A Good Woman

by Liz Cronkhite

  “Well, next time. Though it’s not always McDonalds. Sometimes it’s KFC. Or Panda Express. Or Burger King.”

  When they were done Aly cleaned up and Erika went to change. Aly felt better to have the first meal done. They were strangers now, but the more they met, the less awkward it would be. However, she didn’t expect to see much of Erika. The girls would be her focus. She looked forward to their return the next day, to get to know them certainly, but also because they were her justification for being in Erika’s home.

  She went back to her room and turned on the television. She was tired from moving all day and the wine made her pleasantly sleepy. Later, after a shower, she went back out to get a glass of water for the night and found Erika sitting on the floor at the large coffee table. She had changed into soft, light colored cotton loungewear and her face was bare. With a pillow behind her back she leaned against the couch, one leg folded under her, the other stretched under the table. Her laptop was open before her and there were folders and her phone beside it. The news was on the television, but the sound was muted. She seemed to be reading the chyron or perhaps she was just zoning out.

  The Ice Queen, thoroughly at home.

  Aly had discovered she needed the Wi-Fi password to get on the internet. But Erika didn’t look up as she passed, so she just got her water and went back to her room. It could wait for tomorrow.

  13

  Aly was used to being awakened early at the Giannis and, despite it being Saturday, she found herself awake at six the next morning. The bed was very comfortable and she had slept well, but sleep wouldn’t come again and she got up and dressed.

  When she rounded the corner from her room she could see Erika sitting outside at the patio table, still in her loungewear. In early August the sun was up by six. It would be warm already. She made herself a bowl of cereal and read the news on her iPhone. Then she made herself a cup of coffee and took it back to her room.

  She spent the first hours of the morning setting up her desk for her billing work and then went to the Meadows Mall off of the I95 to shop for clothes. She had seen Erika in passing and found out the girls would be home in the early afternoon. Her plan was to go back to the house to greet the girls, but then to have dinner out with Cass so Erika could have time alone with them. She hadn’t seen them for a month, and Aly could imagine how much she was longing to be with them.

  When Aly arrived back in the middle of the afternoon and stepped into the house from the garage, she could feel a palpable change in the energy of the home. No wonder Erika felt it was eerie when the girls were gone.

  The sound of Lu’s high chatter reached her as she passed the kitchen. It seemed to be coming from her bedroom. She went to her own room to put down her packages and then went to greet the girls.

  “How was Florida?” she asked Lu from her doorway. Lu was several shades darker from her month in the tropical sun. Erika was helping her unpack bright red suitcases, sorting clothes into piles for the laundry.

  “Aly! It was GOAT.” Greatest Of All Time. “Except for Ellery.”

  Aly looked at Erika who explained, “Cousin.”

  “Ah. Well, welcome back.” She moved on to Whitney’s room. Whitney had not yet begun to unpack her powder blue suitcases. They sat in the middle of the room, untouched. Or was she finished?

  Whitney was sitting on her bed, texting. She looked up when Aly appeared in her doorway. “Hi. Did you have a good time?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t seem to have any more to , so Aly welcomed her home and went back to her room to unpack her own packages.

  ◆◆◆

  She met Cass at the Cheesecake Factory on Rampart. It was Saturday night so it was swamped. Cass had arrived first and put her name in and was handed a buzzer that would notify her when a table was ready. Aly found her perusing the Cheesecakes up front.

  “What do you think?” Cass asked after they hugged. “I’m torn between just the basic with strawberries or something richly decadent and chocolate.”

  “Is that really a choice?” Aly smiled, looking closely at her friend. She looked drawn but Aly could see she was trying to be a trouper. “Do you want to wait at the bar?”

  They went to the bar and each ordered a glass of Merlot. “Have you ever had wine with fast food?” Aly asked.

  “That’s disgusting. Where’d you hear of that? Beer I can see.” Cass thought a moment. “No, not wine.”

  Aly felt she crossed a line asking, as though she risked exposing Erika. Then she felt ridiculous for feeling that way. But, still, she didn’t want to ever gossip about the Miltons. They let her into their home. They trusted her. There shouldn’t have to be a confidentiality agreement.

  “Toni likes beer with anything fried. She says it’s a must.” Cass waved her hand in the air. “I don’t want to talk about her tonight. Tell me what’s going on with you. How’s the new place.”

  Aly described the house and her room. “I don’t really know them yet. I don’t officially start until Monday.”

  “I don’t know Erika well,” Cass said. “She’s in another of Anita’s circles. I always picture these circles around Anita and they all intersect over her, like some sort of Venn diagram.”

  Aly laughed. “That’s a good way to put it. I’m the same with Erika. I’m acquainted with her, but that’s all.”

  “Maybe I should’ve hired Erika for my lawyer. I just know Nahla better. From the dog shows. Brittany Spaniels.”

  Aly thought about the lesbian subculture in the dog show world. Through Cass they were one of the circles intersecting over Anita.

  “Anita had a thing for Erika a few years ago”, Cass said. “Really bad.”

  “She told me.”

  “Did she? She thought she was too old. So you think you’ll get along with her? I mean, being in someone’s house is, you know, kind of intimate.”

  “I hope so. But I’ll be mostly focused on the girls. When she’s around I’m off so I don’t think I’ll see her much.”

  “I don’t know if I could live with such an attractive woman and not somehow find my way to her bed. Like, sleepwalking or something.”

  Aly laughed and privately squirmed. Why does everyone have to bring up how good looking Erika is? There are a lot of reasons an attractive person could be undesirable. Like, they are ice queens. “There’s a big difference between thinking someone’s attractive and being attracted to them.”

  “Yeah, I suppose. And she’s so out of my league anyway. She’d kick me out before I got a toe in the bedroom door! And I guess if I wanted to keep the job…” Cass got a faraway look and sighed. “I don’t know what’s more painful, breaking up with Toni, breaking up the dogs, or breaking up the business. Well, I supposed I don’t have to make any of them the most painful.”

  Aly was not disappointed to have the conversation return to Toni. Their buzzer lit up and vibrated. They took their wine and returned to the front of the restaurant to be led to a booth. After they had looked over the extensive menu and ordered, she decided to pry. “Cass, all I know is Toni left one day. I don’t know why. You don’t have to tell me. But if you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

  Cass sighed. “A couple of years ago she had an affair. With another breeder. Of Shar-Peis.”

  “A couple of years ago? How did you find out?”

  “I met the bitch at a dog show and she made sure I knew. Ha! Bitch! I shouldn’t defile dogs by calling her that. I need a worse word.”

  “So what happened? It’s over?”

  “I think it was for only a few weeks or something. Toni felt bad and broke it off.”

  “So she stayed with you.”

  She cut Aly a sharp look. “What does that mean? That I should just forgive her?”

  “No,” Aly said, though she was not so sure. Didn’t her staying carry some weight? She tried to think of how she would’ve felt if she found out Toy had gambled and lost a lot of money once, learned it was too painful, and didn’t do it again. She couldn’t he
lp but think that she could work out her own feelings in that case. Maybe forgiveness wouldn’t happen right away, but it was something to work toward. Isn’t that what marriage was? The long haul through thick and thin? But she could see that Cass needed support, not contradiction, right now.

  “You must’ve been devastated.”

  “No other word,” Cass shook her head. “Atomic level destruction of my heart. And to think she carried that for two years, like she had this secret life.” She caught herself. “Oh, sorry.”

  “No, I understand,” Aly said. But, again, she could see a difference. Toy’s other life was ongoing. Toni gave up the deception. She concealed her deception, yes, but how much for her own sake and how much for Cass’s?

  Their food came and they were quiet as they dug in. Cass’s thoughts were probably running on her hurt. But Aly felt, oddly, better about her own circumstances. It had bothered her that she was the one to ask for the divorce. Yes, Toy had betrayed, deceived, and ruined her finances and credit. For Aly, her own mistake was in choosing to be totally blind in trusting Toy. It was irresponsible to not stay informed about their money. Her failing had been the divorce. There was always the nagging sense that she didn’t give Toy enough of a chance. Toy certainly seemed to think she didn’t. But she didn’t get help until her lawyer told her it would look better during the divorce if she was in a gambling recovery program. And then she did nothing to stop him from painting Aly as complicit when she knew she was not. Aly knew that Toy had gone back out at least once since then. She wasn’t sure she kept up with the 12 step program. Unlike Toni, Toy didn’t learn. She didn’t grow. Aly’s choice had been to divorce or continue to be used and manipulated. If she had stayed she would have been complicit in the consequences of Toy’s gambling. For the first time, she wondered if her divorce was not a failure, but the only healthy choice.

  She wanted to tell Cass that she was making her own atomic level destruction. She wanted to ask her which was worse: Facing her hurt and working through it with a good woman who was willing to learn and grow? Or taking apart every aspect of their lives because of her hurt? But she knew that conversation would have to wait for a time when Cass was open to hearing it. If that time ever came.

  When she got home the house was quiet. The girls’ bedroom doors were closed, the living room was empty. When she passed the glass door on the way to her room, she saw Erika standing on the patio looking at the view. And just as she reached the alcove, she heard the glass door open and Erika called, “Hey, Aly, hi. How was your evening? How was Cass?”

  “Raw.”

  She nodded. “I can imagine.” She beckoned Aly outside to see the view. “Hey, come look.”

  Aly stepped out. The air was thick and smelled of petrichor and sage, the scent of rain in the desert. It was Monsoon season, the time of year when the normally dry air of the Mojave Desert turns humid with moisture up from the gulfs of California and Mexico. For a native Las Vegan like Aly, who was used to dry air, it was an uncomfortable time of year.

  But she wasn’t thinking about the humidity. Before them was the carpet of stars as Erika had described it. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Isn’t it? But that’s not the best part. Look.” She pointed to the sky in the southeast. The sky suddenly lit up as light moved along heavy hanging clouds. A thunderstorm, though it was too far away for them to hear the rumble. “That’s a bonus to me. I expected this view at night. I never thought of this.”

  She looked delighted, like a little girl, and Aly found her unexpectedly endearing. “That is really cool,” she said, and Erika looked pleased again, as though a gift given was received.

  Aly was uncomfortable with this side of the Ice Queen. It was incongruent. So as much as she liked the view, she thanked her and went to her room. She had things to think about after her dinner with Cass.

  14

  The next morning Aly was awake a little after six again. She lay there for a while thinking about the rawness of Cass the night before. It made her aware that the past two years had not been total stasis for herself. She had reclaimed some parts of herself. She wasn’t a gaping wound anymore. She wasn’t walking around angry all the time. Toy’s wife had fallen away. Toy’s ex-wife had taken her place. She felt it was time to move completely past her.

  It had been in the back of her mind for a while that she needed to get back in shape. Several years ago she ran every morning. She was fit then and her mental health was better.

  Running tapered off when she went to billing school, and then everything fell apart. At the Gianni’s, it was just too hectic to work it in. And, she speculated, maybe for the past couple of years she’d been a little depressed and unmotivated. Well, if her body wanted to be up early, she might as well roll with it. On weekdays she’d have to get up at five to have time to run, shower, and breakfast before she had to be with the girls at seven. But she would begin today. She would start by walking and over the next few weeks build up to running at least thirty minutes every morning.

  She dressed in shorts and a baggy T-shirt and put on her old running shoes. Those would have to be replaced. When she emerged from her room she found Erika at the patio table again. This must be her morning routine. There was no sign of the girls. She told her she was going for a walk and heading through the kitchen she found bagels. Erika had explained to her the day before that on Sundays breakfast was bagels. They were delivered by The Bagelry by six and the first one up was to retrieve them from the front door.

  Aly used to have a protein breakfast drink before she ran and cereal afterward. She would have to set that up. For today, she grabbed a plain bagel and a bottle of water and headed out.

  The West Beltway Trail was nearby, but to start she walked the neighborhood, such as it was. There were pockets with established homes, as with the Miltons’ cul-de-sac, but the rest of the development was under varying degrees of construction. Aly thought it would be fun to watch it grow.

  The streets inclined in the foothills, something not found on the valley floor, and just walking her heart was soon pumping hard. The sun was up, the heat already on the rise. She walked for fifteen minutes uphill, away from the house, and then headed back, the city stretching out in a haze before her. There were forest fires to the west, beyond the Spring Mountains, and smoke had settled over the city.

  When she got back, Lu was up and chattering away at Erika in the kitchen. Aly made herself some cereal. If she wanted to get back to her former healthier weight and run she was going to have to eat more.

  “You don’t like bagels?” Lu said.

  “I had one on the way out. I burned that off so I have to eat more. I need to gain weight.”

  “You are skinny,” Lu said matter-of-factly.

  “Lu - ’ Erika started, shaking her head.

  But Aly cut in. “I just basically said the same thing.” She turned to Lu. “Lu, I want you to always be honest with me. And you can be blunt with me. But if you ever hurt me I will let you know and I hope you honor my boundaries.”

  Lu looked surprised. “Okay.”

  “And you have to know you can’t be blunt with just anybody, right? Most people don’t like it.”

  “I know,” she said quietly, slumping a little, and Aly thought maybe there had been a recent lesson in that for her.

  Aly sat down at the far end of the bar, her back to the fireplace. She ate her cereal and read the news on her phone, half listening as Lu and Erika interacted. The Milton’s faced the kitchen, with their backs to the living room, so she was at an angle to them. She had already decided this would be her seat, slightly apart from the family. When Erika was around she wanted to be quiet and let her have her limited time with her girls. It was clear to her that, whatever else was true about Erika, she loved her girls very much. She was an attentive and affectionate mother, and the girls thrived under her love.

  After a while Erika asked, “Aly, are you going to be around today? I was thinking of taking you out in Gigi to get you familiar
with her. Maybe just have you drive to the school and back.”

  “Sure. I have no plans. Anytime.”

  In the late morning Aly was in her room reading her email with her door open when she heard a tentative knock and Lu called out her name. She invited her in. “We’re going in the pool, want to join us? It’s your day off so you don’t have to,” Lu said, trying, and failing, to not look curious about the room.

  “Sure, I’d love to. Want to look around? Come in. Have a look.”

  She stepped more fully into the room. “I like the bed. It’s pretty. What is that?” she asked pointing to the television.

  “It’s a TV.”

  “A TV! It looks like a giant microwave.”

  Aly laughed. “You’re just used to thin flat screen TVs. Before them - before you, I guess - this is what they looked like.”

  “It’s huge.” She looked into the bathroom. “Casey liked green.”

  She left and Aly changed into long blue board shorts and bikini top and slathered her body with sunblock. When she stepped out the girls were already in the pool, Whitney in a white cap to protect her elaborate hairstyle from shrinking.

  Erika was sitting at the glass table as Aly had often seen her in the morning. Only she was slouched, her legs up on another chair, and under an open short white terry robe she had on a red and white bikini top and boy brief bottoms. Aly’s eyes skimmed over her exposed brown tummy and quickly looked away. Why is it we can go around nearly naked with each other? She wondered. Being partially covered only makes you more aware of what you don’t see.

  “Can I ask you something lawyerly?” she asked to distract herself.

  Erika turned her head and her eyes ran quickly from her face, down her body, and up to her face again. “Sure.”

  Aly submerged her self-consciousness and focused on her question. “In a divorce, do you ever have a client ask you to go easy on their spouse? Or do you just charge hard for your client no matter what they want?”