Roving Eye

Tourists mob the brick promenade along the Inner Harbor. After all, it's the first nice day since spring began: sunny skies and the air so warm one can feel comfortable wearing nothing. Leslie and Irwin Carpman, like many of the couples out today, hold hands as they stroll along the promenade, watching the people and the boats docked along the bulkhead, from old sloops to cruise ships and water taxis.

Married for five years, both are in their early thirties. The honeymoon might be over, but their love still endures. Sure, there are things about Irwin that annoy Leslie, the way he sometimes leaves the kitchen, his snoring and his penchant for losing things, his key rings and such. She knows she's not perfect either, knows that Irwin hates when she talks with food in her mouth or takes what he considers an eternity to get ready to go out. Minor stuff to what she deems more serious—Irwin's habit of leering at other women. Do it when you're alone, she tells him, not when you're out with me. Yes, dear, he says, but then goes right on doing it.

Today is no different. His roving eye can't stop roving. All these young girls in their shorts and minis and halters, flashing their shapely gams and big boobs and tight little butts in front of him. "You're doing it again, Irwin," Leslie says. She drops his hand like a dishrag. "At least make an attempt to be discreet."

He points to the crowd. "With all this young tail flaunting their stuff, it's not easy. I'm barely into my thirties, young, virile and vigorous."

She knows the virile and vigorous part is said tongue and cheek. Even so, it annoys her. "Really? Well, I'm not some wrinkled old biddy, you know. I mean, I have some decent T and A myself. Or don't you no longer notice?" She does a pirouette in her shorts and block heels .

He notices and he couldn't agree more. Decent T and A indeed, and a face, beautiful and radiant, to go with it. Her hair—he loves her hair, light brown, big and thick and styled in a unique way, with bangs that sweep across her forehead, parted halfway back, then swirls over the sides and flips in back. So yes, of course he notices. But Leslie's hot looks doesn't curb his eye for other women—and not just drop-dead gorgeous women. In fact, many of them rank below his wife in that sexist, time-honored, male dominated numbers game. Leslie rates a seven in his view, five being average out of ten. Transcribed to words: pretty/exceptionally cute. Yet he still looks because that's what guys do; it's built into their DNA.

"Okay, how's this," he says. "I'll look with only one eye." He steps in front of her to demonstrate, shutting his left eye closed and grinning.

She is not amused. Still, she tries to shrug it off. Annoyed though she might be at his leering, she never once suspects that he's been unfaithful. She knows his daily/weekly routines, his work hours, his weekly golf game, his boys' nights out. Plus, their sex life isn't bad. It could be better given the right mood and situation. Hunger pangs for better sometimes gnaw at her innards. Oh, well, at least they do okay financially, pay their bills and enjoy discretionary funds for fun, vacations and dinners out. So, other than his roving eye and those sexual hunger pangs, she doesn't have much to complain about. But still...

"Look, let's get a beer," she suggests.

"A wonderful idea," he says. "My treat."

"No, my treat," she insists. "My idea, my treat."

They order two Heinekens while seating themselves in front of one of the pavilions at a round metal table shaded by an orange umbrella facing the promenade. The seat affords them a view of the Sunday strollers and the harbor, with its aforementioned boats and ships.

"A lovely day, isn't, it?" Leslie says.

"Perfect, absolutely perfect." He says this while craning his neck at some blond, mini-skirted babe passing by.

"Jesus, Irwin, you can't you take your eyes off them for more than two minutes, can you?"

He jerks away. "Sorry."

She shakes her head. "Are you really?"

He shrugs. "You've got beautiful blue eyes, Leslie. Did I ever tell you that?"

Their beers arrive in tall green bottles. Leslie pays the waiter. Then she says, "Yes, quite a few times. If only you'd look at them more instead of focusing elsewhere."

He leans into her. "I'm looking, Leslie, I'm looking."

"With one eye you're looking. The other is focused on one of your insignificant others."

He pulls back and chuckles. He can't deny it, for he has indeed checked out the tall, pony-tailed brunette now passing in front of them. He throws up his hands. "Guilty as charged."

She shakes her head and sighs. "You're incorrigible."

"Maybe, but I follow a simple rule."

"Yeah, what's that?"

"Look but don't touch."

"There's something to be said for that, I guess." She takes a swig.

"There's lots to be said for that. We both know married people who cheat."

She raises her eyebrows. "We do? You might, I don't."

"Whatever. The point is, I've been faithful and always will be."

She reaches over and pets his arm. "I know that, Irwin. I trust you've never been on Ashley Madison."

"I don't know any Ashleys."

She chuckles. "It's a dating site for married people."

"And how would you know that?" He knocks back a swig.

She knows he's teasing. "Their ads pop up on my laptop all the time."

"Just checking."

They sit in silence, watching the passing parade, sipping their beers. Then Irwin says, "Be honest. Have you ever been tempted?"

"Tempted?"

"To cheat, to seek out extracurricular action on this Ashley Madison site."

She flashes him a scolding look, knows he's now serious. "You've got to be kidding."

"That's a no, I take it."

"An incontrovertible no!"

He knocks back another swig. "So who's Billy Hernandez?"

"Um, what? Who?" She squirms in her chair.

"You don't know?"

She sits up straight. "Where did you get that name?"

"Last week, when you were in the basement doing laundry, your phone rang. The name Billy Hernandez popped up on the screen. I pressed the button and kept silent. Then this male voice kept saying Leslie. When I said no, it's Irwin, he said he had the wrong number and hung up. Care to explain?"

"It was the wrong number, obviously, just like he said. And you shouldn't be answering my cell." She glares into his dark brown eyes, feels like punching that long, thin nose of his.

"Why are you so angry? Your cell was sitting on your dresser. It rang and I picked it up. It could have been an important call, an emergency perhaps."

"Thanks, Irwin," she growls through gritted teeth, straining to control her caustic tone, "but next time just let it ring. Okay?"

"Will do," he nods, while ogling a group of college age girls walking by, all in shorts, all sexy in his eyes. "So," he says, turning back to her, "you really don't know a Billy Hernandez?"

She bangs her fist on the table. "Jesus, Irwin, I just said I didn't. What are you driving at?"

"You're not being truthful, Leslie. I can tell when you're not being truthful. We've been married for five years, dated a few years before that. I think we know each other pretty well. So who is this Billy Hernandez?"

"You tell me, Irwin, you took the call. Meanwhile, why don't you stare at some girls or something and stop interrogating me."

Suddenly, he loses his taste for girl watching. The weather doesn't seem so warm or the beer so cold or the harbor scenery so scenic. "Maybe we should go."

"Maybe you're right. Maybe—"

Her phone goes off.

Leslie whips it out of her purse, then glances at the screen. "Oh crap!" She pushes herself away from the table, scrambles under the pavilion's green canopy a few yards away and turns her back to him while she takes the call. She returns less than a minute later, fidgety and breathing heavy.

"Mind if I ask who it was?"

She smirks. "Mind if I don't tell?"

"Kind of. I've never seen you stress like that over a phone call. It wasn't Billy Wrong Number Hernandez, was it?"

She glares at him for a few seconds before answering. "You're getting on my nerves, Irwin, you know that?" She grabs her bottle, knocks back a hard swig, then slams it back down with a resounding bong.

"If you're fooling around, I think you should tell me."

"Look who's talking, Mr. Voyeur Extraordinaire over here."

"Look but don't touch, like I said."

"How noble, keeping your lust in your heart."

"Where do you keep yours?"

"Up your ass!" She jumps up from the table. "I don't know about you, but I'm outta here. You can follow me to the car or stay here and do your thing."

He doesn't answer. Instead, he watches her take off in a brisk walk for the parking garage. He has to admit, she's got one fine butt. He'd bet this Billy Hernandez thinks so too.