Switcheroo

by Olivia Goldsmith

  “Betray you?” Marla asked in return. “How could I betray a man who’s already sleeping with another woman?” It seemed like a reasonable question to her, but it shocked Bob to the core.

  “You know?” he asked.

  “Oh yeah,” she answered.

  Bob turned to John. “You told her!” he cried, as furious as a naked, guilty man in bed could be. “I sell you a BMW at cost and you…you…”

  “Me?” John asked. “I didn’t tell her anything. She knew. She came to me. And you were the one cheating on your wife.” He turned to Marla. “Cheating on my best friend,” John added.

  “I’m your best friend!” Bob exclaimed. He was furious. But Marla didn’t even turn to look at him. She kept her eyes on John. She could hardly believe her ears.

  “I’m your best friend?” Marla asked John.

  In answer, John put his arm around her. “Yes, Sylvie,” he told her.

  “Really?” she asked, hardly daring to believe it.

  “Really, really,” John said. Marla blushed, then smiled up adoringly at John.

  “You’re mine too.”

  “You take that back!” Bob demanded. “I’m your best friend.”

  “I don’t think so,” Marla told him.

  “Bob, you don’t have to leave your wife for me. Because I am your wife…,” Sylvie said out loud, trying to prepare herself for her speech to Bob. She turned left on Courtland and tried again. “Bob, I know you love me, but do you know how much you love your wife?” she practiced, then giggled.

  Sylvie, feeling totally victorious, pulled into the driveway of her home. She’d figured it was time for the charade to end, that she’d better follow up with Bob, cushion the blow for Marla, and—not to put too fine a point on it—make sure Bobby—Bob—lived up to his word. She braked and turned off Schubert’s Ninth Symphony, which she’d been blasting on the stereo.

  She ran up the front walk, into the hall, and up the stairs. She could hear Phil and Rosalie, still fighting as they cleared up the wreckage in the kitchen. Those two could not give each other up. On the landing she met her mother. Mildred was sitting on the lower two steps, her chin on her hands. “I figured you’d come back,” Mildred said. “I took the kids to the movies. I sent their pals to a hotel for the night.”

  “Thanks, Mom. Where’s Bob?” Sylvie asked. Mildred motioned with her head toward the second floor. “He proposed to me,” Sylvie said, beaming.

  With an effort Mildred pushed herself up off the steps. She sighed. “So let me get this straight: he’s leaving you for…you?”

  “Right!”

  Mildred sat down again. “Well, congratulations, I guess. You’re the first woman in all recorded history to have it both ways. Romance and security.” She looked at her daughter. “But your father won’t pay for another wedding,” she added. “And there could be a few surprises for you up there.” She motioned to the bedrooms above.

  Sylvie giggled again and quickly ascended the remaining steps, Mildred following. Sylvie felt great, better than if she’d won the lottery. But when she entered the bedroom the first thing she saw was Marla, naked and in bed with Bob.

  “Oh my god!” She paused, looked at the two of them and then around the room. “And who rearranged my furniture?”

  “What are you doing here?” Bob asked Sylvie.

  “I’m here to hear you tell her,” Sylvie said.

  “Tell me what?” Marla asked.

  “I can’t, Marla. I just can’t,” Bob said to Sylvie.

  “You can’t what?” Marla asked from the bed.

  Sylvie couldn’t believe what she was hearing! He was backing down? After what they’d shared? And what had he just been sharing in her bed with Marla? “What!” Sylvie cried. She felt she’d go postal right there; if she’d had a machine gun there’d be blood on the walls. “After tonight? After…you promised?” Of course, she reminded herself, Bob was saying that he wouldn’t leave her, his wife, but…Sylvie stood at the foot of her own bed, so confused and frustrated that she almost screamed.

  “Marla,” Bob said to her, “seeing Sylvie in bed with someone else…well, I realized the truth. I love her. I love my wife.” Bob looked at Sylvie. Then he turned to Marla. “I do love you, Sylvie,” he said. He turned to Sylvie and shrugged apologetically. “I love my wife.”

  “I am your wife, you idiot!” Sylvie screamed, stepping up and slapping Bob across the face. She stepped back again and turned to Marla. “And who were you in bed with, you tramp?”

  At that moment, Phil, Jim, and Rosalie entered the room. “What the hell is going on up here?” Jim asked. “The kids are really scared. I think that you should go down and talk to them…” He paused and saw the two Sylvies. “Hey, what gives?”

  “I’m not sure, but it’s better than TV,” Mildred commented.

  Bob was rubbing his reddened cheek. “I know I deserved that,” he said.

  “I can’t believe the two of you would do this to me,” Sylvie said to Marla and Bob, ignoring everyone else in the room.

  “But this isn’t what you think,” Marla protested.

  Bob stared at Marla, beside him in bed. “Why are you apologizing to her?” he asked Marla. Both women ignored him.

  “Oh. You’re naked in bed with my husband and it’s not what I think,” Sylvie said to Marla.

  Only then did the blanket move. Cautiously, John raised his head from under the blankets. Jim, shocked, turned and left the room. Sylvie nearly passed out. John looked from Sylvie at the foot of the bed to Marla beside him. “Oh my god! I’m sober and I’m seeing double. What the hell is going on?” John asked Marla, then looked again at Sylvie. “Who are you?” he demanded. He looked back at the woman beside him. “Or, who are you?”

  Sylvie, totally shocked, stepped away from the bed filled with this loathsome ménage à trois. As if they were vermin that could bite, she jumped onto the ottoman. John was in her bed. John. He too looked shocked, the loathsome lizard. He stared at the two women. Then John looked at Bob. “You never told me your girlfriend was a dead ringer for Sylvie.”

  As if a light had gone on upstairs, Sylvie watched as Bob finally began to realize that something…something was very, very wrong. “What the…” He turned toward Sylvie. “Marla?” He spun around to the bed and looked at Marla beside him. “Sylvie?” he asked her, his voice growing faint.

  “Try again,” Sylvie said coldly from the foot of the bed.

  “My god,” John whispered.

  “What the…you two…” Bob stammered.

  “Deception. Women are nothing but deception,” Phil said.

  “This from a man who tells women they could only test-drive a car in the backseat with him,” Rosalie snapped back.

  “I heard that!” Jim called out to his son from the hall. “That’s it! You’re off the lot!”

  “Fine. And what about perfect Bob?” Phil asked. “Your golden son-in-law is doing a Mary Albert impersonation in there!”

  Bob gulped. “I…I didn’t know…John, meet Marla…but I’m not forgetting you thought she was my wife,” Bob said. He turned to Sylvie. “And I’m forgiving you, Sylvie. You made me love you all over again.”

  Sylvie couldn’t believe her ears. This lizard was talking about forgiving her? He was insane. Meanwhile, the other two asylum inmates were busy. Marla had extended her hand to John. “Hi! Nice to make your acquaintance.”

  John took her hand. Instead of shaking it, he simply held it. Sylvie wished she lived in some Arabian country where a man’s hands were cut off. He was gazing at Marla—Ms. Alternative Medicine—with adoration. “Marla? Your name is really Marla?”

  “Actually, it was Susan. I changed it to make it sexier,” Marla admitted. “But that was before Donald dumped her,” she added.

  “Your name is Susan?” Sylvie snapped at Marla. “Don’t you tell the truth about anything?”

  “Yes. From now on I want to be honest. I don’t want to tell any half-truths—unless they’re completely accura
te,” Marla said.

  “You could have told me,” John said, his voice soft. “I would have understood.”

  “Sorry. I wanted to have…something really, really real,” Marla told him. “Is that so wrong?”

  “My god! What is this?” Sylvie cried.

  Mildred, who couldn’t restrain herself any longer, shrugged and turned to Sylvie. “It’s certainly not your traditional Thanksgiving,” she said.

  “You didn’t know? Are you blind or stupid?” John asked Bob.

  “The answers to those questions are yes and yes,” Sylvie said. “But, John, what are you? How could you? How could you sleep with…me?”

  “I’ve always loved you, Sylvie,” John said simply. Then, confused, he turned to Marla. “Uh…Marla?”

  Sylvie now focused her rage on the lying, cheating little bimbo. “It wasn’t enough that you slept with my husband? You had to sleep with my best friend?” she demanded.

  “He’s my best friend!” Bob shouted over Marla’s head.

  “Not anymore!” John shouted back.

  “Listen. There’s a simple explanation,” Marla said, cringing between them. She looked at Sylvie. “Bobby wasn’t sleeping with me. I had to do something.”

  Sylvie turned to Bob, who by now was immobilized, his jaw permanently unhinged. She hated him. He was despicable, the lowest form of life. “You are the villain here. I wanted you, but you didn’t reciprocate. When I found out why—” She pointed to Marla, “—I didn’t sleep with John.” Sylvie then turned and focused on Marla. “Or the rest of the men of Cleveland, Ohio,” she added.

  “All right. I did everything wrong, as always,” Marla said. She began to weep. “I’m going to jump off the bridge.” Marla got out of bed, trying to take the duvet with her but not quite succeeding. Bob and John, stripped of their cover, clutched pillows to their privates.

  “Wait. We have to talk,” John said to Marla as she walked, her duvet like a lumpy bridal train behind her, across the room.

  “Okay. Listen up. Here are all of your orders,” Sylvie said, trying to gain control. “Marla, get out of here. Not for sleeping with my husband, for sleeping with John, my friend, my doctor, and my backup in case Bob left.” She caught her breath. “And don’t jump off the bridge.” She turned to John. “You too, you traitor,” she said.

  “I wasn’t going to jump off the bridge,” Marla said.

  “Well, maybe you should think about it! Anyway, I just meant you should go.” She spun around and faced her mother. “Show’s over. You were right, as always. Now would you all please go downstairs?” Sylvie came down off the ottoman, but not her high horse. She stood there, her arms crossed. They might as well be double-crossed, as was the rest of her.

  Mildred gave her a hug and a look, then walked out the door. Marla scrambled for her clothes and, clutching a sheet to her chest, approached Sylvie. “Here,” she said, and handed Sylvie back the Cartier ring. “Thanks,” she said. “But I’ll get my own now from John.”

  John pulled the duvet around himself and left without looking her in the eye. Only Bob was left, naked on the bed, a pillow over his crotch.

  “Sylvie? What about me? I know I’ve done wrong, but you’ve woken me up. That was passion, it was love we felt.”

  Sylvie walked up to him and pulled away the pillow fiercely. “It’s not as if I haven’t seen Little Bobby before,” she said nastily. “You weren’t so modest an hour ago. You’re out of here.”

  “Out of here? Out of the house?”

  “Out of my life. I gave, Bob…my whole life with you was about me giving.”

  “And I loved it. I love you. I just…forgot.”

  “Until just now,” Sylvie said, turning her back on him.

  Bob scrambled into his chinos, stood up, and approached her. He put his hand on her shoulder, but she flinched away. “So, I lose everything I love because I had an affair?”

  She nodded, keeping her back to him. “That’s the way I see it.”

  “You just said you’d marry me,” Bob said, sounding desperate.

  “That’s when I was her,” Sylvie reminded him. She turned to face him. “Hey, don’t worry. She probably still would.” Bob’s face had turned a ghastly white, his few freckles standing out starkly against his livid cheeks. He had been obliterated. Her plan had worked. He was a fool, a clown, a liar. He could say nothing. Sylvie managed to look calm, not to move or speak or even take a breath until he left the room. Then she threw herself across the bed, collapsing.

  32

  Hours later the family, by now all conscious of the crisis, were gathered in the dining room. Their student guests had taken off, at Mildred’s suggestion and with extra carfare and motel money supplied by Jim. Now the twins and the rest of them sat hunched over the Thanksgiving table. It was as decimated as they were. For the last hour or so they had been eating pumpkin pie, since Marla seemed to have left an endless supply of it. All of the family was there, except, of course, for Bob and Sylvie. She had stayed in the bedroom for the last two hours. Now, though, they all paused, forks suspended, hearing her on the stairs. When Sylvie entered the room she was still wiping her puffy eyes.

  “Is there any pie left?” she asked quietly.

  Wordlessly, Mildred cut Sylvie a large wedge while Jim pushed over his plate. “Here, honey,” he said, “finish mine.”

  Wordlessly, Sylvie sat down and picked up a spoon. After all, she thought, what was left at this point but combining fats and carbohydrates? Her life was ruined. All eyes were on her. Obviously the twins knew something was up, but thank god they’d been spared the details. “Thanks, Daddy,” Sylvie said, and patted her father’s hand.

  “Mom, did you and Daddy—” Reenie started to ask, but was interrupted by Kenny.

  “They’ll still love us, and they’ll both come to our graduations and weddings…” he said in the falsely sincere voice of an actor from an after-school special. “Just…separately.”

  “Oh, kids…” Sylvie said, about to reassure them, but then she realized she didn’t have anything to reassure them about.

  “I could never figure out, where does love go when it goes away?” Reenie asked. “I mean, Brian said he loved me, but—” She stopped. “I loved him yesterday.”

  The phone rang. Phil jumped to answer it, Rosalie at his elbow. He started murmuring to his ex-wife. Sylvie could hear their whispers turn fierce. “Don’t tell her,” she overheard Rosalie insisting.

  “She’ll want to know, Rose.”

  “Go ahead, then. But she won’t talk to him. And if she does, she’s a wimp.”

  Mildred finally spoke up. “Who is it?” she asked, but Sylvie knew.

  “It’s Bob,” Phil volunteered, his voice falsely casual.

  “Hang up on the son of a bitch,” Jim snapped.

  Mildred raised her brows and looked at Jim, who paused for a moment, glanced at his daughter and grandchildren, then hung his head and shut up. Mildred calmly looked over at Sylvie and her look said, “Watch it.” Meanwhile, Kenny and Reenie hadn’t taken their eyes off her. Sylvie wondered what lesson her actions right now would teach them. What should she do?

  Mildred stood up and took her arm, leading her into the hallway. “Sylvie, just because your father is angry with Bob is no reason for you not to forgive him. You’ve more than made your point, I think. Now the question is: do you still love him?” Mildred asked.

  “I’ve always loved him,” Sylvie admitted. “I was ignored by him, but I loved him. I was angry with him, but I loved him. I was betrayed by him, but I loved him.” She looked at Mildred calmly. “That was never the question. The question was: did he love me? I don’t want him back to be his mother, to feed him, to do his laundry, or keep his goddamn cuff links organized. I only want him back because he loves me. Big time.”

  “Hey, I got a guy on hold here,” Phil yelled.

  Mildred shrugged. “He’ll keep holding,” she yelled back to Phil. She turned again to her daughter. “Remember, Sylvie, men are
n’t the same as we are. They’re not exactly human. They’re…well, let’s say humanoid.”

  “That’s not true, Mother,” Sylvie said. She walked out of the hallway and stopped to kiss Kenny on the top of his head.

  “Sylvie?” Phil asked, motioning to the phone.

  “Your call, Sylvie,” Mildred told her daughter. “Do you want me to take it?”

  “I’m okay,” Sylvie reassured her mother. “I’ll take it in the music room,” Sylvie told Phil.

  Bob was sitting at the wheel of Beautiful Baby. He was holding the mobile phone to his ear and, because of the dropping temperature, he had clouds of smoke coming out of his nose. He’d wet the receiver with his breath and he was shivering. He’d been sitting in the cold for a long, long time. But he could afford to hold on for as long as it took. It had given him time to think.

  He couldn’t believe how stupid he’d been. What an ass he was. He’d already tried to work up some anger over Sylvie’s trick or, if not anger, at least a little righteous indignation. But it wasn’t going to work. He guessed he should be proud of that. Maybe he wasn’t such a complete, irredeemable asshole if he could acknowledge that he was a complete, irredeemable asshole. He’d been caught lying and he couldn’t condemn Sylvie for outlying him. He began to replay the events of the last few weeks and the blushes actually sent a wash of warmth over his icy face and neck.

  He shook his head and wiped off the receiver again. How could he not have noticed that Marla and Sylvie were doubles? How could he not have noticed the switch? And how could he have been so stupid and so blind as to risk his marriage and his family for a quick fling with youth? The fact was, he was forty-four years old. No younger woman would change that—except in his own pathetic mind. He was no longer young, he was middle-aged. After this he would be old. Then he would be dead. That was the way it worked. Contrary to popular opinion, denial did not stop the aging process.