, that his parents had drifted apart and it wasn't his fault, and telling him about the apartment she'd found near his prep school on the Upper East Side—she knew Thad would have seen something like this coming, even as Chase would not. He'd know why she did it this way, especially since leaving him a letter he could hand to his father was better than leaving him to be cross-examined about whatever she'd told him in person. Thad would call as soon as he felt like talking. Whether he'd take her suggestion to talk to his father—"about whatever is on your mind, or his"—was another matter. She hoped the change would usher in a rejuvenation of their relationship before Thad went off to college. But for that to happen they'd need to start talking as they hadn't in years. Barbara liked leaving them alone together with every reason to start, and no good reason not to.

As she headed for the car, she stopped to look back from the foyer. Heat poured in through the double doors. She had thought she'd be thinking of the nights she spent waiting; of Chase finding her lawyer's letter; of the homecomings here that would not be. Instead she found herself thinking of the best of Christmas mornings; of Thad reading her letter; of the homecomings that still would be, not here but in the city. She thought of the flat at 81st and Lex, and re-arranging whenever it struck her fancy; of shopping at the corner grocer and walking home to make dinner; of taking the subway to the art gallery in Chelsea, which she'd browsed through last week and come away with a job. A job for which she had no real qualifications. A job her lawyer said she didn't need, but she wanted anyway.

She would have a life without Chase. A life with less infrastructure and more room to move. Thad would have a second base of operations for the years he had left at Walton, and a home that was never half-empty.

Vanessa loved her work. Eight years old the first time she flew, she'd looked for excuses to fly ever since, and five years ago found the best one of all. Now she was on a bus to JFK in her blue United pantsuit, for a one-week tour of duty with a layover in D.C.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from STRAYSby Matthew Geyer Copyright © 2012 by Matthew Geyer. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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