“I’ve made a decision, and I wanted to tell you about it. I’m leaving Euliss.”
I drew in my breath. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes. I hate it here, Emily. People are always pointing their fingers at me, usually kids who know who I was married to. The women stare daggers through my clothes, and the men look at me like they’d like to get me into bed. Those projects are just awful. Tiny bedrooms, no doors on the closets. Not that I have either or bedroom or a closet. The kids and I have been sleeping on air mattresses in the living room since we’ve been here. And both Cheyenne and Cameron are hanging out with bad kids.”
I suddenly heard both Aaron and Mom telling me that parents had to be careful about whom their kids associated with, but that wasn’t the subject at hand, so I pushed the thought away. “But, Marsha, where will you go?”
“James wants me to come down to South Carolina. The cost of living is lower there, and besides, that’s where he is.”
“Are you going to live with him?”
“In the beginning, yes. That’s the only way I can afford to go. The kids are going to stay here with my mother while I go down and get a job.” Marsha looked almost embarrassed. “I’ll tell you the truth, Emily. James wants me to marry him, but I’m holding off. If we find that we can live together under the same roof, we’ll probably get married. If not, I’ll get an apartment for me and the kids, but by hook or by crook, I’m getting the hell out of Euliss.”
“Wow. I’m flabbergasted, Marsha. I knew you and James talk a lot on the phone and stuff—”
“I’ve been down to see him a couple of times on the weekends. What can I say, Emily? It feels right. And the sex is great. Who knew he had all that talent?”
My heart wrenched, but at the same time I had to force myself not to make a face. James was buff, yes—there’s no such thing as an out-of-shape Marine—but the thought of that ugly face with its big blubbery lips slobbering all over me was just plain revolting. Even Marsha had wrinkled her nose at him the night of the reunion. Now she’d done a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. I didn’t understand it, but I didn’t have to sleep with him. I had Aaron…I thought.
But do you really want him?
The thought came hurling at me like an out-of-control baseball. Even if I got over his disapproval of my friends’ children, was I kidding myself by thinking I could truly be happy with him when I wasn’t getting all I needed? Half the time I didn’t even climax anymore. And what about Marsha? Had she blinded herself to any shortcomings James might have just because he offered security for her and her children?
“All right; let me ask you this,” I said, determined to get the truth out of her. “Do you love him, really? Or are you just telling yourself you do because the sex is so good?” Just like you’re trying to convince yourself that sex doesn’t matter…
The corners of Marsha’s mouth turned upright in a dreamy smile. “I know it seems odd because of how we used to make fun of James when we were kids, but he’s just wonderful, Emily. He’s sweet and kind, generous. We get along great. He’s good to my kids. And he wants to take care of me.” She rolled her head back as if stretching her neck muscles. “I’ll tell you something, Emily. If he’d joined our class before that day Tracy tore off my hairpiece, he would have kicked her ass on my behalf. Not because he liked me or anything, but because he’s a gentleman. He just has strong feelings about people mistreating other people. How can I not love him, Emily?”
“I don’t get it. If you love him so much, why not just marry him now?”
“Because I want to be sure, Emily. I have to be sure this is the right thing. Not just for me, but for the kids as well. I’ve got to get them out of Euliss, but I’d be stupid to think that everything’s just going to fall into place. I have to make sure I can find a job. I’m willing to take this chance, but it has to be done right,” Marsha explained. “Marriage is a big step. The foundation I build now will determine if it’s going to be for keeps.” She paused. “And I want it to be for keeps.”
I nodded. “I understand.”
“You’ve been such a good friend to me. Valerie and Rosalind, too, but especially you, since we were in grammar school. I don’t know what I would have done once I came back to town if you hadn’t been here. That’s why I wanted to buy you dinner, to say thanks for everything.”
My eyes filled with tears. “I guess I can’t believe it,” I sputtered. “When are you leaving?”
“Next weekend. I gave my notice on Monday, and I already made my train reservation. Next week is going to be real busy. I’ll have to ship my clothes down there, plus I want to spend as much time with Cameron and Cheyenne as I can. I don’t know how long it’ll be until I see them again. I’m hoping I can bring them down and get them in school before it starts, but I don’t know.” Marsha raised her shoulders for a second, as if she’d had a sudden chill. “I’m very excited about it, Emily. Following your heart always feels right.”
“What about your mother?”
“She’ll be sorry to see us go, but she agrees that the kids should live somewhere nice. She even says that once I get settled she’ll look into apartments down there, retire, and move down there herself.”
Mrs. Cox was in her early sixties, considerably younger than my own mother. She’d gotten out of waitressing years ago and now worked the reception desk at a social service agency.
“You know what they say,” Marsha said brightly. “Mama knows best.”
“Not always,” I said dryly, thinking of my own mother’s attempts to match me up with Aaron. “Sometimes they just hope for the best.”
I kept thinking about our conversation as I drove home, and even after. Marsha was following her heart and was on the verge of a new life. She’d faced facts and made her move.
Maybe I needed to do the same.
When I woke up Monday morning I knew what I had to do.
I went in to work but told them I had an important legal matter to attend to and would have to leave at lunchtime. A little past one I got into the car and headed for Washington Heights. I could wait for Aaron to come home, but I thought it would be better if I talked to him in the impersonal setting of his office.
I arrived just before two. I hoped he’d be back from lunch by then. “I’m Emily Yancy,” I told the receptionist. “I don’t have an appointment, but if you can let Dr. Merritt know I’m here, I’m sure he’ll see me.” I’d never been to Aaron’s office, and whenever I called him I dialed his cell number, so I doubted they had any idea I was his fiancée.
“Oh…um, yes.”
The receptionist, who appeared to be in her midthirties, was acting flustered, like it was her first day on the job. She’d better get her act together if she expected to be a long-term employee.
“Just a moment, Ms. Yancy.” She closed the frosted-glass slide, and I could see a blurred outline of her body as she got up and went into the rear.
I busied myself by looking at the waiting room, which looked like any other. Sturdy, nondescript pine tables and matching chairs covered with nubby fabric in basic beige. The coffee and end tables were covered with health-related magazines, plus those for fashion and sports.
I turned when the hallway door opened. One look at who walked in and my knees suddenly felt wobbly.
It was Aaron…and Shelly Muldoon.
The shock on their faces probably mirrored my own.
“Emily!” Aaron said after a few long seconds of silence. At that moment his cell phone began to ring. He ignored it. “I didn’t…what’re you doing here?”
“Hello, Emily,” Shelly said uncertainly. She’d suddenly gone pale, and the expensive-looking beige knit dress and matching jacket—something that Jackie O. likely would have worn—made her look bland.
I simply stared at her. “Aaron, I need to talk to you about something important.”
“Sure. We’ll go into my office.” He turned to Shelly. “Excuse us.”
She nodded, worry in her eyes.
Aaron led me to his office under the watchful eyes of his staff, then closed the door behind us. “I’m sorry, Emily. I didn’t know you were coming down…obviously.”
“How long have you been seeing her?” I quietly asked.
“I haven’t exactly been seeing her. Not in the way you’re thinking. It’s just that…things haven’t been too good between us lately. Shelly called the week before last and invited me to lunch. I found that I enjoyed myself. You and I had just had our fight, and here was an hour when I could forget about all the turmoil in my life. We’ve been eating together pretty regularly since. That’s all there is to it.”
Eating together, he’d said—not lunch. So Aaron had been having dinner with her as well. And anyone could see Shelly wanted more than lunch from Aaron. “But there could be more,” I prompted.
“Not while you and I are engaged. I’m not a cheater, Emily.”
“I see,” I said, realizing after the fact that I sounded just like Beverline. “Well, at least knowing you have a replacement lined up will make it easier.” I slipped the engagement ring off my finger and put it in his palm. “I think both of us know that it’s not going to work. Maybe Beverline was right. Maybe I’m not the right class.” I thought of Shelly’s expensive ensemble, the large but discreet gold square-linked chain around her neck, the beige and brown designer purse that dangled from her arm. She probably didn’t run with, as Beverline put it, mothers of numerous out-of-wedlock children and widows of drug kingpins.
“I told you that class stuff is ridiculous, Emily. But you’ve closed yourself off to me. I don’t know what to do, how to make things right.”
“If you’re finding solace in the company of another woman, there is no making it right, Aaron. I’m sure you already knew it was over between us and were just waiting for the official word to come down.” I saw truth in his eyes. “Um…I’m going to talk to Mom and see what she wants to do. Under the circumstances, I don’t think she should continue living on your property.”
“There’s no need—”
“No, it’ll only remind you of me and will make you uncomfortable. The kids, too. I don’t know the best way to handle that, but we’ll figure that out.” It made me physically ill to have entered their lives, especially Billy’s, and then have to suddenly leave. I’d made Billy a promise to be his mother, and now I’d broken it. Worse, with him in Sag Harbor, I’d be gone when he returned, vanishing like the stains from wet paint once it dried. What if he had trust issues as an adult because of that?
“I’ll take care of that. Emily, I don’t know what to say.”
“You can say that there aren’t any hard feelings, and I’ll be happy.”
“No hard feelings,” he said softly. “I’ll never forget you, Emily. You taught me I can love again. I’ll always be grateful to you for that.”
“I won’t forget you either, Aaron. And I’ll be out just as soon as I can make arrangements.”
“Will you go back to Indianapolis?”
“Yes.” My next words brought a smile to my lips. “It’s my home.”
Shelly was still in the waiting room when I reentered it, along with a few patients. She looked increasingly nervous as I approached her. “It’s all right, Shelly. Aaron and I decided to break our engagement. You’ve got a clear path.”
“Emily, I never planned—”
“There’s nothing wrong with taking advantage of an opportunity,” I said matter-of-factly. “By the way, do you like lobster?”
“I love it. Why?”
“Because you’re going to be having a lot of it.”
I smiled as I left the office. Shelly looked bewildered at my last statement, but she’d find out what I meant soon enough. She might have an easier time with Beverline than I did, but that didn’t change the fact that she was in for a boring time behind the bedroom door.
Even lobster for dinner is going to get tasteless if you have it every night.
Chapter 30
I set my plan in motion by first talking to Mom, who showed loving support. “As long as you’re happy, and I must say, you’re looking better now than you have in the past two weeks.”
“I wasn’t being honest with myself, Mom. I’ll never do that again.” From now on I was going to be satisfied, or else the man was gone. If he was sloppy, dishonest, a womanizer, or lousy in bed, I wasn’t taking any less than what I deserved.
“Um, Mom, I don’t think there’s a rush, but you probably do need to think about moving out. I don’t think it’s healthy for the kids for you to keep living here. They’ll probably have a hard time with the breakup. The saddest aspect of this whole thing, and the hardest part for me, is the effect it will have on Aaron’s kids. Billy is bound to be disappointed, even heart-broken; and Kirsten and Arden, who’d just started to get used to the idea of me being their stepmother, might be embittered by the way it turned out.”
“That won’t be a problem, Emmie. I’m already on the waiting list for senior citizen housing.”
“You are!”
Mom shrugged. “For months now. I didn’t see how it would hurt. When we moved in here, no one knew whether it would work out or not, so one day I drove over there and signed up.”
For a moment I was speechless. “Mom…you’re a wise woman.”
“It comes with living nearly eighty years. It shouldn’t be too much longer for something to come available. It’ll work out nicely, Emmie. A number of my friends from church live there, and Henry doesn’t live far.”
I nodded knowingly. “Ah, yes, Henry.” I decided to put a voice to something I’d been worried about. “Mom, you wouldn’t consider remarrying, would you?”
“Of course not. Maybe if I’d been widowed young, like Winnie.” Valerie’s mother, a little younger than Mom, had lost her husband about a dozen years earlier. “But it’s too late for marriage. That would only create problems with our survivors after we die.”
I called the people who managed rentals for my condo the next morning and told them I was coming back. The condo was vacant, and they assured me there would be no further rentals. I informed a disappointed Dr. Norman that I’d be leaving, and even though it was Tuesday he allowed me to make the following Friday my last day. All that awaited was for me to pack and ship my things…and tell my friends.
Before I could say anything, Valerie called and suggested we have a farewell dinner at her house for Marsha Friday night. I decided that would be an ideal opportunity to inform them about my broken engagement and impending departure. “And I’m not inviting Tanis,” Valerie had said.
Perfect.
After Valerie, Rosalind, and I had toasted to Marsha’s happiness and discussed her plans, I dropped my bomb. All three of them were shocked but respected my decision to keep the details to myself.
“I know you know what you’re doing, Emily, but still, I’d hate to see Tanis move in on Aaron,” Rosalind lamented.
“Me, too,” Valerie added. “I think she’s keeping that grip operator around just until she can land a big fish.”
“Well, she’ll be very disappointed to learn that Moby Dick is already taken.”
Collective breaths were drawn in. “Is Aaron seeing someone already?”
“Yes, and before you get too excited, it didn’t get started until we were on the rocks. Aaron insists it was just lunch—” I left out my suspicions about dinner—“and I happen to believe him. Everybody needs someone to talk to when they feel like their life is falling apart. But now they’re free to take it to the next level.”
“You’re very understanding,” Rosalind said, clearly baffled by my casual attitude.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s over with us, Rosalind. I’m just glad we realized it wouldn’t work before we got married. The last thing I need is another divorce. But wait till I tell you who his new playmate is.”
They all spoke at the same time. “Who?”
“Shelly Muldoon.”
They howled so loud I was glad we were in a private
home and not a restaurant, for if we’d been in the latter we surely would have been asked to keep it down.
I answered the rapid-fire questions that followed. Yes, Shelly first met Aaron at the reunion. She sold medical equipment, and he’d attended one of her seminars. I didn’t know too much about what had happened after that, but she certainly seemed ready to take over once I was out of the picture.
“Well, who wouldn’t?” Marsha asked. “Aaron is a real catch.”
I smiled. Aaron would seem a lot less attractive to Shelly once she got to know him better—especially since she’d known Teddy.
After dinner, we all helped Valerie clear the table. Rosalind re-placed a vase of flowers in the center of the table. It had prevented us from seeing each other across the table, so we’d moved it. “What a lovely arrangement, Valerie.”
“I can’t believe how long it’s lasted. Elias sent them last week.”
Now it was her turn to be grilled as we pelted her with questions about Elias. None of us had even known they’d been seeing each other.
“Okay, stop!” she said, laughing. “We’ve just gone out twice. Stop trying to marry me off.”
“Hey, twice is good for Elias,” I managed to say between breathless laughter. “He usually loves ’em and leaves ’em.”
“We’re having fun. That’s all,” she said firmly.
“And are you going out again tomorrow?” Marsha hinted with a smile.
“As a matter of fact, yes.” Valerie paused. “This time I’m getting my housekeeper to stay over.”
We whooped again.
I went up to the dental offices to say good-bye to Teddy on my last day. He hadn’t known about it and was understandably floored by my news.
“You’re really going back to Indiana?”
I heard an old Jackson Five tune of that name playing in my head. “Yes. I’m shipping my things home Saturday, and my flight leaves Sunday.”
A New Kind of Bliss Page 30