Page 28 of The Chaperones

Charles, the stay-at-home dad

With a flourish, I twist the top of a garbage bag and add it to the locker designated for our waste. After one meal, the locker’s almost full.

From a few yards away, Cassie laughs as she and Dave arrange the cornhole boards. It’s her devilish laugh, like she’s said something dirty. I hate that I know her laughs.

I search the campground, but Ray is nowhere to be found. Maybe he decided to take a nap with Kai. Before I’ve unzipped the tent, I’m heartened by the sight I’ll find inside, a tender moment between my husband and our son. But, nope, he’s not in there either.

Brady intercepts me as I head over to the kitchen to ask Ray’s guys if they know where he went.

“Mind if I borrow your phone?” Brady fidgets, scratching his arms like he’s on something. It strikes me again how weird it is that Mona isn’t here.

I pull it out of my back pocket and hand it to him. “Not sure how much service you’ll get out here.”

“The ranger said there’s reception at the end of the dock. Don’t worry, I won’t let Wyatt anywhere near it.” I wonder briefly why he’s mentioned his son until I remember what happened on the boat, why Brady needs my phone in the first place. “Thanks.” He wags the phone at me.

“Really, it’s no problem.” We lock eyes for a minute, and I try to convey to him that it will be okay, even though I have no idea what’s going on between him and Mona.

As he jogs off, a tension catches in my chest. I’ve just given my phone to Mona Watson’s husband. The phone with my text messages to Cassie on it. Sure, I always delete the messages after each exchange and clear out the trash. While I have her labeled as Sandy, a nickname for Cassandra that I know she hates, I worry that maybe there’s some way to MacGyver my phone to see the erased messages? Maybe Brady and Mona have orchestrated her absence to get into my phone and expose me and Cassie?

Relax, dude. You’re spiraling. I pop another gummy to calm myself down. My second of the day. Hey, it’s the afternoon now, and we’re on vacation. Or whatever this trip is. As the sweet, herbaceous gelatin hits my tongue, I promise myself that I won’t take another until the boys are in bed. It’s psychosomatic, but instantaneously, every muscle in my body releases its tension. Brady is not MacGyver. He’s a money man. A cog. Although Mona is vindictive, there’s no way she could know about me and Cassie. Even if she did, there are easier ways to expose us. Still, I can’t shake the unsettled feeling I have about all this.

Which continues to make one thing perfectly clear: Sneaking around with Cassie isn’t fun anymore.

Cassie tosses a beanbag toward the wood plank at her husband’s feet. My eyes drift across the campsite until they land on Yoo-Jin, a trash bag extended in her hand as she watches me watch them.

The panic surges again.

“Need another?” she asks, jiggling the trash bag for emphasis.

“Sure.” My voice is shaky. She knows. They all know. I’m so fucked.

As she smiles at me, handing me a new bag, I wait for her to make a snide remark that lets me know just how fucked I am.

“It’d be nice if everyone who signed up for cleanup actually helped.” Her gaze is fixed on Cassie, who’s doing a little shimmy as her beanbag floats into the cornhole. I smile and take the bag, feeling momentary relief. She doesn’t know anything. Still, none of this is fun.

I collect the plates of half-eaten burgers, mesmerized by the congealed juices that glint in the light. Everything at the campsite glows, and even as I’m holding a bag of half-eaten food, I shut my eyes and embrace the world around me. The birds sing. The leaves and grass sizzle. The strong sun warms my eager skin.

“S-Man, where are we on the flank steak?” Ray calls to Stefan, having just returned to camp with an undeniable skip in his step, cell phone in hand. Then, I remember that my husband had disappeared, that I’d been looking for him before the most recent Cassie-related panic surfaced.

Stefan peers up from his station, where he’s furiously slicing radishes. Leave it to Ray to bring radishes on a camping trip.

“On it,” Stefan says.

Ray spots me, pure glee on his face. My cheeks flush as he jogs over. He must have gotten good news about the show.

Ray takes my hand and pulls me behind a tree near the kitchen area, where we have some semblance of privacy. He kisses me hard, which catches me off guard because Ray is never one for public displays of affection, certainly not in front of all these straight parents. I’m too stoned to care, too elated that my husband got good news, that he won’t fall into another one of his dark patches, a place neither of us wants to relapse to.

“Did you hear from the producers?” I ask. The knot in my stomach unfurls for the first time since Ray told me about the total quagmire he created out of his show.

I knew Ray was smitten with James, a contestant on his show, but it felt safe because I understood my husband and his ethics, the separation of church and state he always maintained. He would never sleep with a contestant, not after they were on the show, not if they were the first one kicked off, and especially not if they won. And so, I’d teased him about his crush. How’s the Southern hottie? as we’d taken to calling James. Did he make something spicy today? Does he have a brother for me? At least, I’d assumed it was a joke until I came home one day and found Ray staring at the pool, smoking a cigarette.

Ray had quit smoking years before. He indulged occasionally. But to be smoking out in the open, where our kids could see—something alarming must have happened. Ray is not dramatic. He’s very patrician in that way, even though he’s from Oakland, born to immigrant parents. When I asked if everything was okay, he’d said, “I’ll sort it out,” with such curtness that I stubbed out his cigarette and demanded an explanation. He remained impassive, only divulging “That little weasel.” I listened in disbelief as he explained how the runner-up on the upcoming season—not that I was supposed to know that—had discovered that Ray and James, the forthcoming champion—not that I was supposed to know that either—were having an affair. He’d gone straight to the executives, claimed preferential treatment, and threatened to go public. The relationship had started after the season had wrapped. Ray had text messages and receipts proving as much. That was immaterial to the network in the face of what would most definitely be a scandal.

It wasn’t a betrayal to me. I never interpreted it that way. But Ray had to know what it would do to his show if anyone found out. What it was doing, because someone had found out. Whether or not the runner-up was a weasel was irrelevant. There were clauses in Ray’s contract. Financial and moral. This wasn’t exclusively about his reputation. Ray could also be on the hook monetarily for any reshoots or recuts. And if they had to bag the whole season, I didn’t want to think what that meant.

As Ray told me the story, watching the still surface of the pool the entire time, I willed myself to stop spiraling. It wouldn’t help Ray. And I understood why he’d been so reckless. Ray gets bored when things are too easy, and they’d been too easy for him for too long. He wanted to see how it felt to break his own rules, to blow everything up. I understood because it was the same thing with me and Cassie.

It was then, in my husband’s lowest moment, that I grew desperate to put a stop to my little fling with Cassie Bent.