Dear Emily

by Fern Michaels

  Done.

  Back in the kitchen she poured a third cup of coffee and fired up a cigarette. She was going to quit smoking too, but not just yet. If she tried too much, she’d probably kill herself. But, she would quit, she promised herself. She threw all eight darts and nicked the letter once, but the darts fell to the floor. She bent down, picked them all up, and placed them in the corner.

  She was so hungry her stomach was growling. This then was her first major challenge. She devoured a whole bag of the cut vegetables and ate two cans of tuna. She munched down two apples and still wasn’t satisfied. She made a cup of herbal tea and tossed in the contents of three Equal packets. God, it was so sweet, so delicious, so satisfying, she made a second cup. Any other time she would have eaten her way through a box of Twinkies or half a frozen pie. She still wanted to do that, but she wasn’t going to. Willpower was half the battle.

  “I hate you, Ian Thorn, for doing this to me. I hate you.” He didn’t do this to you, you did it to yourself. Yes, he left you. He saw that Emily Thorn you saw in the bathroom mirror. But he didn’t make you what you are, grossly fat, a martyr. You did that to yourself because you have no guts. Get it together, Ms. Thorn, or you ain’t goin’ anywhere.

  “All right already,” Emily said, slapping the palms of her hands on the table. I did it, but I did it because he…because he…didn’t love me. He had a part in this. He’s to blame too. He sucked my life’s blood is what he did.

  “He took the best years of my life and trampled them, then put me out to pasture like some old cow who can’t give milk anymore.”

  Rage, unlike anything she’d ever experienced in her life, rivered through her. Somewhere in this house, unless Ian took it with him, was a copy of his medical license. Where did she put it when she moved here? She gouged her way through all the downstairs closets. When she finally found it, she smashed the glass on the doorknob and ripped the diploma from the frame, a triumphant look on her face. She stormed her way to the kitchen and scotch-taped it next to Ian’s letter. Over and over, until her arm was tired, she threw the darts, picked them up, and threw them again.

  Emily heard the doorbell ring at nine-thirty. She supervised the placement of her treadmill and exercycle, tipped the boy, and locked up for the night.

  Emily stared at the machines for a long time. Today was the beginning of a new regime in her life. It was late; should she exercise or not? Better to wait till tomorrow. Somewhere she’d read that a person shouldn’t exercise before bedtime. It made sense. She was too tired, could barely keep her eyes open. She opted for a warm bath and bed. Tomorrow was a new day too.

  Emily’s sleep was invaded by demons, all of whom wore Ian’s smiling face. When she staggered downstairs, she felt more tired than she had before she’d turned in for the night.

  She made coffee, lit a cigarette, put a check next to the list she’d made for cigarette consumption. She wasn’t ready to quit, but she was going to cut down. When she scoffed down a melon that was hard as a rock, she daydreamed about mainlining double chocolate Oreo cookies. In times past she’d eaten a whole bag at one sitting. Oreo cookies, like Twinkies, were things that belonged in the past with the old Emily Thorn.

  Emily poured a second cup of coffee, lit a second cigarette, and dutifully checked her list. Finances. She had to deal with whatever it was Ian had left her. She hoped he’d left the files, prayed he wasn’t bastard enough to make her flounder through the bureaucracy of mortgage companies and banks.

  In Ian’s office that still smelled like Ian, Emily went through the desk drawers systematically until she found everything she needed. A vision of Ian sitting at the desk writing out checks flashed in front of her. She made her way back to the kitchen, lit a third cigarette, forgot to mark it down as she opened first one folder and then the other.

  Two cups of coffee and three cigarettes later she knew she had a financial problem. The house on Sleepy Hollow Road carried a twenty-five-hundred-dollar-a-month mortgage payment. The shore house had a hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar mortgage. Household daily expenses, including food, ran to well over a thousand a month. To keep the electricity, water, and phone turned on at the shore house cost another two hundred and fifty dollars. The car insurance was so outrageous she squeezed her eyes shut. Life insurance and health insurance premiums caused her heart to palpitate. So much money. How in the world was she to live? Even if she worked around the clock cocktail waitressing, she wouldn’t make a dent in the bills. She would have to sell everything just to keep up her life and health insurance. Maybe she could sell the cars and get a good secondhand one and not carry collision insurance. She could get a part-time job to pay for her food and rent if she moved into an apartment. The cars would net some serious money if she was able to sell them. It didn’t make sense—Ian had paid cash for cars but wouldn’t pay cash for the house. Obviously it had had something to do with write-offs. Then there was her jewelry and the furs she’d never worn. She looked at the appraisal forms and knew she’d never get what they were worth. Then again, maybe she’d get lucky and she would sell them to the first person who showed up at the door.

  Emily rummaged until she found the passbook savings account. There was one hundred and twenty thousand dollars in it. She blinked in stunned surprise. For some reason she’d thought there would be a lot less. She took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh of relief. According to Ian’s letter, her personal account held ten thousand dollars. Thank God she wasn’t going to be out on the street in the next week. She had breathing room now. Time to make decisions she could live with, time she could take to get her life into some kind of sane order. Time to try and make over the Emily Thorn in the bathroom mirror, the Emily Thorn Ian had rejected.

  It would take months to sell the house, possibly a year, and during that time she would still have to pay the large mortgage. The shore house might sell quickly since summer was only months away. Unless…unless she rented it. She could rent out rooms here in the house too. She’d lived in the basement, and if she could do it, someone else might want to. The house had six bedrooms; she used one. Five rooms to let with kitchen privileges. The small apartment over the three-car garage could be made livable, the junk thrown out. If she had to, she could invest in some new appliances and furniture and rent it out furnished. Utilities would be the tenant’s responsibility.

  Intruders would invade her quiet life. They would tramp through the house and leave their mark. She had to decide if she cared. She decided she didn’t. It had never felt like her house. Ian and a decorator had done everything. No, she didn’t care. Renting out rooms would keep her money safe. She was, after all, forty years old with no retirement fund. It wasn’t going to be easy to get a job at her age.

  Emily’s stomach rumbled. She drank two glasses of water, scrambled an egg, and ate a whole melon. Already she was looking forward to the cottage cheese and fruit she’d have for lunch.

  She drank more coffee. In his letter Ian said she should think about selling the house and the shore house. “Well, guess what, Ian, I think I can make it on my own. The last thing I’m going to do is something you tell me to do. Never again.” She was off the kitchen chair in the blink of an eye. The darts sailed through the air, one after the other. Twice she hit Ian’s name on his medical diploma. Once she nicked the letter toward the bottom where he had signed his name. As entertainment it left a lot to be desired, but it was the best she had at the moment. “I need to do this. I really need to do this,” she said.

  For the first time since she’d awakened, she became aware of the rain outside the kitchen window. The kitchen was suddenly as dark as her mood. She switched on the overhead lights. Her mood started to lighten almost immediately.

  A physical fitness book in hand, Emily tromped down the hall to Ian’s study. Midway, she turned back and scribbled a sign she pasted on the door that read EMILY’S WORKOUT ROOM. “Whatever it takes,” she mumbled as she scanned the digital panel on the treadmill. She flipped the On switch.
She lasted exactly seven minutes before she literally fell off onto the floor. Grossly out of shape. When she had her wind back, she drank two glasses of water. She lasted eleven minutes on the exercycle. It was a start. Tomorrow maybe she could last a few more minutes. And, she could go on later and again in the evening. The day had twenty-four hours. In the meantime she would sit at the table, drink coffee, and take care of business.

  Business consisted of placing an ad in the Plainfield Courier’s classified section under furnished rooms to let. The second order of business was to call the Star Ledger, whose circulation was larger than the Courier’s to place an ad to sell her cars. The third order of business was to call a real estate agent to list the shore house for rent. She copied the ads neatly onto lined paper and took them with her to the A&P, where she placed them on the bulletin board. When she returned to the house, she climbed the stairs to the apartment over the garage. It held junk, cartons, and boxes from the last tenant that had never been taken away. She maneuvered her way around the cartons and old furniture to check out the minikitchen and bathroom. Years of dust, grime, and grease could be cleaned. A paint job and some curtains would give the small apartment eye appeal. The furniture would need to be shampooed. The biggest hurdle would be carrying the junk out to the curb for disposal. A challenge.

  She ate her lunch—cottage cheese, a lettuce salad with lemon and spices, melon, and two diet drinks. She was starving, wanted a Big Mac so badly she had to stop herself forcefully by throwing the darts again and again. “I didn’t give in, Ian. You aren’t going to lick me again. I’ll beat this, you’ll see, you son of a bitch!”

  Emily climbed in the car again and headed for Bradlees, where she bought curtains, paint, a gallon of window cleaner, a degreaser, floor wax, and three gallons of white paint. On her way home she stopped at Public Service and ordered the power turned on. From home she called the water company. Service would be restored by noon tomorrow.

  With grim determination, Emily attacked the treadmill and cycle again. Her time was identical to the morning’s time. This time, however, when she fell to the floor after her strenuous pedaling, she stayed on the floor and slept for an hour.

  In the kitchen with fresh coffee and a cigarette, she wondered why she’d never had the guts before to do what she was doing now. What did it matter? She was doing it now and that was all that mattered. No, it wasn’t all that mattered. Even if she’d dieted and looked like a million dollars, Ian still would have dumped her. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew and subconsciously she’d always known it. None of it was worth the effort. So, why is it important now? “Because,” she insisted, “that Emily Thorn in the bathroom mirror isn’t me.” She blew her nose in a paper napkin and tossed it in the general direction of the waste basket. It was still raining. She’d always loved rain. Once she’d asked Ian if they could go for a walk and get soaked to the skin. “And ruin my clothes and shoes. Are you out of your mind? Only romantic fools in movies do things like that.” She’d never asked him again and she hadn’t done it on her own. Well, by God she was going to do it now. Before she could change her mind, she was out the back door. She stood on the flagstone walkway until she was drenched, at which point she picked up her feet and walked around the house three times. When she squished her way back into the kitchen, she decided Ian might have been right, there wasn’t anything romantic about being this wet, this chilled. Obviously one needed a partner to shiver and cuddle with. She turned up the heat, drank more hot coffee, and longed for a double cheese pizza.

  The next few weeks were busy weeks for Emily. She rose at five and was in bed by nine-thirty, exhausted. She stuck to her diet, did her best to exercise three times a day. She drank water constantly. The apartment over the garage was ready for an occupant. She had a list of twenty or so names of people she’d interviewed along with extensive notes. She needed to make up her mind, as both mortgages were due to be paid by next week. The most difficult decision had to do with renting the shore house. Did she want to rent it for $850 on a twelve-month lease or rent it for three months at $3000 a month and worry about a new tenant in the fall? If she took the summer rental, she would be able to use it in the off months if she didn’t find a winter rental. She finally opted for the twelve-month rental with a substantial security deposit as well as first and last months’ rent. Emily checked off the shore property on her list. One less worry.

  The offers she had on her cars were below what she’d hoped to get, but the insurance premiums were due, so she sold both of them and received cashier checks in the amount of $65,000, which she banked immediately. A three-year-old Ford Mustang with 30,000 miles on it now sat in her driveway. “That’s what I think about you, Ian, and your foreign imports,” Emily grumbled.

  There were now charts all over the kitchen—one for cigarettes, one for weight loss, one for the treadmill, one for the exercycle, one for her dart game, one for the payment of bills. There were also yellow sticky reminder notes on the refrigerator—do this, do that, with the dates and times.

  Emily looked at the charts and notes now to plan her day. Aside from her daily routine she had no errands, no grocery shopping. Just her midafternoon walk around the house and choosing who her new tenants were going to be.

  Suddenly it overwhelmed her and she almost burst into tears. Things weren’t moving fast enough. She still looked the same. Fat, ugly Emily. Yes, she was taking charge, but where was her life? How long was she going to live like this and what was she going to do for the next thirty years, provided she even lived to seventy? One step at a time. You didn’t get into this mess overnight and you aren’t going to get out of it overnight, she counseled herself.

  By nightfall, when she stepped on the treadmill for the third time, she had her new list of tenants in hand. All five bedrooms had been rented for $250 a month each. The basement area for $350 a month. The apartment over the garage for $600. The three-car garage was rented for $400 a month to a local vendor who needed space to house his pinball and bubble gum machines. In her head, for the hundredth time, she calculated the amount of money. She would make the mortgage and have a hundred dollars left over, which she would apply to the water bill. On the phone she’d told all her new tenants if the electric bill and the water exceeded a certain amount she would have to increase the rent. All of them had agreed. She included these facts into the homemade lease agreement she drew up. It was going to be interesting to see how these people interacted with each other. The best part was everybody worked, and her days would be free of people and chatter. For the first time since she received Ian’s letter, Emily smiled. She had close to $200,000 in the bank and would have more once she sold her jewelry and furs. All she needed now was a part-time job to pay for her food and the rest of the household bills. The ten thousand dollars in her personal checking account could be dipped into if need be. She was safe for at least a year. A whole year where she didn’t have to worry about a roof over her head or food in her stomach, and if she was lucky, her nest egg would be secure for her future when she couldn’t work any longer. She smiled again and realized she felt good about things, about herself. She offered up a small prayer that nothing would go wrong.

  It took Emily four months before she felt confident enough to make an appointment with a divorce lawyer. She needed to know where she stood legally and had no intention of filing for a divorce. That was Ian’s job.

  She dressed casually, pleased that over the four months she’d lost twelve pounds, a slow weight loss, but a safe one.

  It was a warm August day with a hint of a summer shower in the air. She could smell the delicious scent of newly mown grass as she walked along Park Avenue toward the lawyer’s office. It was shady on the street, the trees giant umbrellas shading the cobbled walkways. Overhead a lazy bird chirped from time to time to let passersby know he was still in residence in the lush greenery overhead. Cars whizzed by, radios blaring through the open windows. To her right was a Dunkin Donuts shop. Emily stopped in her tracks. Mo
re than anything in the world she wanted one of the juicy, sugary donuts. Nothing in the world would taste as good as their special blend of coffee with sugar and real, honest-to-God cream. Two donuts, one jelly, one Bavarian cream. If she went across the street now, she’d have to gulp them down and not be able to savor the sweet she adored. Better to do it after her appointment. She deserved to reward herself for the strict discipline she’d imposed on herself these past four months. It would be something to look forward to after the meeting.

  The appointment lasted exactly forty-five minutes. It was Emily who called a halt to it.

  David Ostermeyer was a tall, imposing attorney with graying hair, a pristine white shirt, and a perfectly tailored dark suit. His eyes were as gray as his temple hairs. He was briskly professional. Emily felt he never smiled, probably didn’t know how. A legal Ian. “Who does your shirts, Mr. Ostermeyer?” she blurted out. She knew her face was red with embarrassment, but she didn’t care.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I like your shirt. I was wondering who did them for you.”

  He blinked. “My wife. Sometimes the housekeeper. Now, what can I do for you?” Emily held out her folder and told him her side of the story. He stared at her with disgust and pity.

  “Let me be sure I understand this,” he said, tapping his pen on the yellow legal pad in front of him. “You put your husband through college and medical school. You worked seventeen hours a day for many years. You worked in the clinics and then went on to a second job. How am I doing so far?” Emily nodded. “You then signed away your rights to the clinics over your husband and his attorney’s protests. They told you to get an attorney to represent you, who then argued with you telling you what you were giving up and asking if you understood clearly what you were doing. Is that right?” Emily nodded again.

  “My God, Mrs. Thorn, why would you do something like that?”