Significant Others

by Baron, Marilyn

  I would have laid odds that Miss Mousey was really Mr. Rat, and I was also wondering whether the pink furry stuff my daughter had described to me earlier when she first moved into the House was insulation and if she was being exposed to asbestos and who knows what else. And all Hannah could talk about were the girls’ frequent visits to “the neighbors,” who it seems were the fraternity houses on either side of the Delta Sig House. When it comes to daughters, a mother’s job is to worry about mice and men. And believe me, I was plenty worried.

  “There’s a cannon outside the house, and it’s huge,” Hannah continued, stretching her hands out in front of her as Donny continued to swirl her around the room. “And there are urinals in the bathroom. And someone painted a Confederate Flag across our ceiling.”

  “Wasn’t that house founded by Robert E. Lee or something?” Donny asked. “You’ll have to paint over it.”

  “The room used to belong to my roommate’s ex-boyfriend. She wants to paint it pink so he’ll be furious when he gets the room back next semester.”

  “Okay, Donny, put her down,” I said impatiently, but I was glad Hannah had provided a diversion to take Donny’s mind off his possible newfound father and her mind off what she had seen in Atlanta. “Hannah and I have important things to discuss.”

  Marc made a beeline for the bathroom and away from Donny, and I brought Hannah’s suitcase into my bedroom and shut the door behind us.

  “I’m so sorry you had to find out this way,” I apologized as I led her over to the bed and she sat down next to me.

  “You mean you knew?” Hannah asked, surprised.

  “Yes, but being confronted with it in the flesh, so to speak, must have been horrible.” I was giving her permission to make light of the situation, and she responded in kind.

  “It was pretty gross,” Hannah admitted. “Trisha has the biggest butt in the world. I’ll bet she has to shop at the Big Ass Clothing Sale.”

  “You saw Trisha’s butt?”

  “It would be hard to miss.” Hannah laughed. “And that’s not all I saw.”

  “Breasts?” I asked, wrinkling my nose, trying to find some humor in this bizarre situation.

  “Had to be fake. They were too perfect. And they were practically falling out of that skimpy bathing suit of hers.”

  “TMI,” I said, putting my hand up. “Wait a minute, did you say bathing suit? She was wearing her bathing suit in the bedroom?”

  “She wasn’t in the bedroom, Mom.”

  “Tell me exactly what happened when you walked in on your father.”

  “Well, when I got there Trisha was sunbathing, practically in the nude, at the pool, stretching and well, posing, I guess you’d say, in plain view of Daddy. And then she took off her top.”

  “Where exactly was your father?”

  “Daddy was in his bathrobe on the couch, watching The Talk and eating ice cream with a spoon out of the carton.”

  “They weren’t together?”

  “Not when I saw them, but come on, Mom. There’s no telling what they had been doing before.”

  “Did he look at them—her, I mean?”

  “No, I think he was really into his ice cream.”

  This whole episode was more than confusing. And the thing I found strangest about it was that Marc was home in his bathrobe, watching a talk show instead of working.

  “Okay, we’ll talk about this some more, but right now, let’s go face the music. I need to get rid of your father, and I mean that literally.”

  “Mom, he swears he’s sorry,” she said hopefully. “I calmed down a little on the plane after he talked to me. Seriously, I think he means it. He says that bringing Trisha to our house was a mistake.”

  “Sorry, I can’t give him a pass on this one, honey. It hurts too much. He violated my trust.”

  “Maybe it’s a midlife crisis.”

  I choked. “Don’t you think I’m going through my own midlife crisis? There are other ways to act out.”

  “Please don’t divorce him,” Hannah pleaded. “Ellie’s parents are getting divorced. I know what Dad did was bad, really bad, but you still love each other, right?”

  If there was any love left between us, Marc had squandered it. But I would make the effort for my daughter.

  “I’ll tell you what. I’ll agree to talk to him, for your sake, but don’t get your hopes up, sweetheart, okay?”

  “Okay.” She smiled. Hannah might have been approaching adulthood, but in many ways she was still a little girl, used to happy endings. Seeing her father with another woman, a practically naked woman, in our house must have been horrifying, but contemplating the breakup of her parents’ marriage was apparently worse.

  “Anything else we need to talk about? Doesn’t that boy you’re dating live in Boca?” I asked. “He’s a Mormon, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t they have more than one wife?”

  “Mom, you’re stereotyping. He told me they don’t do that any more.”

  “Sure, that’s what he tells you. Then after you’re married, you’ll discover he has two other families stashed away somewhere in Utah.”

  “Mom,” Hannah complained. “It’s not like I’m going to marry him or anything. I mean, I really like him, but he says we’re too young to get serious. He says I could be the one, but he’s not ready to start a relationship. He has his priorities. School—one; football, two; his friends—three; and then me.”

  “Well I already don’t like him. You’re almost twenty-one years old. Are you supposed to sit around and wait a few years until he’s decided he is ready to get serious? And you should be number one on his priority list!”

  “I know you’re right, but I don’t want to stop seeing him.”

  Hannah rubbed her hands together anxiously.

  “Mom, how do you know you’re in love with someone?”

  That was a difficult question. I had to think back—a long way back—to answer that one.

  “Every second you’re away from that person, you want to be with him, and you want to be with him every second.”

  “And how do you know he’s the one?”

  “He’s the one person in the world who you love and who loves you back. The person you’d be lost without.”

  Hannah blew out a breath.

  “Are you going to see him on this trip?”

  “We’re going out later tonight,” Hannah confirmed.

  “I’d like to meet him,” I told my daughter.

  “I already talked to him about that,” Hannah reported. “He says he’s not in the parent-meeting mood.”

  “Well, you tell him I’m in the boyfriend-meeting mood,” I said dryly, wishing he were here now so I could give him a piece of my mind.

  “He’s not exactly my boyfriend. I mean, we hang out and everything, but on his Facebook, it still says he’s single, not ‘in a relationship.’ ”

  “He’s obviously not mature enough to handle a relationship,” I counseled Hannah. “And you deserve better treatment than that.”

  “He just overthinks everything.” Hannah said. “That doesn’t change the way I feel about him.”

  “I think you should go right out and start dating someone else. See how he feels about that.”

  “I don’t want to play games,” she answered. “I can’t.”

  I sighed. My poor baby. Maybe she knew a lot more about relationships than I did.

  “I can show you his picture on Facebook,” she offered. “He’s really cute.”

  “He’s probably afraid to face me,” I said. “If he is truly interested in you, he should want to meet your mother. Didn’t you say he was a vegetarian?”

  “No, I said he was going to be a veterinarian. But actually, he is a vegetarian.”

  “A vegetarian veterinarian? No wonder he doesn’t want to meet me.” We laughed.

  I have to admit, a future veterinarian is a step up from Hannah’s last two boyfriends, whose names both started with a “B”—I th
ought for “bastard”—and who were both majoring in building construction. My nicknames for them were Building Construction Brad and Building Construction Bobby. Both of them had a fear of the “C” word—commitment. And both had left her to go back to their former girlfriends.

  Mormons were big believers in family. Well, maybe multiple families, but families, just the same. Apparently they have the same hang-ups about commitment. These were the things I was storing up to tell Marc about our daughter. We used to laugh about Hannah’s escapades at college, but there wasn’t much time for laughter or confidences between us these days. I looked at my sweet, beautiful daughter. She was the image of my mother—her hair was long but she had the same color hair, almost silver blond, and ice-blue eyes. Thankfully Hannah hadn’t inherited the Lewis hips or the Palladino nose.

  “Ready?” I said, linking my hand with Hannah’s. She nodded.

  I got up from the bed and we opened the door, Hannah walking beside me, shielding me.

  “Are you still here?” I asked Marc, who was coming out of the bathroom.

  “Yes, and you’re lucky we’re here at all,” Marc reported. “Atlanta is totally shut down because of the ice storm. They canceled our first two flights, and we got the last flight out before they closed the airport.”

  I knew all about the ice storm. Business was at a standstill, which was fortunate, since I wasn’t going to be able to get home for a few days anyway.

  “Well, you can just turn right around and get out of here,” I seethed.

  “I’m not going anywhere until we talk this out, privately.”

  “All right, let’s go into the spare bedroom,” I agreed reluctantly, leading the way.

  He put out his hand, palm turned up.

  “Hand them over.”

  “Hand what over?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me,” Marc said, wiggling his fingers. “I want your BlackBerry and your cell.”

  I squirmed but gave them up under protest, and he handed them to Hannah. Then I followed him into the guest bedroom and Marc locked the door.

  Anything to get this over with. I could see Marc wasn’t going to budge, and the only way I was going to get rid of him was to listen to what he had to say.

  Chapter Fourteen: Facing the Music

  At first Marc didn’t say anything. Then he started the battle with a snide remark.

  “Wait, listen,” he urged, cocking his head slightly. “Do you hear it?”

  I listened and heard nothing.

  “There it is again.”

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Exactly what do you hear?” I asked, frustrated, seconds from walking out on him.

  “Silence. Blessed silence. No cell. No raspberries. No distractions. I finally have your undivided attention.”

  I scowled. I didn’t like to be without my two lifelines. And I was uncomfortable being out of touch. In my business, communication is key.

  He sat me down on the bed.

  “Okay, you wanted to talk, so talk,” I said.

  “What I really want to do is this,” he said, trying to kiss my lips while invading my space with his slithering tongue. I shoved him back.

  “You don’t get to do that anymore,” I said, uncomfortable with his sudden need for intimacy.

  “Honey, you’ve got to believe how sorry I am,” he said, putting his arms around me.

  “And I don’t have to believe anything you say,” I said pushing him away.

  “Can’t we forget this ever happened?” Marc pleaded.

  “Forget? How do you expect me to forget something like this?”

  “Honey, I know it looked bad to Hannah, but I can explain.”

  “Okay, I’d like to hear your so-called explanation.”

  He hesitated.

  “You can’t be serious about a divorce. You know I love you. Please don’t do this to us.” He seemed contrite.

  “Marc, I’m not the one who did this to us,” I pointed out in a reasonable tone. “And I don’t know that you love me. How would I know that?”

  At that moment, I was tired of being reasonable, tired of the bantering, the verbal fancy footwork. Lashing out, I started pummeling him with my arms, trying to land a punch. He blocked the blows and tried to grab my arms to keep me from hitting him, but his moves were defensive.

  “Okay, why?” I shouted. “I want to know why. Wasn’t I attractive enough? Sexy enough? Did you get tired of me? Why, Marc?”

  “Honey, no. It’s none of those things. And nothing really happened. I promise you.”

  “I know you and Trisha take long lunches every afternoon.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just do.”

  “There’s a reason for that.”

  “I’d like to hear it.”

  Marc hesitated again.

  “Are you just making this all up as you go along?” I accused.

  “No.”

  “Well, why then? What’s wrong with me?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you,” he said quietly. “It’s me. Honey, I said I was sorry for bringing that woman into our house.”

  “But why, Marc? I really want to know.” Okay, so I wasn’t the best cook in the world or the best housekeeper. I didn’t use fabric softener, all my steaks had freezer burn, and all my perishables were way past their expiration dates. And I had my first eyebrow wax when I was forty-five. But there had to be more.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Marc said thoughtfully. “It’s just that you never have time for me anymore. You’re always in a hurry. I know that’s no excuse for what I’ve done. But you don’t really need me. You’re the number one sales associate in your office, you’re in the Hundred Percent Club, the top one percent, you’re in this Circle of Excellence and that Elite Club, and you’ve won this award and that award, and you’re in the Atlanta Board of Realtors’ Top Twenty, but where do I fit in?”

  “Marc,” I said, taking a deep breath, “It’s my job.”

  “Well, you spend way too much time doing it,” he pouted. “And you go about a million miles a minute. You never give the rest of us a chance to catch up. You left me behind a long time ago.”

  “That’s ridiculous, and you know it,” I argued. “And for your information, my goal is not just to earn a living. The key is to be of value. And my value is not just putting people in the car and unlocking the door to show a house. I’m an advocate for that property and for my clients. They’re not just buying a house, they’re buying a lifestyle and we’re fulfilling their dreams. My clients are looking for my opinion and my expertise. I have to be available 24/7. I have to stay in touch. If you’re going to do something, do it right.”

  “Now you sound like your father.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” I bristled.

  “Ever since your dad died, it’s like you have to prove yourself to everyone. You don’t always have to be in control.”

  “No, Marc, you don’t understand. I’m not in control of anything. I’m barely holding it together. You know I’ve had to pick up the slack since Dad died and my mother fell apart. I’m trying to keep this business going and keep my mother from selling it. And you are encouraging her to do just that. I needed you to back me up and you stabbed me in the back.”

  “All you had to do was ask for help.”

  “You were preoccupied.”

  “There is nothing going on between Trisha and me,” Marc said. Then he added, “Okay, she thinks I’m a big deal. She doesn’t know any better, but at least she looks up to me. You know, the way you used to.”

  I had to admit that I hadn’t felt that way about my husband in a long time. I was self-sufficient. I really didn’t think I needed anybody. I frankly didn’t have time for anybody, but I hadn’t realized, until now, that it even bothered my husband, who I thought was just as independent-minded as I was.

  I looked up at him. He really did look sorry for what he’d done. Not that I would
ever forgive him.

  “You know, every time I call you you’re not in the office,” I accused. “Have you been with Trisha all those times?”

  Marc turned away. But he looked more nervous than guilty.

  “Marc, what’s wrong? You used to be able to tell me anything. Is there something else you’re not saying?” Oh God, please don’t let Trisha be pregnant. Anything but that.

  “It’s embarrassing,” Marc started.

  “More embarrassing than being caught with your pants down in front of our daughter?”

  “That’s not what happened,” Marc insisted.

  “Well, tell me, please, what did happen?”

  “It’s about work.”

  “What about work?” I said, annoyed.

  “You have no idea how much pressure I’m under,” Marc began.

  “You’re a partner in the firm. You shouldn’t have to be working hard at this point in your career.”

  “I’m still responsible for 2,200 billable hours a year.”

  “That’s no different than it’s always been,” I said.

  “The firm’s M&A activity has dried up,” Marc said. “There’s nothing for me to do. They’re keeping me on, but I just go into the office and sit there. It’s humiliating not to be productive. It’s driving me crazy. They’re going to vote me out at the next partners’ meeting.”

  I was stunned. This came directly out of left field.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Grant wasn’t supposed to tell me, but he’s a good friend, so he gave me a heads-up.”

  That was why Vicky wouldn’t say anything to me.

  “When is the vote?”

  “Right after Christmas,” Marc replied.

  “Is there anything you can do?”

  “Not really. There’s going to be an incentive for me to leave quietly. When I turn sixty-two, I get insurance and a pension—an annuity.”

  “Well, I guess you could retire,” I suggested.

  “And do what?”

  “Watch ‘The Talk’ and eat ice cream in your bathrobe?”

  “Very funny.”

  “What can I say? I’m a funny girl.”

  But this situation demanded a serious response. “Why didn’t you come to me before?”