The Last Original Wife

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  Seven thirty rolled around and I was wildly pissed with Charlotte. What was the matter with her? Didn’t she think I had to eat dinner? I was starving! She did this exact same thing all the time to Leslie. But it was different! Leslie was her mother and she didn’t have the same social responsibilities that I did. Finally, at right before eight, I saw her headlights through the window as she pulled into the driveway. I felt like wringing her neck.

  I went to the door and opened it, waiting for her to get out of her car.

  “Just where the hell have you been?” I yelled to her.

  “Daddy! Daddy! I’m so sorry! I didn’t know my phone was off! I should’ve called you. I know, I know.”

  She walked past me and into the house. I closed the door and followed her, jabbing my finger into the air between us.

  “Do you know your little girl has been throwing up her guts all afternoon? No! Of course you don’t because you don’t have enough sense to keep your phone on!”

  “Oh, please! Kids throw up all the time. I look at her and she throws up. It’s no big deal, Daddy.”

  “Really? Wait till you see what she did to your mother’s custom-made kitchen cabinets!”

  “Come on. Show me.”

  “And another thing, Charlotte. Where’s your consideration of my time? I had a golf game this afternoon! People were waiting for me!”

  “I thought you said you weren’t playing, Daddy. That’s what you said.”

  “No, ma’am. It is not what I said. You said you’d be back by three and I said good, I’d still have time for nine holes! Remember now?”

  “Well, I’m sorry. I really am. Wow! She really did a number on Mom’s kitchen, didn’t she?”

  “It’s probably gonna cost twenty thousand dollars to replace them and who’s supposed to pay for that?”

  “Oh, Daddy, they’re washable markers. Do you have like Windex or something? I can wipe it right off.”

  “Oh, sure you can! How should I know if we have Windex? Look under the sink. Good luck with that.” I knew the cabinets were ruined, and I was almost disappointed when Holly’s artwork disappeared in minutes as though it was never there. When it was all spotless, I started to calm down.

  “So what did you feed her?”

  “Feed her? Um, well, she had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then half of a Nutella and banana sandwich and some Coca-Cola and then later on while we were watching television she had a couple of Twinkies and I think one Devil Dog.”

  “Are you trying to kill her? You want to know why she got sick? Jesus, Daddy, what were you thinking?”

  “Don’t criticize your father. Didn’t you ever read the Bible?” I knew she was right, but what was the point in admitting guilt? What was done was done. So I wouldn’t do it again.

  She was staring at me with that same face of indignation her mother had from time to time, standing there with her hands on her hips.

  “So, Charlotte, did you sell the house?” I knew that would get her.

  “Oh, please! It was just an open house, Daddy. It was fifty brokers eating chicken salad sandwiches and gabbing their heads off. But I think I have a buyer who would love it. We’ll see. I’d better get Holly home. She’s asleep?”

  “Yeah, like an angel.”

  “So maybe I should just pick her up in the morning? I don’t want to disturb her. You don’t know how hard it is to put her back to bed.”

  I just stood there wondering for a moment if she was serious. Was this how she manipulated her mother? No wonder Leslie was fed up with her all the time.

  “And I sort of made plans to meet some friends for drinks. What do you think?”

  “I think you go and get your daughter, take her home, put her to bed, and act like a mother should. If it’s hard to get her back to sleep, that’s your problem. If you’d been on time, you could’ve put her to bed at her normal time. In her own house.”

  “Wow, Daddy, you’re really pissed, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. Yes, I am. You took advantage of me, now you want to take advantage of me some more, and I don’t like it. Now, move yourself before I really lose my temper.”

  “Oh, come on, Daddy. I said I was sorry.”

  “Sorry? Really? Maybe this kind of behavior is why your mother’s in Charleston! Did you ever think about that?”

  “Blame me? You want to blame me?”

  Charlotte flounced out of the room and came back inside of a minute with a sleeping Holly thrown over her shoulder, headed for the front door.

  “Daddy,” she said, “you want to know why Momma’s in Charleston? Look in the mirror.”

  She slammed the door and was gone. Boy, she had some lousy temper.

  The phone rang. I picked it up and knew from the familiar crackle that it was Bertie calling from Kathmandu.

  “Bertie? Is that you?”

  “Hi, Dad! What’s happening?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re calling for money! Not tonight! I can’t take it!”

  “Actually, I have some good news.”

  “I’m all ears,” I said and sighed.

  “I sold three images to National Geographic. They’re going to be in a special issue on Bhutan and Tibet.”

  “Well, that’s good news, son! How much does it pay?”

  “Well, only six hundred dollars and I don’t get paid for thirty days. So do you think you could help me out just one more time?”

  “NO!” I slammed the phone down as hard as I could.

  I was going to the club. I was going straight to the bar. I was going to have a double vodka martini straight up, dirty not filthy, with two olives. I couldn’t get there fast enough.

  In the car on the way there, I thought about Charlotte and Bertie. No wonder Leslie was always on edge. Our kids were a damn disgrace. But singing along with Dean Martin cheered me up.

  There was no valet that night, so I parked and went inside to the crowded bar. Harold and Cornelia waved me over. Lisette was sitting at the long teak bar with Paolo, but she was wearing sunglasses and a hat. Very odd, I thought. It was dark outside.

  “Hey! We’ve been waiting so long we were giving up hope!” Harold said.

  I ordered my drink, gave Harold a slap on the shoulder, and smooched Cornelia on her cheek. “How are you, gorgeous?” I said to her. “Sorry, guys, my daughter was late and then my son called.” The bartender handed me my martini and I said, “Cheers!”

  “Drink up!” Harold said. “We’re way ahead of you.”

  “What’s the news with Bertie?” Paolo said.

  “Well, he’s actually sold some of his work,” I said. He was wrong to keep asking for money, but it probably wasn’t nice for me to slam the phone on his ear. Oh, so what?

  “That’s wonderful!”

  “Yeah,” I said, “thanks! So Lisette? What’s going on, darlin’? Setting a new fashion trend or something?”

  She took off her hat and sunglasses. There was no hair where her bangs should’ve been, and she’d obviously been on a crying jag.

  Paolo leaned into me and whispered. “My girls? Well, they aren’t so sweet on my marriage as you know and they did something stupid . . .”

  “Stupid?” Lisette wailed. “Wes? They put Nair in my shampoo bottle! It’s criminal! I just wanted to freshen up my bangs! Then the phone rang and I got hung up in a conversation for like fifteen minutes and then my hair came out in the sink! Thank God I didn’t wash my whole head!” She started crying again.

  Lisette was a card-carrying airhead, but she made Paolo happy.

  “Oh, honey,” I said and thought, Holy shit! Wasn’t Nair that smelly stuff women used to get rid of hair? Yeah, and obviously it worked. “That’s terrible! Why would they do such a thing?”

  “Because they hate me!” She really began to blubber in earnest.

  “Come on now, sweetheart,” Paolo said and put his arm around her.

  I reached for my handkerchief and realized I didn’t have one to give her. Another thing Les always to
ok care of for me. Thanks, Les! I can’t play the gentleman because of you!

  “Wait, wait! Y’all? There’s more,” Cornelia said in a drawn-out drawl, one that might come from Scarlett O’Hara herself. “They also cut the crotch out of all her panties. Nice, huh?”

  “Good grief,” I said and thought, Good God! That’s disgusting! “Well, they can be replaced. It’s only money.”

  Now, since when did I feel like that? It’s only money? I’ll tell you, since Leslie took off, I was seeing the world in a whole new light.

  CHAPTER 11

  Leslie on a Slippery Slope

  One of the first things I did Saturday morning was to call Danette, not because there was so much to discuss. I guess I was just lonely for my old friend and wanted to hear her voice. Talking to her might add some note of normalcy to my day.

  “Hey! You busy?”

  “Hang on! Let me turn down the television. Now where’d I put that darn clicker? Oh! There it is sticking out from under the bag of celery. This kitchen looks like a bomb went off. I’m making chicken stock and veal stock. Been up for hours.” I could hear her television blasting in the background of her kitchen and her cook’s clogs thumping across the floor. The noise subsided and she resumed our conversation. “So what’s going on? How’s Jonathan? Hmmmm?”

  “Well, I don’t have to sew big red As on all my clothes, if that’s what you’re asking. What’re you watching? Barefoot Contessa?”

  “Of course I am. And of course that’s what I’m asking! What happened last night?”

  “Ah me, last night, last night . . . It was all very nice, I’m sorry to say. First, we went to a very swank rooftop bar on East Bay Street to have a glass of wine.”

  “Which one? I’m trying to visualize this. I don’t have all day here.”

  Danette had obviously swallowed more coffee that morning than I had.

  “The one that’s above a steak house called Grill 225, which by the way, is mind-blowingly good. Anyway, we ordered some wine and talked about the state of the world, you know, reminiscing about the old days. It was great. And I got my cast off.”

  “Good about the cast, but cut to the chase, please.”

  “Well, we watched the sun go down and the lights of the city come up. It was very beautiful.”

  “Ahem!”

  “What?”

  “And then what? Do I have to drag it out of you?”

  “You know, hon, you might need a caffeine intervention?”

  “Sorry. It’s just that I want to hear the story!”

  “Well, we wound up going downstairs and having a steak and a nitrotini, which is a martini that’s smoking because it’s infused somehow with nitrogen? I should’ve taken a picture.”

  “Who cares about that? Please! And then?”

  “And then he walked me home.” I giggled.

  “And then?”

  “And then we said good night, but along the way he said some really sweet things to me.”

  “Such as?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. But one thing stood out. He said something like being with me made him feel so young again. I felt the same way. Energized, you know? I mean, probably just because we were talking about being teenagers and all that stuff. But when I looked in his eyes? I swear to you, Danette, there was the same eighteen-year-old boy I used to love hiding behind all those little crinkles. He was right there.”

  “That’s pretty sweet, Les. And there you were all worried that he’d treat you like an old bag.”

  “Yeah. I know. Stupid, right? Well, anyway, like you, I haven’t been out with another man since the Russians launched Sputnik. In fact, I’ve never even looked at another man since my wedding day, except for George Clooney. He doesn’t count.”

  “No, he doesn’t count.”

  “Listen, Jonathan makes me very nervous. It’s weird, you know?”

  “Of course, I know! So did you feel like a wicked little slut? Ha-ha!”

  “Only for about two seconds. It was practically totally harmless.” I laughed too. “No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t even close to harmless. But it wasn’t exactly dangerous, either. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes. It’s called the mating dance.”

  “Jesus God, Danette. And I mean that as a prayer. Mating dance?”

  “Yeah. You know, he struts a little, watches your reaction, and retreats a bit until he thinks you’re ready? Then he zeros in!”

  “Gross!”

  “Pounce!”

  “Stop!”

  “Whatever! So let me ask you something. Did you kiss him?”

  “God! Danette! No! Decaf!” I gasped, feigning offense. “Okay, but just a sort of drive-by kiss.”

  “What the heck is that?”

  “Like I kiss my granddaughter. You know, a smooch.”

  “How dull. Okay, but could you see yourself with him?”

  “Dan, I can’t see myself with anyone. How’s that?”

  “Know what? Me either. I mean me, not you. I can’t see myself with anyone either. I’ve got this smoking-hot landscape architect from down the street supervising his crew as they’re digging up my backyard. He’s giving me the eye and I’m giving him the eye, but when it’s cocktail time, I pretend I’ve got to rush out the door to meet somebody else.”

  “Wait? Is he asking you to have drinks and you’re saying no?”

  “Yeah, sort of. It’s just too awkward. I don’t know. I’m just not ready or something.”

  “Why not? What’s one drink? At least that’s what I told myself when I wound up spending the entire evening with Jonathan.”

  “Right? Well, he’s a bit younger.”

  “How much?”

  “I don’t know. I think a lot—maybe ten years? Maybe more?”

  I giggled. “And your problem is?”

  “I know. You’re right. I’m like you. But the whole business of having sex with someone new gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

  “Who said anything about sex? Sex? What’s that?”

  “Exactly. My magic garden has dried up from drought.”

  “Magic garden, indeed. So what’s our alternative? If I leave Wes? Are we going to wind up a couple of old biddies going on cheap Caribbean cruises with a bunch of other old biddies? I can see us now, standing on buffet lines, eating twelve kinds of layered Jell-O salads and gray meat loaf, killed under heat lamps. Then we’ll drink too much cheap sangria and flirt with Danish cabin boys who could technically be our grandsons?”

  “What a picture! Hell, no! That will never be us!”

  She laughed like crazy, but I was dead serious. If I left Wes, where was I really headed? Down Lonely Street to the Heartbreak Hotel?

  “You know, Danette, I think I’ve had it with my marriage.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s okay. It really is, you know.”

  “And Charlotte and Bertie too.”

  “Well, your children aren’t even close to who they’re going to become yet. So you can’t really say something terrible like that about them and mean it.”

  “Maybe. I hope you’re right. But you know what? Wes is who he has become and I can’t say I’m too thrilled with him. Not thrilled at all. Oh God, I feel sick inside my heart. I mean, Danette? If you ask one of those guys who makes up actuarial tables? I’m gonna be dead in twenty years. How do I want to spend them? What do I want?”

  “What do any of us want?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I think . . . I think, I just don’t want to feel like I’m already dead. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yes. I know exactly what you mean. For me? I really hated the idea of everything already spelled out before me—predictable everything—and all I was doing was walking this lonely path toward the grave, retrieving Harold’s golf balls from our shrubbery and putting them in a bucket in our garage. If Harold hadn’t left me, there wouldn’t have been a single surprise left in my life.”

  “God, at one point in your life all you want is for life to be predictable. And th
en you wake up one day, you feel like a zombie, and you can’t bear all that predictability for another second.”

  “I tell myself that if it wasn’t for Molly’s wedding, I’d be out there having fun every night. I feel like I have to remain nunlike until after the big day so she doesn’t have to stress about another thing. I mean, she hasn’t said it, but I’m sure she worries that I’ll show up with some man she doesn’t know and embarrass her like Harold did when he showed up married with Cornelia at her engagement party and upstaged the whole night.”

  “And don’t we women always put everyone else first? Anyway, Harold’s a dope and you staying home in the convent is ridiculous. If you want to go out with this guy—what’s his name, by the way?”

  “Nader.”

  “What kind of name is that? Where’s he from?”

  “I don’t know. Iran, I think. His mother is from some little South African country and his father is a retired diplomat. He’s interesting. Speaks a dozen languages. Studied law at Harvard. He’s very cool.”

  “Wow. I’ll say. Cooler than Wes and Harold.”

  “Well, that doesn’t take much.”

  “To be sure. Well, listen, Danette, you’re divorced, and neither one of us is getting any younger. I think you ought to do what you want and don’t worry about what Molly thinks.”

  “Probably. I’m thinking about it. So how are you doing, you know, in your head?”

  How was I doing? Not so hot.

  “I’m scared, Danette. I’m scared like hell.”

  “Oh, my sweet friend. I know.” I heard her sigh long and hard. “Change is very frightening at this age. Look, for me? Harold made this brilliant decision to get a divorce, not me. He just walked out. He had Cornelia waiting in the wings. At first, you know I was devastated. But I can tell you that once I got my brain wrapped around the fact that it was over, I got on with my life pretty quickly.”