Eye Spy (Liza Radley Housewife Detective Chronicles)

by Jenna Mattison

  We arrive at the restaurant/desperate suburban divorcee’s haunt and wait for a table. The four of us belly up to the bar and Josie orders me a cosmopolitan. Light on the cranberry.

  All our fruity concoctions happen to be primary colors: apple martini, blue Hawaii. I totally feel like Carrie from Sex and the City (only not remotely as skinny or as fashionable).

  Evvy points out a guy in a turtleneck across the room. “He’s totally your type.”

  I shoot her a look. “Since when is my type a graduate of Hair Club for Men wearing a ribbed mock turtleneck one size too small?”

  Anne gives me a little frown. “Sweety, you can’t be so judgmental. This is what’s out there in the dating world. We’re not twenty anymore.”

  “Okay. Well, first of all, I’m not even looking. Second, if I were looking, I wouldn’t be looking here.”

  “Well, where then?” Evvy challenges.

  “I don’t know…the library maybe?” I shrug, grabbing a couple of peanuts from the small, freshly refilled bowl and popping them into my mouth.

  Josie lets out a snort. “Yeah. I’ve heard that’s a real hub of dating activity.”

  “Sorry if I want to know that my future mate is literate. But it’s really a moot point because I’m not on the market. And I never will be again. I’m officially off men. They cannot be trusted. ”

  “You can’t be off men like Anne was off milk when she went through her lactose intolerant phase,” Josie counters.

  “Watch me,” I say challengingly, as I down the last of my hot pink drink and saunter off towards the bathroom, trying hard not to topple over.

  What I wouldn’t give for my Uggs right now.

  Jimmy Choos = blisters from hell.

  As I make my way back, I see that we’ve been moved to a nearby bar table in the center of the room with snakeskin print barstools. The drinks have been refreshed, and there is a small cake with a solitary lit candle adorning it.

  “What’s this?” I ask, as I wobble to my seat and hop up.

  “It’s your birthday, darling,” Evvy says with a smile. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

  It’s like we’re connected in some otherworldly way, me and these “sisters” of mine.

  Josie looks at me and smiles, “You know babe, nobody ever thought Bernie was good enough for you anyway.”

  Anne snorts, already tipsy. “He was kind of dumpy.”

  My initial reaction is to defend my dumpy Bernie but then in a sudden wave I realize he’s not my Bernie anymore. And that he hasn’t been for a really long time. In that moment I close my eyes and wish for a new and totally different life and blow at the little flickering, fuchsia candle with all my might. The girls clap and I open my eyes one at a time.

  “I suppose I have to share this cake with you dirty bitches,” I say, all sassy like.

  Evvy dips her finger in the chocolate icing and licks. “So, it’s time for the details.”

  I knew this was coming. I take a long swig of my drink then decide to just polish it off before I divulge the nasty truth. “I actually caught him in the act. In his office. With his pants down. Doing it. Doggy style.”

  Anne lets out a gasp. “Oh, you poor baby. “

  Josie, shakes her head in disbelief and blurts, “What a creep.”

  “Was it ‘the secretary’?” Evvy asks quietly, her voice a bit deeper than usual.

  “Yup.”

  “That man is like a walking cliché; first the balding, followed by the canary yellow Porsche, and now bopping the teeny bopper secretary. Idiot.” Josie shakes her head in disgust. She polishes off her drink and motions for a waitress. “I’m so glad I never got married. What a crock.”

  I wince and ask tentatively, “So how’d you guys know?”

  I brace myself as they tell me of every single solitary piece of damning evidence that led the three of them to be unequivocally sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bernie was a cheating, lying, dog. From flirting with them to seeing him out to dinner with “colleagues”, the evidence is damning.

  Maybe these three should take Greta’s case. Boy, have I been a clueless idiot.

  “I’m putting the house up for rent if you guys know anybody,” I say after a long beat.

  “Where are you going to live?” Anne asks, looking sad for me.

  “I’ve decided to get an apartment in the city.”

  The girls are quiet for a moment until Jose breaks the silence. “Good for you, babe. To a new life.” She raises and empty glass. On cue our third round arrives and we grab our drinks to make a halfhearted toast. I have a mixture of butterflies and too much vodka in my stomach as I contemplate my uncertain future. A tall, elegant man walks over to our table and hands me a daisy.

  Looks like the dull portion of my life may be over. I’m the kind of woman who lives in the city, wears Jimmy Choos, and gets flowers from strangers. Neat.

  “Hello,” I say, accepting the wilting stem that recently adorned his dinner table. “You really shouldn’t have.”

  He smiles gleefully with a mouthful of Chiclet-like capped teeth. “I had to figure out a way to talk to you. I love a woman who isn’t afraid to wear dangerously high heels,” he says with a faint international accent. Which frankly, sounds more than a bit affected.

  “Oh, well then, you’ve got the wrong gal. I usually wear boots. These are just part of the costume for my “I’m getting a divorce and totally forsaking all men forever”, celebration.”

  He unfurls his porcelain grin once again without missing a beat. “Splendid. Well then, carry on,” he says, slinking away.

  Boy, that felt good.

  Josie lets out a yelp and high fives me, but I miss her hand and practically fall off the barstool.

  Did I mention that Grace has never been one of my virtues?

  49

  I barely remember the ride home. Or getting up the stairs to bed. But somewhere between that last shot of tequila and my face resting against the toilet, I decided that my brief flirtation with alcoholism is officially over. I’m just not built for this sort of thing. I’m a glass of wine kind of gal and anything beyond that always seems to go tragically wrong.

  I wipe my face with a damp washcloth then lay my tired bones on the four-poster bed that Bernie and I got at an antique shop in Nantucket.

  Guess I’ll be needing a new bed along with that new life I wished for.

  I can feel the beginnings of some painful blisters. Who am I kidding? I’m just not a trendy, hot spot going, boozing, stiletto-wearing type. I should just resign myself to a life of sensible shoes and starchy carbs eaten in front of a Disney animated flick or reruns of Seinfeld.

  As I lie in the darkness, I realize how quiet it is sans Bernie’s snoring. It’s nice and yet not so nice at the same time. It’s too still. Too quiet. Kind of creepy. And way too dark. I flick on the bedside lamp and drape a red t-shirt over it. It gives the room a warm glow that reminds me of the firefly nightlight Mamma got me from the Telfair Mansion museum. I remember what Mamma used to say about counting sheep followed by the word Mississippi and decide to give it a whirl. I sure hope it works because all this introspective crap is wearing me out.

  50

  Our first official day as detectives has been officially boring. We’ve been staking out Greta’s husband’s office all morning and we aren’t even eating any donuts.

  “Isn’t a cardinal rule of the ‘stakeout’ massive donut ingesting?”

  Jack rolls his eyes. “Maybe later…if you’re good.”

  “You better watch it, Bucko.”

  “Why don’t you start now by being good and quiet cause Greta’s hubby is at twelve o clock.”

  Following the direction of Jack’s gaze, I spot the man in the family portrait. James Furlong. “Well, if it isn’t the cheating creep in the flesh.”

  “He’s innocent until proven guilty.”

  I snort a reply. “Yeah. Right. As if.”

  Furlong approaches a silver Bent
ley parked in his own personal placarded space. He has a bookish look about him, wearing a tweed jacket with suede elbow patches, horn-rimmed tortoiseshell glasses, and looks a bit unkempt for a man of his financial caliber. A worried, preoccupied frown etches his haggard face.

  “Look how nervous Mr. Flashy Bentley is. Probably afraid his wife will find out what a cheating-cheater he is and take all his money.”

  The Bentley fires up and reverses as Jack eases out of our parking spot, tailing the other car ever so casually. Boy, this Parella guy is good. I gaze at his strong profile. Seems every time I look at him I get a tingle below the waist. He has an intense effect on me but I absolutely, positively will not go there. First off all I’m really not in a place to have any sort of “relations” with a man. But secondly, Parella kind of scares me. He’s the kind of guy that could really break a girl’s heart in two (or two million) pieces.

  The silver car approaches an old craftsman style house in a blue-collar part of town. No manicured, croquet-sized lawns here. The plots are square and small and the houses look as if they were built in the 1950s. Furlong parks his car on the street then enters the pale, blue house with his own key.

  “Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.”

  Jack gives me a look of disappointment. “Don’t gloat. It’s not a good color on you.”

  Parella slumps down in his seat and puts his hat over his eyes. “Wake me when he comes back out.”

  I spend a few minutes trying to wake Jack using an Obi-Wan Kenobi-type Jedi mind trick, but I soon realize that the force isn’t with me. A memory of watching Star Wars cuddled up next to Bernie on the sofa in our first apartment invades my head. It was in his top ten. Actually I think the Star Wars trilogy was the extent of his top ten. He would get insanely jealous when I commented on Han Solo’s raw, animal sexuality. He even asked me one year, for his birthday, to dress up as Princess Lea and give him a lap dance. I ended up putting my hair in pigtails (cause I couldn’t quite perfect the whole cinnamon roll head look she had going), wore an old white bathrobe, and the evening was spent watching TV with some microwave popcorn. Not exactly high eroticism. Our sexlife never was. So I guess I can’t fully blame him for cheating on me. But I still get this surge of white-hot anger that sears through me when I think about it. I have a lot to work through, I guess, with this whole being cheated on thing. I mean he was my husband. Till death do us part; or till a young secretary’s legs do part I should say.

  I remember hearing somewhere—probably Oprah—that one should write the other person a letter that they never send as part of getting “closure.” It looks like I’ve got some time to kill so I decide to give some homemade therapy a try.

  I pull a pen and scrap paper out of my over stuffed purse—which I keep promising to clean out—and sit for what seems like a full five minutes with the pen to paper, producing nothing. Zip. Nada. Zilch. The theme from Jeopardy plays in my head. Cruelly taunting me.

  This is harder than I thought.

  A full ten minutes has gone by and the only thing I have is “Dear Bernard,” with the dear part crossed out. Crumpling up the paper, I throw it toward Jack’s open, snoring mouth. He’s startled awake and wipes the drool off his chin.

  He’s the only guy I know who can even make drooling look sexy.

  “What’s the big idea?” He grunts, eying the crumpled, half-assed attempt at closure that has tumbled into the cup holder.

  “The big idea is that I’m bored, and this stakeout stuff is not the thrill-a-minute I imagined it would be. We can’t just sit here all day. Let’s snoop around.” I slide out of my seat and thru the door before Parella can object and channel Michelle Pfieffer a la Catwoman in my attempt to be stealth. Jack eyes me with annoyance as he approaches.

  “Liza, the point is to be inconspicuous. You’re being conspicuous as hell.”

  He grabs me by the arm and pulls me towards the sidewalk. We cut through the neighbor’s front yard and amble up to the front walkway of the mystery house. At first I think he just might waltz right up to the door and knock, but instead he heads for the mailbox and calmly opens it. He peeks discretely at a letter inside, shuts the box, then casually walks back to the car.

  Smooth.

  I follow him closely. And as I’m about to open the car door, my cell phone chimes the Musak version of “I Will Survive,” which Josie programmed as my ring tone last night. Jack shoots me a look of disdain as I answer on the second ring.

  “Hello,” I say in a hushed tone.

  “Liza, darlin, it’s your Mamma callin’.” I scrunch my face in annoyance and mouth the word “Mom” to Jack as he glares at me, disgusted at my flagrant unprofessionalism.

  “Mamma, I’m kinda of in the middle of something so I need to call you later, okay? No, no, everything’s fine. Yes, I know our anniversary is coming up. I’m just not sure Bernie can get away right now. He’s really…laid up at work.” I glance over at Jack and notice him as he walks towards my side of the car, eyeballing me as I lie my size-eight butt off. “Okay, then. I’ll talk to you later. Give Daddy a big kiss.” I snap my cell phone shut and give Parella a guilty look.

  He shakes his head. “You haven’t told your own mother?”

  “You don’t get it. She likes Bernie better than me.”

  Jack gives me a hard look. “That’s crazy, Liza. You have to tell her. Give her a chance. Consider yourself lucky that you have a mother. Seriously.” Jack’s voice cracks a little as he says the last bit. He averts his eyes and clears his throat.

  Suddenly I realize that Jack’s Mom probably died and most likely it was recent. The wound’s obviously still fresh. I touch his shoulder as he looks around uncomfortably at everything but me. I instinctually put my arms around him and hold him really tight. He starts to rock back and forth, and it feels a bit like we’re dancing. I put my toes over his, like I used to do with Daddy when I was little, and the whole scene is just…cozy, for lack of a better word. We stay like that for some time until Jack pulls away.

  “Let’s go get some lunch, aye? I could eat a whole cow right now. Plus I don’t think anything’s gonna give with Furlong. And even if it did, we’ve blown our cover wide open with all this ballyhoo.”

  I decide to let the moment pass without prodding, since Parella obviously feels a bit self –conscious. But he adds just before we get in the car. “Call your Ma, Liza. Oh yeah, and next time, can you turn your friggin’ cell phone off when we are trying to be friggin’ inconspicuous?” He slides into the passenger seat and slams the door.

  Oops….

  51

  I dial Walnut Hill as a deep breath fills my lungs (it’s the name my granddaddy gave our house on account of the two walnut trees at the southern edge of the property). Mamma answers the call on the first ring.

  “Well, Liza. What a surprise Dear. I thought you were otherwise engaged.”

  After another deep breath, I blurt it out before I can change my mind, “Bernie cheated on me, Mamma.” I hear a gasp on the other end of the line and a long beat of silence.

  I immediately regret the decision and am on the brink of hanging up and pretending it never happened, when she whispers, “That bastard.”

  I dart my eyes to Jack who gives me the thumbs up sign and I let a big smile escape.

  “What happened, princess?”

  I feel a lump in my throat. She hasn’t called me princess for at least two decades. “I don’t know, Mamma, I think it might be because we couldn’t have a baby…and I gained some weight you know and I...I just...”

  She interrupts, “Elizabeth Cordelia Beauchamp Radley, don’t you dare blame yourself for his vile behavior. This has nothin’ to do with you. This is just something some men do when they get older and start feelin’ silly. Now, Mamma’s gonna come out there as soon as I can get a flight, and we are gonna have a proper crying fit, followed by a proper spending spree, and a makeover. Nothin’ like lookin’ your best to put the wind back in your sails, darlin’.”

  I’m
speechless. Jack was right.

  “I’ll call you with my flight number as soon as I have it, Button.”

  Wow. I haven’t been called Button in…I can’t even remember when.

  “Okay, Mamma,” I manage before hanging up.

  I walk to the driver’s side door grinning like an idiot. My eyes brim with tears as I slide into the car. “Thanks, Jack.”

  He answers me with a pat on the leg. What a swell guy.

  “So any clue from the mail?”

  “Just a letter from Social Security to a Sally Dudley.”

  I shrug. “Okay, where to, mister? Lunch is on me.”

  We do a Chinese fire drill so that Jack can drive us to his favorite hole in the wall Italian restaurant just outside of Boston. Apparently, the entire family runs the joint and the tables come fully equipped with the quintessential red-checked tablecloths and Parmesan shakers.

  The Mom knows Jack by name and plants a big kiss on both cheeks, which makes him blush the same shade as the carafe of Chianti she sets on the table.

  “This place is great,” I say, as I dollop a chunk of bread into a mixture of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The bottle has the restaurant’s name, “Linguine’s,” written on the label in squiggly font with some grapes dangling on either side.

  A pretty young Italian waitress, with impossibly shiny black hair and flawless olive skin, approaches the table. She barely notices me except to glare at the unsightly Band-aids flapping around my flip-flops until Parella introduces me… as his wife.

  I choke on the rustic bread and Jack hands me his glass of water.

  “Here you go, love bug…”

  I take a big gulp of the water as the waitress eyes me with disdain.

  “I didn’t know you got married, Jack,” she exclaims with such genuine concern that it makes me seriously wonder whether she’s drawn bubble hearts on her order pad with Jack’s initials inside.

  “We just eloped. It was love at first sight, wasn’t it, doll?” He gives me a longing glance across the table.