“Karen Bell is going around telling folks she’s in love with your husband. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s just gossip.” Pearl puts her arm around me.
“Like hell. This is one story circulatin’ through Wise County that has some meat on its bones. Now, get serious. You can’t just turn yer husband loose up in Coeburn and expect him to find his way back home. That’s too far from Cracker’s Neck. He’s lost. You got to make him come home. Or I’ll tell you what, he’ll be gone.” Fleeta sits down. I’ve never seen her upset in this way.
I sit down. I have to. “Okay. I’m listening.”
“I’ve followed the woman,” Otto announces. “I ain’t proud of it. But I done did it. I know where she lives. And I know what company she keeps up ’ere.”
“You saw …” I look at Otto, and he looks away sadly. “Well.”
I study my hands as though they’re brand new and I’m seeing them on the ends of my arms for the very first time. I don’t know what to say to my friends. Do I tell them that I’ve seen signs too, that I’ve been suspicious? That I had a feeling the first time I saw Karen Bell? I want to open up and tell them everything, but I can’t. My loyalty to my husband, who has probably been disloyal to me, stops me.
“I need some air,” I tell my friends. I stand up. So do they, and the sound of stools scraping linoleum is deafening.
Iva Lou follows me out to the Jeep and jumps into the passenger side. Mentally, I know I need to turn the key to start the engine, but I can’t.
“Look. It ain’t a done deal.”
“Do you think it’s true?”
“I been trying to tell ye. I heard bits and pieces of things. You know how stories travel.”
“What do I do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? How can I do nothing?”
“We do not know the extent of it. Now, I know your husband. I don’t think he loves her. I don’t think he could. I don’t think he loves any woman but you. Really. So that’s good fer you. But you got a bigger problem.”
“What?” What is Iva Lou talking about? What could be worse?
“Karen Bell is your problem. She wants him. And she wants him baaaaad. That’s a fact. I heard that straight out of the mouth of her best friend, Benita Hensley up to the county library. She works up ’ere, and she told me herself.”
Who are all these people, these strangers, who know my name and my business? What do they want? Why do they care about me and my situation? The noise in my head gets louder as Iva Lou goes on.
“ ’Cause Karen Bell, you can’t control. She’s a wing nut and a wild card, ’cept she’s a genius, ’cause she acts like a sure and steady professional woman. She’s had a series of men too. Not that there’s anything to judge about that.” Of course there isn’t. This is Iva Lou, the Siren Goddess of Big Stone Gap talking.
“I don’t want to hear another thing.”
“Listen to me. I have some experience as the Other Woman. I don’t think there’s a single scenario out there that I ain’t in some way, at some point, been in. So you have what might be called a secret weapon in me, as your friend. I know what Karen Bell is up to. She can’t pull anything I ain’t seen before or done myself.” Iva Lou fishes in her purse for a cigarette. “You need to listen to me, because I know what I’m talking about. There’s Other Women who just want to play, have dinner, a movie, and some exciting sex; and then there’s the Other Women who are husband hunting. And they are relentless. They don’t rest till they got of yorn’s what they think they want for themselves, and then it’s too late for all concerned. Karen Bell is thirty-four years old—”
“She’s forty if she’s a day.”
“Honey. She’s thirty-four. Spec checked with the DMV.”
“Spec!” I hit the steering wheel. Does everybody in Wise County know my business?
“He has a connection at the DMV. We had to tell him. Honey-o, here’s the deal. She wants to git murried, and she wants kids, and she thinks Jack Mac would pass on a fine set of genes. She told Benita Hensley that Jack MacChesney is one of the smartest men she’s ever known, that he’s a man with a lot of Unrealized Potential. How do you like that? Karen Bell can spot potential. I almost threw up.”
“I feel sick myself.”
“I know. I know. I am so glad I’m murried and not foolin’ around no more, ’cause I feel dirty just thinkin’ about the pain I inflicted as the Other Woman. I hate myself for that, well not entirely, but certainly for your sake.”
“What am I going to do?” I turn to Iva Lou. I almost want to grab that cigarette out of her mouth and smoke it myself.
“You can’t let on to Jack that you know anything.”
“Why? If I stop it …” And then I stop talking. Stop what? Their first kiss? Their first time together? Their falling in love? His packing up and leaving me? Their outdoor wedding at the lake in Big Cherry Holler with my Etta as the flower girl?
“Here’s what you need to do. Are you listening to me?”
“Okay. Okay. I’m listening.”
“She is counting on the fact that you are gonna blow this. She already knows, ’cause she’s hooked your husband, that he ain’t happy. So all she has to do is be sweet as pie. Uncomplicated. And that’ll keep him coming back for more. If you go crazy and start following him and making him miserable and accusing him of things, it’ll give her an advantage. You’ll look like the hag wife, and she can be the sweet young thang.” Iva Lou looks at me. “Bless your heart.”
“How did this happen?”
“This happened ’cause there’s a man involved. And they’s vulnerable on account of the fact that they surrender their will to their ego. Don’t forget that: their Will to their Ego. ’Cause their ego is what keeps them male. You got it?”
“I don’t want this trash in my life! This sordid stuff. I don’t want it!”
“Ave, there’s that point in an affair where nothing’s happened yet—nothing physical, that is. The man and the woman have established contact. They’re friends. They work together. They probably talk about things. Personal things. She probably confides in him; maybe even, once in a while, pulls a little something where she has a problem at home and doesn’t have a husband or any man around and something needs fixin’ like a pipe or a wire and he says he’ll stop by her house to fix it, and next thing you know, he’s in the web.”
“What web?”
“Her web. The little scene she puts together with her and him in it. Picture this. He fixes whatever she needs fixed. She has to thank him, so she makes a strong cup of coffee and a good sandwich for him. He sits down. And they get to chattin’ about this and that, and next thing he knows, he doesn’t know where the time went. So he gets up and says, I gotta get home to my wife, my kid, whatever. And she looks sad, but she understands. That’s the important part. She understands.”
“Understands what?”
“What his life is like. What he deals with. What he needs. What his problems are. She is His Friend. Get it?”
“Men don’t talk to other men about their relationships, so they need a woman to talk to?” I ask. Iva Lou nods. Now I’m getting it. Jack Mac talks to Karen Bell about me. Etta. Work. Just like I talk to Iva Lou. (If this weren’t my life, I’d be thrilled at the notion of this breakthrough in male-female relationships.)
“Now you see what I’m sayin’.” Iva Lou leans back.
“Oh, I see it.” Iva Lou doesn’t know how clearly I see it.
“Jack Mac don’t want to be in the web, but he’s trapped, and he got there by being nice. Men don’t understand how something innocent becomes routine, and then routine can become a relationship. You got no idea how many men I’ve known who told me that they’re surprised when they find themselves having an affair. They didn’t see it coming or plan it. But somehow, just by being nice, they got themselves yupped into bed. The Other Woman makes these innocent requests of their time, and they say, ‘Yup, I’ll help you out,’ and pretty soon she says, ‘Kiss me,’
and he says, ‘Yup,’ and the kiss leads to the next yup.”
“I don’t want him to yup himself away from me.”
“He won’t. If you use your head. Ave Maria, that’s where you’ve got to be smarter than her. He doesn’t want this. He knows it’s wrong. But you can’t accuse him of something you’re not sure he’s done yet, or for sure that will drive him right to her because he’s gonna need someone to talk to about that too.” Iva Lou takes a deep breath. “I would rather be you in this situation than her.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a good man. And he’s gonna try to do the right thing. Now, I ain’t sayin’ he’s a saint. But he’s gonna wrassle right good with it before he gives in.”
“You think so?”
“I know it.”
I know I should thank Iva Lou for helping me see what I should already know. But I’m not feeling much gratitude at this moment. I feel the gloom and despair of all women who have found themselves in my position, the terrible place of not knowing yet knowing all. The tricky thing is staying in the middle. I wonder if I can pull this off. I’m not going to hand over my husband like a covered dish at a church supper. If she’s going to take Jack, it will be only because I let her. I guess I will find out what sort of a fighter I am. I twist my wedding band around on my finger; it feels loose. “The world’s tiniest handcuff,” Lyle Makin called it once. I think he was right.
CHAPTER SIX
One thing is for sure in a small town: if you’re the toast of the town today, tomorrow you’re bread crumbs. And if there are rumors that your husband is having an affair, if you wait long enough, somebody will top it with a bigger story. I’d like to thank Tozz Ball for having a second wife and family down in Middlesboro, Kentucky, and coming clean to his first family here in the Gap during a Sunday Revival at the Methodist Church. Tozz is now the headliner; I am happy to be bird feed.
Jack Mac and I talked about the rumors, in our way. I never directly named anyone (Karen), and he never admitted to anything (Karen). He told me that kind of talk comes with the territory; he works with women now, and people will talk. I told him that I understood, but I didn’t want him to give anyone reason to talk, either.
I don’t know if I’m getting better at following Iva Lou’s instructions or if it’s plain old fear that’s helped me stick with my plan to be the perfect wife. I have been a joy to live with all spring: Upbeat, Warm and Tender, Uncomplicated, and Loving. I am no trouble at all. You could press me in dough and make sugar cookies out of me, I’ve been so sweet. I’m sure Etta wonders where my temper and occasional blue moods went this spring, but if she thinks about it much, she doesn’t mention it.
It’s the last week of April, which means that my wedding anniversary is coming up. April 29 will mark eight years of married life. On our first anniversary, Jack asked me what I wanted; of course, I wanted our baby to be healthy, and she was. But he wanted to buy me something. So I asked him for a book; not a book with a particular story, but one of those empty books with blank pages. He went over the mall and got me a pretty blue velvet journal and wrapped it up. When I opened it, I thanked him and then I gave it back to him. He looked confused and I told him that there was a second part to the gift. I wanted him to write me a letter every year on our anniversary, and I would write one to him, so that someday we could look back and see what we were. Now, Jack is not a writer, and neither am I, but I felt even a man of few words could come up with a page of something once a year. And he has. There are times during the year when I forget about the book, and right around our anniversary, Jack and I do this funny teasing dance with each other about writing in it; we pretend squabble and he acts like I’m asking him to yank a tooth, but we’ve written to each other every year, without fail.
The book has come in handy lately because I’ve needed reassurance. I wanted proof somehow that I didn’t dream all of this, my great fortune at falling in love with a good person and having two beautiful children with him. I am trying to hang on, so I need to know why I should. I’m a woman of instinct, and my instinct keeps telling me that there’s trouble ahead. I play out the scenarios in my mind: all the horrible ones, like the day he packs his clothes to go, the morning I get the divorce papers, and the day he remarries and I’m alone again. I know it’s crazy, but these are crazy times around here.
The last few years have been so hard, we’ve written very short letters to each other. The year Joe died, Jack wrote: “I love you honey. I’m sorry.” And I wrote the story of Joe’s passing. But that year was the worst for us, and instead of dwelling on that, I pull the book out of my dresser and read Jack’s first letter.
April 29, 1980
Dear Ave,
I know that the world is filled with lucky men. And I know that because I have met a few. And all the lucky men have one thing in common. They have a good woman who loves them. I know you worried all your life if you were pretty enough, and I hope to tell you that pretty doesn’t begin to describe you. I see more in you when you’re sleeping than you could ever imagine. They say your soul comes out when you sleep and, for you, this is true. When your eyes are closed, your eyelashes lie against your cheeks and you purse your lips in a way that makes you look like you’re smiling. You’re a peaceful girl, my Ave. And that’s what I found in you. Peace. I am the luckiest man in the world. I love you. J.
I take the book and put it on Jack’s nightstand with a pen. Maybe if he looks at what he’s written to me, it will remind him that there is a lot here worth fighting for.
June, the month of Our Big Trip home to Italy could not come fast enough. Now that it’s here, I am filled with hope again. I want to be with my husband in a romantic place where we can be together, talk, and laugh, where no one knows us. All winter the mountains felt as if they were closing in on us. Jack has spent most of the spring working overtime. There’s been very little rain, so he and Mousey and Rick have been working long hours. Construction is all about the weather.
I remember the clothes Jack took to Italy on our honeymoon, and I try to copy the contents this go-round. I’ve asked him a few questions here and there about what he wants me to bring for him, and he just says, “You decide.” So I pack for him.
The night before we’re set to fly out of Tri-Cities, en route to Kennedy Airport in New York and then to Milan, I check on Etta. She had been too excited to sleep, so I allowed her to keep the nightstand light on and read. It worked. As I pull Beverly Cleary’s Fifteen out of her grasp and shove the bookmark into place, she turns over and hugs her pillow without opening her eyes. I give her a quick kiss on the forehead. Her bags are packed neatly and waiting in a row by the door. I can’t wait to see her face when she sees Schilpario for the first time.
I hear Jack park the truck in the side yard. I am looking forward to the long airplane ride. Etta can sleep, and Jack and I will finally get a chance to talk, to catch up. Our happiest memories together are of our honeymoon, and now we’ll get to relive all of that.
I meet Jack in the hallway as he shuffles through the mail. I wrap my arms around him from behind.
“How was your day?” I ask him.
“Rough.”
“I bought you new socks.”
“Why?”
“Your old ones were too shabby for Italy.”
Jack starts to move, so I let go of him. He puts his arm around me and moves toward the kitchen.
“And by the way, these aren’t the socks that come in a pack. They’re the good kind that hang on the rack on the little plastic hangers at Dave’s Department Store. Nothing but the best for my husband.”
“I want to talk to you.” He sits down at the kitchen table. I sit across from him.
“What’s up?” I say cheerily. I can be cheery. Tomorrow we’ll be in Italy.
“I’m not going.”
“Why?” I ask. He doesn’t answer me. “Is it work? Are you behind on a job?”
“No. We’re okay.”
“Then what is it?”
<
br /> “I think we need time apart.” Jack leans back in his chair and looks at me intently. His gaze makes me uncomfortable, and I look away.
“Why?”
“I think you know why.”
The rumors around town? The long silences in our own bedroom? The way we bury ourselves in work, emerging only to take care of Etta?
“I don’t know what you mean.” Let him explain this. I am tired of filling in blanks.
“I don’t think you want to be married to me anymore.”
“That’s not true! Not at all.”
Jack gets up and turns on the tap. He pours himself a glass of water and drinks it. “Ave, you don’t want to face this.”
“Face what?”
“You do your chores: taking care of Etta, the house, me. And you’re even sweet about it. You’ve been great all spring. But you’re not really here in this marriage, it’s an act.”
“I resent that. I am doing things, living this way, out of love. I’m not pretending.”
“Maybe ‘pretending’ is the wrong word. You’re going through the motions. It’s rote. You do what you think you’re supposed to do. You do it well. And it’s all very pleasant. Aboveboard. Nice.”
“I’ve been doing this for you. It’s not an act!”
“That’s not what I want,” Jack says simply. He moves and stands near the windows, yet he keeps his eyes on me the whole time.
“I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment to you.”
“No. I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment to you,” he says, then comes over to sit next to me.
“I’m really afraid right now. These things that you’re saying sound so final to me.” I take his hands into mine. I love his hands, and I don’t want to let go. “Don’t you love me anymore?”
“That’s never been the problem. I love you so much that I’m willing to live an unhappy life for you.”
“I don’t understand.”
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