Secret Lives Of Husbands And Wives

by Josie Brown

  “Lyssa, are you okay?” Harry Wilder’s face stares back at me, blurred and contorted through my rain-spattered window. It’s been a couple of days since we saw each other in the park.

  I nod slowly and roll down my window. The cold air feels great on my face because it reminds me I’m alive. “I—I was very stupid, going that fast.”

  “I’m just happy you’re alive. Look, would you like me to call someone?”

  “No, that’s okay, really. I have Triple A. I’ve got the card here somewhere. . . .” My hands shake as I rummage through the deep, unfathomable well of my bag, but I can’t find it. DAMN DAMN DAMN Olivia’s been playing in my purse again.

  I look up again just in time to see a raindrop roll off the tip of his nose. “Oh, my God, sorry! Why don’t you get in?” I fumble with the auto-lock. When he hears it click, he jumps into the passenger seat behind me.

  He’s wearing a rainproof jacket, but he’s shivering nonetheless. Seeing him with his hair coiled into damp curls, it strikes me how much more his daughter looks like him than like DeeDee.

  “Listen, by the time you find the number, I could have already changed your tire. Do you know if you have a spare?”

  “Yes, but—you’ll get wet!”

  He laughs heartily at the obvious. “At this point, I think I’d say that’s a moot issue.”

  I’m happy to hear no pain in his voice, unlike the first time we met. Maybe DeeDee’s shopping spree put things in perspective for him. “Okay, sure, it’s there somewhere. Let’s look together. The least I can do is hold the umbrella.”

  We both jump out of the car and head toward the hatch. After moving the kids’ basketball and soccer gear, with some finagling we’re able to shift the backseat forward and open the compartment, which holds a fully inflated tire, thank God, and a jack.

  He heaves both out and crouches to set up by the blown tire. As I stand over him with my umbrella, I’m given a different point of view of Harry Wilder. I take note of how thin his hair is at the crown of his head, and the way his shoulders expand and roll beneath his jacket as he cranks the jack and twists off the bolts. A few moments later, when he stands up to move the flattened tire out of the way, he forgets how close I’m standing and bumps his head into the umbrella. I’m caught off guard and topple backward, but he grabs my hand before I fall into a puddle.

  “Sorry!” we say in unison, then, “Don’t be—” and then together we laugh. That breaks the tension. But then a mist of awkwardness envelops us again.

  I find it suffocating. Apparently he does too, because he clasps my hand with his even tighter.

  My hand lingers in his just long enough for me to appreciate its warmth.

  And to feel his wedding band.

  Yes, Harry is still in mourning.

  As nonchalantly as I can, I take my hand out of his. We stand there in the rain, letting it pull us back to reality. Finally I realize that one of us should say something. My attempt is feeble but sincere. “You know, I’m forever in your debt.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m just glad you weren’t hurt, and that Olivia wasn’t with you—or your boys. That spinout was pretty scary.”

  I shake my head in wonder. “I don’t know what I would have done if I had hurt them.”

  “We can’t protect them against everything.” He frowns. “All we can do is make the judgment calls we feel are best at any given time.”

  “But that’s just it. We’re only human. Sometimes we get it wrong. Sometimes we screw up. Ted warned me about these tires being bald. I just haven’t made the time to buy new ones. Well, there’s still a couple of hours before school is out. I was on my way to the bank, but I think it’s best that I head over to Costco now and get them changed out.”

  He laughs. “Hey, do you think that place has something called Lunchables? Temple is finally burned out on my peanut butter and banana sandwiches. That’s top of the list of my household duties today: bring home these Lunchables.”

  It’s my turn to smile. “You’ve never been inside a Costco?”

  “DeeDee did all the shopping. She even picked out my suits.” He grimaces. “But, hey, I’m game for anything now.”

  A Costco virgin? This should be fun. “Tell you what: you follow me over, and while they’re changing my tires, I’ll give you a tour. And by the way, Olivia loves the idea of having Temple over. We discussed Tuesday. Does that still work?”

  “Yes, and thanks again.” He reaches out again to shake my hand.

  I take his hand again. But why do I have such a hard time letting it go?

  10:31 a.m.

  The trip to Costco with Harry is like a scene out of E.T. “You know, I’ve heard about places like this,” he says, “but I’ve never comprehended why anyone would shop here.”

  He changes his mind the minute we pass the Aisle of Man: the one with all the humongous flat-screen televisions at prices that have him drooling.

  All of a sudden he gets the concept. Who knew there was this whole crazy world beyond the cool, sane recesses of the executive suite, one in which everything is bundled in bulk, including a twenty-four-pack of Lunchables?

  As he munches on a Swedish meatball speared on a toothpick that was nudged on him by one of the genial Costco sample ladies, Harry shakes his head in wonder. “I get the quantity discount concept, but seriously, where am I supposed to store all this stuff?”

  I suggest rearranging his kitchen pantry. “Make it a project with the kids.”

  I think it best not to remind him that, since DeeDee left, he’s got at least one empty walk-in closet in the house. My new friend still has a long way to go before the empty spaces of his life are filled again.

  7

  “Why does a woman work ten years to change a

  man’s habits and then complain that he’s not

  the man she married?”

  —Barbra Streisand

  Tuesday, 5 Nov., 3:50 p.m.

  The bitch called. Apparently they’ve run a few tests on him. They see something or other on a lung.” Mother says this quite matter-of-factly.

  Translation: Patti-with-an-i wants us to know that Dad is dying.

  And if Mother has her way, even this bit of news shouldn’t move me to his side.

  As the kids hustle and flow around the kitchen, I can hear Mother suck hard on her cigarette, then exhale her smoke and venom in a sigh of relief. “It couldn’t have been his heart, now, could it? Because he doesn’t have one.”

  I wish that were a joke, but it isn’t. She truly believes this.

  By all rights, I should too. I haven’t seen my dad since I was ten. It was the Saturday before Father’s Day. He crushed me to his double-breasted gray pin-striped Kuppenheimer power suit and babbled a promise to be home later that night. Then he tossed his Samsonite in the trunk of our—actually his—brand-new BMW 725i, and drove off to his new life.

  The special breakfast I made him the next morning—scrambled eggs, buttered pumpernickel toast, a cup of percolated Chase and Sanborn—sat on the kitchen table the whole week as Mother lay weeping on the California king bed in their bedroom.

  Before she rose, I burned the Father’s Day card I’d made him in the fireplace.

  “Did we get cut off?” Mother asks now. She knows better. My silence is expected, but she doesn’t dare ask if I’m okay. To her mind, I would be nothing else.

  The truth is that I can’t think of anything to say. It’s as if I’ve been waiting for this all my life: the day on which I am to churn up all those feelings of anger and sadness and abandonment I’ve patted down deep in the fertile soil that is my life now, the one I’ve created with Ted and my children.

  As always, the kids are my excuse to get off the phone. Olivia needs me to pour her juice. Tanner didn’t see his athletic socks in the wash. Mickey wants thread for some science project. Besides, I have to prepare a report on that deadly food drive for the Women’s League board meeting tonight, not to mention that any moment now Harry is dropping off Tem
ple for her and Olivia’s first playdate.

  The one overexposed Polaroid snapshot I saved of my father (before my mother could find it and shred it, like all the others) shows a tall, husky man with my wide mouth and curly hair. Apparently Tanner has his height and his sense of humor. And although the camera’s flash turned my father’s irises into alien red dots, sometimes, like now, I spot him looking at me out of Mickey’s green-flecked squinty eyes.

  That’s when I tear up.

  4:04 p.m.

  My new motto: Be Kind to Strangers Bearing Gifts.

  “For you, m’lady.” Harry hands me a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

  “Ah, my favorite!”

  He smiles as I pluck the only maple-topped glazed one from the box. “Ha. I would have guessed you for a chocolate-topped cream-filled.”

  “With two growing boys in the house, I’ve learned to settle.”

  Although I’ve given Harry permission to take off and run any errands he might have, he seems to be in no rush. When I ask him if he’d care to share a cup of coffee with me, he seems relieved to have been given a reason to hang around. Gingerly, he perches half off and half on one of the high stools under my kitchen’s breakfast bar.

  Since yesterday’s Costco adventure, I’ve come to realize that Harry needs a domestic Sherpa: someone to teach him the ins and outs of life in our ’hood, like which is the best dry cleaner as opposed to the one who loses all your buttons, and which drugstore has the fastest cashiers, and what PTA volunteer slots take the least time and effort.

  He claims a knack for cooking, so believe it or not, he doesn’t mind grocery shopping, although in the past that was also (as he puts it) DeeDee’s domain. However, he has taken to heart my warning that he should do as much of the shopping as possible when the kids are in school. Otherwise he’ll get coerced into buying junk food and other stuff they really don’t need.

  “Yeah, I learned that by default, the first week after DeeDee walked out,” he confessed.

  It’s been raining all afternoon, so the girls make an indoor “cottage” (“It’s a Craftsman,” Temple informed me very seriously) by stringing a couple of faded quilts over the two couches in the family room and making domestic tableaus with Olivia’s stash of Barbies. Tanner is at basketball practice. Unfortunately for Mickey, his after-school soccer practice was rained out, so he has holed up inside his room and placed a NO GIRLS ALLOWED sign on his door, in silent protest of the girls’ having taken over the only room with a TV he’s allowed to watch. In sympathy, I’ve agreed to let him play games on my iPhone.

  Slowly, as fine ground coffee steeps in my French press, Harry mellows as well, to the point where he now feels comfortable enough to open up in a way he never has before. This includes giving me a play-by-play of the legal bombs DeeDee has hurled his way.

  “Frankly, I thought this stay-at-home dad thing would be a cakewalk. You know, get the kids out of the house by eight, pick them up at three, and use the time in between to deal with the clients. Ha! Easier said than done.” He smiles wryly. “The real world keeps getting in the way. By that I mean this world.”

  “Let me guess. Life in the carpool lane is different from life in the fast lane.”

  “Do you know how hard it is to talk on the phone when your dog is barking at the neighbor’s cat?” He gulps his coffee. “Then there’s the DeeDee factor. She was the one who wanted out, not me, but she feels she’s entitled to everything I’ve made, even part of my pension and my bonus. So what, now I’m supposed to just hand over the kids and the keys to the house, and walk off into the sunset? Forget that! I’m not paying for her decision with my home and the rest of my family.”

  And no, on Halloween he did not walk in on her with a lover. She just asked him for a divorce, without giving any reason other than that she no longer loved him.

  But he refuses to believe she doesn’t have one, so now she’s taunting him to prove it.

  “The truth is that this is shaping up to be one hell of a divorce.” As he says this, his hands curl up into fists. “For the time being, we’ve agreed to joint custody. But DeeDee has already hired Bethany St. John, so I’m guessing she’ll go for full to justify getting everything.”

  Of course I know that name. The newspapers call her “the Terminator” because of her success rate with high-profile divorces. “Will someone at your firm be representing you?”

  “No. We don’t handle divorces. I was referred to Edwin Worth. He’s supposed to be somewhat of a bulldog, too. With what I’m paying him, I certainly hope so. And of course I’m doing what I can to help out with any of the due diligence.”

  I think back on some of the dirtier divorces that have taken place here in the Heights. Brenda Ravner, who lives down the street, accused her husband, Bill, of abusing their kids, and he lost his job over it. Phil Menkin, who used to live on Locust Street, ran up his wife Cindy’s credit cards, then skipped town. She had to sell the house to get out of debt.

  If Harry approaches his divorce as if it is some corporate merger that needs auditing, he’ll be in for a rude awakening. The mud will be flying as fast and furiously as it does on the Heights’s soccer field after a hard rain.

  I want to pat him on the shoulder and tell him that I feel his pain, but I fear he’ll close up again, like some hothouse flower that only blooms in an environment devoid of foreign elements. In that regard, I can just imagine how strange my cluttered kitchen seems to him.

  Realizing that I am uncomfortable with the topic, he turns his attention to my window ledge, which is laden with pots of my favorite flower, orchids.

  “Aren’t they hard to grow?”

  “Not if you pay attention to them. Just make sure they get the right amount of light, and plant them in the right kind of soil. Oh, and you can’t forget to water them every ten days or so. For that matter, you can’t overwater them, either.”

  “Hmm. That’s much too complicated. I don’t know how you do it and keep up with the kids, and your dog. And your husband, of course.”

  “I guess if you love something, you make it a priority.”

  As I say this, the look on his face changes.

  I wish I’d kept my big mouth shut.

  Instead I open it again, with a suggestion I hope I won’t later regret: “Hey, Harry, I was thinking: with all that’s going on in your life, widening your circle of friends is a perfect way to create a support system. You know, to break up carpool duty, for emergency childcare, that kind of thing. What do you say, think you’re up for meeting some other people here in the Heights?”

  He shrugs. “Sure. What can it hurt?”

  I break a doughnut in two and hand him half. “My thoughts exactly.”

  8

  “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”

  —Mignon McLaughlin

  7:12 p.m.

  So, what’s he really like?”

  That question is coming from Margot. I’m sitting with her and the rest of the board in Tammy’s newly redecorated great room.

  (This is the room’s third renovation in as many years. You see, while workmen underfoot drive the rest of us crazy, it is a natural state for Tammy, who channels her frustration over Charlie’s low sperm count and his allergies to pet fur into remodeling projects. Granted, they’re not as satisfying as a baby or even a puppy, but they will certainly pay better dividends when it comes to her home’s resale value.)

  The reason for this week’s board meeting is, ostensibly, to divvy up duties for the Heights’s after-Thanksgiving potluck. In reality, it is to dish the latest neighborhood dirt. That includes any neighbor’s (a) wild child, (b) obvious substance-abuse issue, or (c) spouse behaving badly.

  My close encounters with our favorite Martian certainly trump the Randolphs’ sixteen-year-old son’s shoplifting arrest at the local skateboard store, and Activist Mom’s one-woman hunger strike protesting the town council’s decision to ignore her request to remove chlorine fr
om the public swimming pool. (“She only dropped six pounds,” sniffs Isabelle. “Come on already! She would have been better off doing Weight Watchers.”) They even trump Brooke’s suspicions that Biker Mom, who lives next door to her, is spiking her seven-year-old’s Capri Suns with Robitussin DM. (She’s just pissed because Marcus’s new role model is Biker Dad, who sports a tongue stud, is inked within an inch of his life, and rides a Harley bare-chested in black leather chaps. Not a great look for a future dentist.)

  Upon Margot’s question to me, the deafening chatter comes to a halt as the pierced ears on the other women perk up and, in unison, tack in our direction.

  Proof positive that Harry Wilder is, hands down, Paradise Heights’s Number One DILF.

  Since Halloween, Harry has been trying to stay below the Paradise Heights gosdar. (In this case, “gossip radar,” as opposed to the local “gaydar,” which is not so finely tuned, as we all discovered when Corey Torrance ran off with his wife’s highly temperamental landscape designer. You would have thought that the time the two men spent together in the toolshed would have been a dead giveaway.)

  In deference to his privacy, I’ve managed to duck all pointed references to Olivia and Temple’s playdates—until now.

  I take a deep breath to buy time before answering, knowing full well that every word that comes out of my mouth will be dissected and ruminated over for the next week, or until more illuminating facts come to light.

  And I am very aware that anything I say can and will be used against him in the future.

  “Frankly, I think the whole thing has him in a state of shock. I have to say that I feel sorry for him. From all he’s said, he didn’t see it coming. He thought that they were totally in sync—”

  This evokes a snort from Isabelle. Still, it is a much, much milder response than what I would have received last year: a few choice expletives, perhaps even a backhanded slap. It wasn’t too long ago that Isabelle’s appearance at the Heights’s mall had every shopgirl cowering in her Kate Spades. But that was before her rampage at the Nordy’s cosmetics counter, when she bitch-slapped the poor beauty consultant who sold the last vial of La Mer Serum out from under her. The woman didn’t press charges, but only because Isabelle was her best customer.