The Marriage Intervention

by Hilary Dartt

  Everyone in the fitting salon gasped when she emerged from the changing area. Summer burst into tears.

  Before her mother died, Josie always wondered whether her practical nature would take the fun out of finding an expensive and completely impractical wedding gown that she planned to wear for only half of a single day. But even Carla Garcia would have cried her eyes out when she saw Josie in that dress. She would have taken back everything she’d ever said about the benefits of a courthouse wedding.

  When Josie and Summer heard the door to the changing suite begin to open, they both sat up a little straighter.

  Delaney’s skirt came through the door first, and Josie noticed Summer inhale, holding her breath and ready to make some sort of exclamation. When the rest of Delaney followed, though, it was met with silence. On the couch, Summer gripped Josie’s hand.

  The hopeful expression on Delaney’s face died away instantly, and when she turned around and stepped onto the pedestal to look into the three-way mirror, she let out a loud, barking laugh.

  “Well, if that isn’t the worst fit for me I’ve ever seen, I don’t know what is,” she said.

  Relieved, Summer and Josie laughed, too, and Camille nodded. “Back to the drawing board,” she said.

  Was it as simple as that? Back to the drawing board? Trying on wedding dresses was a bit different from repairing a marriage, but Camille’s remark struck a chord with Josie. Back to the drawing board. No, it couldn’t be that simple. Josie refused to believe it.

  ***

  Delaney cried mercy after trying on three dresses, each of which had a strength and a weakness. She claimed the third one lifted her cleavage to the moon but made her stomach look like a sausage.

  “I didn’t realize how exhausting this process would be,” she said. “Besides, it gives us an excuse to come back and drink champagne.” At a dark look from Summer, she added, “Well, Josie and mom and me, anyway.”

  They went to the Golden Lantern for lunch and had a good laugh telling Camille about the time Josie and Summer had stalked Delaney and the awful guy she was dating, Mitchell, when they went there for dinner one evening. The whole escapade had started a big fight between them.

  “What can I say? I really was in need of that intervention,” Delaney said.

  They ate their cashew chicken and Mongolian beef in silence for a few moments, Summer laughing every time Josie used her free hand to pick up pieces of broccoli and sneak them into her mouth instead of using her chopsticks.

  “Speaking of interventions,” Delaney said, and Josie felt the weight of three pairs of eyes land on her face. “How’s the running going, Josie?”

  Josie cringed.

  “Well, to tell you the truth, it’s not going very well.”

  She told them about her most recent fail, tripping on the sidewalk and scraping both knees and ripping her leggings. She ended the story with a somewhat feeble, “I’m thinking about taking a break from running.” Which was silly, since she hadn’t really gotten started yet.

  “You were pissed about the leggings, weren’t you?” Summer said.

  Josie nodded. “Yeah, I was! They were expensive, and they made my ass look really good.”

  “That is disappointing,” Camille said.

  “Anyway,” Delaney said. “We wanted you to have the support you need to continue working out and to train for the chocolate and wine race.”

  Summer nodded, quite vigorously. Josie’s sixth sense started to wake up, and within a split second, it was shouting, ding ding ding!

  “So we hired you a personal trainer! Isn’t that great?”

  “Oh, that’s so nice of you girls,” Camille said. Josie was grateful for her interjection because it distracted Summer and Delaney from seeing the steam that was probably coming out of her ears.

  “A personal trainer?” Josie said.

  Crickets.

  Summer’s nodding became less vigorous.

  “We just got you a package,” Delaney said. “Like, a package of eight sessions. Eight weekly sessions? Two months? Don’t kill us, Josie! It’s for your own good. We know you don’t like working out. You only have to go eight times. We thought it would be good for you.”

  The tiny, satisfying flame of anger began to burn, and she smiled.

  “Uh oh,” Summer said to Delaney. “That is not a friendly, I-love-you-guys, you-guys-are-the-best smile.”

  Delaney shook her head.

  “I appreciate the sentiment,” Josie said. “But I’m not going to see a personal trainer. Why don’t you just tell Dr. Strasser to give me some exercises? Don’t you think one stranger working on my life is enough?”

  She set her napkin down, placed a twenty-dollar bill on the table and stood up. This was her moment of truth.

  “And, I’ve been meaning to tell you guys something else, too.”

  Summer froze, her chopsticks halfway to her mouth. Delaney froze, too, but didn’t have as much poise as Summer did. She squeezed her chopsticks too hard and a cashew popped out of their grasp, zinging across the restaurant and hitting the wall. A few people turned to find the source of the sound. Camille wiped her mouth and put her napkin back on her lap.

  They all blinked up at Josie, waiting.

  Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit. Why did I even say that?

  She could practically hear a clock ticking.

  Well, they’d always considered her the irrational one.

  “Never mind. I’m leaving.”

  She stalked out of the restaurant and heard Delaney stage-whisper to Summer, “I think this place has bad juju for us.”

  It’s not bad juju. It’s just that the three of us need to butt out of each other’s lives.

  ***

  Josie should have known her friends would come after her. It was just the way they worked.

  As she drove home from the Golden Lantern, she thought about why she didn’t want to tell them Paul moved out.

  She could imagine the surprised looks on their faces: Summer’s eyes would go wide and her eyebrows would shoot up towards her hairline before she had the chance to get her expression under control. And Delaney, who was slightly worse at hiding her feelings, would open her mouth and then close it quickly, her nostrils flaring.

  Then—and this was the worst part—the pity would set in.

  Summer’s forehead would crinkle and her eyebrows would arch into little seagull shapes. Delaney’s eyes would get all squinty.

  They would exclaim, “I’m so sorry, Josie,” and, “What happened?” and, worst of all, “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  Just as she imagined herself screaming in exasperation and telling them she wanted to be left alone without them intruding on her life for five minutes, she spotted Summer’s van in her rearview mirror. She picked up her phone and pressed the voice-to-text button.

  “You should have driven Delaney’s car. It’s much less conspicuous.”

  Summer: Delaney’s still tipsy from the champagne. You knew we’d come after you, anyway.

  Delaney: Yeah.

  Josie shook her head, then answered, “I have things to do, guys.”

  Like going home and wallowing in my misery.

  Summer: We’re sure you do.

  Delaney: Like wallowing in your misery.

  Summer pulled up next to Josie in the driveway. To her surprise, neither Summer nor Delaney spoke as they followed her into the house.

  “Paul get called out?” Summer said after Josie shut the door behind them.

  “I don’t know, why?”

  “Because his car’s not here,” Summer said, her tone indicating Josie was an idiot.

  “Oh, I didn’t even notice,” Josie said.

  “You’re lying,” Delaney said, pointing at her. “You’re looking down and to the left, and you’re pulling on the ends of your hair.”

  “Gives you away every time, Josie,” Summer said.

  “Ugh! Why can’t I learn to control that stupid habit?” Josie said.

  An idea
flitted through her mind and she seized on it. “Listen,” she said. “I need to ask you guys a favor.”

  Summer looked suspicious. Delaney said, “Of course. Anything.”

  “So, Delaney, remember when Summer and I spied on you?”

  “How could I forget?”

  “That was so funny,” Summer said. “The look on your face when we coincidentally ended up at the Golden Lantern with you and that sleazy Mitchell guy was priceless. Seriously.”

  It actually wasn’t.

  “Well, I need you to use those spy skills again,” Josie said.

  Summer narrowed her eyes. “I will not spy on Paul.”

  Josie laughed. “No, it’s not him. It’s that Blair Upton creature who’s trying to sabotage my job for next year.”

  “Yes!” Delaney said, quickly adding, “Sorry,” when Josie and Summer looked surprised at her fist pump. “It’s just that I’ve wanted revenge on her for months.”

  “Now is your chance,” Josie said. “She’s been threatening to tell the school board Scott and I had a fling. Even though it was years ago.”

  “How does she know?” Summer said.

  “She saw him groping me outside the auditorium one time.”

  Summer rolled her eyes. “Juvenile.”

  “I know. She’s awful,” Josie said.

  “I meant you and Scott.”

  Josie felt herself blush. “Right. Anyway. So I was hoping you could get some photos of her.”

  “Why?” Delaney asked. “Then we have permanent record of her being an ugly witch. I don’t want that on paper. Or disk. Or anywhere.”

  “She’s having an affair with Scott.”

  Summer and Delaney looked at each other.

  “What?” Josie said.

  “Josie,” Summer said, in her mom voice. “Is this about Blair, or about Scott?”

  Josie looked at the floor. “It’s about Blair,” she mumbled.

  “Hm. So you want photos of her and Scott in the act,” Summer said.

  “Stop using your mommy voice on me,” Josie said to Summer. “You sound so disapproving. She thinks that if I lose the principal position, she’ll get it. She came out second on the list. But if I have proof that she is having an affair with Scott, she’ll have the same disqualifying factor. It will be pointless for her to rat me out because I can turn around and do the same to her.”

  Delaney laughed. “We’ll do it. I can’t wait to get back at that awful woman.”

  Summer shook her head. “We’ll do it, but I don’t believe this is really about Blair. Just for the record.”

  “Thanks, guys,” Josie said. “It means a lot.”

  They stood there in silence for a moment.

  “So, where’s Paul?” Summer and Delaney said in unison.

  There was no point in putting off the inevitable for any longer than she already had.

  “Paul moved out.”

  “I knew it!” Delaney said, almost triumphantly.

  “I thought so,” Summer said.

  Wow. This is going so much differently than I imagined it would. Where’s the surprise? Where’s the pity?

  “You guys don’t sound surprised.”

  “You’ve got to hit rock bottom,” Summer said. She shrugged one shoulder, and Delaney nodded.

  “Oh,” Josie said. “Well. So. Obviously this stupid Marriage Intervention thing isn’t working out. I quit.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Summer and Delaney responded to Josie’s declaration of withdrawal from The Marriage Intervention with uncharacteristic nonchalance, nodding as if she were crazy and they had to indulge her, while helping themselves to the brownies on the counter.

  They made small talk for an hour, and Josie noticed Summer avoided talking about phone calls or news of any sort.

  Josie knew she could play dirty and bring up the mysterious phone call while Delaney was here, just to get information out of Summer. But something about the expression on Summer’s face when she turned away from Josie at Rowdy’s stopped her. She looked stricken and pale. Her lips drew tight, just like they did that lunchtime sophomore year when she sought out Josie and Delaney to tell them her grandmother had died.

  Summer would tell them in time. So Josie went along with the idle chitchat about the windy weather, Sarah’s science fair project and Delaney’s disgust at having to drain an abscess on a horse’s rib cage the week before.

  “It was so juicy. I mean, sooo juicy! I had to wear goggles. And I should have worn one of those plastic parka thingies.”

  Josie wasn’t fooled into thinking they planned to let her off the hook with The Marriage Intervention. They were just biding their time.

  But you take what you can get.

  After they left, Josie spent the rest of Saturday grading papers and planning lessons. And thinking about a personal trainer.

  A personal trainer was simply someone else—some muscle-bound teeny bopper, more than likely—telling her what she was doing wrong.

  “I don’t know if I can hang with that,” she said to herself several times throughout the day. “Nope, probably not,” her self answered, each time providing reasons that kind of relationship wouldn’t work. First of all, she was predisposed to dislike anyone who tried to encourage her to work out (i.e. break a sweat). Second, she didn’t really have time to add another weekly meeting to her schedule. Third, she hated people who liked working out. And didn’t all trainers like working out? They were gluttons for punishment. They liked that feeling of their muscles burning. They liked sweating, breathing hard and feeling terrible.

  It made absolutely no sense.

  Therefore, hooking Josie up with one of these crazy people was a waste of Summer and Delaney’s money. Just before she fell asleep, she resolved to call and cancel first thing Monday morning.

  ***

  Josie woke up Sunday morning to a text from Paul: Lunch tomorrow?

  “Tomorrow” really meant today, she realized when the sleep fog cleared from her brain. He’d texted last night after she fell asleep. She felt her stomach lurch and butterfly wings flapped wildly inside it.

  Why did he want to have lunch with her? Did he plan to give her even more bad news? To ask for a divorce? To tell her he’d found someone else? Maybe he’d decided he loved the bachelor life. Maybe he’d decided he wanted to move in with Terry, to escape the piles of mail and papers Josie stacked at various places all over the house.

  She texted him back: Sure. Where do you want to go?

  Paul: Sand Witch?

  Josie: No, Delaney says the owner wipes the sweat off his forehead with the same towel he uses to dry the glasses.

  Paul: Ha. Okay. How about that pizza place?

  Josie: Pizza Palace?

  Paul: Yeah.

  Josie: Okay. Noon?

  Paul: Sure.

  She wanted to add so many other messages: I miss you, I love you, Please come home, pretty please with sugar on top. But she didn’t.

  Josie spent an entire hour and a half preparing for their lunch date. She exfoliated her legs and put on Paul’s favorite vanilla-and-lemon-scented lotion. It was still too early to leave for lunch, and she felt lonely, so she indulged herself with a batch of chocolate chip cookies and felt only slightly ashamed when she set them on the counter next to the plate of brownies.

  No one ever had to know. She’d eat it all before she had any more guests. Including her husband.

  Is he a guest now?

  She wondered what Paul had done last night.

  Probably played poker with Terry Schmidt. Or watched a UFC fight. Or went out to Rowdy’s to scope out women.

  Finally, Josie pulled on a pair of dark skinny jeans and a peach sweater, and spent way longer than necessary searching for her black and white infinity scarf, which she eventually found under the bed.

  Once she’d positioned it carefully around her neck and applied her mascara, she felt pretty good.

  Lunch would go well. She could feel it.

  *
**

  Josie and Paul always joked about how fun it would be to show up at a bar, separately, and pretend they weren’t married. They’d leave their wedding rings in their cars and pretend one of them was picking up the other, asking if that seat was taken and sitting down to make flirtatious small talk.

  When their marriage was going well, the scenario sounded fun and romantic. But now, when they met for lunch at The Pizza Palace, Josie felt like they were actually strangers. Not in a good way. Paul waited for her in a corner booth. Of course he showed up early. He sat there, sipping his Dr. Pepper (he never ordered anything else) and perusing the menu as if he didn’t know he’d order sausage and pineapple like he always did.

  She was relieved to see his expression soften when he saw her. Maybe there was still hope. She sat down across from him as she had a million times. This time, it felt different. Maybe because they arrived separately. Or maybe because she had no idea whether he was really drinking Dr. Pepper. He always ordered it, but what if he’d changed his mind about soda, just like he’d changed his mind about living with her?

  She forced a smile. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” he said. “I already ordered. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Pineapple and sausage?”

  “Yeah. And breadsticks.”

  Okay, some things did remain the same.

  “Perfect,” she said. She felt a goofy but authentic smile spreading across her face and for once, didn’t try to stop it, to play it cool.

  “I miss you,” Paul said.

  Josie surveyed him carefully. The stitches stood out against his skin, and the bruising all over his face had dulled to a gray-blue color. She wanted, more than anything, to hold his head against her chest, to offer him comfort, to run her fingertips along his injuries. But of course, she couldn’t. Not now.

  Instead, she stretched her arm out so their fingertips touched and said, “I miss you, too.”

  The waiter came then, to ask if Josie wanted anything, and Josie pulled her hand away, as if she’d been caught doing something illicit.