A Conversation I Didn’t Want to Overhear
When Susan embarks on a dream vacation to New Zealand with her husband, she doesn’t expect to find herself ensnared in a web of unsettling social dynamics and personal revelations. Amidst the breathtaking landscapes and luxurious resorts, Susan grapples with feelings of inadequacy stemming from her unconventional past and awkward encounters with elitist acquaintances. A chance encounter with a mysterious stranger in the dead of night further unravels her sense of security, leaving her reeling with fear and vulnerability. Susan’s story is a poignant exploration of identity, marriage and the hidden dangers that lurk beneath the surface, even in paradise.
This story is fictional. Any resemblance to living people is coincidental.
Travel has its dangers, some of them of a social nature. My husband Paul and I recently took a two week trip to New Zealand, a country we had wanted to visit for a long time. There, we stayed in a series of resorts on both islands – drop dead gorgeous, to be sure, but also very insular in terms of the people one met. By that, I mean the same groups of people followed a circuit and were booked into the same hotels at the same time, so that they would run into one another at each stop. Not knowing a thing about New Zealand aside from its famed beauty, we had of course used a travel agent, as had the people we kept bumping into.
At dinner at our first stop, the Huka Lodge in the Lake Taupo region, I noticed two couples traveling together at another table. Probably I took interest in them because they looked just like us – older, dressed in the same kind of sporty clothing, educated, well-to-do. My ears pricked up, trying to hear what they were talking about. For a while it was chit chat I couldn’t quite decipher. Then I heard the name “Trump” peppered into the conversation and started to really listen. My game was to figure out who was for and who was against. Since I was vehemently against, I relaxed once I heard enough to understand they were against in the same way I was.
After dinner, we retreated to the lounge which was vast, with many comfortable chairs and couches, one of them in front of a cozily burning fire. Through large windows, there was a view of the patio and sweeping lawn that led to a wide and rapidly moving river further down. Tasteful landscape paintings dotted the walls, approximating the feel of an old and well-heeled country manor somewhere in Buckinghamshire or Surrey. The two couples I’d noticed were there as well, and inevitably we began to talk. They were American, and not surprisingly, one of the other gentlemen had gone to Yale, as had my husband, and though they were in different classes (my husband was a little older), they knew a number of people in common.
While they discussed various professors and courses, I spaced out and studied their wives – Anita, who was seventy-ish with dyed brown hair and eyebrows, and Barbara, who was petite and pretty with bright red nails and half a dozen fine gold bracelets that swiveled around a bony wrist. I was in silent mode. Although I, too, had gone to a prestigious college – or rather several of them as I had taken breaks to travel abroad and had had to skip a term while I was sick with hepatitis – I always felt “less-than” in terms of my college career. I simply didn’t want to explain why I had dropped out to go to art school or why I had jumped from one school to another because of some devastating guy I’d met.
All that was in the past, but I couldn’t quite let go of a sense of inferiority that I carried with me due to the many interruptions in my education. Also, I often was tongue-tied when I met new people. I would just shut down.
Not really wanting to talk to either of these women, I retired to our cottage, which was softly carpeted and luxurious, with his and hers sinks and a jacuzzi tub the size of a large pond. Paul showed up maybe half an hour later, all hyped up from the excitement of running into people who knew people he knew. While he babbled on and on, I got into bed with my book (the latest by Kristin Hannah, nothing too highbrow). I’d been working hard recently and was so tired that the book slid to my chest, and I passed out with my glasses on and the sound of Paul’s voice reverberating in my head. Something about how excited he was to go fly fishing the next day.
When I awoke in the morning, Paul was already gone. I put on shorts and a camisole top and arranged my long white hair in a twist. My legs were still good – no varicose veins – and after a leisurely breakfast, I sauntered across the lawn with my sketchbook, looking for a quiet place to sit and draw. Eventually I found a hidden spot beneath some trees and kicked off my sandals and lay down with my arms spread wide on the soft grass. I’d intended to sketch the foliage, but I must have dozed off for a few minutes because suddenly I jerked awake to voices nearby – Anita and Barbara who had parked themselves on the lawn a few yards from me. I was too well-concealed for them to even be aware I was there.
“Do you think she’s had work done?” I heard Barbara sing out.
“Duh, obviously,” rang Anita’s voice. “She’s got to be at least seventy and that skin’s so tight you could bounce a dime off it.”
“I know someone who was friends with her at Barnard. Apparently she was a real slut.”
There was a loud haha and then, “I’ll bet she was,” snickered Anita. “That blouse she was wearing last night? You could see right through it, saggy tits and all. Who does she think she is?”
The two women laughed heartily. I realized they were talking about me and my cheeks began to sting. Suddenly I was the timid, clueless girl I’d been at twenty.
“And what about him?” Barbara tittered..
“What about him? He looks like a total prig.”
“Yeah, well he didn’t used to be. A friend of mine went out with him and said his hands were always all over every woman he encountered.”
“A ladies’ man,” said Anita.
“No, a groper. He was known for it.”
“Isn’t it funny,” said Anita, “that one never quite outpaces one’s reputation.”
I didn’t think it was funny. The Paul I knew was reserved and quiet, a lawyer who never put a foot wrong. He didn’t smile much and was extremely proper, always shushing me when I let my indignant side out and began loudly condemning people like Trump or Elon Musk or Sean Hannity. And the remark about me being a slut? I was kind of tickled by that since it implied I was still a sexual being. But I was also horrified. Back in the day, I’d been a lush who smoked too much pot and was pretty indiscriminate about who I slept with. For years I’d drawn a curtain over those times. The girl who’d woken up with some strange guy in her bed had ceased to exist, a memory carefully buried. I wanted the idea – the very thought of – Paul as a groper buried too.
That night as we were getting ready for bed, I watched Paul strip out of his polo shirt and khakis. He was still a fine-looking man – full head of hair, body that had aged well due to years of squash and tennis and jogging. He’d been a fairly prominent lawyer, had even considered going into politics (it was me, his irreverent artist wife who’d stopped him). But now I was mad at him. Had this very correct and formal man actually laid hands on women without their permission?
A series of images played through my mind: Paul’s fingers straying over a breast, plunging into a neckline, wandering up a skirt – ew, disgusting. But also kind of tantalizing: my husband, the rake. In fantasy I could live with that, as with fantasies of winning major awards or being invited to the White House. But in reality?
Paul got in bed with an old mannish sigh and immediately opened his book, Populism and the Future of the Fed, hardly exciting reading. That made me even more angry at him. “I hate the way you shut me out every night,” I blurted.
“Hunh?” muttered Paul. I’d never made a complaint like that before.
“You get in bed and dive right into a book as if I weren’t here.”
“You do the same thing,” Paul said, not taking eyes off his book.
“I bet you never did that with other women you were with.”
“Susan, Jesus!” Paul said, annoyed. “We’ve been married a long time.”
As if that had anything to do with anything. “How many women were you actually with?” I asked.
Paul set the book aside. “I don’t know. Does it really matter?”
“Yes,” I said and I could hear the hiss in my voice. “It kind of makes a difference in the way I think of you.”
“Forty years, four children and two grandchildren later? What’s this all about?”
“I don’t even know if you’ve been faithful to me,” I said, pouting.
Suddenly I wasn’t sure of the integrity of my marriage. All it had taken was a few random remarks by two gossiping women on a lawn.
“First of all,” Paul huffed, “I’ve always been faithful. And second, I don’t know what’s brought this on, but whatever it is, let’s talk in the morning.” And with that he snapped off the light and turned over on his side, facing away from me and immediately falling asleep.
That, I thought, was another thing that bothered me – Paul’s ability to tune out the world and fall into a deep sleep at pretty much the same time every night, leaving me awake and struggling. I could toss and turn, or open my book, or go outside and walk around for a few minutes to let off steam. I decided on the latter. I was in a skimpy nightie and quickly pulled on a bathrobe and tiptoed from the room. Without thinking, I headed for the pool area, walking down a path thickly lined with ferns and palmettos, and then up a few steps to the pool, whose waters lay flat and black under a sky filled with a crazy expanse of stars.
The place was very private, surrounded by flowery hedges and velvety strips of lawn. It was so hushed and quiet that even the slap of my naked feet on flagstone seemed intrusive. In this fragrant sanctuary, I could let go of my silly little worries and just sit there and think about nothing. I sank onto a lawn chair, spreading my legs in front of me. The stillness was like a balm, thick and luxurious, and for a few moments I closed my eyes, feeling as if I was the only person awake in the vast night, and as if the whole world had vanished except for this one silent, redolent spot that seemed to be there just to protect and embrace me. It was so good, the air so sweet, my surroundings so private. I let out a deep, happy sigh and allowed my body to relax fully, almost blissfully, into the chair. I was going to doze off, I thought, and that would be fine, a rich sleep out in the open, under the stars. I must have lain there slumbering a good five minutes before I suddenly had the sense I wasn’t alone.
My skin prickled as I sat up in my chair and looked around. At first I saw no one and thought my mind was playing tricks on me; but then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a slight movement and there, under a thicket of branches, so woven into the scenery that he seemed invisible, sat a man. He was as white and immobile as a statue, but the dark black circles of his eyes seemed to be staring straight at me. I gave a little scream and shot out of my chair. The man smiled faintly, as if he could read into my distress, but I was so freaked I didn’t want to spend even a second in his creepy presence, and I got out of there as fast as I could, legs churning shakily beneath me.
Our cottage was only a few feet down the path, but I was out of breath, my heart beating wildly as I dove through the door. Despite the warmth of the room, I was freezing cold and shaking badly. I gasped for air. My face was wet with tears. I couldn’t seem to make my mind understand what had just happened, but deep inside my body felt as if I’d been assaulted, beaten up, demeaned. I crept across the room to the bathroom, turned on the shower and let hot water flow over me, leaving my bathrobe and nightie on the floor as if they were too stained and dirty to be put away. Then, naked, I slid into bed, settling as close to Paul as I could. In the darkness, he threw his arm over me and murmured, “You okay, Susie?”
I was, I assured him through chattering teeth. Pressing against him, I said it again. “I’m just fine.”