by Lin Stepp
“I’ll try to come before that,” Jenna assured her.
Jenna heard her mother blow out another irritated breath. “I cannot get over your actions through all this, Jenna. It’s just not like you. You are usually much more conscientious and dutiful. Your father and I have both been dreadfully upset. I hope you have not damaged your marriage over this whole impulsive incident. Trust is important in a marriage, Jenna, and you have certainly shown yourself to be untrustworthy to Elliott.”
“I do agree that trust is important.” Jenna replied quietly. She sighed then. “Mother, I’m really tired. It’s been a long day for me. I’ll talk to you more tomorrow. I need to rest now.”
“Well, then, I’ll see you tomorrow,” her mother conceded. “I’m glad you are home safe, and I do hope you will be able to smooth things over with Elliott tomorrow. And, Jenna, he will need your help and support at home when they release him from the hospital. I believe the doctors said he can come home early next week after they put him into a different cast that makes him more mobile. He really is suffering and enduring extensive pain, Jenna. You should have been here sooner. He needs you. Your father and I went to the hospital, of course, but it’s not the same. I told him you would be coming in today, and I know he is looking forward to seeing you. This has been a very difficult time for him.”
“Yes, I’m sure it has.” Her jaw clenched. “Good night, Mother.”
Jenna hung up with a heavy heart. She felt sad to realize all her mother’s concerns were for Elliott – with nothing offered to her but criticism. She would not be happy tomorrow to learn Jenna had filed for divorce.
Jenna lay down on the couch and closed her eyes. Tomorrow, Elliott would be served divorce papers before Jenna arrived at the hospital. He would begin to put the pieces together as to why she had been away, if he hadn’t done so already. She was sure he would have questions - and also sure he would try to get her to stay in the marriage. Not because he loved her too much to let her go, but because she was convenient. As her mother voiced - conscientious and dutiful. She kept his house clean, took his shirts to the cleaners, ran his errands, cooked his meals, did his laundry. In addition, Elliott liked the comfortable status that went with being married and being married socially well. He always introduced her: ‘This is my wife Jenna Martin Howell.’ He liked the prominent Martin name and the standing it lent to his own.
Jenna sighed heavily. She felt tired from the trip, the packing, the strain. She wondered how Elliott would play it tomorrow when she visited the hospital. He would have time to decide on a ‘game plan’ before she arrived. That’s what he called it when he planned how to handle one of his advertising clients.
Once Jenna asked him, “Why don’t you just be yourself, Elliott?”
“You are so naïve, Jenna.” He answered her dismissively. “You don’t get anywhere in this world like that. You have to be whatever is needed to sway the client, to win the account.”
She stared at him. “Even if you have to lie?”
He gave her a cool smile. “It’s not lying in business, Jenna. It’s just smart business. You have to learn how to play people. To figure out how they think and what they want. To figure out the kind of person they desire to do business with. Then that’s who you become, exactly who they want you to be. They’re happy then - and you’re happy. It’s a game. An art form.”
She could expect a game tomorrow. She was sure of it.
Jenna went back to the bedroom and got ready for bed. Worn out from the emotions of the day, she soon drifted into a deep sleep. Oddly, it wasn’t Elliott she dreamed about in the night, but Boyce. The dream woke her in the small hours of the morning. She could almost feel Boyce’s presence. Yearning for him, she indulged in a good cry before she fell fitfully back to sleep again.
Chapter 16
Jenna met Maury Berkowitz the next morning in the coffee shop at the hospital.
She offered him a brave smile as she sat down at the small table with him. “Tell me what has happened since yesterday.”
“Elliott was served earlier this morning.” Maury said, as he bit into a doughnut. “Everything’s in place. I was able to expedite proceedings and got a judge friend of mine to sign some paperwork so you can move out of your apartment. In addition, I attained some orders of protection so Elliott won’t come and harass you at your new place.”
He finished off his doughnut and drank the last of his coffee. “Are you ready to go up to Elliott’s room now? I have the room number.”
Jenna watched him gather up his legal papers and stuff them into a briefcase. “Maury, I’d really like to go in and talk to Elliott by myself first.” She chose her words carefully. “I want to face him and say a few things I need to say on my own. It’s important to me to be able to look back and know I did that.”
Maury considered her request. “All right,” he said. “You go in, and I’ll sit in a chair right outside in the hallway by the door where he can’t see me. Leave the door open or ajar. If any difficulty occurs, I’m coming in.”
“Thank you.” She smiled gratefully.
Elliott seemed to be asleep when Jenna quietly opened his hospital door. He looked pale and drawn, and his leg was hoisted up in a full cast. Flowers and plants from well-wishers crowded his hospital room. For a moment Jenna started to feel guilty that she had not sent flowers and a get-well card of her own, but then she caught herself and remembered why Elliott was here and what he had done to Sam.
“Elliott?” she said, walking over closer to the bed. “Elliott, it’s Jenna.”
He opened his eyes, and then held out a hand appealingly. “Oh, Jen. It’s you. I’ve been so worried. Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” She did not move forward to take his hand.
“This has all been a nightmare.” He lifted anguished eyes to hers. “When I realized you were not in the Poconos, I panicked. I flew right back from Paris, left the work there for someone else to do. Just told the company I had to get back, that there was an emergency. I was terrified something had happened to you.”
He swore under his breath. “It was too long for me to be away from you; I should have known that. I should have taken you to Paris; I should simply have demanded the company work something out. I should never have let you out of my sight. My God, Jenna, if anything had happened to you, I don’t know what I would have done.”
Jenna smiled. So this was how he was going to play it, she thought.
“Look.” He fiddled nervously with the sheets. “I know you’re upset because I went away for so long and didn’t take you with me. I thought about it later. I know you really wanted to go, and I remembered, too, that you didn’t get to take that semester abroad with your school, with Barnard, because of our wedding. But I didn’t realize you would get so upset about the situation, Jenna, that you would go off somewhere and then let someone influence you to sign legal papers like this.” He motioned to the legal envelope on the bedside table.
“I’m sure that Sam friend of yours did not tell you truthfully what happened at his place, either.” Elliott’s hand reached towards hers again. “That has probably upset you, too. We can work all this out, Jenna. We can talk everything through. You know I love you, and that I will do anything I can to make you happy. I also promise that we will plan a trip to Paris very soon. I have a long vacation coming up. We’ll go as soon as I recover and catch up at work. And while I’m recuperating, we can have some long talks and get close again. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’ve always liked those quiet little talks at home.” He smiled appealingly at her.
Jenna took a deep breath. “Elliott, I was upset about Paris. I did want to go, and I wanted you to want me to go. I hoped you would want to have that special time with me. But then I learned about Lena. Lena went to Paris with you instead of me, Elliott. You seem to be leaving that out. I guess Lena had her trip cut short, too.”
If Jenna did not know Elliott so well, she would not have seen the quick mental shift i
n his face as he realized she knew about Lena.
“The reason for the divorce proceeding is on grounds of adultery, Elliott,” Jenna told him. “Not because I didn’t get to go to Paris.”
He frowned. “But that’s silly, Jenna. Lena is my secretary. You have misinterpreted the situation. You have to take your secretary when you are setting up a major office; there is too much work to be done without help in a project of that magnitude. Lena knew the work and she was the obvious choice to help with setting up the new office. Surely you don’t think there is something more than a work relationship between Lena Morrow and myself?” Elliott looked cross now. “That’s just unfounded. Whoever told you that was lying.”
“I saw you, Elliott,” Jenna said patiently. “At DaVinci’s restaurant where Carla took me for my birthday. I saw you with Lena.”
“I often have lunch with my secretary,” Elliott said patronizingly. “It’s just a part of business.”
Jenna shook her head slowly. “Elliott, it is not simply business to have your hands up someone’s skirt and your tongue down their throat.”
He actually looked stricken for a moment.
“Someone told you that,” he declared, trying to bluff and recover. “I didn’t see you there. You’re going by what someone told you.”
“You were very busy then.” Jenna went still, watching him. “You didn’t see Carla or me there. But I was there, Elliott. There is no point in trying to pretend you have not been having an affair with Lena Morrow. I have evidence to support this, Elliott – from New York and from Paris.”
“You’ve hired a detective.” He said this with surprise, the light suddenly dawning. “You had no right to do that, Jenna. I’m your legal husband.”
She stepped towards him. “I had every right to do that because you’re my legal husband. You had no right to cheat on me and betray me.”
Elliott straightened the sheets and took a minute to collect himself.
“Look, Jenna, we can work this out,” he said softly then, reaching out for her hand once more. She pulled back from his grasp. “Lena doesn’t mean anything to me. Sometimes men have small affairs even when they love their wives deeply. It doesn’t mean a thing. It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.” Jenna’s eyes narrowed.
“You are very young.” Elliott smiled smoothly at her. “Sometimes my appetites are more mature than what is right to indulge in with a young bride. That’s all it was, Jenna, just appetite. Not love like you and I have. Not sweetness and tenderness. You’re the woman I chose to marry. I would never marry someone like Lena. It was just sex with her, not love.”
Jenna studied him quietly. It amazed her that Elliott thought she would find reassurance with this type of logic.
“Look,” he said, noticing her reticence. “I’ll break it off tomorrow. Today, even. I’ll fire her and get another secretary. I’ll never see her again. We won’t ever have to talk about it after this. It will be a little mistake we’ll tuck into our past. And when I come home from the hospital, we’ll have time to be together. I’ll need you to take care of me, to cook for me, to help me get better. We’ll get close again. When I am stronger, we’ll fly down to the Bahamas for a little vacation. A little second honeymoon. Or go to Paris. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Jenna? It will be okay.”
Jenna shook her head. “Elliott, I am not the same naïve young girl you married. You are partly responsible for waking me up from my false idealism. I know Lena was not the only woman you’ve had affairs with. I know about many of the others now, too. I don’t want to be married to someone who is an unfaithful partner, who neglects me and lies to me, who says he is always tied up with business so he can indulge in affairs.”
A lump filled her throat. “I don’t want a life like that, Elliott. And it will not be all right anymore between us. I don’t want to be married to you any longer. I’ve been unhappy, and you never even saw it. You were too busy with your work and your affairs to see. I was never a vital part of your life. We had no joy and friendship; we had few good times. I always felt lonely and sad. I don’t want to live that way anymore. And I will not be there to take care of you when you come home, Elliott. You will need to hire home help or a nurse. I’m moving out today to stay with Carla and John for a few days, and then I’m moving into my new apartment this weekend.”
Elliott struggled to sit up in the hospital bed. “You can’t just move out and divorce me over a few little affairs and some childish hurt feelings!” Anger tinged his voice now. “I’m your legal husband. We made vows to stay married until death do us part, in sickness and health, in good times and bad. When there are problems in a marriage, you work them out, Jenna. You don’t get silly and childish and run away. It’s wrong for you to even consider leaving me for such paltry excuses. We can work through these difficulties. You don’t want to do an immature thing like this. I take good care of you. I provide very well for you. You haven’t even had to work since we’ve been married. You don’t know what it’s like to be on your own. How will you take care of yourself?”
“I have my design work,” Jenna said this quietly.
“Your little cards,” Elliott scoffed. “You can’t make a decent living at that. And your useless degree in Art History equips you for absolutely nothing, Jenna. You need to stay with me. I’ll take care of you. We’ll work all these other little problems out, I promise you. Don’t be stupid and make an even bigger mistake here - filing legal actions you will soon regret. If word of this gets out, it will embarrass your parents and all our friends. This is not what you want, Jenna.”
“It is what I want, Elliott.” Her voice was firm. “I went away for over a month to think about it very carefully before I made this decision. This is exactly what I want.”
“You can’t do this, Jenna.” The volume of Elliott’s voice rose now in anger. “This is foolish, and I won’t have it. Do you hear me? I think that Sam friend of yours put you up to this nonsense.”
“Speaking of Sam.” Jenna leaned toward him. “I can’t believe even you would attack a sick man in a wheelchair. You could have seriously injured Sam. What were you thinking, Elliott? Whatever were you thinking to do such a thing?”
Elliott snapped back his answer. “He wouldn’t tell me where you were. And I had a right to know where you were, Jenna. He withheld information from me about my wife, and he enjoyed doing so. He insulted me and he thought he could get away with that because he was in a chair. He said there was nothing I could do to make him tell where you had gone. I lost my temper and I hit him – one man to another. I had a right to know where you were. He’d have told me, too, if that big, black man hadn’t come in and sneaked up behind me. I didn’t even see him coming. He hit me and threw me across the room. I thought for a minute he was going to kill me. But Sam called him off, told him to stop.”
“Sam would do that.” Jenna nodded. “He’s a kind person.”
“Don’t you take up for him!” Elliott shouted, pulling up in the bed. “Look at what they did to me! And the bulk of this is your fault, Jenna. You’re the one who took off and lied and caused all this trouble. Acting silly, emotional, and childish, as usual. I had to come back from Paris early because of you. I left work undone over there that still needs to be completed; I’m missing time from work now. I have a lawsuit pending because of that stupid man threatening to press charges against me, and now you’ve finally wandered back home where you belong and are trying to threaten divorce like you know what you are doing. It’s absurd. Now, I want you to go find this Berkowitz lawyer, Jenna, and tell him you’ve come to your senses and changed your mind about all of this drivel. And then tell Carla and John Tate the same thing. It figures they would be aiding and abetting you in this. I’ve never liked either one of them. I’d prefer that you spend less time with them in future.”
Elliott paused, trying to check his rising antagonism. “Talk to your mother, Jenna.” He tried to grab her wrist. “She says Carla has always been a bad in
fluence on you. You talk to your mother and father about this nonsense of seeking a divorce and imagining you could live on your own. You could never manage that, Jenna. You’d fall flat on your face in a week.”
He shook his finger at her. “And don’t be so sure that your mother and father will just pick you up and let you come back home, either.” He smiled maliciously. “I think you’ll find they will be on my side in this.”
She listened to him rant on and on. How many times had he worn her down in the past like this – by never listening to her, by ridiculing and subtly threatening her?
Elliott’s mouth twisted. “You need to get your head out of fairytales and out of cutesy, little greeting card rhymes and designs and wake up to what the real world is all about. People are not perfect, Jenna. They do the best they can, that’s all. You’ll see that I’ve done the best I can as a husband to you after you settle down and stop and think. Divorce is not the answer. My parents have had these little ups and downs and they haven’t ever divorced.”
“Your father has cheated on your mother?” Jenna asked, picking up on that.
Elliott’s answer was flippant. “Here and there over the years of their marriage. But you notice they are still married. My mother was aware that she was the one my father chose to spend his life with; she knew she was the important one to him. She’ll tell you that. She’s a sensible woman.”
Jenna saw now where Elliott had learned his ethical standards about adultery. From his own father and mother.
“I’m sorry, Elliott.” Jenna shook her head sadly. “We are just not the same kind of people. I don’t see things as you do. I don’t want a life where - here and there - over the years you will be unfaithful to me when you want to. What if I was unfaithful to you?”
“Is that what this is all about?” Elliott countered nastily, pushing himself up on his elbow. “Is there someone else? Did you decide to get even with me by having a little affair of your own? I’ll tell you right now that in the future if you ever try to get even with me like that at any time, I will find out who the man is and I’ll see to it that he is hurt. Badly hurt. In fact, you could be hurt, too. And no one will know, Jenna. Do you understand what I am telling you? You’re not going to play around on me. It won’t work that way.”