The Whole Package

by Cynthia Ellingsen

  Doris’s eyes widened and she took a step back.

  Apparently, Cheryl and Doris had been avoiding each other for months, ever since Doris performed a “slut intervention” on Cheryl. The entire scene had been described to Jackie over the phone, blow by awful blow.

  It had happened on a hot summer day when Doris and Cheryl had met for their biweekly lunch and pedicure date. Doris had shown up late, wearing some sort of a navy dress with large polka dots. It was too tight across the chest and kept gapping open, inadvertently exposing her humongous breasts to the other tables. Cheryl had teased her about it but instead of laughing, Doris had gotten more and more agitated. Halfway through lunch, Doris scarfed down a piece of bread, and then said, “I have to talk to you about something . . .”

  “Don’t talk about it,” Cheryl joked. “Go in and demand a refund on that dress.”

  “You’re sleeping with too many men,” Doris blurted out.

  Cheryl laughed. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Okay,” Cheryl said, taken aback. “But who isn’t?”

  “I’m being serious,” Doris said, attempting to spear a bite of salad. The tomato rolled across the plate and Doris’s fork chased it until it was caught. “I don’t really know why you’re doing it, but it’s pretty easy to see you’re not happy.”

  “What makes you think I’m not happy?” Cheryl asked, gulping down her glass of Chardonnay. The entrees hadn’t even come yet. Glancing at her watch, Cheryl wondered if they would be late for their pedicures.

  “Well, you’re drinking at lunch,” Doris said, brushing a loose strand of hair out of her face. “Who does that?”

  Cheryl indicated the tables around her. “Most of the restaurant.”

  “I don’t know if they’re happy either.” Doris sighed.

  “Are you happy, Doris?” Cheryl demanded, propping her chin on a hand and giving full focus to her friend. It wasn’t a fair question. Ever since Doris’s mother had died, Doris had become a completely different person. Gloomy, depressed, judgmental . . . but Cheryl hadn’t said anything because Doris had been a saint during the divorce. Even though Cheryl’s affair had broken up their couples’ circle, Doris had stuck by her side.

  “Cheryl, I am being incredibly serious right now,” Doris told her. “I need you to start thinking about your morals. Or I’ll have to start thinking about our friendship.”

  Cheryl set down her wineglass, stunned. The pious look Doris was giving her should be reserved for drug pushers or animal abusers, not a divorcee in her late thirties trying to get a new lease on life.

  Cheryl took off her sunglasses and took a long look at her best friend. “I’m sorry. Did you just . . . Are you giving me an ultimatum?”

  Doris looked surprised at the label, but then nodded. “Yes. Yes, I think I am.”

  “Thirty years, Doris.” Cheryl was aghast. “We have been best friends for thirty years. Are you seriously telling me you’d throw everything away because I’m having sex?”

  Doris nodded, chin tilted up and nostrils flaring in that way they did when she felt threatened. “I stuck by you when you cheated on Sean because I didn’t believe you were really that person. But since then, your morals have really gone out the window. Birds of a feather, you know. I don’t want people to start thinking . . .”

  Cheryl finished her wine in one gulp, stood up, and stalked out of the restaurant. She had not spoken to Doris since.

  Now, Jackie was loath to witness the tension between them. Cheryl’s fists were clenched and her face was all twisted up. Doris had wrapped her arms around herself and was shifting back and forth on the balls of her feet, like a fighter getting ready to dodge a hit.

  “Girls, this is ridiculous,” Jackie said. “I just got home.”

  Cheryl looked at her. After a moment, she nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry, Jackie,” Doris echoed, ducking her head.

  “It’s so good to see you,” Cheryl said, touching Jackie’s arm. “If you would have told me you were coming, I would have bought champagne or something.”

  “I have champagne,” Doris said. “At my house.”

  “That sounds lovely,” Jackie cried, smiling brightly. That worked out perfectly. She wanted to get them to Doris’s as quickly as possible. It had been a long flight and a bed would be nice. “Cheryl must be freezing in that sexy little outfit so why don’t we all pile into my hilarious little clown car . . .”

  Cheryl took in the rental. “What the hell is that?”

  “I asked George to rent me a car and he thought this would be a scream,” Jackie recited. “And it was! I screamed.” Her friends laughed and inside, Jackie gave a sigh of relief. “Listen, we’re all going to sleep at Doris’s tonight, so if everyone’s ready . . .”

  “I’d rather die,” Cheryl said, “for the third time today,” and started moving toward her front door.

  Gently, Jackie reached out and grabbed her arm. “Darling, you’re hurt,” she said. “There’s not room for all three of us to sleep over here and you can’t be alone after a concussion. We’re going where the beds are.”

  “I’m not interested in the three of us,” Cheryl said, teeth suddenly chattering.

  “I’m not giving you the choice,” Jackie said. “We’re going to Doris’s.”

  “Please come,” Doris begged. She looked at the ground. “I can’t be alone with Doug. He . . . he saw a movie with another woman.”

  “What?” Cheryl said, clearly in spite of herself. “Who?”

  “Someone we all know.” Doris blushed, shifting her feet. “Katherine Rigney.”

  Jackie gasped. Katherine Rigney? Revisiting a high school girlfriend was certainly dangerous, regardless of how many hairstyles had changed since then.

  “Damn,” Cheryl muttered. She glanced at the hovering Lexus. Doug’s silhouette was watching them patiently. “That’s not good.”

  “He said he didn’t sleep with her,” Doris said, crossing her arms. “I believe him. I do.”

  “Absolutely,” Cheryl said. She turned to Jackie and widened her eyes. “So. Are you here to stay or what?”

  “Oui,” Jackie said, trying to keep her tone upbeat. “It’s time. And I’m . . .” Looking at her best friends, Jackie suddenly felt a rush of love mixed with a rush of guilt. Her eyes filled with tears. “I hope you will forgive me for the way I left.”

  When Jackie had left for Paris, the girls had planned to see her off at the airport. Jackie had deliberately given them the wrong flight time and called them as she was boarding, feigning embarrassment and stupidity. But the fact was, Jackie had needed her space, time to mourn her husband in her own way. The decision to bolt with no fanfare had been made the moment Robert took his last breath.

  Jackie told her friends she was moving to Paris at the wake, Robert lying like a slab of ice beside her. As Cheryl and Doris absorbed this news, Jackie stared over their shoulders at the video of Robert’s life. Robert’s children were watching it and (finally!) noticing that the affection between her and their father was real. As if she hadn’t (loyally!) been with him for ten years, for heaven’s sake. It was interesting to watch his kids finally be nice to her but of course, that had ended a few days later, at the reading of the will. There, they learned what Jackie had already known. Robert had left his entire fortune to her. The kids were furious but what did they expect? They cut Robert out of their lives the moment he had left their mother.

  Jackie did feel a twinge of guilt, now. Time had wrapped her story in ribbons but she still had to live with the fact that in her youth and naivete, she had stolen another woman’s husband. At twenty-two, Jackie hadn’t bothered to question Robert’s claims that his wife was already out of the picture. Behind port and cigars, Robert’s set whispered that his wife had been cheating on him for years. As Jackie got older, other women told her a different version of the truth. Robert’s wife had always been faithful; he was the one who had always been on the lookout for some
thing better. Jackie didn’t know what to believe. Had Robert told her the truth? Or had she been set up by Robert’s circle, a pawn in some game where youth won out over loyalty?

  As for his children, Jackie didn’t waste energy feeling bad about them. She hadn’t affected their lives in any way, as they had been shipped off to boarding school and summer camps long before she arrived on the scene. The children still found a way to blame Jackie for Robert’s death and their mother’s misery. On bad days, Jackie couldn’t help but wonder if they were right.

  Looking around Cheryl’s driveway, studying the faces she had known for so many years, Jackie thought about life and its many mysteries. So much had changed, so many miles had been traveled and yet, once again with Cheryl and Doris, Jackie could have been standing anywhere in time. High school, college, the marriage years . . . they all blended together. It was nice to feel that familiarity and have the knowledge that there were two people in the world who, no matter what, would always be her family.

  “I missed you girls,” Jackie said. “I’m glad to be back.”

  Cheryl let out a breath, putting her hand to her head. “After I got hit, Stan asked me who to call and I realized . . . you’re my only friends. My real friends, I mean.”

  “Well, we all certainly hit the jackpot,” Jackie said, adjusting her bag. She was beaming inside. “Shall we go?”

  Doris eyed the leather purse enviously. “That’s beautiful.”

  “The French.” Cheryl nodded.

  Jackie patted her purse. “My luggage is filled with all sorts of lovely things for you two. We’ll have a gift session tomorrow. Now, I’ve got all our sleeping arrangements planned out. I’m sleeping with Doris in that memory foam, king-sized bed. Cheryl gets the guest bedroom . . .” Jackie paused for dramatic emphasis, then pointed at the hovering SUV. “Doug gets the floor.”

  Even though Jackie was trying to keep the situation light, she was furious with Doug. Things might have changed since Jackie had been gone but that was no excuse for chasing after someone like Katherine Rigney. Brushing a strand of hair back from Doris’s forehead, Jackie thought back to when they were just teenagers. Doris was lying in the hospital bed after the miscarriage, already married to Doug at seventeen and looking like her world just might end. Doug had forced her into that premature marriage; he best not ruin it now. Jackie might even have a word with him in private, if it was possible to get him alone.

  “Momma Jackie’s in town,” she said, glancing once again at the SUV. “I’m taking care of you now.”

  For a moment, the three friends stood silent. They might be a triangle of broken hearts, broken heads, and—Jackie glanced back at the rental car—broken dreams, but at least they were together. Something Jackie had wished for less than twenty-four hours ago. “Je t’aime,” she said. “I love you guys. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Eight

  BY SIX A.M. THE NEXT MORNING, DORIS FOUND HERSELF standing in the middle of her kitchen, clutching a cup of coffee. She took a deep breath and smiled. The entire kitchen smelled like the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory.

  The night before, Doris had climbed into her marriage bed with her best friend instead of her husband. Considering it was her anniversary, Doris did feel a pang of guilt that Doug was out sleeping on the sofa with a thin blanket and lumpy pillow. But in the scattered moments Doris allowed his confession about Katherine Rigney to enter her head, she had to agree that he deserved it.

  “Sweet dreams, my love,” Jackie had said, turning out the light and curling up into a little ball. Probably because she was tired from her travels, Jackie immediately fell asleep.

  Doris had wrapped the down comforter tightly around her and lain awake, thinking about the upset of her day. Not one moment of it had gone as planned. Doris’s stomach flipped, remembering the way Doug had avoided her eyes at dinner, the sudden confession about Katherine. Doris couldn’t get the image of Katherine’s brassy highlights out of her head. What if Doug left her? Would he take Mandy with him? Doris tossed and turned, letting her mind take her places she didn’t want to go.

  Somehow, Doris started thinking about when Mandy was born. That had been the first time she had felt Doug cared for someone more than her and, Doris hated to admit it, she didn’t like it. Doug had stared at their little baby so long and kissed her little face so lovingly that Doris finally had to remind him she was still lying there, bleeding. Doug had kissed her then and congratulated her for the miracle of childbirth or something but he hadn’t taken his eyes off Mandy. Doug’s priorities had shifted. From that moment on, Mandy was the center of his universe and Doris’s role had changed, too. She was no longer just a lover. She was a mother.

  This realization and all of the following emotions it brought up in her were scary. Doris didn’t want to be one of those mothers, jealous of her daughter. Finally, she took her worries to her own mother, who had just laughed and said, “Oh, Doris. We all think terrible things. It’s what you do with those thoughts that matters.”

  So, Doris had tried hard to accept her new role. She took a backseat to Mandy, committed to being the best mother she could be. Until the last year or so, she thought she had done all right.

  “Mandy will be excited to see you,” Doris had said to Jackie, when they’d all gotten to the house. Doris hoped that Mandy wouldn’t turn on her best friend the way Mandy had turned on her. “I know you always had a good relationship but just be ready,” Doris warned. “She’s changed a lot.”

  “Everyone changes,” Cheryl said, blowing into her hands.

  Doug was juggling Jackie’s two Louis Vuitton trunks and trying to unlock the front door.

  “Is she beautiful?” Jackie asked. “I bet she is.”

  “She looks just like Doris at that age,” Doug said, over his shoulder. “Minus the red hair.”

  When they had walked in, Mandy had glanced at her parents and given a half-wave from the couch. She was watching some reality show and fiddling with her laptop. But when she realized Jackie was there, Mandy pushed everything aside and leaped to her feet, shrieking, “Aunt Jackie?!” Like a gazelle, she shot across the living room and tackled Jackie in a huge hug. The heavy perfume of the two mingled together in a way that gave Doris a headache.

  “Bonjour,” Jackie had squealed, bouncing up and down. “Bonjour, bonjour, bonjour!” She had pulled back then, marveling at what a beautiful little grown-up Mandy had become. “Look at her,” she’d gasped, turning to Doris with moist eyes. “She looks just like you.”

  “No I don’t,” Mandy said, outraged.

  Doris blushed. The willowy beauty did have her blue eyes and full lips but Doris wasn’t surprised she was protesting. Why would Mandy want to look like someone she hated?

  “Mandy, you’re gorgeous,” Jackie was saying. “You’re just perfect!”

  Doris wanted to laugh out loud. If only Jackie could see the moody monster living just below the surface, she might change her tune. If Doris had been a worse person, she would have loved to expose it. Instead, she just hung back, feeling sweaty and uncomfortable in her heavy coat.

  “Oh, Jackie,” Doris said now, turning over in the sheets and facing her friend. “What am I going to do?”

  Jackie’s mouth opened and a rattling snore dropped out. In spite of herself, Doris smiled. For years, Jackie had denied her legendary snoring, even when Cheryl and Doris had gotten videotaped proof at one of their many sleepovers. At the thought of Cheryl, Doris’s stomach tightened.

  Cheryl had walked right past the reunion between Jackie and Mandy. She had gone straight to bed, stalking into the guest bedroom and slamming the door. Everyone had looked down the hallway in surprise, then Jackie had said, “She just got hit in the head. I think she’s lost her mind.”

  Mandy giggled and had gone back to talking but Doris was furious. She wished she had the guts to send Cheryl packing right then. Even if Doris had made her mad, Cheryl had no right to act that way. Besides, the conversation about Cheryl’s promiscuity hadn’t bee
n easy on Doris either.

  Maybe she hadn’t handled the conversation well but how could anyone? The only reason Doris said anything to Cheryl in the first place was because the whole town was talking about it. The night before the fight, Doris had attended a particularly awkward PTA meeting where everyone had attacked her because of Cheryl’s behavior. Apparently, Cheryl had slept with a freshly divorced father, whose ex-wife was on the board. The ex-wife had brought it up in front of everyone, knowing full well that Cheryl was Doris’s best friend. Doris had sat through the woman’s rant in silence, fidgeting uncomfortably in her plastic chair, hating that she was guilty by association.

  “Tell her to keep it in her pants,” the ex-wife had said, finally daring to address Doris directly.

  Doris had flushed and nodded. What else could she do? Up to that point, she had always supported Cheryl, even when Cheryl had cheated on her husband, Sean. That ridiculous affair had been anything but discreet. Cheryl had paraded all over town with some pharmaceutical salesman until it became obvious that the only solution was a divorce. The day Cheryl’s affair became a public scandal, Jackie and Doris had met at the Tea House to discuss their options.

  “How could she do this?” Doris had practically sobbed to Jackie. “Sean and Doug are friends. We’re all friends!”

  “I know . . .” Jackie had mused, pouring some milk into her tea. “It’s complicated.”

  “She should have just told Sean she wanted a divorce,” Doris said. “Instead of this.”

  “Darling, this is Cheryl we’re talking about.” Jackie sighed, sitting back and breathing in the scent of the jasmine tea. “A divorce would be an admission that she made a mistake. And Cheryl doesn’t make mistakes. Don’t you know that by now?”

  Doris had rolled her eyes, nodding. Cheryl had always been such a bullhead. “It’s so embarrassing for him. Everyone will want to know why she did it. They’re going to think there’s something wrong with him.”

  “Exactly,” Jackie said, stirring her tea. “Who in Schaumburg’s going to believe a woman would just have sex because she wanted to?”