“Has she seen a doctor? Has she been diagnosed with depression?” whoever Maxine was asked.
“Are you kidding? She hasn’t been anywhere in months to be diagnosed with anything. All she does is sleep.”
“Gail Lumley, why didn’t you call me sooner?”
“Because you’re so busy with the new business and school. Not to mention your new husband. You have so little time alone with Campbell. I didn’t want to intrude.”
Maxine chuckled all warm and breathy, making Frankie clench her eyes tighter. “My new business is exactly the cure for this kind of depression.”
“But she’s so cranky when you wake her. Like a hibernating bear.”
“Really? Well, that’s too damned bad.”
“I wouldn’t,” Gail warned.
“Yeah? Well, I would,” Maxine said. “Now give me the cookie.”
The door to her Aunt Gail’s small second bedroom cracked open, shedding a slant of light across the floor, forcing Frankie to burrow farther under the knitted afghan and tuck Kiki closer to her. A slight shift, and the bed sagged with someone’s weight, and her faithful little Chi was suddenly up and away. The faint sound of pig noises drifted to Frankie’s ears.
“Frankie Bennett?”
No.
The someone in question made a rash move by dragging the covers off her in a whoosh of cold air. “I said, Frankie Bennett?”
“Who are you?” she moaned in response to losing her knitted cocoon.
A hand, slender and finely boned with neatly trimmed nails, was under her nose in a flash. “Maxine Barker. Get up.”
Dragging a pillow over her face, Frankie ignored the hand and muttered, “What for?”
“So we can stop this farting around and get to the business of living. Bills don’t get paid if you sleep until three in the afternoon. Now get up.”
No, no, and no. She was never getting up. “Aunt Gail?”
“Yep, sassafras?”
“Who is this?”
“Maxine Barker, but she already said that. She’s my best friend Mona’s girl. Now get up, Frankie, and stop steepin’ in your stink like some human tea bag.”
Her nose slid surreptitiously to her armpit. She did not stink. She’d showered like… four days ago or something.
“Please, Aunt Gail, I just want to be left alone.” She really, really did. Forever and ever.
Maxine clucked her tongue with what sounded like disgust. “Frankie? I’m here to help you help yourself. It’s time to get out of this bed and join the land of the living. I’ll take drastic measures if I have to.”
Drastic this. “Go away.” Frankie tacked on a “please” on the off chance this Maxine meant something to her aunt. Aunt Gail was good to her. She didn’t want to offend her—probably as much as she didn’t want to get out of bed.
“Gail?” Maxine said. “Out in the hall, please? And bring her little dog, too.”
Soft footsteps shuffled back out of the bedroom, her traitorous dog in tow, giving Frankie enough time to locate the afghan and burrow herself back into it. Jesus. Broad daylight hurt your eyes. Why would anyone choose to get up and endure it?
But then the footsteps returned.
Damn.
“Frankie—I’ll count to three, but if you don’t get up, you’ll be sorry,” Maxine warned.
How much sorrier could she get than she already was? This woman Maxine was a novice if she thought there was any sorry left in Francis Bennett.
“Last chance . . .”
Hah. Let the counting begin.
“One, two, threee!”
Icy rivulets of water sloshed between the holes in the afghan and over the top of her head, plastering her hair to her scalp while dripping down to glue her torn T-shirt to her breasts.
Frankie tore at the blanket, hurling it at Maxine, who caught it like a Yankees shortstop nabbing a line drive. Her berry-glossed lips curved into a smile of victory when Frankie jolted upward out of the bed.
“What the hell?” Frankie sputtered, water dripping into her mouth.
“I did warn you,” Maxine countered, smoothing her hands over her crisp, white, fitted shirt with the smartly upturned collar. “The longer you lie around in bed, the easier it is for your limbs to atrophy. Now come with me.”
The. Hell.
Frankie cocked her head questioningly in her aunt’s direction as she used her forearm to wipe the droplets of water from her forehead.
Gail tightened her sweater with the small white buttons around her chest, curling a wide-eyed, typically silent Kiki against her. “Something had to be done, honey. You can’t stay in bed for the rest of your life.”
Said who? Was there a law written somewhere, declaring you had to participate? In anything? Ever?
Gail came to her side, using a tender hand to smooth the moisture from her niece’s face. “Honey, I love you, just like my own, but this has to stop. By giving up, you’re letting that dirty bird, Mitch, with the wayward wanker, have all the control. I won’t have it. I can’t stand to see you like this.” She held up Kiki, her little dog’s legs swinging in the air. “Little Kiki can’t stand it either. Now Maxine here, well, she’s had some tough times a lot like yours, but she came out of it in a blaze of glory. You can, too. Please, Frankie. Please do this for me.”
Frankie’s glazed eyes cleared momentarily, giving her a glimpse of her aunt, so worried, so intent, she crumbled. There wasn’t much she wouldn’t do for Gail, and if it would make this woman go away, she’d do it.
“I’m not sure what you want me to do,” she muttered, ashamed she was the reason Gail was so clearly upset.
Maxine put a hand on Gail’s shoulder and squeezed. “Follow me, Frankie,” she ordered, yet her tone was soft, her green eyes warm. She made her way around the edge of the bed and down along the short corridor to her aunt’s guest bathroom.
Aha, Frankie thought when Maxine flipped on the light. The bathroom was pink and blue and featured a matching hand-crocheted doily doll with a flowing skirt to decoratively cover the box of tissues. She’d mostly only stumbled around here in the dark late at night after her aunt was long in bed.
The twin lights above the long mirror glared, making her eyes water painfully. Maxine came to stand behind her, placing her hands on Frankie’s shoulders.
“Do you see yourself?”
Yep. Frankie nodded, realizing that was what would make Aunt Gail happy.
And now she really didn’t want to see any more.
Acknowledged. Were they done now?
Maxine’s lips took on a thin line. “Do you remember what you looked like before you were divorced, Frankie?”
A snort almost escaped her lips. Yes. She remembered. She hated that she remembered, but she did.
“Do you see what you look like now?” Maxine lifted a long lock of her thick, pin-straight auburn hair and held it up to the light. “You’re a greasy, pale, washed-out, shaky, undernourished mess, Frankie. Don’t you agree?”
And she needed a dye job, too. Point made.
Maxine, shorter, even in heels, peered around her slumped shoulder. “So I have a couple of questions. Okay, maybe more than two, but they’re compelling,” she joked with an easy smile. “Why would you allow a man like your ex-husband, who’s a mean, cheap, lying, philandering sonofabitch, have all this power? Did he define who Frankie was? Did you get up every morning just for him? Did you shower, put on makeup, and dress up only because he existed? Is it because he’s no longer in your life that you’ve sunk so low you don’t even want to get out of bed?”
Yes. Yes. Yessss. “Is this like some weird kind of intervention? Do they have those here in little old Riverbend, New Jersey?” she asked with dry tones, fighting to keep the crack of watery tears out of her voice.
Maxine smiled again, pretty, gentle, understanding. “You didn’t answer the question, Frankie.”
Her head sunk to her chest. For all her bravado the night she’d walked out on Mitch and Bamby With A “Y,” f
or all her venomous, arrogant words, yes. The end of her marriage to a man she hadn’t, if ever, seen clearly, hurt like hell, but adultery was the one and only thing short of murder she knew deep down she’d never be able to live with.
Realization, in all its ugly blatancy, was what had made her snap the night she’d found out about Mitch’s affair.
Eighteen solid years and she’d finally seen the real Mitch. Self-centered, egotistical, bossy, and a cheat. He’d always been there. He’d simply done a bang-up job of lurking just below the line of decent, but she’d brushed those warning niggles aside, granting them excuses because she’d loved Mitch with all her heart.
Hearing about his infidelity in such a callous way had been a crass wake-up call—like being clunked over the head with a two-by-four.
It was as though all of a sudden she’d hit this brick wall she’d once always found a reason, even if it was flimsy, to climb over. But on that night, there was just no more rope for her to hold in order to help her scale that seemingly towering hurdle.
Not being able to live with Mitch’s infidelity didn’t mean it hurt less. Having divorce papers served to you two weeks after you made your big marital exit on national television didn’t sting less because the man you’d devoted your life to was a prick.
“Frankie?” Maxine prodded.
Her breath was a long shudder. “Yes. Everything I did revolved around Mitch. I didn’t realize the gaping hole not having to chase after him would…would leave.” Her heart, quiet and unresponsive for six months, shifted with a painful jolt in her chest.
Maxine’s ash brown head nodded in understanding. She gave Frankie’s shoulders a squeeze. “It’s like a big, black void of nothingness. Even if the tasks you performed as Mitch’s wife were tedious, they gave you what you thought was your purpose. Your lot in life, so to speak. You don’t have to explain, Frankie. No one, and I really mean no one, gets that better than I do.”
A tear seeped out of one eye. Goddamn it. She’d had the market cornered on numb. When and if she was awake long enough to think, she’d amused herself with inconsequential musings like how many drips it took before a ketchup bottle was empty. Anything much deeper and she shut it down, closing her eyes to seek solace in dreamless sleep.
Maxine turned Frankie to face her. “Listen to me, Frankie. I was a stay-at-home mom. A trophy wife just like you. I married my ex-husband Finley when I was twenty and he was forty. He was the first man in my life, and for twenty years, he was the only man in my life. Unfortunately, the same thing couldn’t be said for Finley. He married me because I was a hot number back then, and he liked ’em young and hot. I married him because he swept me off my feet. We didn’t see a movie and grab a burger like one does on a typical first date with someone your own age. We flew to Paris and had escargot.”
Maxine’s shoulders lifted in a wry shrug. “I got caught up, and when he was unfaithful, I blamed it on myself. When he was unfaithful for the third time, I discovered I’d had enough. I hit the same wall I’m sure you hit when you confronted Mitch.”
“On live TV,” Frankie murmured with a moan. In front of an entire nation.
Maxine chuckled, but it was laced with sympathy. “Yes. On live TV, and it was ugly, and I don’t doubt you’ll have some living that incident down to do in your future. But here’s the thing, you hit that wall for a reason. I’m guessing because you were oppressed and tired of being Mitch’s pretty toy. Sometimes it happens out of the blue, and there’s no stopping it. You just explode.”
Hindsight and utter humiliation made her wonder if she might have chosen a more private venue in which to do all that exploding.
“I’ll give you this,” Maxine noted. “You didn’t stick around after you found out about his affair. Good for you. Me? Not so much. You did what your heart told you to do. But you didn’t fail your marriage, Frankie. Mitch just stopped being a team player.”
Looking back, Frankie had to wonder if she’d ever even been on the team. She mostly just remembered sitting on the bench. The idea made her want to retreat back to her bed.
“Look, I appreciate you and your story, but I’ll figure this out alone. So thanks for stopping by.” Frankie made a move to get around Maxine, but her aunt stopped her.
Gail’s finger waved in a no-nonsense manner, blocking the bathroom door. “Oh, no, missy. This is the longest I’ve seen you upright in months. No way are you going back to bed. Not on my watch.”
Maxine held up her left hand, a shiny diamond and wedding band catching the bathroom’s light. “Look, Frankie. I can help you. I was broke and I had nowhere to go once, too. I lived here in the retirement village with my mother for almost a year, trying to get on my feet. Worse, I didn’t have a single job skill to my credit but the ability to put together a fabulous dinner party—oh, and shop. So get in the shower. I’ll go make some coffee with your aunt, and once you get dressed, we’ll talk.”
Frustration welled in the form of a tight ball in Frankie’s chest. The part of her that just wanted to keep right on drifting rebelled. Who the hell did this woman think she was? The Dalai Lama of divorce? All serene and all-knowing? So they had some commonalities. Married young to older men who liked the just-over-jailbait chickies.
Whatever. It was clear this Maxine wasn’t down on her luck anymore. She was remarried, judging by the size of that rock—a rock that didn’t come from the cubic zirconia store on QVC.
Maxine’s life wasn’t any different than it’d been when she was married to her last husband. She’d just taken a year off from her trophy-wife duties and laid in wait to nab another rich guy. Mission accomplished. Frankie didn’t need lessons on how to snare rich potential husband number two. She was done. No more men.
“I really just want to be left alone,” she whined.
Maxine’s tongue clucked again in admonishment. “I bet you do. But here’s something to ponder while you wash your greasy hair and maybe attack a vat of deodorant, armpit first. How long do you suppose Gail can support you until you become a big, fat burden on her Social Security and retirement fund? What little money you have personally is running out.”
Instantly, Frankie was indignant. She’d given Gail money every month for the food she’d barely touched and the water, according to her splendiferous odor, she’d hardly used. She would never stiff her aunt.
“How do you know what my financial status is?”
Gail snorted, pursing her lips. “Someone had to open your mail, kiddo. You sure as hell don’t. You don’t have but two hundred smackers in that account of yours. Now you know I don’t want your money, but I ain’t gonna live forever. You have car payments long overdue, too. They’re going to send in the repo man. If you want to keep that nice-lookin’ car and some untarnished credit when all’s said and done, you need to get it together. Plus, think of my Squeaky Kiki. She has to eat. She needs shots and veterinary care. You have to get on with the living, honey.”
To what purpose? Frankie wanted to scream. What was there to live for? Instead, she let her indignant chest shrink in defeat.
Maxine handed her a bar of soap and a fresh towel before reaching out to take Kiki from Gail. Kiki snuggled against Maxine’s ear, sighing with contentment.
“Get in the shower, Frankie, and hurry up,” she ordered. “The day awaits.”
Bone weary, her muscles simply didn’t want to cooperate. Her getup-and-go had gotten up and went and it was never coming back. She couldn’t summon the will or the energy to care about anything. Her eyes, pleading and teary, sought her Aunt Gail’s, searching for a crack in her hard veneer.
“Can’t we just do this tomorrow? I promise I’ll get up tomorrow. Promise.”
Maxine shook her head in Gail’s stead. “Nope. Today’s the day you start back on the road to recovery. It’s long. It really, really blows, but there’s a world out there that you have to be a part of unless you like card-board-box living and soup kitchens. By the looks of that bed Kiki sleeps in, I’d say she won’t love living u
nder a bridge. Get it together, Frankie. It’s time for you to suck it up, princess.”
Maxine marched out of the bathroom with Kiki, followed by her aunt, who’d refused to meet her eyes.
A long, deep breath later, thankful for the silence and the chance to sit on the edge of the bathtub, Frankie almost collapsed in a boneless heap.
The effort it’d taken to get from one room to the other, coupled with the sensory overload of Maxine’s chatter after four months of very few wordy exchanges with her Aunt Gail, and she was wrecked.
Frankie dropped the bar of soap and towel to the floor with jellylike arms, letting her head rest against the salmon pink tiled wall, and attempted to make her mind go blank. She’d gotten incredibly good at it since she’d come to Gail’s. There shouldn’t be any problem summoning up some more numb.
Yet, she couldn’t stop wondering.
Suck it up, princess?
What kind of new age crap was that?
“I don’t hear water running, Frankie,” Maxine warned from behind the door. “I’ll put you in that shower myself. You’ve got ten minutes. Make that twenty—you’ll need to wash that greasy hair twice—and then I’m coming in.”
Frankie rose on unsteady legs, gripping the towel rack. She didn’t doubt Maxine would do exactly as she stated. She also didn’t doubt she had neither the strength nor the kind of oomph it would take to stop her.
Coffee wouldn’t kill her. A shower wouldn’t either.
It was the sucking-princess thing that worried her.
Chapter Two
There are two sides to every divorce: yours and shithead’s.
—AUTHOR UNKNOWN
“Well, look at you. Bright as a shiny new penny,” her aunt crowed from a corner of her tiny kitchen. “Sit, honey, and I’ll pour you some coffee.”
The very idea made her stomach turn. Yet Frankie found herself dragging a dinette chair out and dropping into it, scooping a bewildered, silent Kiki up to sit in her lap. Her jeans gaped at her waist, pushing at the bottom of her thin T-shirt, and she wasn’t even self-conscious enough to care. It was all she had in her to drag a brush through her wet hair and locate a pair of underwear.
Burning Down The Spouse (Ex-Trophy Wives Book 2) Page 2