by Debra Kent
V
at the X-Roads
He slowly unfolded the letter, took a deep breath and began to read. “What the hell?’’ He looked stupefied. He looked at me. “What is this?’’
“I’m leaving you, Roger. It’s over. I’m divorcing you.’’ Oh, the sheer pleasure of finally pronouncing those words!
“But why?’’ he shrieked. “Why?’’
“There are many reasons, Roger. And my attorney will be happy to detail them for you. But the most important reason is a young girl named Mary.’’
“Who?’’ he asked, as I’d hoped he would.
I started toward the garage. “Don’t move, darling husband. I’ll be right back.’’
’Til next time,
V
“You’ll absolutely love V—in fact, you’ll wish you were her friend. But since that can’t be arranged, you’ll happily settle for reading her diary and discovering her most private thoughts and all the outrageous things that happen in her life.’’
—Kate White, editor-in-chief, Cosmopolitan
ALSO BY DEBRA KENT
Diary of V: The Affair
Copyright
WARNER BOOKS EDITION
Copyright © 2001 by Women.com LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Warner Books, Inc.
Hachette Book Group
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New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First eBook Edition: October 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-56689-6
Contents
V at the X-Roads
Also by Debra Kent
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Begin reading
About the Author
A Preview of The Diary of V: Happily Ever After?
For Martha Spitzer
and in memory of Chelsea Desdemona
Acknowledgments
This book would not be possible without my agent Sandy Dijkstra, who amazes me with her energy and endurance; Elizabeth James, who works tirelessly but remains astoundingly patient; Amy Applegate, scrupulous and always supportive; my editor Beth de Guzman, whose insights and seamless editing I treasure; Jennifer Woodhouse at Hearst, for her assistance with Valerie Ryan’s online adventures; Andy Mallor, for his astute guidance with legal plotlines; Lisa Kamen, for her hilarious stories; Pam Nelson, who is a magician, regardless of the sign on her door; Alisa Sutor, who brought the beach back into my life; Cindy Bailey, who brings sanity to my home.
As always, I owe much to Donna Wilber and Lorraine Rapp for their friendship. I am grateful for the love and support of Adam and Lisi Kent-Isaac and Poe, Joseph P. Kendicott and Coley Coltrane, who inspire me every day. Finally, Valerie’s adventures would never have made it to the printed page if not for my most excellent husband, Jeff Isaac.
Dear loyal V fans and new fans alike,
When Redbook set out to bring you the fictional Diary of V on our Web site, we never knew it would become so successful, with thousands of you logging on each week for your fix of the suburban exploits of Valerie Ryan. V’s certainly had her ups and downs, but never so much so as during the spring and summer of 2000, when, on the Web, V faced a life-or-death dilemma, found her husband’s secret love shack, and still managed to attend her first Overeaters Anonymous meeting. It was during that time that some fans actually wrote alternative versions on their own Web sites. So we decided to give you here, in the second book of the three-book version of the Diary of V, an alternative story line. Consider it a bonus for being such loyal fans. And for new fans, check out the original story line on the Redbook Web site, at www.redbook mag.com. Thanks for following V’s adventures, and root for her to soldier on—with or without the Prozac!
Sincerely,
Lesley Jane Seymour
Editor in Chief, Redbook magazine
Valerie Ryan’s marriage is in crisis, her career as a psychotherapist is in shambles, and her libido is as voracious as ever. Over the course of a whirlwind year, Valerie, mother of preschool son Petey, uncovers the pathological infidelity of her playwright/creative writing professor husband, plunges into an affair of her own with the burly Eddie Bennedetto, flirts with the cute but geeky Ben Murphy, and fends off sexual advances from former co-worker Diana Pierce, a randy embezzler and recovering alcoholic. Acting on a tip, Valerie ransacks her house for evidence of husband Roger’s infidelity and his alleged fortune. The hidden file she discovers—proof of Roger’s disgusting deed—will change her marriage and life forever. But will it force V to abandon all hope of falling in love again?
December 12
My gut clenched as I scanned the file. There was a deed to Plot 9 NE, 144 Lark’s Way, Lake Merle Condominium Community. Lark’s Way, like something out of a Disney movie, so innocent, so light, a place for yellow shutters and window box geraniums and newlyweds and cartoon birds twittering in delight. How could Roger own a condo—an actual house with a kitchen and carpeting and utility bills—and keep it a secret from me? And why?
I thumbed through the file and found the condo maintenance agreement ($429/mo) and a photocopy of something called “Declaration of Covenants, Restrictions, and Conditions of the Lake Merle Condominium Community.” Fifteen pages of rules and regulations: No yard signs. No chain-link fences. No animals or livestock with the exception of dogs, cats, and common household pets. No exterior antennas or satellite dishes. Clotheslines, garbage pails, woodpiles, and other similar items shall be concealed, blah, blah, blah. The last page was signed by Glenn McClintock, president of the Lake Merle Condominium Community. Sally Krauss, notary public. At the bottom of the page was Roger’s pretentiously outsized signature. I hurriedly flipped through the papers. I found an envelope filled with pale blue standard-issue check stubs. The checking account was in Roger’s name. The checks were made out to the Lake Merle Development Corporation in the amount of $429.
I used to think that my biggest problem was Roger’s impulsive affair with a slatternly young protegée. Now I realize that my husband didn’t merely have a lover, but another life, another household! I started to hyperventilate. My hands tingled. I felt completely unmoored, and it terrified me.
My mother, who would shoot my husband herself if she possessed the firearms, offered an unusually generous interpretation: Maybe Roger’s condo isn’t for shacking up. Maybe it’s a real estate investment, another secret asset, like the gold bullions Diana claims Roger has hidden somewhere in my house.
’Til next time,
V
December 13
Roger has gone downtown, undoubtedly to replace the magnificent wardrobe I’d destroyed in my rage. I hope he gets hit by a truck. Actually, I hope I get hit by a truck. I can barely drag myself out of bed these days. I feel completely worthless. I have no appetite; in fact, I’ve lost four pounds, although four pounds hardly make a difference when you feel like you’re fourteen thousand pounds overweight. I’m always on the edge of tears. I cried in the supermarket because I couldn’t find Kellogg’s corn flake crumbs. They weren’t in aisle 9 with the bread crumbs and they weren’t in aisle 11 with corn flakes, and after I’d traversed every single stupid row of that stupid store I finally asked the assistant manager and he looked at me like I was speaking in tongues and I felt the tears flood my eyes and I had to turn away.
“You don’t understand,” I heard myself telling him. “Christmas is only two weeks away, my house is a pig sty, I haven’t bought a single present, my ornaments are still sitting in cardboard boxes in the
hallway and it’ll be Easter by the time I get my lights up. But right now all I care about is making dinner for my little boy, so just tell me where you people are hiding the goddamn corn flake crumbs, okay?”
Everything Roger says and does drives me to the precipice of despair. It doesn’t matter whether he’s being nice, nasty, or neutral. I hate everything that comes out of his mouth. I hate everything about him. I hate the way he picks his teeth with the edge of a business card. I hate how he adjusts his chiropractically correct pillow so it’s just so before going to sleep. I hate how he never replaces the toilet paper but simply stacks a new roll on top of the old cardboard tube. I hate how he snores, how he eats, how he pees in rhythmic spurts. I hate how he always reads the newspaper before I do, then leaves all the pages out of order on the floor of the downstairs bathroom. I hate his smell, his tassled loafers, his hairless chest, his tiny ass.
But most of all, I hate myself. If it weren’t for Petey, I’d just kill myself—if I could figure out a way to do it painlessly. I’m too chicken to try to overdose on pills. How would I do it? With four hundred Sudafeds? Even if I had the right pills, what if it didn’t work? What if I just wound up paralyzed? Roger would parade his girlfriends past me; they’d shove applesauce into my face and giggle or stick crazy hats on my head and take Polaroid pictures. So I don’t think I’ll try to kill myself.
’Til next time,
V
December 14
Eddie e-mailed me. He wanted me to meet him at the Roundtree. I told him to forget it. Now I know I’m depressed. The snow has turned to filthy slush. I sobbed my way through Judge Judy, a Matlock rerun, and Unsolved Mysteries. I ate half a roll of frozen Pillsbury chocolate chip cookie dough.
I’ve got to make two appointments tomorrow, one with a divorce lawyer, Omar Sweet, another with Holly Wilmack, a psychiatrist at the hospital. I’d referred lots of patients to her, always with good results. I think I’m ready for Prozac. I wonder if she’ll agree.
As if I wasn’t sufficiently demoralized, I stopped by my parents’ house after dropping Pete off at school. My mother had set Dad up in the living room, propped him up on the couch with an afghan across his lap. He looked like a little old lady. There was a metal snack table covered with brown plastic pill bottles. Dad roused himself and tried to smile, but his eyes seemed wild and terrified, like a trapped animal’s. He says he doesn’t know if it’s the chemo or the cancer that’s killing him.
I glanced around the room. This year there would be no Christmas tree, no icicle lights along the porch, no wreath on the door, no painted wooden snowman in the foyer.
In the kitchen Mom told me she knew it would be Dad’s last Christmas, and she had wanted to make it special, but she didn’t have the stamina. I yelled at her for being so negative, then apologized for yelling at her.
I know how awful and selfish this must sound, but as I sat there with him, pretending to watch CNN, all I could think was: I don’t need this now. I don’t want to think about my father dying now.
Mom suggested I stay home, forget about getting another job. “Take it easy for a change, Val,” she said. “Have a little fun. Bake cookies. Redo the basement. Learn how to use that espresso machine Dad and I bought you for Christmas five years ago.” The prospect of living off Roger’s trust fund, or, more likely, his alimony checks, seems illicit, tantalizing, exotic. I’ve worked since I was fifteen years old and never had the nerve to even imagine myself unemployed. A few times I shyly hinted that I might like staying home with Pete, but Roger always reacted with horror and disdain. “You can’t be serious,” he would snort. “You? Domesticated? That’s a laugh.” I used to think Roger wanted me in the office because he didn’t want to lose the income, but now I know that he simply wanted me out of the house so he could pursue his liaisons.
I think of all the stay-at-home mothers I know, bright and capable women who seem content to live off their husbands’ incomes. They insisted they would stay at home until their children started school, then admitted they adored their lives of unencumbered and relatively placid domesticity and had no intention of abandoning it—ever. Carrie Freed was a driven investment counselor. Now she spends her days learning the flute, cultivating African violets, and managing her kids’ schedules. When I asked her if it was hard to adjust, she whispered behind her hand, “Are you kidding? I’m having the time of my life.” Bonnie Webb-Wilson was an architect in Chicago until her husband was transferred here. She could have found another job, but decided to use the move as her escape hatch from the pressures and demands of a high-powered profession. Now she keeps busy as a room mother and leader of her son’s Boy Scout troop.
“You’re as busy as ever,” I said, challenging her.
“But it’s good busy,” she explained. “I get to spend time with my kid and there’s none of that old pressure and panic.”
I’m just wondering if any new pressures and panics would pop up if I were to make a similar life change.
’Til next time,
V
December 16
Had a panic attack sitting in Omar Sweet’s waiting room. I would have thrown up, but there was nothing in my stomach. All I’d eaten was half a tangerine, and that was last night.
I tried as best as I could to calm myself before Omar came out to greet me. The truth is, he had a sexy voice on the phone, and I suppose that the small part of me that’s still alive and sexual hoped he would find me attractive. I slipped a cinnamon Altoid into my mouth and waited. I looked around the office, forcing myself to be “fully present.” I literally told myself: I am sitting in the waiting room of my divorce lawyer. My divorce lawyer. The man who will guide me through the process of legally terminating my marriage. It’s not a fantasy anymore. It’s not a spiteful threat I’d toss in Roger’s face in an argument. This is for real.
Omar Sweet bounded into the waiting room. He was about fifty, trim, elegant. He was one of those men who surrendered to his balding pate by shaving the rest of his head (I admire that) instead of struggling to arrange sixteen strands of hair. His polished dome gave him a sleek, slightly menacing appearance. He had a graying goatee, sharp white teeth, and aquiline nose. “Ms. Ryan! A pleasure. Please, come in.” He gripped my hand firmly and offered a quick smile, and in that moment I knew I’d found the right attorney.
We spent the hour talking about the divorce laws in our state (interesting), his track record (excellent), and his fee structure (expensive). I had a bank check prepared for his retainer ($3,000) and left his office feeling surprisingly more relaxed than when I’d arrived. But by the time I got home, I was dispirited again. I don’t know what’s depressing me most, that my marriage is ending, or that it’s not ending soon enough. Omar urged me to keep up the front until all the facts about Roger’s financial holdings have been gathered. He gave me the name of an investigator who, Omar promises, will unearth everything there is to know about Roger in forty-eight hours. I know I should do it, but I’m also afraid to spend any more money.
’Til next time,
V
December 17
Today I went to a baby shower organized by the perpetually neighborly Lynette Kohl-Chase. I didn’t know the expectant mom—a young woman named Jennifer Davis—but I welcomed the opportunity to meet some of my neighbors, people I’ve never seen at any point in the six years I’ve lived in this house, people I wouldn’t recognize if I tripped over them. But, then, why would I recognize them? Every morning they roll out of their garages in vans with tinted windows, and every evening they drive back into their garages and close the automatic doors behind them. They don’t garden, they don’t walk their dogs, they don’t walk anywhere. Last year I exchanged phone numbers and addresses with a father of one of Pete’s classmates; we were on the same committee and needed to plan a fund-raiser. I looked at his address. He lived on my street. I had never laid eyes on him. The only time I see some of these neighbors is when I go trick-or-treating with Pete, but I’ve already forgotten what they
look like by the following Halloween.
I asked Jennifer what she planned to name the baby. “Trey if it’s a boy,” she said, “and Lokia if it’s a girl.”
I thought I’d heard wrong. “Lokia?”
“Yes. My husband and I made it up,” she said, smiling proudly. “It’s kind of like Loki, the Greek god.”
I know I probably shouldn’t have said anything, but I couldn’t help myself. “Are you totally set on that name?” I began, trying to sound light. “Because, well, you know, lochia is what you call that weird vaginal discharge you get after you give birth. It’s pronounced the same way.”
“Excuse me?” Jennifer asked.
“No, I mean, I’m just wondering. Also, Loki isn’t a Greek god. He’s a Norse god. By the way.”
Nobody said anything. I left soon afterward.
’Til next time,
V
December 18
I’ve just taken my first dose of Prozac, half a pill, five milligrams. I can’t help feeling defeated, as if I’m taking the easier path. I’m also resentful. If Roger’s the jerk, why am I the one on medication? But I also know that I am depressed. I’m not satisfied with my life. I no longer enjoy life’s little pleasures. I’m irritable. I feel worn out. I’m not eating (or I’m eating rolls of frozen cookie dough).
Holly says I should begin to feel better in about a month. I’ll have to be hopeful, if not for my own sake, then for Petey’s. I’ve seen how depression infects kids in the household.
’Til next time,
V
December 18, continued