Jackie stared out over the acres of green along with Mel, her eyes bewildered and shadowed. “I don’t know, Mel. Fear of rejection? Mockery? Being different than what everyone dubs the norm is harder for some than others. It does strange and sometimes horrible things to people. Frank said he’d heard rumors occasionally over the years, but he never had anything solid—or you know he would have come to you, don’t you?”
Mel shook her head hard, focusing on row after row of colorful gardens filled to brimming with various palm trees. “Damn him, Jackie. Damn him for using me to cover for him. Like he’s the first ever gay dancer in the world? If I ever see Stan again, I’m going to shove a bowl of borscht right up his ass! He lived a lie and he took me with him. He could never love me the way I should have been loved, deserved to be loved because I’m the wrong gender, and he knew it all along,” she spat, running a hand over her tired, sore eyes.
Jackie brushed a strand of Mel’s flyaway hair from her face. “You’re right. You deserved better. So much better, and Stan’s a bigger ass than I thought. It explains the money. He felt guilty for stealing all those years from you.”
A tear slipped down Mel’s face and dropped to her lap. “He damn well should.”
“Ms. Jackie?” Jackie’s maid and right-hand man Melda took a tentative step out onto the patio from the string of French doors off the kitchen. “Ms. Mel has a visitor.”
Jackie scowled, her eyes narrowing. “It better not be some asshole reporter. I’m just in the mood to beat some vulture and cook him for breakfast.”
Melda folded her hands together, her warm face composed. “Oh, no. It’s a Neil Jensen. So handsome!” she twittered, then sobered, wiping the excitement off her face.
Mel brightened, if only a little. Neil had promised to come to support her at the audition, but he hadn’t shown up, and she’d forgotten about it in all the chaos of Stan’s admission.
“Send him in, Melda, please.”
“Immediately.” Melda left them to go get Neil with a soft hush of footsteps and the swish of her white apron against her jeans.
Jackie reached out a hand to her. “Two BFFs in one place—the universe is looking out for you today, girly.”
Mel clung to that, shaky and tired when Neil strolled in. One glance at his face, and she knew he was as upset for her as Jackie. She jumped up, expecting him to engulf her in his embrace, but instead, he looked to Jackie. “Could we have a minute alone?”
Jackie’s eyes darted from Neil to Mel in sharp awareness. “Everything okay?”
Neil’s gulp was visible, his next words thick. “I just need a minute.”
Mel waved her friend off before shooting her a watery smile. “It’s okay, Jackie. Go check on the kids, then we’ll all sit down and feel sorry for poor Mel together.”
“I’ll go make some freshly squeezed orange juice.” Jackie swept out of the room in a cloud of silk bathrobe and her signature perfume.
Her gaze met Neil’s. “So you saw, I guess? Stupid-ass question, right? Who didn’t see? Can you even believe it?” she squeaked, fighting another batch of tears. “I don’t know how I didn’t know—”
“Maybe because you can’t always tell who the gay boy is just by looking at him?” Neil shifted on his feet, jamming his hands into his pockets.
Mel stopped the beginning of her tirade dead in its tracks, her stomach tight. “What?”
“I said you can’t always tell who’s gay. Gaydar is as accurate as craps.”
Mel was appalled at Neil’s apparent nonchalance. “We lived together for twenty years, Neil! And I never once suspected. Not once. How could I not have even had an inkling?”
Neil’s eyes fell to the beautiful slate of the patio and muttered, “Sometimes you just never know.”
Mel’s lips thinned when she tightened her bathrobe around her with a jerk of her shaky hands. “Oh, I bet people knew. You can’t tell me he wasn’t unfaithful in one capacity or another. Someone knew and they pitied stupid, stupid Mel behind my back.”
The rage she felt over that made it almost impossible to breathe. She’d accused Stan of being wrapped up in his own little world, but she’d been just as wrapped up in hers.
“I knew, Mel. I knew.” Neil finally looked at her, his eyes stricken with the kind of pain she’d never seen in them before while he waited for her to process what he’d just stated.
His words rocked her to the core. He couldn’t mean what she thought he meant. Her hand went to her chest to ease the ache there.
“You what?”
“I knew. I’ve known since the day I met him.”
Disbelief gave way to a searing pain in her gut. She tightened the belt of her robe around her waist. “So you’ve always known Stan was gay?”
Twenty fucking years of her fucking fucked-up life and Neil had always known there was nothing she could have done to save her marriage because you can’t beat the kind of competition like another gender.
Still, the raw misery that lined his face tore at Mel’s heart, warring with her disbelief. “I tried to tell you at your bridal shower, Mel. I swear to Christ.”
She flapped a quick hand upward, the mounting pressure in her skull just looking for a reason to explode. “Wait—I remember that night. You were obliterated, but you kept telling me I shouldn’t go through with it. I thought it was just because you were drunk. So that was all because you knew even then Stan was gay, wasn’t it?”
“Y-yes,” he cried the words in a stutter. “Christ, Mel. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t believe it either. Well, no, that’s not true. I could believe it, but he had me so convinced he really loved you, and that it was all a big mistake that would never happen again…”
Dread climbed her spine. Dread and a hot wave of fear. She forced her knees together to keep them from wobbling. “What was all a big mistake, and why would Stan try to convince you of anything, Neil? You two hated each other. You said it yourself!”
None of this made any sense. Everything for the past twenty years was a lie—all a lie.
Neil’s head hung to his chest, his breathing shuddered in and out, pushing the fabric of his polo shirt outward.
Mel gripped his chin, tipping it up to search his pain-riddled eyes.
Whatever this was about, whatever was making Neil so miserable that he couldn’t even look at her, she needed to know. “Say it. Just say it!” she yelled, filled with equal parts frustration and fear.
He clenched his jaw into a hard knot, as though the next words were too excruciating to speak, and then he spat, “I knew he was gay because I slept with him.”
The words, words that ripped through her like sharp knives, landed with a sonic boom. She backed away from Neil, her heart hammering her from the inside out.
This was Neil. The Neil she’d always trusted. The Neil who’d been by her side through every dance competition since they were twelve years old. The Neil who’d loved her no matter what.
And he’d betrayed her.
Her head whirled with a whizzing sound. Her heart clamored with the erratic beat of betrayal. “When? When did this happen?” she screamed, tears falling down her cheeks to land on the slate in salty drops.
Neil grabbed her by the shoulders, pressing his fingers into them with an almost desperate force. “It was just before the two of you announced your engagement. You guys kept everything so hush-hush, I wasn’t even sure you were definitely a couple, and you sure didn’t confide in me until after the fact.”
Mel’s hands slapped his from her shoulders with sharp cracks.
“Because of the press, Neil! Even back then we had to be careful.”
“I know that now, but I didn’t then. I swear it, Mel. One minute we were all in a show together, and the next he was announcing your engagement. Look, what happened between Stan and me…”
Her stomach lurched; she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. “Don’t.”
“I have to.”
“Why?” she roared in his face.
“So you can feel better? Cleansed? You know this cheating thing? It’s pretty fucking selfish. Why is it the cheater gets to not only unburden himself, but feel relieved that he has while the cheated on suffer? You were my best friend! The moment you knew we were getting married, you should have told me!”
Anguish streaked his face, but it was as if he was possessed by some entity compelling him to purge all the pent-up years worth of lies. “I’d had a crush on Stan forever. Just like you. But I had no one. It’s not like I could ever talk about it with my girlfriends like you could…”
A fury so sharp it literally stung her shivered along her length. She shoved him hard, catching him by surprise and making his body jolt.
“Don’t you put that on me, Neil! Don’t you dare. I loved you no matter who you wanted to have sex with, and you damned well know that. I never, ever would have judged you because I didn’t and don’t care what your sexual preferences are unless they involved my husband!”
He ran a hand through his hair, clenching it into a fist. “I didn’t mean it like that.” His head fell back on his shoulders before he lifted it, and in his eyes, Mel saw anger at its most raw. “Yes! For fuck’s sake, yes! It was a self-imposed choice because I was afraid to tell anyone. I’ve always been afraid, Mel. You know what my father was like. It was enough that I wanted to dance, but to factor in my homosexuality? He’d have killed me, old Big Dan the truck driver and his sissy kid, Neil the Dancer!”
Yes. Neil’s father had hated that his son danced probably more than he’d hated most anything else in his miserable life. But Neil’s mother, Flora, she’d adored Neil. She would have understood.
“Big Dan’s dead, Neil,” she whispered, her throat raw. “What happened to all the time in between when you could have told me? I can’t remember a time when you didn’t have a woman on your arm—even now at forty-years-old you’re still dating starlets and socialites when you really want to be dating a linebacker. So what about that, friend?” Her words were meant to hurt—meant to make him suffer in the way he’d let her suffer.
Neil winced at her harsh attack, but he plodded ahead. “I just couldn’t admit it. Own it. The further away I was from it, from you, the easier it was to hide from what I’d done to you and to me. I did go to Stan after you announced your engagement. I told him he should tell you what happened between us, but he said it was a huge mistake—that he loved women and he loved you. He’d never done something like that in his life, and he’d never do it again as long as he lived. He said it was because he was drunk—we both were. When I found out what he’d done to you in the divorce, I was ready to spill it all to whomever would listen. I had Theresa trying to track him down since I came to Riverbend, and I almost had the bastard, but the son of a fucking bitch beat me to it!”
Mel held up a hand that trembled while the other covered her mouth. “I can’t hear any more of this.”
He made a grab for her arm. “Mel, wait. I loved him back then, too! You have to at least listen to me. Please.”
Oh, God. The desperation in Neil’s tone, the sheer agony all over his face only served to incite her. If she didn’t get away from him, she’d likely claw his eyes out.
And then an eerie calm took over, leaving her feeling a little dead inside. “No. No, I don’t, Neil. You knew Stan and I would never work. It’s a damn miracle we worked as long as we did, and I’d bet most of the time he was screwing around anyway. When he went off with Yelena, it crushed me. He took everything, Neil. My studio, my house—everything. Looking back on it now, I realize as I got older, I didn’t love Stan the way I should have. But I wasted twenty years of my life, married to a man I’d never be able to please because he isn’t even attracted to women, and you let me. To top it all off, you slept with him and didn’t tell me even after you knew about the two of us. Or after you knew I was going to marry him. What else is there to wait for, Neil?”
Stumbling, Mel made a break for the French doors and flew inside on feet that were numb, with a raw sob that tore from her throat.
Chapter 20
Dear Divorce Journal,
What am I, some kind of priest? I think the next time the confessional is full and someone needs to share, they’d better find a new church. I’ll take the zero, thank you.
“Oreo cookie? There’s someone here to see you.” Joe poked his head around the door of the guest bedroom where she sat perusing the real estate ads online on her new laptop with tired eyes.
She’d cut her trip to L.A. short after Neil’s admission, unable to bear the idea they were even in the same state. What Stan had done was unforgivable. What Neil had done was unthinkable. He’d known her marriage would never survive from the moment it began. He’d known just days before she and Stan announced their engagement.
That her marriage had lasted as long as it did was nothing short of a miracle.
Yet it explained so much about him. The facets of Neil she’d never been able to relate to. It was an almost excruciating ache knowing he’d never felt comfortable enough to be honest with her.
As the days passed, that notion troubled her almost more than Neil sleeping with Stan.
Mel groaned at her dad’s cheerful smile, running her hand through her tangled hair. “I don’t want to see anyone, Dad. Tell whoever it is that I vant to be alone,” she teased in her best Greta Garbo imitation.
“I’m afraid this is someone you have to see, Mel. For closure. In fact, I’m gonna have to insist.” He shook a warning finger at her.
Mel frowned, rubbing her temples, sinking back into the comfort of her pillows. “For closure? I think I’ve closed a bunch of doors these past four days, don’t you, Dad? I’m exhausted from all this closure. I found out my ex-husband of twenty years was gay on a television show, which shouldn’t surprise me because it seems like the new way to communicate. My best friend told me he’s always known about my ex-husband and that even he wasn’t able to resist Stan’s charms, and to top all this closure, the man I fell wildly in love with is a jerk with a son I miss so much, it hurts. But to make things really special, I miss the jerk, too. Crazy, right? But at the moment, I’m distracting myself by looking at real estate—because I can—because Stan’s check from his guilty account actually cleared and we’re rich. I’m looking at real estate so, you know, you can live your twilight years in comfort and I can sleep in a bed my feet don’t hang off of? So whoever it is, tell them to come back tomorrow when I’m more appropriately dressed for a nervous breakdown.”
“Melina,” a voice rumbled from behind her dad.
Her head popped up and her relaxed posture went from slumped on some pillows to on her feet in seconds. “Stan…”
But Joe planted himself between her and Stan. “Now before you go gettin’ your back up, Mellow-Yellow, I let him in. He has somethin’ to say I think is worth listening to. I’m gonna walk Weezer and Jake while you two do your thing.” He shook his finger in Stan’s direction. “One yelp outta my kid, and don’t forget I can still kick your butt, Twinkle Toes,” he growled the warning, pushing past Stan who saluted him.
Despite how far she’d come, despite her steel resolve to never allow anyone to intimidate her, she still felt small next to Stan. His presence no longer awed her, but it did leave her tentative.
“Can we talk, Melina?” he asked, his eyes tired, but with a glimmer in them she’d never seen before. His tone was gentle and not at all demanding or impatient as in the days of old.
Her fingers twisted behind her back, clenching and unclenching.
“I’m not sure what we have to talk about, Stan.”
“Oh, come now, Melina. Don’t you owe me a good, what is it they say, bitchfest? Surely you have words you want to pummel me with.”
Or her fists. Yet, she found, she was too wrung out for angry words or the blame game. Now she just wanted to get back to the life she’d begun before Stan and Neil were gay and Drew thought she was a whore for cash.
Her sigh was raspy. “Is this like some kind of re
demption’s anonymous exercise where you atone for all your wrongdoing? You know, apologize for lying to me for twenty years? For using me as your cover? I want no part of it, Stan. None. I want to forget it ever happened. I’ve been through the ringer this past year, and a lot of the blame falls on you, but I’m tired now. I just want some peace.” Her throat tightened. Peace. That would be so lovely.
His head dropped, some threads of grey mingled with the once raven-black of his hair glistening in the late November sunlight. “No, Melina. This is me, coming to you heavy of heart. I did wrong. I took advantage of your idol worship and in the ensuing years, I stole from you what you truly deserve from a husband.”
Her chin lifted, her lower lip trembled, and she found his soft tone left her compelled to ask. “Why, Stan? Why didn’t you just tell me? Why did you expose me to so much humiliation? The press…”
He shook his head. His regal posture slouching. “I am a selfish, impulsive man, that’s why. When I found out what Yelena was going to do, expose me for who I am if I didn’t pay her off, I reacted.”
Confusion riddled her face. “Yelena?”
His sigh was ragged, his face littered with disgust. “Yes, Yelena. The plan was never to tell you the way you found out—not on TV. Yelena…” He cleared his throat, swallowing hard. “She found me in a compromising position, Melina, if you know what I mean. I was cornered, and she epitomizes the word ‘greed.’ She threatened to tell the world if I didn’t marry her and, naturally, provide her with the kind of prestige that would include being my wife. Oh, she had it all figured out. I could have as many affairs as I wanted, as long as she could have all the houses and cars, pool boys named Rico, and whatever else she wanted.”
“But you were kissing her in that picture, Stan. I saw it with my own two eyes. You know, when the reporter shoved it in my face while I was trying to get into my locked studio?” Remembering that moment in time again didn’t make her want to huddle in the corner of the room anymore—it made her angry. It made her want to sucker punch him. Which could still happen…
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