The Young Wives Club

by Julie Pennell

  The first time she saw him, he had been onstage leading Youth Worship Night, a monthly Friday gathering for the fifteen to twenty-one crowd. His orange shirt read JESUS, but it was written in the Reese’s peanut butter cup logo. She thought it was genius. Gavin strummed the guitar, a couple of leather bracelets wrapped around his wrist, and sung about faith. His deep soulful voice rocked her to her core. They locked eyes during “God Gave Me You.” He smiled at her. She blushed and continued swaying to the music, but she was pretty sure her moves had become robotic by that point.

  “What’s your name?” were the first words he ever said to her.

  Her witty response? “Claire.”

  It was still her favorite conversation to this day.

  Her phone buzzed on her desk, bringing her back to reality.

  From Madison:

  I’m outside. Come take a break with me?

  Her cousin never stopped by the church except on Sundays, which meant she must have needed something . . . probably money. She knew that Madison’s parents were struggling right now. “Charity begins at home,” Claire recited to herself, grabbing her wallet and walking outside.

  “Hey!” Madison sat on the edge of a large concrete flower pot at the entrance, fiddling with her packet of cigarettes.

  “Hey, Mads. What brings you around?” Claire sat down with her.

  Madison scowled. “I’m supposed to clean a house down the street in a half hour.”

  “Oh my gosh, you’re working? I’m so proud of you.” Claire put her hand on her cousin’s shoulder.

  Madison rolled her eyes. “Save your excitement. I’m still holding out for the role of professional groupie. I told Cash my starting salary needs to be a hundred thousand dollars.”

  Claire chuckled, though she wasn’t entirely convinced it was a joke. “So then you just came by to say hi? That’s so sweet.”

  “Well, actually . . .” Madison shuffled her feet, clearly uncomfortable. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

  Claire decided that she wouldn’t make a big deal about the money when she asked. The poor girl looked so distraught, and she was family, after all.

  Madison lowered her eyes. “I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just gonna say it, okay?”

  Claire nodded. Here it comes . . .

  “So, last night I was going past The Saddle . . .” Madison paused, lighting a cigarette, and Claire jiggled her foot impatiently. Why was Madison telling her about a run-down strip club thirty minutes outside of town? “And, well, I saw Gavin’s truck parked outside of it.” Madison brought her cigarette back up to her lips and inhaled.

  “Wait . . . what?” Claire shook her head, laughing. “Oh, bless your heart. He was at Bible study last night. Could you even imagine Gavin at The Saddle?” She patted her cousin on the shoulder. She was clearly mistaken.

  Madison frowned. “I swear, Claire. Me and Cash were on our way back from New Iberia—”

  “Wait—you and Cash?” Claire’s eyes narrowed. She knew what that meant. “Madison, had y’all been drinking when you saw this?”

  “Well . . .” Madison dragged her foot back and forth across the pavement guiltily. “I wasn’t completely sober.”

  Claire shook her head. “Did you even check to see whether it had the Ron Paul bumper sticker on the back?” She took a deep, frustrated breath. “Madison, I swear . . .”

  “Look, I saw what I saw.” Madison tapped the ashes from her cigarette to the ground. “Maybe you’re in denial.”

  “This is ridiculous.” Claire couldn’t help her voice becoming shrill. A knot was forming in her stomach. “You come to my job and tell me my husband might be going to a strip club behind my back, and then you insult me?”

  “I was only trying to help.” Madison crushed her cigarette into the concrete, putting it out. “You think it was easy for me to come here and tell you this? You think I wanted to deliver this news? God, Claire! I’ve been up all night debating what to do.”

  “Next time, before you accuse my husband of adultery, maybe make sure it’s true.” Claire stood up from the planter and straightened out her skirt, trying to calm down her rage. It was just like Madison to stir up trouble for no good reason.

  “I didn’t accuse him of anything. I just said he was there. That’s for you to deal with however you want.” Madison stood up, too, patting the butt of her jeans for dirt.

  “I have to go back to work.” Claire moved for the door, leaving her cousin behind without a second glance.

  Back at her desk, her stomach began turning. She convinced herself it was the praline pie—she knew she shouldn’t have eaten all of those slices. But maybe . . . no . . . it couldn’t be? she conversed with herself internally. Maybe I’ll just go talk to Gavin—prove that there’s nothing to worry about. After a few minutes of cooling down at her desk, she knocked on his open office door.

  He looked up from his computer. “Hey, hon, what’s up?”

  “Nothing, just wanted to come say hi.” She plopped down in the chair in front of his desk. “How’s your day goin’?”

  “It’s fine,” he said, looking back at the screen.

  “That’s good,” she said, taking a brief pause. She wondered if she should just let it go. It was all a big misunderstanding anyway, she was sure about that. But there was still a gnawing at her stomach that needed to be put to rest. “Oh, I meant to ask, how was Bible study last night? Who ended up going?” She crossed her leg and leaned in toward the desk.

  Gavin looked back at her. “It was good—a small group.”

  “Were Tyler and Blake there?” She cocked her head to the side. He shook his. “Aren’t they always at those things?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “Not this one.” He paused. “Sorry, babe, I have to get back to work. We’ll talk later tonight?”

  Claire stood up. “Ah, okay.” She walked toward the door and looked back at him, typing furiously on his keyboard now. “I love you.”

  He glanced at her and smiled. “I love you, too, hon.”

  When she returned to her office, her head was spinning. She glanced down at her wedding ring set. It fit snugly—almost too tight—on her finger and shone dully back at her. When they first got married, she’d cleaned it at least once a week. Gavin would make fun of her, but she knew he secretly loved how much pride she took in it. “One day when I make more money, I’m gonna upgrade it,” he’d say. But she loved the quarter-carat diamond more than anything, and it bothered her when he fantasized about replacing it.

  “This ring means more to me than any other one you could ever put on my finger,” she’d say, holding her hand in front of her as she admired the tiny sparkle. “It will always remind me of who we were when we got married.”

  “Young, poor, and desperate to have sex?” he’d say, laughing.

  She’d blush. “Oh stop it, Gavin.” He’d kiss her to let her know he was joking. She’d kiss him back to let him know she loved him.

  They’d had fewer moments like that since Sadie came along. It was hard having a baby, sure. But not hard enough that he should be running off to a strip club. It’s not true. It can’t be, she thought as she opened up Gavin’s Twitter account. The words “What’s happening?” stared back at her. He would never do that. The cursor blinked. Would he?

  Of course not.

  “Listen to your gut as often as you listen to God,” she typed. “Both will give you the right answers.” TWEET.

  9

  gabrielle

  GABBY POPPED AN aspirin in her mouth and downed it with a glass of water, saying a hallelujah for naptime. Most days, she felt lucky that Claire had hired her to work at the church day care, but today had been a new level of exhausting. Three of the toddlers had colds and were dripping snot everywhere, one of the infants projectile vomited all over her colleague, and Gabby had spent the entire morning trying to calm down Carter Montgomery’s tantrum over a stuffed dragon. Now, with the kids finally slumbering on red
and blue mats scattered around the room, she lowered her head and sighed. Is this really my life? She’d always dreamed of working with kids . . . but as a teacher, not some glorified nanny.

  The day care door creaked open, and Claire popped her head in. Gabby held a finger over her lips, angling her head toward the sleeping kids. Claire crept toward her, an oversize knit scarf wrapped around her shoulders.

  “Just came to say hello to my Sadie,” Claire whispered, scanning the room. “But if everyone’s napping . . .”

  Gabby was shocked by her normally tidy friend’s appearance. Claire’s mascara was smudged under her eyes, and if Gabby wasn’t mistaken, there was some sort of food smeared on her blouse. “You okay?” Gabby asked, nodding at the stain.

  “Oh.” Claire blushed and wiped at it. “Yeah, just a busy day. I ate pie for lunch, clearly a little too enthusiastically.” She looked up from her shirt. “Hey, do you want to come over after work?”

  Gabby grabbed a red Twizzler from the staff candy jar and bit into it. “I can’t—I’m meeting up with Tony.”

  “Ooh, the mysterious Tony . . .” Claire grabbed a Twizzler out of the jar, too. “When do we get to meet him?”

  “Um . . .” Gabby lowered her head. She wanted to say soon but didn’t want to lie. She had been doing enough of that already—precisely why she was in this mess in the first place.

  The night she had met Tony, she was at a bachelorette party in Lafayette, draped in plastic penis necklaces. Tony came up to her at the bar and asked her if she liked his jacket. When she shot him a confused look, he said, “It’s made out of boyfriend material,” then flashed her a smooth grin.

  Gabby rolled her eyes and walked away, uninterested in cheesy pickup lines. Her ex-boyfriend Russell had opened with something similar, and it was all downhill from there. Not doing that again, she thought as she joined her friends back at the table. But the other girls at the party admitted they put him up to it; it was a challenge on the bachelorette party dare sheet. A bridesmaid bought Tony a drink for playing along, and he in turn gave it to Gabby as an apology.

  “Do you like Guinness?” he asked her.

  “Yeah,” she said, accepting the drink. (Lie number one.)

  “It was a pretty suave line, right?” he asked as they huddled at a high-top table in the corner.

  She shook her head. “Please don’t ever use that on another girl.”

  “Because you’d be jealous?” He smiled, his cheeks dimpling, and Gabby realized how cute he was.

  She smiled back. “Because you sound like an ass.”

  When he asked her about her family, she told him what she told most strangers: “My parents aren’t around anymore.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry—they passed away?” he asked, looking genuinely sad for her.

  She nodded. (Lie number two.) To her, it was easier and less embarrassing than having to admit she didn’t even know her dad and that her mom had gone to prison for embezzlement her senior year of high school—a ten-year sentence that she was now only four years into.

  “What school do you go to?” Tony had asked her, his TAG Heuer watch peeking out from his blazer.

  “U.L.,” she’d said, thinking of the closest school in the area: University of Louisiana at Lafayette. (Lie number three.) Gabby hadn’t even applied there . . . but to be fair, she’d gotten into an even more prestigious school: Tulane. After her mom was arrested, she hadn’t been able to afford college—any college—so it was kind of a moot point. But it was fun pretending she was still that girl for a moment. So when he asked her major, she continued living in her fantasy and said education (lie number four), just like she had always dreamed about. And she left out the part about living in Toulouse and working at a day care (not a lie, per se . . . just a pretty big omission). In her head, it was fine. This was just a fun night out with the girls; she’d never see this guy again, anyway.

  The more they talked, though, the more she realized all the things they had in common. Like how they both secretly loved courtroom TV shows—not the dramas, but the petty small-claims reality shows. And how their playlists consisted of both Lil Wayne and Wayne Newton. He was even helping his dad with an education reform bill and asked if he could get her ideas.

  “Maybe we can go for a drink one night, and I can pick your brain,” he said, running his fingers nervously through his hair as they were saying good-bye. She’d meant to tell him the truth about her life when they met for drinks a week later, but the outing was less education reform talk and more flirty banter. And then there was that sweet good-night kiss . . . the kind where she could feel sparks in her stomach. She decided to wait to tell him. If her dating history was any indication, he’d probably ghost on her soon enough anyway.

  But as the weeks passed, she began to see that he wasn’t like those jerks she had dated before. Even though she kept bracing herself for him to catch her in a lie or confront her about the truth or just plain old stop calling, it never happened. Tony was so wonderful and so trusting, and as each date blissfully came and went, Gabby started to feel like it was too late—she was in too deep, and it never seemed like the right time to tell him the truth. If Gabby was being totally candid with herself, she wasn’t sure she even wanted him to know the truth. She was ashamed that her life had turned out the way it had.

  Gabby was the one person in her group of friends who was supposed to make it. She was driven—perhaps a result of growing up with so little—and had planned out her whole future: she’d get a degree in education, meet an incredible man, become a teacher, and maybe even go on to be a principal or superintendent someday. But then her mom was arrested and Gabby’s dreams, and her whole life, imploded. She hadn’t applied for scholarships or student loans. . . . Suddenly, Gabby was back to being a poor girl with no hope of escaping Toulouse.

  When she was with Tony, Gabby could forget about the four disappointing years she’d had. It was almost like she had found a shortcut to the life—and the man—that she was always meant to have. But since the I love you’s were exchanged a couple of weeks ago, there had been gnawing in her stomach that wasn’t going away.

  “I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be together,” Gabby said to Claire now, snapping back to reality. Though she’d had the thought before, it was the first time she’d admitted it out loud. Unbidden, her eyes filled with tears.

  “What?” Claire gasped. “But you’re so happy with him.”

  Gabby sniffed hard, trying to keep the tears from flowing over. “He’s so different from the other guys I’ve dated—”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?” Claire said, shaking her head. “What are you not telling me?” She’d always had an uncanny ability to read people.

  “It’s a long story,” Gabby began, realizing she had to talk about it with someone. She couldn’t keep carrying this alone.

  But right as she was about to tell Claire everything, a three-year-old redhead sat up on his mat and shouted, “Miss Gabby, I’m hungry!” Before she knew it, the whole room had woken, eager for snack time.

  Claire shot her an understanding smile, rising to leave. “I want to hear about this later, all right?”

  After the fruit snacks were successfully distributed and Gabby got everyone settled to watch a cartoon about Noah’s ark, she sat in one of the tiny plastic chairs and took a deep breath. Claire was right—she was happy with this guy. It was a shame it could never last. Gabby vowed to herself to finally tell him the truth . . . tonight. She silently prepared herself for the impending heartache.

  • • •

  “SO, GABRIELLE, TONY tells me you go to U.L.,” said Rebecca, a girl with glasses who towered over her. “My friend Daisy Jones is a junior over there. Maybe you know her?”

  Gabby sipped her vodka soda and shook her head. “Name doesn’t ring a bell.” Her stomach turned into knots and she hoped there’d be no more discussion about her college experience. She looked around the cute coffeehouse–art gallery and tried to change the subject. “I had
no idea this place even existed,” she said. “What a great concept.” The whole scene—the expensive coffee, the sleek art, the cultured partygoers—was indicative of the kind of girl Tony thought she was . . . a girl who could fit in here.

  Tony put his arm around her waist. “And can you believe all of this is for my boy?” He put his other arm around the shoulders of his childhood friend LaMarcus, who was being honored as the café’s local artist of the month. His paintings, all of which had a dreamy expressionist vibe, hung around the brick-walled room. Gabby could envision the people who would buy them: smart and sophisticated, just like Tony’s friends.

  “Oh, Tony,” said Jeremy, a short guy wearing an unflattering turtleneck. “I was at an event the other night at the bookstore downtown and guess who I ran into: Stephanie Brown! Remember her from college?”

  Tony’s eyes lit up. “Oh yeah! What’s she up to now?”

  “Workin’ at freakin’ NASA. Can you believe it? Engineer or something like that.” He shook his head. “Always knew she’d be doing great things.”

  “Seriously, man.” Tony looked at Gabby. “We had a couple of classes with this girl,” he explained. “She was so smart. Ran some very intense study groups.”

  Gabby nodded her head. People used to say that about her in high school. She wondered if anyone still talked about her like that. More likely, the conversation went something like: “Oh Gabby Vaughn—she sure is living the life. I hear she’s working at a day care and changing diapers like a champ.” She shuddered.

  “That’s amazing,” she said to Tony.

  “Maybe when you’re a teacher, she can come and speak to your class for career day,” Tony suggested.

  “It’s really awesome that you’re gonna be a teacher,” Rebecca interjected. “We need smart people like you in the system. Just think of how many lives you’re going to change.” She looked at Tony and Gabby appraisingly and grinned. “Education and politics. What a power couple!”