Unfaithful - Natalie Barelli Page 0,86

Ryan here, please go sell your wares somewhere else. But no. She gives me a quick up and down appraisal and opens the door wider.

“Yes, he is. Come in.”

She ushers me into the living room, a large space divided in the center by double doors that almost take up the entire width. The house is lovely inside, with arched doorways and eye-catching woodwork around the doors. A window looks out onto a backyard where the dog sniffs around a wrought-iron garden table.

This is absolutely not what I had in mind.

“Would you like to sit down?” she asks.

“That’s all right, thank you. I’ve been driving. I like to stretch my legs.”

“Of course. Did you come from far?”

“Not really,” I say, thereby contradicting myself. I don’t add anything else so after a moment or two, she smiles and says, “Well, I’ll fetch Ryan. I won’t be a minute.”

I walk idly around the room, contemplate a framed poster of a Matisse exhibition at the Tate Gallery from 1953. In one corner of the room is a built-in cabinet, with shelves on top and cupboards below. I glance at the framed photos nestled among leafy plants. Ryan appears in a number of them, and they suggest that the woman who welcomed me is his mother.

Grown man Ryan lives with his mother.

Which goes some way to explaining things, I think. One photo, partly obscured by a split-leaf philodendron, catches my eye. I reach for it, and a rush of something like anger, or fear, erupts inside me. I have to pick it up, to look closer, to make sure I’m not mistaken. Blood is pulsing in my ears as I study the group photo, close to twenty people maybe, all gathered around Ryan’s mother, who is seated in the center. Most people are standing, some of the younger children are sitting crossed-legged on the floor. Ryan is standing next to his mother, his hand loosely resting on the back of her chair. I peer even closer but there’s no mistake. In the next row, to the left, plainly visible…

“Here we are,” she says behind me. I’m still holding the photo when I turn around. Ryan is standing next to her, staring at me, an astonished look on his face. His gaze drops to the photo in my hand, and a patch of crimson grows up his neck and spreads across his cheeks.

“What’s this?” I ask him, holding the photo, my mouth trembling.

His mother frowns, looks from me to him. “It’s from my birthday,” she replies. “If you must know.” She tilts her head slightly, one hand tapping lightly on her sternum. “What was your name again?”

“Anna. Ryan, can I have a word?” I can feel my nostrils flaring.

“Is everything all right?” his mother asks.

My eyes won’t leave his face and without answering her, he says, “Yeah, sure, it’s this way.”

I put the photo back on the shelf and follow him down to the back of the house.

Ryan has the run of the basement, a large room divided loosely into sections.

“How did you find me?” he asks. I close the door of his room and he looks nervous suddenly. Good. I think back to the day I met him at the party. I can still see him pointing to Geoff on the opposite side of the room. Is he your boyfriend? Your husband, then?

“You want to tell me what’s going on here, Ryan?”

He sits down on a beanbag, doesn’t offer me a seat—not that I want one. I’m standing, my fists on my hips, so angry I’m vibrating.

“How do you know Geoff?”

He looks down at his hands. “He’s my uncle.”

“Oh my god!” I have to sit down after all. I pull out the chair from the front of his desk. “Your uncle?” I have a headache. It’s knocking at the back of my skull. “So why did you pretend not to know him when I met you that day?”

“Because he asked me to.”

“Why?”

“He wanted me to take a photo of you.”

“He wanted a photo of me? You’re going to have to do better than that, Ryan. What the hell is going on?”

He looks at me, cheeks burning with embarrassment. “He wanted a naked selfie of you.”

I could tell him, technically, if he takes the photo it’s not a selfie, but I don’t. I listen, my head in my hands, while Ryan explains our almost-tryst was a set-up. He was supposed to approach me as soon as Geoff left me alone, and lure me into that empty