“Well, parts of it.”
“True. So Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome will have to wait a little. And tell me to mind my own business, but have you talked to a lawyer?”
“No. Because I’m not sure I really want a divorce. I’d just like to be away from everyone for a while—you know, time off for good behavior.”
“Who would blame you?”
“I really sort of hate Wesley right now. And Charlotte needs somebody to give her a good throttling, something I should’ve done a long time ago. But divorce? I think it would be wise for me to get over my anger first. Then I can decide what I want to do.”
“Yes. Absolutely. You’re right. It’s never a good idea to make big decisions when you’re angry.”
“And this may sound cosmically irrational, but I just don’t feel like I belong in Atlanta anymore. You know? There’s nothing for me there. Wrong vibe.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean just exactly that. When I think about Harlan coming back and my going home, I get this huge lump in my throat, like I’m suffocating. But when I think about staying here in Charleston, I want to cry my eyes out.”
“Girl? That is screwed up. Tell me why you want to cry.”
“Because it was all a mistake. Thirty years of one mistake after another. I feel like a miserable failure. I failed at marriage and don’t get me started on motherhood.”
“Look, I can understand why Charlotte and Bertie get your motor going, but I don’t see where you failed. Honest to God! I don’t! You did everything for them!”
“I sure tried.”
“True enough! I was there! I remember the hours you spent driving them all over the place.”
“If I could just have the time I spent in the car line back, I’d be thirty-five again.”
“You, me, and every other mother on the planet! Look, Les, people, even very young people, make choices that impact their whole lives. Like to study or not to study. But they have to live the life they want to live, don’t they? And where did you fail in your marriage?”
“Are you kidding? I let Wes manipulate me into every single choice we made over the smallest details in our lives. I should have stood up to him more.”
“Oh, please. Good luck with that! Stand up to Mount Rushmore? Yeah, I’d love to see that.”
“I know. I married a damn bully. And you know what? Maybe I don’t want to be bullied anymore.”
“Well, who’d blame you for that either? Now let’s talk about the fun stuff. When are you seeing Jonathan again?”
“Tonight.”
“Whoo-hoo! Girlfriend? You’d better shave your legs!”
“Oh, please. I haven’t seen a hair on my legs in the last ten years!”
“Or maybe you just can’t see them. Shave anyway!”
I was glad we had changed the subject. I’d check my legs out later.
We hung up, with me promising to call her back in the morning to give an update on Jonathan. I attached Miss JP’s leash to her collar and took her outside for a walk in the park. She pranced down the street, stopping to sniff and looking up at passersby as though she understood them when they remarked on how adorable she was. I could’ve sworn that dog was smiling. Her red-striped sundress was more or less accidentally coordinated with my red pants and striped shirt. As silly as it may seem, I had a thought that it was too bad I didn’t have red framed sunglasses. Then we would’ve looked like we belonged to each other. Maybe I’d look around at Target for some inexpensive ones for the fun of it. How long had it been since I’d done anything just for the fun of it? People would think I’m peculiar. I liked the notion of having a bit of an eccentric reputation. Why not?
When she had deposited her calling card in the border grass, she tugged on her leash in the direction of Harlan’s house. Mission accomplished and she was ready to go home. I picked her up and nuzzled her neck and she rewarded me with a lick on my nose. It was my first kiss from Harlan’s baby. I was suddenly aware of how much this little dog depended on the reliability of others, and I was glad she seemed to appreciate me. At least somebody did.
I had not told Danette about the money. She would’ve fainted on the floor and then got up to say she wasn’t surprised, that I should divorce Wes and buy myself a new black Mercedes. The two-seater with white leather interior all piped in black—all in the name of sweet revenge. She’d say we should ride by his house and blow the horn and she’d holler through a bullhorn that I bought it at sticker price just to drive him crazy and Wes would shiver and break a sweat that lasted for weeks.
But the fact was that I hadn’t told her. I loved Danette to death, but truly neither one of us was wired for revenge. I didn’t want money to become the focus of why I should divorce Wes when it was the fact that he lived in another world that really cut my heart into little pieces. I would tell her when the time was right. But I have to say that the thought of a sporty little Benz was pretty nice.
Every time I gave any real office space to Wes keeping our millions a secret I wanted to backhand his smug face with all my might. And now, when I’d lie awake at night thinking about Edinburgh, I wanted to knock his teeth out! But it wasn’t just those one or two facts that were breaking what was left of my heart. All the years of lies and embarrassments and slights and being overlooked and taken for granted and unappreciated and, yes, unloved had suddenly surfaced and brought me to this state of mind. I was not a cherished woman. Not even a little bit. Wes had never treated me the way I treated him. Nor had he ever looked at me as if he was in love, at least not in decades.
I could remember brushing my hair and putting on something fresh and pretty, waiting for him to come through the door at night. How many times did my heart skip a beat? So many. I’d made his favorite soup or roast and I couldn’t wait to serve it to him because I knew it would make him happy. That was all I wanted to do. I wanted to be a good mother and a good wife and I tried as hard as I could to be both of those things. Somewhere along the line, it stopped being enough.
I’d look up to see a blank expression in his eyes. Was a Gee, I’m glad to be home with you glance or some iota of affection too much to want?
They say you only have so many breaths in your lifetime, and I think disappointments might be the same. After a certain number of tries, I began to eat my dinner with the kids and then later on with Holly and just leave something for Wes on the back of the stove. If he didn’t care, why should I? Why should I?
Who could I say really loved me? Well, my brother did and so did Danette and my sweet little Holly. But gosh, that was a short list. The love my children and husband professed looked like a lot of lip service to me now. They surely did not act like they loved me, and didn’t actions speak louder? And did I love myself? Maybe that was the problem. I had not worried enough about my own happiness to secure its future. In some really naive way, I think I had always believed that if I took care of my husband’s needs, he’d take care of mine in return. Boy, in retrospect? That was stupid. Really stupid. And now I had to figure out what exactly I wanted and what I thought would make me happy.
I decided a good soak in the tub on the third floor with Three O’Clock Dinner would suffice for that day, and dinner with Jonathan would be a thrilling episode to wind it all up. I told myself to quit sulking around and snap out of it. I had many blessings to count, not the least of which was a gorgeous place to go when I needed to run away.
I slipped into the steaming tub of mint-scented bubbles and was soon lost in the world of Charleston society during the 1940s, when who your people were determined your social position. It was a time when you could be shunned for generations for some sin committed by a long-dead distant relative. I’d had enough trouble with the living ones. And the dead of my immediate family had not been of much help.
I began to wonder why Pinckney had written a story so clearly defining and then blurring the lines of class struggle when it was something that should never have concerned her for one second. With her ba
ckground she could have traveled in any circle she pleased. But maybe the fact that some could not fascinated her, and perhaps the reason she wrote about it was to understand it. Harlan said that she was a great rule breaker. Like our mother? Is that why Harlan loved Jo Pinckney so much? Besides her illicit affairs with Wendell Willkie and others, what rules had she broken? Well, she never married. Just like our mother never remarried. But as I understood it from Harlan, the reason Josephine never married was because her mother chased away all her suitors because she thought they weren’t good enough for her. Her mother was nicknamed Camilla the Gorilla and she sounded like Wes. Another bully. And our mother never remarried because her tattooed lover was so completely and totally inappropriate—and hairy like a gorilla too. Maybe I had something in common with her after all.
I toweled off and pulled the belt of my robe around my waist. It was cool in the house, but I knew the night would be damp and sultry. My hair was guaranteed to rise up like cotton candy once I went out into the evening air, and no doubt we’d stroll over to whatever restaurant he had chosen because walking everywhere was the great advantage of living downtown. It was time for some makeup and a new updo and something to wear without stockings, so I went to work digging in my closet and in my cosmetic tool chest. In both places the pickings were slim.
I twisted my hair up in a pretty silver clamp encrusted with pearls and pulled some wispy pieces down around my face so I didn’t look too severe. The last thing I wanted to do was to come off like a dust bowl schoolmarm. In the far reaches of the closet, I had found a pastel floral sundress with little tucks all down the front that was feminine and pretty but didn’t make me look like a cat on the prowl. It was something I’d bought for an outdoor ladies’ luncheon at the club. Not exactly what a harlot would wear. Within an hour I thought I looked presentable. I began to pace, waiting for Jonathan to arrive. Was I a cat on the prowl? Secretly in my heart? No, I was just excited to have something positive to be excited about. And, by the way, it was the first time in three decades that I was planning to go out at night in a dress without panty hose. Wasn’t I the wild one?
Okay, that’s not entirely true, what I said about not being a cat on the prowl. But if I admitted to myself that I was excited to see Jonathan again, then my behavior would be only marginally better than Wes’s when he was in Atlantic City and spent his evening with a professional escort.
I looked in the mirror at myself and wondered just how immoral it was for me, a married woman, to have a third encounter with an old boyfriend. I could excuse the first time because it was just a serendipitous event that rolled out without much forethought or intention on either side. Our first evening together after Harlan’s party had been so unexpected and chaste that I wouldn’t have been the least bit embarrassed if Wes’s boss had walked into the restaurant. I could have introduced Jonathan with a completely clear conscience, explaining away the fact that I was dining with a handsome man from my past and drinking copious amounts of wine by merely claiming the coincidence of our being together as a fluke. Aren’t flukes wonderful? I would’ve said that. But now what? If I ran into Harold or some other friend of Wes or someone from work or the club, what would I say? That this was a second fluke? That this man I was with said really nice things to me and my husband never did? That he was my orthopedist? That I was trying on singlehood the way most people try on shoes? That I had maybe sort of left Wes and I was probably going to get a divorce but maybe not because (a) I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life but I knew I couldn’t take it anymore as it was with all the bimbos and manholes and (b) I was pretty much convinced that Wes didn’t love me anymore anyway so why stick around and wait to croak? And I probably wouldn’t mention (c), which was the secret money, because who would believe it?
Any way I sliced this devil’s food cake, I was a married woman fooling myself that another evening with Jonathan was perfectly socially and morally acceptable. I was going to have to talk to him about some ground rules. He was going to have to understand that I wasn’t thinking of sex. Oh, sure. Now how was I going to phrase that total and complete lie in a delicate fashion that I hoped he’d ignore so the onus for anything that happened of an intimate nature would be on him? Oh, brother. I wished I could see six months down the road so that I could know where I was headed. Indecision made me nervous. My heart was racing. I felt my face flush like I had a fever. I trembled all over. I’d never done anything that was really wrong in my whole life, and guilt was rising up in me with a fury. My skin felt itchy.
The doorbell rang.
I was instantly jettisoned out of my mental wreck of a purgatorial daydream. There stood Jonathan, as innocent as a choirboy, in a brown-and-white seersucker suit with an armful of flowers. Stargazer lilies. My favorite. A sense of calm washed over me, as though I was a lonely, marooned debutante and my escort had just appeared through the mist to take my hand and dazzle the world with our elegant waltz to the live music of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra. Yeah, boy. I was in deep merde.
“Hi!” I said and stood back so he could come inside. “Don’t you look handsome?”
“Well, thanks, ma’am! I brought you these and by the way . . .”
“Thanks!” I was suddenly nervous again. When was the last time someone brought me flowers?
“You look beautiful, Leslie,” he said.
“Aw, come on! I’ve got to find a vase. These babies need water.” I buried my nose in the flowers and inhaled deeply. “Gee! They even smell pretty!” My face was as hot and red as it could be. Smell pretty? I looked at him and he didn’t seem to mind that I was so awkward. In fact, he was grinning. So I tried to regroup. “Would you like a glass of wine?”
“Sure!”
I turned to go to the kitchen and I could feel his eyes as he followed me down the hall. I was in hot water—like the hot water in a hot tub on the expressway to hell.
“Is white okay? There’s a bottle in the fridge and glasses over there. In that cabinet.”
I spotted a vase while passing through the dining room and brought it along, thinking it would be just the ticket to show off the magnitude of the bouquet in my other arm.
“Sure! White’s great.”
I filled the vase with water, took the kitchen shears from the drawer, and started trimming away the bottoms of the stems, trying to appear nonchalant.
“So how was your day?” I said. My heart was beating pretty fast.
“Great, great,” he said and pulled the cork. “I love Saturdays. You know I get up and read the paper and putz around the house. Then I do errands, maybe read or exercise, grab some lunch. It’s relaxing.” He filled two glasses with reasonable portions and handed one to me. “How about you?”
Oh, I wanted to say and did not, I spent the entire day obsessing over you and what it would be like to be seduced by you. Madly, wildly, and completely seduced. Legs in the air. Hanging on to the headboard. You know, the whole shebang, so to speak? And while you’re at it, would you mind making Wesley disappear? Thanks.
Instead I said, “I love the weekends too, although every day has been like a Saturday since I’ve been here . . . on this, you know, sort of vacation I gave myself.”
“Is that what it is? A vacation? I mean, for all the talking we’ve done, we’ve only skirted the whole business of what’s going on with you and you know, him. That guy with the stupid name?”
“Cheers!” I said and touched the rim of my glass against his. “Well, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”
“I guess so.” He smiled at me, and I felt like the rest of the world didn’t matter very much at all. “But we have a six o’clock table at McCrady’s, so we’d probably better start hoofing it in a few. And your personal physician would be happy to help you sort out your life over dinner.”
“Ah, Jonathan, I think I need a big fat shrink for this one.”
“Nah. They’re all a bunch of nuts. By the way, how’s your arm?”
“Great. Not even a
twinge of anything.”
“Good, but no circus shenanigans, okay?”
I took a large sip and put my glass down on the counter.
“Got it, boss. Let me close up the house so we can go.” I called out for Miss JP. “Come on, sweetheart! Let’s go outside!”
Miss JP, wearing her dressing gown, scampered into the kitchen, through the den, and directly to the terrace. Jonathan took a sip of his wine and shook his head.
“Is that dog really a dog?”
“Yeah, and she’s great company, as long as you pay the right amount of homage.”
She trotted herself back inside and headed for her daybed in the corner of the dining room, this one upholstered in the same red exotic floral chintz as the curtains.
“I’ve always thought it would be hard to be in a bad mood with a dog in the house. This one would be a laugh a minute!” he said.
“Oh, no! No laughing! Make no mistake about it. If you laugh at her, she’ll get her revenge. The other day I snickered at some doggie-diva thing she did and I couldn’t find one of my shoes for hours!”
“And people think dogs don’t understand humans? Amazing. Come on, let’s go.”
We turned off most of the lights, locked the doors, and stepped out into the warm late-afternoon air. He looped my arm through his and we made our way toward the restaurant, chatting about every innocuous topic of the day—the weather, Spoleto, the tourists this year, which seemed to have doubled over last year . . . and, of course, he said at least twice how nice it was to see me again.
I decided I was in very safe waters and that all my naughty thoughts would probably never come to fruition, which was undoubtedly for the best. Unfortunately. But he had brought me flowers, had he not?
“Ah! Dr. Ray! So nice to have you with us again!” the maître d’ said and shook his hand. “Table sixteen,” he said and handed two menus to one of the hostesses. “Please follow Jeanine. She’ll show you to your table. Have a wonderful dinner!”
The Last Original Wife Page 14