From her spot in bed, she heard the front door open. Andy felt her stomach heave. She didn’t know how she was going to make it through the next fifteen minutes.
‘He’s home,’ she whispered to Lily.
‘I’m here, sweetheart. All night, anytime. Okay? You pick up that phone and call me whenever you need to.’
Andy thanked Lily and hung up just as Max appeared in the doorway. The mere sight of him, looking contrite, holding a bunch of orange tulips in one hand and a Pinkberry shopping bag in the other, caused the tears to start again. Only this time they were accompanied by the sickening realization that he was no longer her husband. She pulled Stanley even closer to her leg and buried her fingers in his fur.
‘I swear on Clementine’s life that I never wanted to hurt you,’ he said plainly, not moving from the doorway. ‘On her life, Andy. I swear to you. If you hear nothing else I ever say, please hear that.’
She believed him. Without a doubt in her mind, regardless of how hard it was to trust anything he said, she knew he would never swear on their daughter’s life and lie about it. Andy nodded. ‘I appreciate that,’ she said, wiping away tears. ‘But it doesn’t change anything.’
Max placed the flowers on the dresser and took a seat at the foot of the bed. His coat and shoes were still on, as though he knew he wouldn’t be staying. He pulled a large Pinkberry from the bag, peanut butter and chocolate swirl topped with Oreos, and handed it to her, but Andy just stared straight at him.
‘It’s your favorite.’
‘Forgive me for not being very hungry right now.’
He reached into his coat pocket and handed Andy her cell phone. ‘I brought the stroller home, too.’
‘Great.’
‘Andy, I can’t begin to tell you how’
‘Then don’t. Save us both even more misery.’ She coughed, her throat raw and painful. ‘I need you to leave right now,’ Andy said, not realizing how much she meant the words until she’d said them.
‘Andy, talk to me. We have to work through this. We have Clem to think about. Tell me what’
Andy’s head whipped up and she felt a jolt of rage as her eyes locked with Max’s. ‘Clem is exactly who I’m thinking about right now. Over my dead body will she grow up watching as her backstabbing father betrays her doormat mother. Not my daughter. So believe me when I tell you that it’s in Clementine’s interest for you to get out of here.’
Max looked at her with tears in his eyes. Andy was surprised she felt nothing. In all the years they’d been together, she’d seen Max cry once, maybe twice, and yet his tears today elicited zero emotion from her. He opened his mouth to say something and stopped.
‘I’ll go,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow and we can talk then.’
Andy watched as he quietly shut the bedroom door behind him. A few moments later, she heard the front door close as well. He didn’t take any clothes, Andy thought. Not so much as a toothbrush or extra contact lenses. Where will he go? Who will he stay with? Her mind circled through these concerns automatically; she worried the way she would have over her mother or her friend or anyone in her life she loved and cared about. But as soon as she remembered what he did, she forced herself to stop.
Easier said than done. Although Andy managed to fall asleep around midnight, she woke at one wondering where Max was sleeping, at two figuring out how she would tell her parents and Jill, at three trying to envision what Barbara would say, at four thinking about Emily’s betrayal, at five asking herself how she would manage as a single mother, and at six for good, her tears dried up but her head pounding from lack of sleep and her mind racing with worst-case scenarios. Her entire skull ached, from the nape of her neck to the bones around her eye sockets, and her jaw was nearly locked closed with the pressure of grinding her teeth all night. She knew without looking in the mirror that her face and eyes would be splotchy and red, puffed enough to make her look sick or clinically depressed, neither of which was far from reality. Only scooping Clem from her crib and nuzzling her peach-fuzz hair calmed her; the sight of her daughter drinking ravenously from her bottle, the feel of the fleece-encased baby curled up in her arms, and the smell of her silky skin had to be the only things on earth that could have made Andy smile right then. She kissed her daughter, inhaled her delicious neck smell, and kissed her again.
When Andy’s phone rang at six thirty, she was perfectly content to ignore it, but she almost jumped out of her skin when the doorbell rang. Her first thought was Max, but she dismissed it immediately: no matter how intense the crisis they were experiencing, it was still his home and his daughter, and he would never, ever ring the doorbell. No one else she knew would even be awake at that hour, never mind showing up at her apartment, and if they were, the doorman would have called. Her heart beat a little faster. Was something wrong? Should she be nervous?
She placed Clementine on her play mat and peered through the peephole. Emily, clad head to toe in designer running wear – sneakers, tights, hot-pink fleece, reflective vest, and coordinating headband – was stretching her hamstrings. As Andy watched her, Emily checked her phone, rolled her eyes, and ordered Andy to open the door.
‘I know you’re there. Max is crashing at my place. I need to talk to you.’
Andy desperately wanted to ignore Emily, or scream at her to go away, or tell her to drop dead, but she knew none of it would matter. Not having the energy or the will to outlast her, Andy opened the door.
‘What do you want?’
Emily leaned forward and kissed Andy’s cheek, the way she always did, and breezed past her into the apartment, the way she would on a normal day when she hadn’t just effectively ended their friendship.
‘Please tell me you have some coffee on,’ Emily said as she beelined for the kitchen. ‘My god, it’s brutal getting up this early. How do you do this every day? Do you believe I already ran four miles? Hi, Clemmie! Hi, sweetheart, you look so cute in your PJs!’
At the sound of her name Clem stopped eyeing her mobile for a moment, but she didn’t turn around and offer Emily one of her usual heartbreaking grins. Andy sent her daughter a silent thank-you.
‘Hmm, no coffee. Do you want one too?’ Emily didn’t wait for the answer; she grabbed a clean mug from the dishwasher, discarded the old coffee pod, selected and installed a new one, closed the lid, and hit ‘start,’ all the while delivering an endless stream of chatter about an advertiser who called her at ten the previous night with a silly question.
‘Are you really here to tell me about the De Beers people? At six thirty in the morning?’
Emily feigned surprise. ‘Is it really that early? How uncivilized.’ She removed the second mug from the machine, added milk to both of them, and pushed one toward Andy. After taking a long drink, she sat down at Andy’s dining room table and motioned for Andy to sit with her. Irritated with herself for taking orders from Emily, Andy nevertheless sat across the table and waited.
‘I just want you to know that I feel really badly about how all this went down.’
Once again Emily paused and searched Andy’s face. Andy did nothing but stare straight ahead; she was worried she’d murder Emily if she allowed herself to utter so much as a single word.
Emily didn’t seem to notice and barreled on. ‘As far as this whole contract debacle … I admit I probably didn’t handle that in the best way possible – I can certainly see that from your perspective – but I just knew in my heart of hearts that once you’d really weighed this incredible opportunity, you’d come to the same conclusion: that we couldn’t possibly pass this up. I knew it, and I didn’t want us to potentially miss out because it took us a little too long to figure it out. Of course, when we found out the Olive issue was in jeopardy, I knew I needed to act immediately.’
Andy said nothing. Emily glanced at her and then became engrossed in the cuticles on her left hand before continuing. ‘Just think – with what we made from the sale, you can take some time off to be with Clem, travel, do som
e freelancing, start another project, write a book – whatever you want! The lawyers couldn’t get rid of that year clause, but they were willing to raise their purchase price significantly. And that year is going to fly by, Andy! I don’t have to tell you how quickly the last couple years have passed, do I? We’ll still both have our jobs, doing what we love for the magazine we built together. The only difference is we’ll be doing it in far nicer digs. Does that sound so terrible?’
‘We won’t,’ Andy whispered, her voice barely audible.
‘Hmm?’ Emily looked at her for the first time in minutes, as though just remembering Andy was there.
‘I said we won’t be doing it in far nicer offices. Or any offices for that matter. I’m done. Finished. I told you yesterday and I meant it. I will announce my formal resignation this afternoon.’ The words tumbled out before Andy could think them through, but once she’d said them, she felt no regret.
‘Oh, but you can’t!’ Emily said, the very first notes of panic creeping into her otherwise eerily calm and collected manner.
‘Of course I can. I just did. Again.’
‘But it’s in the sale agreement that our senior editorial team remain in place for one calendar year. If we don’t fulfill that end, they have the right to revoke the contract.’
‘That really isn’t my problem, now, is it?’ Andy asked.
‘But we signed it, and we committed to the terms. If we renege on that point, all that money could vanish!’
‘We signed it? Did you really just say that? You have an amazing capacity to rewrite history, Emily. Just incredible. Let me say this once: none of this is my problem, since I no longer work at The Plunge. I will take my percentage of the sale price if you can figure out how to work around the editorial clause. If not, you can buy me out according to the terms in our joint employment contract. I don’t really care which happens, just as long as I never see you again.’
Andy’s voice was shaking, and she was trying not to cry, but she forced herself to continue. ‘You can leave now. We’re finished.’
‘Andy, just listen. If you would’
‘No more listening. That’s my decision. Those are my terms and honestly, I think they’re pretty generous. Now get out.’
‘But I …’ Emily looked stricken.
For the first time in nearly fifteen hours, Andy felt something resembling calm. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t pleasant, but she knew it was the right thing to do.
‘Now,’ Andy said, the word sounding almost like a growl. Clem looked up at her, and Andy smiled at her daughter to let her know everything was okay.
Emily continued to sit, looking like she couldn’t comprehend what had happened, so Andy stood, scooped up Clementine, and walked back toward her bedroom.
‘We’re going to take a shower now and get dressed. I expect you’ll be gone by the time we come out,’ she called over her shoulder, and she didn’t stop walking until she’d barricaded herself and Clem in the bathroom. A moment later she heard some shuffling as Emily cleaned up her coffee and gathered her things, and then the front door opened and closed. She listened carefully for any other sound and, hearing nothing, exhaled.
It was over. It was over for good.
23
cougar mama to a golden-bronze man-boy
one year later …
Andy watched from the dining room as her mother worked her way down the kitchen counter, unwrapping platters of fruit and crudités, cookies and bite-size wrap sandwiches, taking a few moments to rearrange the morsels prettily on each tray. In the last two days, people and platters had streamed through Andy’s childhood home in a near-constant flow, and although there were so many others who were willing to do it – friends, cousins, Jill, and of course, Andy – Mrs Sachs insisted on doing all the shiva preparation herself. She claimed it took her mind off her mother, off the last few horrible months of home hospital beds and oxygen tanks and ever-increasing amounts of morphine. They were all relieved the old woman’s suffering was over, but Andy could barely believe her feisty, foul-mouthed grandmother was gone.
She was just about to join her mother in the kitchen when she saw Charles walk in, take a look around to make sure they were alone, and wrap her mother in a bear hug from behind. He whispered something in her ear and Andy smiled at the two of them. Her mother was right: Charles was a lovely man – kind, soft-spoken, sensitive, and affectionate – and Andy was thrilled they had found each other. They’d only been dating six months or so, but according to her mother, you didn’t need years to get to know someone in your sixties: it either worked or it didn’t, and this relationship had been smooth and easy from day one. Already they were talking about selling the Connecticut house and buying an apartment together in the city, and now that Andy’s grandmother no longer needed round-the-clock care, Andy imagined they’d move quickly.
‘He seems great,’ Jill said as she walked in the room and followed Andy’s gaze. She grabbed a carrot stick and began to chomp. ‘I’m really happy for her.’
‘Me too. She’s been alone a long time. She deserves it.’
There was a beat of silence as Jill weighed whether or not to say what she was thinking and Andy mentally willed her not to. No such luck.
‘You deserve someone too, you know.’
‘Mom and Dad got divorced almost a decade ago. I’ve been …’ Andy still couldn’t say divorced in relation to herself; it sounded too strange, too foreign. ‘Max and I have only been apart for a year. I have Clem and my work and all of you. I’m not in any rush.’
Jill poured two plastic cups of Diet Coke and handed one to Andy. ‘I’m not saying you should rush into anything. Just that it wouldn’t kill you to go out on a date. A little fun, nothing more.’
Andy laughed. ‘A date?’ The word sounded so quaint, a throwback to a different lifetime. ‘My world is playdates and ear infections and twos-program applications and ballet-shoe fittings and hiding vegetables in smoothies. I don’t know what a date would look like, but I’m guessing it wouldn’t include any of those things.’
‘No, of course it wouldn’t. You might actually have to wear something other than yoga pants, and you’d definitely have to talk about something besides the benefits of Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies over conventional Goldfish, but news flash: you can do it. Your daughter spends two nights a week at her father’s, you’ve completely lost all your baby weight, and with a few hours invested in getting a decent haircut and maybe a dress or two, you could be right back out there. For Christ’s sake, Andy, you’re only thirty-four. Your life is hardly over.’
‘Of course my life isn’t over. It’s just that I’m perfectly happy with the way things are. What’s so hard to understand about that?’
Jill sighed. ‘You sound just like Mom did all those years before she met Charles.’
Lily walked into the room, holding her frail grandmother’s arm and helping her into a seat. Jill handed Ruth a cup of Diet Coke, but her grandmother asked if she could have some decaf instead. Lily agreed, but Jill motioned for her to sit. ‘I was just on my way to brew a new pot. Sit and talk some sense into my sister. Andy and I were just discussing that it’s high time her nun days were over.’
‘Wow,’ Lily said, raising her eyebrows at Jill. ‘You actually went there.’
‘Yeah, I did. If we can’t tell her, who can?’
Andy waved her hands as though trying to flag down a cab. ‘Hello? Does anyone realize I’m actually sitting right here?’
Jill left for the kitchen.
‘Clem’s at Max’s this weekend?’ Lily asked.
Andy nodded. ‘I dropped her off uptown on my way out of the city. She ran shrieking, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” the second the cab pulled up to the curb and she spotted him. Literally took off and flew into his arms without so much as a glance backward.’ Andy shook her head and smiled ruefully. ‘They know how to make you feel great.’
‘Tell me about it. Yesterday when we took the boys into the city, Bear asked why a man was
sleeping on the street. We tried to explain that’s why it’s important to go to school and study hard, so you can grow up and get a good job. Brainwashing the kid already, right? So Bear asks what Daddy does as a job, and we explain that he owns the yoga studio and teaches classes and teaches other teachers. So what does Bear say? “Well, when I grow up, I want to stay home and wear my pajamas all day, just like Mommy.”’
Andy laughed. ‘You’re lying.’
‘I’m not. I have a BA from Brown, a master’s from Columbia, and I’m working toward a PhD, and my son thinks I watch Bravo all day long.’
‘You’ll set him straight. One day.’
‘Yeah, in all my free time.’
Andy looked at her friend. ‘Meaning?’
Lily diverted her eyes.
‘Lily! Spill it.’
‘Well, there are sort of two things I think you should know.’
‘I’m waiting.’
‘One is, I’m pregnant. The second is that Alex’
‘Mommy! Skye is pulling my hair and it hurts! He bit me! And he has a gross booger on his nose!’ Bear materialized seemingly out of nowhere, shrieking a litany of complaints about his little brother, and it took all of Andy’s energy not to strangle him into silence. Lily was pregnant? That alone was near impossible to fathom, but Alex what? Was stopping by to give Andy his condolences? Had been diagnosed with something hideous and terminal? Had moved once and for all to Africa or the Middle East and was planning never to return? And then it hit her. The only obvious answer.
‘He finally got married, didn’t he?’ Andy said, shaking her head. ‘Of course, that’s it.’
Lily glanced at her, but Bear’s cries had escalated, and Skye had toddled in, also in tears.
‘Not that I wouldn’t be happy for him under normal circumstances – I would – but I can’t stand the thought of him married to that lying, cheating bitch. What is it with the two of us? Some sort of weird, shared inexplicable draw to fall in love with people who hurt and betray us. Why is that? Alex and I had our problems, no doubt, but trust wasn’t one of them. Or does it really have nothing to do with us – it’s just that everyone cheats on everyone these days, it’s what the cool kids do, and any expectation otherwise is old-fashioned or unreasonable?’ Andy took a deep breath and shook her head. ‘How old do I sound?’
Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection Page 185