Life After Perfect

by Nancy Naigle

  The two of them walked back to the kitchen. Katherine grabbed the coffeepot, glancing out the window at the behemoth brick house next door. The grandest in the neighborhood, Peggy and Tucker Allen’s house was just as flashy and loud as he was.

  “Something’s wrong,” Katherine said. “I can see it all over your face.”

  Peggy hiked herself up onto one of the counter-height barstools at the granite island. “Before you say anything, I want you to hear me out. All the way out.”

  “Okay.” Katherine poured the coffee into two tall blue and white mugs. “You’re scaring me.”

  Peggy took a sip of coffee and then sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I know Tucker is cheating on me,” she blurted out, then opened her eyes and looked at Katherine.

  Katherine knew she should look surprised. But she wasn’t. “I—”

  “Let me finish.” Peggy held her hand up like a traffic cop. She looked like she’d practiced this speech in the mirror and committed it to memory, and any interruption might mess her up. “I didn’t mean to put you in a weird position yesterday at the funeral. You know, when I said I’d want to know if Tucker had been unfaithful.”

  Katherine took a sip of coffee, hoping the hot liquid would soothe the burning that had just started in her gut. Guilt. Remorse. Whatever it was, it left a bad taste in her mouth.

  “I’ve known for a while. I mean he was always a flirt, and that was embarrassing at times, but it’s how he won my heart initially. And when we’re alone, he acted like the sun rose and set on me. He still does, only now I know it’s all just a big game to him.”

  Defeat hung over her friend like a dark cloud. Unlike Peggy and Tucker, Katherine and Ron had met and fallen in love as teenagers. They’d grown up together. They’d never flirted with other people. But then Tucker and Ron were different as night and day.

  “I thought I was special.”

  “Oh, Peggy. You are special. Don’t let him ruin your self-esteem.”

  Peggy’s chin trembled. “I believed he loved me. I believed . . . with all of my heart . . . that he’d never cheat on me. Maybe I just needed to believe that. I don’t know. Maybe he gave me all he was capable of giving. I’d convinced myself that the flirting was innocent and those little extra ego strokes were kind of the fuel that kept Tucker going.”

  Oh, he was getting stroked. Katherine held her tongue, but a million thoughts were flying through her mind. How does a woman not know when the person who is sharing your home, your life, your bed . . . is carrying on with someone else?

  Flirting was one thing, but that guy never turned it off. And it wasn’t cute. He got right into your personal space.

  Maybe it was a blessing Peggy asked her to just listen because the thoughts running through her mind right now were probably not as supportive as the ones Peggy needed to hear. None of those “look at the bright side” comments like at least now you know seemed appropriate or helpful.

  Katherine walked over and grabbed a box of tissues from the small table in the hall and put them between them on the island.

  Peggy plucked one from the box and like a switch had been triggered, a single tear spilled down her cheek. “Shaleigh has been helping me for weeks. We’re getting all of our ducks in a row. I’m filing for divorce.”

  “I’m so sorry, Peggy.”

  She shrugged. “I’m not so much hurt as I’m just downright pissed off. I’ll start over, and I’ll do it with half his stuff. That’ll be the least he can do for me after making me a fool in front of everyone.”

  “You’re no one’s fool.”

  Peggy rolled her eyes with a reassuring grin. “It’s an expression, Katherine.” She snickered, but the pain in her eyes wasn’t a joke. “I’m fine. If you want to worry about someone—worry about Tucker. He’s going to pay for this the rest of his life. I’m going to make damn sure of that.”

  “Well, Shaleigh is the best.” Even if Katherine thought she could have talked Peggy out of it, there was no reason to. In good conscience she couldn’t say anything nice to soothe the situation about Tucker, because she just wasn’t that good of a liar.

  Peggy would be better off without him, and not one person in Preakness Heights would feel sorry for Tucker when they heard. She was older than Katherine by at least ten years, but she wouldn’t have any problem finding someone else. That is, if she even wanted to. How does someone get over that kind of betrayal?

  Peggy leaned her face into her hands.

  “It’s okay,” Katherine said, scooting around to her friend’s side. But it wasn’t okay. It was wrong in so many ways, and although it wasn’t a surprise, the truth of it felt heavy on her heart. Her own tears fell, and her voice shook. “Peggy, you don’t have to put on a strong face here.” She was so lucky to not be walking in Peggy’s shoes. Or Bertie’s for that matter. Even if Donald hadn’t been cheating on Bertie with another woman, he was taking her money and keeping secrets. What was the world coming to when the person you committed your whole life to wasn’t even faithful with that precious gift?

  The two of them hugged and Peggy’s hot tears reminded Katherine that even those that seemed to be the strongest around you needed someone on their side. Bertie. Peggy. Even her sister had been feeling dejected after her recent breakup. After her divorce she’d dated a few guys, but having a toddler made it hard, and more often than not those dates didn’t result in much more than a second and final one.

  “Aren’t we a pair,” Peggy said, looking in their reflection of the glass front cabinet and running her fingers under her eyes to whisk away the mascara now streaking her porcelain skin.

  Katherine plucked some tissues from the box and handed half of them to her friend. Both dabbed at the tears, and then Katherine stepped over to the cabinet and took down a bottle of Baileys. She didn’t bother to ask, just tilted a splash into each of their mugs. “Shaleigh is the best divorce lawyer in the city. You’re in good hands,” Katherine said. “I’m so proud of you, Peggy. You seem to be handling this with such grace.”

  “Thanks. I don’t feel very graceful,” Peggy’s voice squeaked at the end like she was losing air.

  “Oh, honey.” Katherine pushed the concoction in front of her. “Drink up.”

  “Leave the bottle out.”

  “You got it.” Katherine sat back down. “But I have to ask, did you really not suspect a thing?”

  “Not a thing.” Peggy took a slow, deliberate breath. “Until I got the email asking us to rate our visit to the Opryland Hotel in Nashville.”

  “I love that place,” Katherine said. Good memories. She and Ron had been several times.

  “I’ve never been there,” Peggy said.

  “Oh.”

  Peggy’s wedding rings sparkled, but they spun on her finger. Now that Katherine looked closer, Peggy had lost some weight. Probably the stress of it all. “I called the hotel and got them to send me over the registration. It was Tucker’s signature, all right, and his dealer tag on the valet records.”

  “Ouch.”

  “That was just the beginning. The deeper I dug, the more there was. It’s just so humiliating.”

  Katherine shook her head. What do you say to comfort someone? It was awkward in so many ways and mostly because what she really wanted to say was good freakin’ riddance to that jerk for hurting her friend. But being a good friend, she wanted to try to at least be supportive either way. “What did he say?”

  “Tucker? I haven’t even talked to him about it.”

  “What if it’s a mistake?”

  Peggy lowered her chin and shot her a look. “Seriously?”

  Katherine wished she had something nice to say, something that might help diffuse things for her friend.

  “It’s no mistake,” Peggy said. “Trust me. I’ve dotted i’s and crossed t’s on this. Shaleigh’s tracked down more on him since that first
little dribble of information. She has a team of investigators she can pick from. She just picks up the phone, and days later you have more details than you ever wanted to know. Besides, does any man ever come clean when you ask him about something like this?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Right. Men deny it or beg for forgiveness. I don’t want either, frankly. Shaleigh said there’s no sense in letting him know we’re on to him until we have everything squared away. Then he won’t have time to hide assets or screw me over in any other financial way.”

  “I guess there’s something to be said for that.” Katherine pushed her coffee aside. “I’m sorry this is happening to you.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Were you happy? I mean before you found all this out?”

  Peggy wrinkled her nose. “I was happy enough.”

  What did that even mean? But then maybe all people settled a little when things got comfortable. “Maybe now you’ll find real joy.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know if I even have the energy for all of that.”

  “You’re too young to just throw in the towel. I know it’s hard to even fathom now, but maybe things will be better. New doors and all of that.”

  “Yeah. All of that. It seems like a lot of work to start over,” she said. “Tucker isn’t perfect, but we’ve been together so long that it was easy. Comfortable. Maybe that was part of the problem. I’m thinking alimony for a good long time will make me feel better. Then we’ll see how things go.”

  Guilt weighed on Katherine’s heart for suspecting and not saying anything to her friend, but she’d always thought Peggy must not have wanted to see the truth. It seemed so easy to see from the outside. “It’s not you who’s broken, Peggy. It’s him. You know that. Right?”

  “Absolutely, and this could be so much easier if I moved out, but I can’t. I haven’t worked a real job since college. Besides, I worked with the architect on that house,” she said pointing toward their home just across the lawn. “I handpicked every color, every tile—every decision that went into this house was mine.” Peggy gazed out the window. “That is my house. He needs to be the one to leave.”

  The front door slammed, and the jingle of Ron’s keys hitting the hall table stopped Katherine and Peggy’s conversation.

  “I better go,” Peggy said, opening up the balled-up tissue to dab at her eyes again.

  Ron walked in and stopped, raising an eyebrow in surprise. “Well, to what do I owe this pleasure? Two lovely ladies in my kitchen at the end of a hard day.” He smiled and kissed Katherine on the cheek as he walked by to get a cold bottle of Coke out of the refrigerator. “Drink anyone?”

  “No, I’m just leaving.” Peggy forced a perfect smile.

  “Don’t leave on my account,” Ron said.

  But Peggy was already hightailing it to the door. Katherine followed her. “Please let me know what I can do,” she whispered. “Anything.”

  Peggy reached out for Katherine’s arm and leaned in. “Tucker will get the papers at work tomorrow morning. Watch for any fireworks over at my place tomorrow night. He’s not supposed to come back to the house, but I’m a little worried about his reaction. Shaleigh arranged for someone to come pack up all of his things during the day. I have no idea where they’ll take them. His office, maybe.” Her words held a tension Katherine had never heard before.

  “I will keep an eye out. You don’t think he’ll do anything crazy, do you?”

  “Probably not. Everything else will settle in good time. Thanks for letting me bend your ear, and Katherine . . . I understand your not telling me.”

  Only Peggy saying it was okay made Katherine feel that much worse.

  She walked inside and closed the door. Leaning against it, she wished she’d been a better friend.

  She stepped into the downstairs bathroom and used a cool washcloth to repair her makeup damage from the tears she and Peggy had shared. She picked up the new lip color she’d just purchased and swept it onto her lips.

  When she walked back into the kitchen, Ron was nursing his drink.

  “You worked from home today?”

  “Yeah. Figured it’d be easier if Bertie needed anything.”

  “You look pretty. New lipstick?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I like the color.” He leaned closer and kissed her.

  His kisses still sent shivers of desire through her.

  He pulled back and smiled. “That color makes your mouth look sexy.”

  It was probably the tears that made her mouth look sexy. Her lips always swelled when she cried, but she took the compliment anyway.

  “What’s up with Peggy? She looked upset.” He lifted his drink to take a sip.

  Katherine leaned her arms across the island. “She is. Tucker’s cheating.”

  He paused, and then took a big swig. “Well, I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything. You know how he is.”

  “Yeah. I know how he is, and I’ve never said anything to Peggy.”

  “What was there to say? Your husband feels up all the women in town? It doesn’t mean anything. He’s just overcompensating by being overly friendly.”

  “There’s more to it. Don’t you think that’s obvious? I mean even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then,” Katherine said. “Maybe if any of us had half the guts to tell him to keep his hands off, he’d have quit acting like a jerk before anything happened.”

  “Or not. It’s just who he is. Peggy had to have known that when they got married. They’ve been married forever. All I’m saying is there could be more to it.”

  She regretted mentioning it to him now. What was it? A guy code. She wasn’t about to get into it with Ron tonight. Sometimes it was like no matter what she said, or what side she took, he was going to argue with her. Usually it was when he was tired. Tonight, it seemed he was in one of those moods.

  In two days she’d learned two neighbors had deceitful husbands. She really didn’t have the energy to entertain that topic any longer. “You’re right. How was your day?”

  “Hectic as hell.”

  “Why don’t you take off early tomorrow? Maybe we could steal away for the weekend. I want to go down to Hilton Head and just putz around. Chill out a little. I could use the break after this week.” She walked over and stepped between his legs, nuzzling close to him. “We could make a romantic weekend of it.”

  “Can’t. Have meetings tomorrow.”

  “We could leave after work.”

  He handed her the glass and tugged his tie loose. “We’ll see. Let’s talk about it tomorrow night.”

  She stood there holding his glass as he turned and left the room to go upstairs. She could hear him taking the stairs two at a time, like a kid; sometimes he was still so seventeen. The water in the shower came next.

  She put his glass in the dishwasher and then ordered a pizza. Medium sausage and hot peppers. The way Ron liked it.

  With her laptop in front of her, she responded to the last few emails that had come in while she was with Peggy. Then, she boiled water on the stovetop to make a pitcher of sweet tea to drop off over at Bertie’s tomorrow.

  She picked out a bottle from the wine cooler—one from when she and Ron had met up in Napa while they both were traveling for business on the West Coast. She poured a glass and took it out on the screened porch off of the kitchen while Ron showered.

  The sun dipped behind the tall oaks that bordered their yard—how long the days were this time of year. She wondered what the night before your marriage ended must feel like, especially when one person has no idea it’s coming.

  She sipped the wine, and as the sky grew darker, she could see shadows move behind the curtains of the Allen house. Tucker and Peggy going through their regular routines. One last time.

  The pizza arrived and Ron called out to her.

 
“Going to watch the game with me?”

  She carried the wine back inside and snuggled on the couch next to him. For now, anyway. As soon as his baseball team did something stupid, he’d be jumping up.

  He got so wound up during those games. Didn’t matter if it was from his armchair. He was just as animated at home as he had been in college. Watching him was usually more fun for her than watching the game.

  She loved this side of him. Going to sporting events together had always been so much fun, especially on the nights their team won. You’d think he was getting a bonus check for every run or score. Too bad it had been so long since they’d been able to work a game into their schedules.

  Katherine got up and walked back into the kitchen to pour another glass of wine. “Want anything while I’m up?”

  “Just you back here by my side.”

  She lifted the glass in the air in the kitchen, with a smile playing on her lips at Ron’s words. Looking across the lawn toward the Allen house, she said, “To your future, Peggy. May you find joy. Here’s to Tucker paying through the nose for cheating on you, and getting what he deserves.”

  Usually Katherine worked from home on Fridays, but this morning she had to go into the office for a couple quick meetings. Most people were of the TGIF variety, but fighting summer traffic on Friday afternoons wasn’t anything to celebrate. She’d take Thursday traffic over Friday traffic anytime, which was why she was thankful she had the flexibility to work from home most Fridays. That flexibility was the least the bank could do given how much she traveled these days. It was beginning to get a bit comical because when she was traveling, Ron was home and vice versa.

  Hopefully she’d get in and out of the city before everyone else and miss the crazy turtle crawl out of town.

  She was ready to cut her schedule back a bit. Ready to start that family she and Ron had always talked about; but they were living up to their income, which was only going to make it harder to cut back and slow down for a family.

  How long were they going to keep going through the minutiae of tasks, and work, and 24/7 stress? To hell with the Joneses. Her fancy red Mercedes was just one more reminder of Ron’s obsession with flaunting their success.