Secret Lives Of Husbands And Wives

by Josie Brown

  Harry—a bad boy? So that I don’t laugh in her face, I look down at my feet—but not for too long, because the three toes with the smeared polish remind me of the pedicure debacle. “He’s just a sweet kid who’s going through a rough patch.”

  “Some rough patch,” murmurs Brooke. “Marcus tells me he’s been skipping school. And he’s talking back to his teachers too.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean. Of course he’s preoccupied with his parents’ divorce.” I turn to Margot. She is sniffling like a baby whose pacifier has been taken from her. “Look, I know it hurts. I’m sure Laurel is broken up about it—”

  “Ha! Not my baby! She’s a trouper, that one.”

  “Good for her, for snapping right back!” My cheeriness is met with an icy silence. “I mean, everyone gets dumped at least once, right? It’s a rite of passage.”

  “I never did. And I reserve that right for my daughter, too!”

  “I don’t think there are any take-backs in breakups.”

  “Oh no? Let’s see what Harry has to say about it.” Margot whips out her phone and hits speed-dial.

  “You’re calling him now, while he’s at work?”

  Isabelle nods adamantly. “What difference should that make? This is an emergency!”

  That won’t be good for Harry. He only goes in once every two weeks now, and his partners have taken to ribbing him about it. He’s caught them calling him Mr. Mom. “Margot, your kid falling out of a tree is an emergency. Your kid breaking up with his girlfriend at the age of thirteen is just a fact of life—”

  Margot lifts her index finger in order to shush us. “Yes? Harry Wilder, please. . . . In a meeting? Well, get him out. It’s about his son. . . . Yes, I’ll hold.” She smiles triumphantly.

  I shake my head in disbelief. But before I can say another word or yank the phone out of her hand and toss it into the barista’s whining coffee grinder, Harry’s concerned voice can be heard through Margot’s BlackBerry. “Yes, hello, this is Harry Wilder. Is this the school?”

  “No, Harry, this is Margot.” Her sneer could disable the satellite transmitting it.

  “Oh.” Harry pauses. “Look, I’m in a client meeting now. Can I call you back?”

  “No. Our children’s futures are at stake! Isn’t that more important than any meeting?”

  “Margot, I’m serious. Now is not the time. I’ll be glad to talk to you when—”

  “I’ll make this short.” Margot purrs her threat. “Just ask Jake to apologize, to tell Laurel he made a mistake.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  Margot’s voice wavers. “You have a daughter! How would you feel if some boy broke her heart?”

  “I’m sure I’d feel as you do. I’d be upset at anyone who hurt my daughter.” Harry talks slowly, soothingly, as if he’s trying to talk a lunatic off a ledge, which in this instance is not far from the truth. “But I’d also explain to her that what she’s feeling is temporary, that there will be other relationships in her life, and that we grow from such experiences, even when they don’t turn out the way we want them to.”

  “But—but it’s what she wants!”

  “Well, tell her life doesn’t always turn out the way she wants. That love isn’t perfect. That she should be playing the field, not clinging to some kid who isn’t ready to settle down.”

  “Oh. I see,” says Margot coolly. “Is that what you told DeeDee? Is that why she left you?”

  Her jibe catches Harry off guard. There is a long silence. When he does speak again, he sounds worn out: “Margot, I don’t know why she left. But now that you mention it, yeah, okay: if we hadn’t married so young, maybe we wouldn’t be divorcing now. People change, along with their priorities. Seriously, doesn’t it bother you that your daughter is so boy-crazy? And why do you encourage it? Why are you so anxious for your kid to get her heart broken?”

  She doesn’t bother to answer him, but taps the phone off in frustration.

  Harry’s honorary membership in the Paradise Heights Women’s League has officially ended.

  18

  “A true friend never gets in your way unless

  you happen to be going down.”

  —Arnold H. Glasow

  3:23 p.m.

  Mommy, do I have to invite Temple to my birthday party?”

  Olivia entered our world on New Year’s Day. We’ve always combined her party with a New Year’s open house. Our Christmas tree is still up, and the invitation list is large: not just Olivia’s pals, but our closest friends and neighbors too. Also, we arrange for Santa to make a post-Christmas drop-in. He totes a sack of goofy gifts for all the children. “Christmas leftovers,” he claims. Since Olivia was three, she has presumed Saint Nick and she share the same birthday. We can’t convince her otherwise. And so, at her insistence, whatever poor fool we hire to play him must help her blow out the candles. Everyone leaves filled with one more shot of holiday cheer and the resolve to treat others with kindness in the New Year.

  Or maybe not, as I realize now from Olivia’s question.

  “Hmmm . . . Well. Are you and Temple mad at each other right now or something?” I pause the TV’s DVD player. We’re snuggled up in my bedroom, watching March of the Penguins, a homework assignment from Miss Judith. Tomorrow during magic circle time, the children will be encouraged to express their fears for the poor penguins left sitting on the eggs for months at a time while their mates go off in search of food. The mothers and fathers trade off these duties, with the sole purpose of feeding and protecting their babies.

  Heavy stuff for kindergarteners, but Miss Judith, still concerned about Temple’s home life, knows exactly what she is doing.

  Olivia frowns and sucks her thumb. This is a prime indication that the topic at hand is not one she relishes. “We’re not mad, Mommy. She still likes me, but I just don’t like her anymore. Her hair is falling out, and sometimes she stinks. And if she gets mad at you, she bites you.”

  So, she’s still wetting herself, and pulling out her hair to boot. Poor Temple.

  Poor Harry. “I think Temple is very sad now, don’t you?”

  “Yes. She hates her mommy.” Olivia stares at the television screen. Freezing the DVD has smeared the penguin colony into a blur of black and white polka dots. “She hates everybody.”

  I scoop her up into my arms and kiss her hair. Shampooed just an hour ago, it is still damp and smells as sweet as soda pop. “But she doesn’t hate you. And friendship is about helping people when they need you the most, not just when everything is happy.”

  I let that sink in for a moment. Olivia winces as if shot squarely in the eye by the acidic pulp of her unpleasant dilemma. “What do you think, does Temple need her friends to hug her and hold her hand right now?”

  “Yes, I guess so. Okay, I’ll invite her to reading hour today.”

  She takes the remote from my hand and clicks the waddling penguins back to life. Noting that one of the male penguins has broken his egg, Olivia shakes her head with a sigh. “Poor penguin! Daddies never know what they’re doing.” She burrows deep down into my lap. “When Temple’s mommy comes home, will her daddy have to give Temple back?”

  I don’t know how to answer that. My stuttering attempt is interrupted by our ringing telephone. Saved by the bell.

  Or not. From the caller ID, I see it’s Patti with yet another update on Dad. I let it ring through. Patti is used to this and leaves another stoic message detailing his deteriorating condition.

  I’ll play it later, after the children are in bed.

  Just then Olivia screams at the top of her lungs for me to look quick, as one of the daddy penguins is getting eaten by a polar bear.

  Before I do, though, I dry away a tear and put on a happy face.

  4:38 p.m.

  “Hey, thanks for bringing Temple with you and Olivia to story time. I got out of the city as fast as I could, but with the traffic and all—”

  Harry’s loud apology earns him a sound shushing from the li
brarian who is supervising the after-school story time. At least the passel of kids listening to this week’s story are ignoring us. They are too enthralled by the reader, an out-of-work actor who serves up each rhyming verse as if it were Hamlet’s soliloquy. But several of the mommies, perched on the room’s tiny chairs, second her demand with stern nods and pursed lips. At this stage of life, me time is catch-as-catch-can: perhaps just a few minutes to speed-read the O cover story entitled “Ahhhhhh! 16 Ways to De-Stress Your Life.” Something as time-consuming as the latest Jennifer Weiner will have to wait for late at night, when the kids fall asleep.

  And, of course, there is no time for sex.

  I wave sympathetically at these women even as I push Harry out the door. He still has time to tip his baseball cap to them. He’s in a playful mood, heaven knows why.

  Even before we reach the curb, he nudges my sunglasses just enough that they fall off the top of my head and over my eyes, and says, “Hey, don’t you know you’re not supposed to be seen in public with an Undesirable?”

  “You’re a smart-ass, you know that?” I move the glasses back onto their resting place, the nest of curls crowning my head.

  He learned that term from Brooke one Saturday, when the three of us were people-watching while minding our little ones in Paradise Park. Noticing that Biker Mom, rainbow-haired and decked out in tight leather, was there swinging her toddler, Brooke started in on yet another tirade about her theory that Biker Mom is blatantly courting Marcus’s crush.

  “Just what we need: a son who wants to be a skinhead! Did you know he wants a Harley theme for his bar mitzvah?” She bit her lip in frustration. “Benjamin is going to blow his top when he hears what Marcus wants for the party favors.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” said Harry. Before Margot sent him into exile, his approach to Brooke and the other members of the league board was similar to how you’d treat zoo animals: while it is interesting to observe them in a realistic habitat, if you’re smart you’ll keep your distance, considering the sharpness of their claws.

  Brooke rolled her eyes. “Something very secular: leather motorcycle jackets embroidered with Marcus’s name and the event’s date.” As she gave a friendly wave to her nemesis, she muttered under her breath, “Biker Mom’s idea, of course. Convinced Marcus it would be, and I quote, ‘awesome.’”

  Harry whistled. “‘Awesome’ is that Maserati she drove up in. Not your typical mommy-mobile. Considering that and the cost of a home here, how do you figure Biker Mom pays the bills?”

  “In that getup, I wouldn’t be surprised if she were a dominatrix. Or maybe Biker Dad holds the region’s franchise on pot.”

  “Brooke, cut her some slack! You really aren’t giving her the benefit of the doubt.” So that he’d quit staring, I snapped my fingers in front of Harry’s face. He came to with a start. “I, for one, enjoy the fact that we’re not all cookie-cutter out here.”

  “You would.” Brooke laughed. “Demographics is a numbers game, and the Heights is a big place, so I guess it’s inevitable that we have our fair share of Undesirables.” In another life—that is, BC (before children)—she was a media buyer at an advertising agency. So to her, everything is a statistic that boils down to cost-per-person.

  And to hear her talk, we don’t all cost the same.

  In her opinion, Activist Mom makes the Undesirable list, as do the old-timers whose rambling ranches, with their shabby yards and grand old oaks, were grandfathered in when the developers made their bid for the surrounding prune orchards. While not exactly Undesirables, to Brooke and the others on the board, most of the working moms are also marginalized: they are too harried with their careers, and feel too guilty about it. On the other hand, work-at-home mompreneurs are given some slack—but not too much, because if they could, they’d lean on those whom they consider less ambitious.

  The Heights’s househusbands and their spouses are also on the list: Pete and Masha, the neighborhood slut, and the dysfunctional Cal and Bev Bullworth.

  And now Harry is on it too. Right there at the top of the list.

  Well, I’m not going to let him feel sorry for himself. Not about the board, anyway. “You’re right. Just standing here beside you could get me blacklisted. Except—”

  “Except what?” He’s barking, but I’m not biting, because I feel his pain: his not-quite-ex is a hardball-playing banshee, his kids are acting out, and his partners are grumbling about his shortened work schedule.

  “Except that right now the board needs me more than I need them.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “How do you figure that?”

  “I’m this year’s Thanksgiving food drive chair.”

  “Oh yeah? And how’s that coming?”

  Right now we’re down 90 percent from last year, but he doesn’t need to know that. “Slow but steady,” I say coolly. “Why do you ask?”

  “No reason . . . except yesterday I noticed two boys using the barrel in Miss Judith’s classroom as a fort.”

  “Darn it.” I flop down on the curb. “I don’t think I can take Margot playing puppet master for yet another year. But if the drive is a dud on my watch, I’ll have no choice.”

  “What does the food drive have to do with her role as the queen bee around here?”

  “Just about everything. The food drive is the most important thing the board does each year, not to mention the most unwieldy to coordinate. If I end up chairing a successful drive, I’ll be the board’s next president.”

  “Talk about a hollow victory.” He shakes his head in disbelief.

  “It’s a matter of pride. So what if Margot used to be some sort of expert in employee productivity! So what if last year she doubled the previous record! So what—”

  “So what if you’re so jealous that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.” He tilts the brim of his cap so low that all I see is his smirk.

  He’s right, but not about the food drive. It’s you that’s got me concerned. I almost blurt it out, but I know better. Would he admit he’s lost control of his life?

  No, not even to me.

  No, especially not to me. He wants me to keep him on a pedestal, even as the others are now slinging mud at him, left and right.

  The rumors will start immediately, now that Margot has lifted the embargo on all gossip concerning the Wilders. Like leaves kicked aloft in the now-chilly afternoon gusts, the whispers—all hearsay, “they say . . .” innuendo, and blatant lies—will skitter from cell phone to cell phone, from block to block.

  They’ll say DeeDee left because he was cold and unfeeling; that his children are wild and uncontrollable since she has been gone.

  That the proof is the anger in his children’s eyes.

  Harry’s eyes have dulled, too. I know he’s angry at himself for his inability to control the one thing out of his reach: his children’s feelings for their mother. Unlike him, they can’t bury their emotions in a merger. Nor do they have the guile that would allow them to smile and pretend everything was hunky-dory. And they certainly haven’t yet learned the art of tamping down their emotions, or channeling their hurt into some other activity—although it would be interesting to know how Jake’s been spending his afternoons lately.

  “Tanner says Jake has skipped the last few practices.” I try to keep my voice nonchalant, but by the way Harry frowns, I know he hears my concern. “Coach Shriver says if he misses another, he’s off the team.”

  “But . . . that can’t be. Jake told me—I mean . . .” Harry’s eyelids close under the weight of his pain. “Aw, jeez. Damn it, Jake—”

  “Hey, look: Pete may be a bit of a blowhard, but deep down he’s a pretty nice guy. I’m sure Pete would understand, if he knew what Jake is going through.” Pete Shriver comes off somewhat gruff, but if anyone knows the grief of a disconnected marriage, he does.

  Harry Wilder and Pete Shriver have more than their dysfunctional marriages in common. So why shouldn’t they know each other better? The third househusband, Calvin Bull
worth, is a bit strange, but maybe that’s just shyness. Anyway, it’s worth a try.

  “Hey, speaking of Pete, you two have a lot in common.”

  Harry looks at me sharply. “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, you both work out of the home—”

  “From what I can tell, that dude doesn’t work at all.”

  I shrug. “From what I hear, he doesn’t have to.”

  “Lucky slob.”

  I’m surprised to learn that Harry really doesn’t miss the office as much as I had thought he would. “Yeah, but that’s not the point here. What I mean is that you’re each your family’s primary caregiver.”

  “That term sucks. Why don’t you just come out and say it? We’re both lonely guys in a neighborhood filled with silly, bored housewives.”

  “Hey, watch it there! I resemble that remark.”

  “Granted, you keep a nice, albeit a bit messy, home—”

  I frown. “Hardee-har-har. I don’t think that’s what you meant to say, now, is it?”

  “And I know you’re bored, or you wouldn’t have taken me under your wing.”

  “I had an ulterior motive: I heard they’re looking for a replacement for Mother Teresa.”

  “Well, you still have a ways to go before I’d call you a saint. To your credit, you aren’t half as silly as all the other women in this neck of the woods.”

  I smack him on the biceps. “I’ll take that as a compliment. So, what do you say? Why don’t we invite Pete out to coffee tomorrow? Hey, you know, I’ll bet Calvin Bullworth would be up for a cuppa joe, too—”

  “Whoa, whoa, hold up a minute! That strange dude they call the Cyberterrorist?”

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to say beggars can’t be choosers, but I think better of that. “That’s somewhat cruel. Why don’t we give the guy a chance? One day he may be someone you’ll be glad you know.”

  Harry sighs deeply. “Yeah? Okay, you’re right. Set it up, if you feel like it. Besides, if he really does know how to build a bomb, at least we’ll have him on our side.”

  19