Lies and Other Acts of Love

by Kristy Woodson Harvey

  I thought she might burst into song right then and there, and I couldn’t fathom in my wildest imagination that Ben had ever been with anyone so . . . perky. I wanted to say that a party wasn’t necessary, but the truth of the matter was that I had already met everyone in town, and they hadn’t quite taken to me, to put it mildly. As much as I hated it, I needed everyone to know that I was in Laura Anne’s good graces because, as was becoming increasingly clear, that’s what it was going to take for everyone to finally acknowledge that I was Ben Hampton’s wife, not the other woman.

  I tried not to laugh as Cameron made a face like she was gagging and then disappeared. A moment later, I felt an arm around my back and turned to feel Ben’s soft lips on my forehead. “So I see you two have met,” Ben said, looking amused. He raised his eyebrows at me as if to say, See why we didn’t work out?

  As if on cue, a tall, handsome man in a perfectly fitted tux appeared at Laura Anne’s side and squeezed her shoulder. “Jack,” he said, waiting for me to hold out my hand for him to shake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  You didn’t have to ask Jack any questions to know everything about him. He had been to prep school and attended college somewhere that money, good looks and partying are as important for acceptance as grades and SAT scores. I caught a glimpse of the oversized diamond on Laura Anne’s tiny finger and wondered if she had already scoped my simple Love band. I wondered if she wished Ben had locked it on her finger and thrown away the key.

  “So, Jack,” Laura Anne said, handing her husband her empty champagne glass, wordlessly defining that she needed more and clearly displaying the power dynamic between the two of them. “I was just telling Annabelle that we’d like to have a little celebration for them.”

  “Oh, that’s not necessary,” Ben interjected, but I squeezed his hand.

  When Jack said, “Oh, no. We insist,” he didn’t argue again.

  All I can say, looking back now, is how deeply I wish I hadn’t squeezed his hand.

  Lovey

  Old School

  One of the most important things a girl can be is a good judge of character. Even now, I can tell in less than a second whether I trust someone. Your eighties are rough on the gait, eyesight, hearing, smelling and tasting, but, somewhere in there, your trust muscle gets worked like a bride by a personal trainer until it’s strong and ready to take on anything—even that size-too-small Vera Wang.

  That’s how I knew instantly that I didn’t like the look of that Laura Anne. She seemed sweet enough, sure, but I could tell that underneath that sparkling gymnast exterior was a conniving Real Housewife waiting to get out. But I never had the opportunity to tell Annabelle that because, days after that party, they were already thick as thieves. Taking morning runs, playing weekend tennis, planning couples getaways to the mountains.

  I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen best friends turn out to be the worst enemy a girl can have. Never with Katie Jo and me, I thought, smiling, remembering that I needed to call her the next day.

  I felt an arm around my shoulder and heard a voice say, “As lovely as you look, you must have been on the egg and grapefruit diet too.”

  I looked up to see a pair of charming dimples wrapped in a gorgeous tux.

  I put my finger to an exceptionally well-tied bow tie. “So you don’t have to wear the collar?”

  He shrugged. “Nah. I like old school, but I’m not married to it.”

  I looked across the room at Laura Anne and Annabelle, chattering away like field mice. “What do you think of her?”

  He got this sort of faraway look in his eyes. “Oh, Annabelle is a miracle. She’s so . . .” He paused, looking down at me, smiling. “Honest. There’s such a purity about her heart. I don’t know what I ever did without her.”

  I raised my eyebrows, wondering if he meant he didn’t know what he did without her in his office or his life. “I meant Laura Anne.”

  Rob laughed that easygoing laugh of his, and I couldn’t help but think that he seemed more alive than most people. “Oh, Lynn, don’t do that to me.” He gave me a thin-lipped smile that told me exactly how he felt about her. But all he said was, “God loves all His children. We’re all in His image.”

  I felt a kiss on my cheek from behind and did what can only be described as a triple take. “Hi there, little Lovey.”

  “What in God’s holy name are you doing here?”

  Holden shrugged, a couture tux able to make even the plainest of men suddenly look a little like Leonardo circa Titanic. He adjusted his tie. “You know I’ve always been a huge fans of the arts.”

  “Uh-huh,” I grunted. “You’re a fan of something all right,” I said under my breath.

  “Excuse my manners,” I said. “Father Rob, Holden. Holden, Father Rob.”

  Rob was so tall Holden had to look up to him. “So, what brings you to Salisbury?” Rob asked.

  Holden looked wistfully across the room at the tiny waist and flowing hair of a granddaughter that I could say without bias was a stunning sight to behold. Rob’s gaze followed Holden’s, and he said, “Dude, that’s kind of a weird way to look at your sister.”

  Holden raised his lip at Rob. “Sister,” he practically spat. “Annabelle is the love of my life,” he said, at precisely the moment that Emily appeared by my side.

  “Oh,” she said, patting the feather peeking out from her loose bun. “So you’re the one that gave my Ben a black eye, huh?”

  Rob said, “Wait. What?”

  Then, finally, Annabelle stopped laughing long enough to peek in our direction. I’m not sure if it was the sight of Holden, or the fact that he was waxing poetic with her mother-in-law that made Annabelle turn so instantly white. But, either way, though two men who claimed Annabelle was the love of their life were under the tent that night, I couldn’t help but notice that it was Rob who ran to her rescue.

  Annabelle

  Sold Out

  The best gifts in life are often the most unexpected. And, to be sure, becoming friends with Laura Anne was unexpected. In a matter of hours, her signing me on as her cohort had earned me four invitations from her circle of friends. And, for someone who had felt so utterly alone in her new town, that was a very happy occurrence.

  “So it’s kind of ironic, right?” Father Rob asked as soon as I got to work the next week. “You were so stressed about meeting Laura Anne, and now you two are”—he paused and then, in a singsong, tween voice, he said—“besties!”

  I laughed, and Junie sighed audibly from her desk.

  “What’s the matter with my favorite little month over there?” Rob asked.

  She shook her head. “It’s just that someone in this office has to get a little bit of work done.”

  “I’m so sorry, Junie,” I started, but Father Rob put his hand up to stop me.

  He walked around to where Junie was sitting, took the pile of papers from her hands, and set them back on the desk. “Junie, my love, the work of the church shouldn’t be such a burden.”

  “Well,” she said crankily, “someone has to file all of the parishioners’ donations and keep track of the pledges.”

  Father Rob perched on the corner of the desk, his hands out in front of him as if painting a landscape with his bare fingertips. “Just picture it . . . a world where the work of the church is the work of the Holy Spirit. The work of the church isn’t filing and paperwork and mundane e-mails. It’s extraordinary callings and saving the poor and oppressed from their distress.”

  I smiled at Junie, who was rolling her eyes at Rob, who was clearly goading her. “Well,” she said, her voice crackling, “that’s all well and good, but the Holy Spirit can’t pay your salary if someone doesn’t get all this paperwork done.”

  Rob hopped down from the desk, gave Junie a solid pat on the back and said, “Well, then, thank the Lord for you.”

  I could s
ee the tiniest smile escaping from the corners of Junie’s mouth. She didn’t want to be, but you could tell that she was endlessly amused by her new boss. He had given more vibrancy to these last decades of her time on earth than she would have imagined, like a menopause baby forcing a retiree out of the loathed last third of hobby-filled life.

  “Junie, would you like to come with me to interview some new musicians?”

  “Musicians?” she croaked like a frog. “We’ve already got an organist.”

  “Yeah.” He scratched his chin. “But, in the spirit of the good old Holy Spirit, we’re going to jazz up the ten thirty service a little. Make it a little more fun and family friendly.”

  Junie shook her head. “I won’t have any part in it. When Mrs. Taylor comes in looking for a neck to wring, the autopsy won’t be mine.”

  He turned to me and winked. “Ok, then, Annie, looks like it’s you and me.”

  He held his arm out and, as he escorted me to the church, said, “So, are we going to talk about that pale fellow that showed up at the party?”

  I could feel my eyes turning toward heaven. “What was that? I mean, what sort of ex-fiancé just shows up unannounced like that when a person is happily married?” I could feel the shame and anger rising toward my face.

  “On the bright side, that little song he sang—and the proclamation of love beforehand—ensured that everyone in this town knows your name.”

  I put my hand up to my forehead as if shading the sun from my eyes. “I honestly can’t even talk about it. I’m trying to pretend it never happened.”

  He said, “Yeah. You’re right. I won’t remind you.”

  Then, as if by total accident, he started singing under his breath, “I can’t live, with or without you . . .”

  “Stop it,” I said, slapping him on the arm with the back of my hand. “It’s not even a little funny.” But I laughed anyway. Holden had heard that Ben had won me over by singing to me at his show. I think he was trying to even the score a bit, pay us back by mortifying us like he had been so deeply embarrassed.

  “Actually,” he said, “he doesn’t have a bad voice. Do you think we could get him to sing in our new band?”

  I laughed again. “You know, in reality, I deserved this. I mean, I embarrassed him, he embarrassed me. Now we’re even.”

  I thought of my inbox full of messages from Holden. I kept thinking that they were going to stop, but, so far, he had been very persistent.

  “What did Ben say?”

  “Pretty much nothing,” I said, trying to push away the nagging feeling that Ben should have taken care of the situation somehow, when, in fact, it was Rob that had pulled Holden off the stage and defused the situation saying, “All right, a beautiful singing telegram from Ben to Annabelle, with love.”

  The crowd had laughed and clapped, but Ben had seemed like it was pretty much business as usual.

  As we watched a very talented guitarist strum in the sanctuary, I said, “So, do you actually think you’re going to pull this off? I mean, the older members of this congregation are going to have a fit if you mess with their service.”

  He shrugged. “My calling in life is to bring people to Jesus, to show them how much better their lives would be if they were completely sold out for Christ.” He shrugged. “Changing this service is what I’m supposed to do, so I can’t help but know that there’s some great purpose here.”

  I smiled and, thinking of my sheltered little life, of how worried about my social status I’d been, started to feel a bit like a sellout of a different kind.

  Four hours later I was wrangling myself into my most stylish, skinniest jeans, noticing they felt a little snug, and saying, “I know you’re tired, honey, but this will be fun.”

  Greg and Laura Anne had invited us to be their guests for supper club at Kimberly’s house. You couldn’t help but notice that befriending Laura Anne had immediately improved my social status. Ben walked to me, interrupting the very ambitious zipping I was trying to do, and kissed me. I lingered for a long moment, my lips on his, and he said, “But I can think of so many more fun things we can do right here, all by ourselves.”

  I thought of my top dresser drawer spilling over with lingerie and how little use it had gotten over the past several weeks. And so I said, “Honey, I promise, we’re not going to become one of those couples.”

  It struck me, as I plucked a sleeveless silk top, the perfect weight and dressiness for a casual dinner, that we already felt a little like one of those couples. That can’t-breathe-without-touching-you passion was still there in spurts, but it broke my heart a little to realize that, contrary to what I had believed such a short time ago, I could, in fact, survive the day without making love to the gorgeous man I had pledged all my days to.

  He kissed my neck, wrapping his arm around my waist, and whispered, “You’re all I want for the rest of my life.”

  I turned and kissed his mouth again, upturned in that sincere smile that always drew me in so fully.

  “Who needs friends?”

  Two hours later, sipping chardonnay on Kimberly’s slate patio, I remembered that, actually, I needed friends. Maybe the statute of limitations on only having to have your husband is a year because, since we had moved to town, this was the first time I felt like I could breathe. Laura Anne was balancing on the arm of the very sturdy outdoor chair on which I was perched, saying, “It is so, so fun to have a new BFF! It’s like, from the second we met, I just knew we were going to have so much fun together!”

  From the looks of the girls surrounding me, I could tell that they were as jealous as if they were a room of single girls searching for the perfect man, and I was flaunting my sparkling, six-carat forever. But I had been to high school, and I had seen Mean Girls, so I knew as well as a person could that, if the queen bee says you’re her new best friend, the other girls will hate you behind your back, sure. But they’ll be stuck on you like a mosquito in a spiderweb to your face, because, in reality, you’re now their best shot of becoming really, truly “in.”

  I should have watched that movie again, though. Because, somehow, basking in the glow of the attention of my new friend group that night, I forgot that the leader of the pack would just as soon eat you as share her throne.

  Lovey

  Why Men Stray

  Momma always said that you have to find the right balance in life between depending on your husband and maintaining your independence. But, truth be told, because I relied on Dan for my money and so much else, I never felt all that self-sufficient.

  I learned quickly after moving into that assisted living facility that I had been quite independent, after all, despite how I felt. And now, all that was gone. Maybe it was the fact that someone checked on me every hour or that, for the first time in my life, it wasn’t my responsibility to coordinate the housekeeper and the yardman, the laundry and the ironing, the meals and the caretakers. I should have felt a sense of reckless abandon, a crushing weight dissipating into thin air.

  Instead, I felt an overarching sense of uselessness. For sixty years I had been a wife, which translated to cook, cleaner, laundress, ironer, errand runner, mother, caretaker, feeling soother and sometimes gardener. And now, here I was, totally free. And I felt like I was losing my mind. Mercifully, when I got up from the sofa where I was reading probably the fifteenth book that month, I turned on the bathroom light, and, in that particular mix of spark and noise, the bulb over the sink blew.

  I had bridge that afternoon, and I couldn’t very well do my makeup when one of the bulbs was out. Whistling all the way, I walked purposefully to the tiny utility room, slid the lightweight stepladder over my arm like a purse and grabbed a light bulb. Sure, I could have called maintenance, but it was a light bulb for heaven’s sake. Dan was the invalid; he was the one that needed the care. Not me.

  I climbed up the three small steps carefully, twisted out the
old light bulb, screwed in the new one and headed back down. One, two . . . I never got to three. The third step had escaped me, and, instead of landing steadily on it, one of my feet slipped. Struggling to regain my balance, my foot twisted underneath me and, before I knew what was happening, I was on the ground amidst the sound of shattering. I looked over, expecting to see that light bulb in a million pieces on the tile floor. I gasped. Seeing the bulb perfectly intact, I realized, as I tried to hoist myself from the floor, my leg determined not to allow it, that the shattering sound hadn’t been the bulb. It was me.

  My mind raced with fear, remembering that Dan was alone in the den. I tried to call for help, but no sound would come. It was like that nightmare where the gunman is chasing you and you’re trying and trying to scream, to no avail. I don’t know if it was the fear or the swift rise in blood pressure that severe pain can trigger, but that’s the last I remember of that afternoon.

  On the bright side, while I was catching up on my beauty rest, I had the loveliest dream . . .

  It was May 1952, and I was perfectly coifed and made up, wearing an overworn yet expensive A-line dress. I could barely climb the four stairs that led from the driveway to our tiny front porch. I was sore, throbbing, exhausted. But, most of all, I was inexplicably ecstatic. I looked down at her again.

  “She’s just so perfect,” I said to Dan, wistfully. “Those little lips and those tiny eyelashes.”

  As we reached the top step, Dan set my valise down beside us, put his arm around me and leaned to kiss the cheek of the first addition to our family.

  “She’s so small,” he said, for probably the millionth time.

  I wanted to say, She didn’t feel so small when I was birthing her, but I refrained.

  Those were the waiting room days, where the woman toughed it out alone as the man paced around outside, puffing the cigars that he was supposed to be handing out.

  It’s better now, I think, when men get to be in the room, when they get to experience that earthshaking moment when their child takes his or her first breath. And, even more important, when they can actually see what their wife goes through when creating this little miracle.