The Hurricane Sisters

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  CHAPTER 15

  Clayton—I Blew It, Didn’t I?

  What have I done? I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. And I can’t stop crying. I’ve never done anything so stupid and reckless in my entire life. Sophia is nothing but a self-centered, and I hate the word but she is one, bitch. I mean, she really is! There’s a reason why people use those words and they fit her to a tee. Why couldn’t I see it from day one? I don’t know. But when I was locked out on the terrace I got an inkling of what was to come. I should have stopped the affair right then but I couldn’t. I’m so sorry I didn’t.

  I fell for her like a starstruck kid. I was so foolish! No, I am a fool! Liz must have known something really bad was going on to show up at the apartment without telling me she was coming. And now I had blown it with her too.

  There was only one way she could have found out. Ivy. Ivy was at the bottom of this! He must have told Liz about Sophia! Or maybe he showed her the picture James took! Oh my God! Whatever. He had definitely done something big enough to prompt an unannounced trip to New York. That film was evidence they could use against me in court! What was I going to do? I might just fly out to California and wring his skinny neck. That’s what.

  I mean last weekend? There was Liz trying to make everything right by having the kids over and making an incredible meal. It was like old times. Family dinner. She had flowers on the table and everything. And what did I do? I drank myself into a stupor and then gave her nothing but a thanks for a great night. She didn’t even complain. At least she had some grace. If I’d had any at all, I wouldn’t have gotten bombed and I would’ve taken her to the bedroom and done what a good husband does. And Sunday night I just left as though everything was fine between us when we both knew it wasn’t.

  I’d been avoiding her for months and she knew it. And she also knew, because women are so damn smart, that if we resumed our intimate life, and that if there was something going on with me and another woman, it would be more difficult emotionally and psychologically to continue the affair. But what did I do? I avoided my wife. I had been actively choosing another woman over my wife for months. I just couldn’t help it. I was just like a drug addict, hopelessly addicted to Sophia.

  There was a time, right in the beginning of our affair, when I really believed that I was in love with Sophia. Maybe at one point I even tried to see myself married to her. But the truth? Recently it had become clear that she’d lost interest and that she was trying to figure out how to end it. Even though she said it was an accident, I should’ve taken the hint when she locked me out on the terrace. In an ideal situation in Sophia’s mind, I’m sure she hoped I’d just go back to Liz and no one would get hurt. But I couldn’t give her up! I just couldn’t. You see here was the thing. Sophia was forbidden fruit. She was the only thing I ever wanted that I couldn’t have. And I thought I was dead in love with her. Now I wished I was dead.

  My life was in ruins and I had no one to blame but myself.

  Things started to unravel with Sophia about the time James and his Glass took the pictures or the movie or whatever he did. I could trace it back to then. I came back to the city and Sophia told me what happened. That was definitely the moment Sophia began to lose interest. I could see it in her face. She was in it for the game, but she didn’t want to wind up in the tabloids. It wasn’t like she was carrying the weight of celebrity like Martha Stewart or Cindy Crawford but her clients wouldn’t like to hear that she was the home wrecker that she was.

  I called Liz at least a hundred times since Wednesday and she wouldn’t talk to me, she wouldn’t pick up the phone, and she wouldn’t return my messages. I was at my wit’s end and didn’t know how to fix the mess I’d made. There was only one thing I could think of and that was to go home and tell Liz I was sorry. God! I was so filled with regret and shame. How could I stoop to such a sordid business as I had?

  And here’s the killer: Did my poor sweet Liz deserve this? She was a good woman. I really didn’t deserve her. I could see that now. I had humiliated her and myself. Why on God’s earth did I tell her that Sophia had broken my heart? How colossally stupid was that? Was that some Freudian behavior that I thought in the moment that Liz was my mother and I was running and crying to her to help me? In my entire adult life, it was the only time I’d ever lost control of myself. There I was wailing like a baby in the lobby.

  I called the office and told my secretary I was taking a few days off. I could hear the surprise in her voice because I never took time off.

  “I’ll be available on my cell if anyone needs me.”

  “Very good, Mr. Waters.”

  Luckily, it was the middle of August and the markets were dead quiet. Most of the partners were out in the Hamptons or cruising around the Mediterranean on their yachts. I decided to go get some fresh air, such as it is in the dog days of summer in the city. I took my sunglasses and my keys.

  This was a time when I wished I had a dog. People in Manhattan walked their dogs at all hours of the day and night. It gave them purpose. No one ever said, Oh, what’s that fellow doing out at this hour? They said, Oh, he’s walking his dog, a dog has to be walked, there’s nothing unusual about a man walking his dog. But there was something highly suspicious about a man my age, dressed for the office, wandering aimlessly up Madison Avenue in the middle of the morning. So in order not to look like a mental patient, I put on my sunglasses, squared my jaw, and took manly strides that made me appear to be on the way somewhere. No one even tried to make eye contact, but this was a typical thing in the big city. Eight million people walking the streets ignoring one another. Why? Because that’s just how it is.

  If people talk to you, they’re going to mug you or they’re crazy persons off their meds or they’re from out of town and have lost their way. Given the odds, two out of three, that an encounter with a stranger would not have a good outcome, it was best not to make eye contact, but to exhibit purpose in your stride and preselect a destination.

  This was particularly pitiful for me because for years and years I had walked these streets knowing exactly where I was headed. Now I had no direction and my life was destroyed. I walked and I cried and every so often I stopped at a storefront and wiped my eyes. After twenty or thirty blocks of this manic behavior I turned around, crossed over to Fifth Avenue, and walked back toward my apartment.

  Somehow, I overshot my block and I looked up to see St. Patrick’s Cathedral was right in front of me. I was not a regular churchgoer and when I was, I’d go to Grace Episcopal in Charleston on Easter and Christmas or for a funeral or wedding. I don’t know why. I just never got much out of it, I guess. I didn’t object to organized religion, I just wasn’t a subscriber. But I thought, and freely admitted to my slothful sinner’s soul, that there was an enormous charm about the grandeur of St. Patrick’s and maybe, just maybe, there inside I could have a word or two with the Almighty. I mean, once you get past the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, St. Patrick’s had to be the Lord’s next stop. I went inside and took a seat in a pew toward the middle of the church.

  I sat and tried to pray but I’m afraid I wasn’t very good at that either. All I heard in my head was—Go home! Ask for forgiveness! Was this Divine advice? It didn’t matter. I got up and left, making a donation to the poor box on the way out of the doors and back to the lonely streets brimming with so many people that it was almost frightening.

  I knew this much about relationships. In business it was always best to nip problems in the bud. I also knew that if Liz divorced me, not only would I be miserable for the rest of my days but I wouldn’t be nearly as liquid. I had to at least attempt to put things right, and the longer I debated the sense of doing that, the wider the abyss between us would grow. I didn’t want to go home and see the disappointment in Liz’s face and I didn’t want to be berated forever and have this brought up all the time. Like, what if she marked it with an anniversary of sorts? Well, it’s two years ago today I caug
ht you in the lobby with Sophia! Or, Remember the time you cried because you were in love with Sophia? No, I didn’t want to hear it. I really didn’t.

  But I also realized, as I stood there watching taxis switch lanes and people nearly get killed crossing Fifth Avenue, that I had better just go on and get it over with.

  Okay. Decision made.

  Good or bad, I was back going to Charleston, beautiful Charleston where things moved at a more graceful pace and people were kinder. I was going to try to make peace with Liz. She had given me and our children her whole adult life. She was a wonderful woman, really she was. She would stay with me through old age and having grandchildren, prostate issues and cataracts, and whatever else life decided to sling our way. She understood what it was to devote yourself to a cause. I only knew how to devote myself to a fat bank account and the world of food and wine. Pretty shallow.

  And Sophia? Sophia was a bottom-of-the-pile, amoral, soul-crushing demon.

  Liz was thoughtful and sensitive and she had loved me steadfastly forever. And I was thinking of throwing that away? I was whining to her that I loved Sophia? Dear God!

  “Dry your eyes, asshole,” I said to my bathroom mirror when I got home. “Call NetJets right now and get the hell out of here.”

  Then in a moment of genius I called Bottega Veneta and ordered Liz the duffel bag she’d always admired. It would thrill her. If I was going to win her forgiveness I was going to need more genius than I had ever had.

  “Think, man! Think!”

  Maybe I’d take her to Bali. She used to say she’d like to go there. But maybe I’d put the apartment on the market right away. I didn’t want to keep running into Sophia in the lobby. In fact, I never wanted to see her again. She was the devil incarnate.

  So I called NetJets and I took myself out to Teterboro in a taxi. They had a Citation IV available and the IV reminded me of Ivy all the way to Charleston. I thought about him and Liz and Ashley and wondered what kind of a head of the family I was. Not so good. I was supposed to lead my family and I had not done that at all. I sort of gave Ivy and Ashley the sink-or-swim kind of parenting and just left Liz to her own devices. This was my greatest sin and I knew it. I had no idea what I was going to say to Liz. No idea at all. I’m sorry didn’t seem sufficient to mend this wound.

  I sent a text to Walter to meet me at Landmark, the private airport I usually used. Walter was a great guy. He’d been married for a thousand years. Maybe he could give me some advice. Surely he’d had at least one big argument with his wife.

  I felt so lonely then. All the way to Charleston I thought about my life and this horror show with Sophia and how I’d cried like a damn fool to Liz. I needed some advice but there were so few people whom I could turn to, talk to; I had so few friends. All I had left was one brother in Oregon whom I hadn’t heard from in ten years. Should I have called him then and cried like a girl? No. Real men were stoic.

  In New York, all I’d ever done was work and entertain clients. And when I was in Charleston, I was always with Liz and the children and Maisie. Maisie demanded and got an extraordinary amount of attention and now there was the situation with Skipper. Sometimes I felt like there was no room in their lives for me and it had to have been too much for Liz. And through it all, the years of commuting and family responsibilities, somehow, I’d forgotten to make a life outside of work for myself. I was almost sixty years old. Maybe it was time for me to sort out and reestablish all the relationships within my family. If Liz would forgive me, that is.

  Then maybe I’d do something for fun, like take up tennis or golf. Why not? Fun had never been very high up on my list of priorities. In retrospect that seemed like a pretty Spartan way to live. Who said I had to be a Spartan? Why had I denied myself friends and fun? It wasn’t that I ever intended to but the commute had sure cut me off from a regular social life and turned me into a working machine. It surely wasn’t how I grew up. All the guys I went to school with belonged to a country club, had second homes and boats, and took vacations with their whole family. Between the demands of my career and the crazy commute, we rarely got away. Maybe that was one reason Sophia seemed so enticing—I had been starved of personal stimulation. I know that sounds like I am making excuses for what I did but it is also true.

  We touched down and rolled to a stop. It was time to face the proverbial music. I climbed down the steps to the tarmac, and the heat and humidity slapped me in the face full force. There was little to compare to the heat and humidity in the Lowcountry of South Carolina except maybe the hinges on the back door of hell. That’s what folks in these parts always said and it was fact. I should get familiar with hell because if I couldn’t gain Liz’s forgiveness, that’s where I was going.

  Walter was waiting for me in the parking lot.

  “Mr. Whaley!” I said.

  “Mr. Waters,” he said, shaking my hand and then opening the rear passenger door.

  It slammed shut and I took a deep breath. It was nice and cool inside his car, which for the record was pristine. There was a chilled bottle of water in the armrest cup holder that I opened and began to drink. He started to drive.

  “So how’s everything, Walter?”

  “Good. You?”

  “Well, Walter, to be honest, I’ve had a bit of a run-in with my wife. A little trouble in paradise. You’ve been married a long time, haven’t you?”

  “Seems like all my life. Joyce and I got married and then we grew up together. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “Tell me, what’s the secret to a long marriage like yours?”

  Walter burst out laughing.

  “Mr. Waters? People ask me that all the time. The truth is it’s all because of Joyce. She makes sure we operate as a team. The other thing is that I don’t criticize and I thank her every day for sticking with me.”

  I never did any of this. I never said I was grateful to Liz for being my wife, I hardly ever told her I loved her and we weren’t even close to a team. That was my fault because I liked flying solo. That was going to change too.

  “I wish I’d asked you this about six months ago. I could’ve saved myself a lot of heartache.”

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll work it out. The sun doesn’t shine every day but it will shine again.”

  “Thanks, Walter. I sure hope you’re right.”

  Soon we were winding our way through the historic district of downtown Charleston and over to Church Street, where we lived. I was a nervous wreck. I had called Charleston Flowers and had them send over every flower they had in their coolers. That would be a start. Hopefully, it would set a tone.

  In my head, I started rehearsing what I was going to say.

  We pulled up in front of the house and I got out. I felt like a very old man. An old man who was very, very tired and drowning in remorse. The truth was that if I lost Liz, I’d have no one. No one. I waved good-bye to Walter, and thinking he was very wise, I watched him pull away from the curb.

  I pulled out my key to unlock the door and realized that the locks had been changed. What? Why would she do such a thing? What was I going to do?

  I called Maisie. Maybe she knew something about this.

  “Maisie? It’s Clayton.”

  “I’m glad you called, Clayton.”

  “Well, first of all, how’s Skipper?”

  “Skipper? Why, he’s jam up and jelly tight! What’s new with you?”

  “What’s new is that I’m locked out of my house. Do you know any reason why Liz would change the locks?”

  “I told her not to do it. I told her to just sit down with you and sort things out. But she’s really angry, Clayton.”

  So Maisie knew everything. Great.

  “Well, we can’t sort things out if she won’t answer the phone or return my calls.”

  “I told her that too.”

  “So what am I su
pposed to do? Spend the rest of my life standing here on Church Street, waiting for a miracle?”

  “Do you want me to talk to her?”

  The last thing I wanted in the entire world was to have Maisie position herself in the middle of my marital problems and exacerbate them.

  “I don’t know. This is really between Liz and me.”

  “No. What’s between you and Liz is a locked door and a lot of hurt feelings. Why don’t you come over here and I’ll make you some supper. Ivy went back to San Francisco and left me with enough food to feed the army and the navy.”

  Maybe she was right. Maybe I needed someone to intercede on my behalf. What other options did I have?

  “Well, let me see if I can get my car out of the garage. And if I can, I will.”

  “Good. Pick up a handle of gin for me on the way, okay? Bombay. I’m all out and it’s getting dark soon. Skipper says he can drive, but I don’t think he’s quite ready for that. His balance is still a little out of whack.”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks. Don’t worry. I’ll talk some sense into her.”

  I thought then, Just what the hell is the matter with this family? My eighty-year-old mother-in-law just promised to talk some sense into my wife for the price of a bottle of gin?

  CHAPTER 16

  Maisie—Final Soapbox

  I put the chicken Parmesan in the oven to warm it up with the potato tots and opened a bag of salad, dumping it in a bowl. Then I set the table for three of us and when there was nothing more I had to do, I called Liz. I was in no rush to have this discussion with her.

  “Guess who’s coming to dinner?” I said to her.

  I really hated being put in the middle of Liz and Clayton’s trouble but someone had to stir the pot and get things moving. Standoffs never solved a thing.

  “Who? Clayton?”

  Who else? The president of the United States?