Queen of Broken Hearts

by Cassandra King

  Elinor’s personality turned out to be as intimidating as her looks. Used to bubbly, overly friendly Southern women, shoppers were made uncomfortable by the inscrutable gaze of the Boston-bred Mrs. Eaton-Yarbrough, and most reported that they felt they were being evaluated and found wanting. Even though I’d thought myself immune after the various types I’d encountered in my business, I, too, felt uncomfortable under Elinor’s cool scrutiny. Her disdainful look told me how little she regarded my sense of style, and she couldn’t hide her horror at my loose, rumpled linen pants and top when I discarded them to try on a black suit she’d picked out for me.

  “You have to wear black,” she retorted when I asked for something a little less … severe. Truth of the matter was, I almost fainted when I saw the price tag—more than I made in a month. Naturally, the black suit turned out to be so perfect that I would’ve mortgaged my soul to own it. The black-and-bronze heels cost almost as much as the suit, but they made the outfit, and Elinor pointed out that since they also matched the bronze silk pantsuit necessary to make my wardrobe complete, I saved money by not having to buy another pair of shoes. At this bit of logic, I caught the eye of the young salesclerk helping us and winked, but I ended up buying everything I tried on. Hand it to Elinor: In spite of her disdainful attitude—or maybe because of it—she was very good at her job.

  The only time I elicited a flicker of warmth from Elinor was when, as she questioned me about the occasion for the new clothes, it came out that I was a therapist specializing in divorce recovery. The salesclerk overheard us and pointed out that I’d gotten a lot of attention based on the innovative methods I was developing. “Dr. Ballenger was on Good Morning America not too long ago, Mrs. Eaton-Yarbrough,” she added breathlessly, and one of Elinor’s perfectly arched eyebrows shot up as she regarded me.

  “Oh? I’ve never heard of a divorce therapist, even in Boston. You’re not a marriage counselor, then?” she asked me, tilting her head to the side curiously. I explained that I didn’t work with couples, only men and women who were having problems dealing with a separation or divorce, and that a lot of group work was involved.

  “I’m not interested in group work or baring my soul before strangers,” she told me with a sniff, “but if you see patients on an individual basis, I’ll make an appointment.” Her pale blue eyes darted around the store to make sure no one was listening, and she confided in a low voice, “I’m planning on asking my husband for a divorce, and I might need some help because he’ll go berserk when I do. Will you see me?” Before walking home with my arms full of packages and my bank account depleted, I handed her my card and explained where Casa Loco was located.

  Elinor Eaton-Yarbrough’s session was as close to a disaster as any I’d ever had, and she never returned. Hostility radiated from her like a bad sunburn, and none of my usual tactics worked with her. At that time I hadn’t met Lex, but I knew from the talk around town that Elinor was married to the man who ran the new marina and had charmed the locals with his hearty good nature and zany humor. He sounded like the last person on earth to be married to a woman like her. But one thing I’d learned in my practice: The old adage about opposites attracting must be engraved on God’s golden throne. Still, though I thought I’d become immune to the unlikely matches that people made, the Yarbroughs took it to a whole new level. During her session, Elinor echoed my thoughts.

  “None of my family nor friends understood why I married Lex,” she told me, crossing her long, shapely legs and fidgeting with a silver cigarette case, flicking it open and shut, open and shut. She’d been appalled by my no-smoking rule, snapping, “How like you uptight Southerners! If you can’t smoke in your therapist’s office, then where?” How about most places in New York City, I thought, but kept my silence.

  “Tell me what it was about your husband—Lex, right?—that attracted you,” I suggested. That was my usual opening gambit, since most of my clients were disillusioned with their spouses, and it helped for them to remember the days before hurt and bitterness set in. I’d heard almost everything in response, but rarely had I seen anyone struggle for an answer like Elinor did. I felt, then quickly suppressed, a flicker of sympathy for the man unlucky enough to have married her. Elinor finally told me that she’d most likely married Lex because her parents were so opposed to the match. She and Lex had met when she was “slumming” in a bar in Boston (her phrase), and he was a young officer assigned to the nearby naval base.

  “He was boisterous and raw-boned and hilarious, so very different from the Ivy League boys I’d been dating,” she mused. “He won me over when a brawl broke out, and he took charge so masterfully, then made sure I got home safely. I felt protected or something, like he rescued me. My knight in shining armor. Ha! I was such a wide-eyed innocent back then.”

  That image was certainly difficult to conjure, but I proceeded with my usual follow-up question: What was it that had held them together through the years? There was no hesitation this time. “Mostly it was our daughter,” she said simply. “I’ve wanted to leave a dozen times, but even when she went away to college, Alexia couldn’t stand the idea of her parents not being together. Not only is she named after her father, she dotes on him, and he on her.”

  As the session went on, I realized with a sinking feeling that Elinor was one of those clients who blames everything on the other partner and goes to a therapist only seeking verification of her position. She scorned my oft-repeated adage that she could not change her partner, only herself. She haughtily informed me that she wasn’t the one who needed changing. She admitted that she’d agreed to move to Fairhope as a last-ditch effort to save their marriage, and even then only because their daughter had begged them to give it one more try. When Lex had retired from the navy and decided to fulfill his lifelong dream of running his own marina, Elinor had agreed to move from their home in Baltimore to Florida, had even been eager to live in a warmer climate. Earlier in their marriage, they’d spent a few years at the naval base in Pensacola, she told me, and she’d been surprised to like it so much.

  “But of course, Florida is not really the South, is it?” she added. However, they soon found the cost of purchasing a marina anywhere in Florida prohibitive. The one in Fairhope, not all that far from Pensacola, was the only one remotely affordable, and Lex had snatched it up. Elinor had never been to Alabama—never wanted to, she assured me—but had been so taken with the charm of Fairhope that she’d decided to stay and open a shop like the one she’d had in Baltimore. In the short time they’d been here, both the boutique and the marina had flourished, but not the marriage. She’d decided to ask her husband to move out for a trial separation, she told me, then she’d file for divorce once he had some time to adjust. The reason she had come to me, she repeated, was for advice on the best way to make sure everything went smoothly.

  “So your husband is not going to want a divorce?” I inquired, and Elinor looked at me in astonishment at such a question, since any man would surely be broken up at the thought of losing her.

  “He’ll go ballistic,” she assured me.

  “Are you afraid of him?” I asked anxiously, and Elinor rolled her eyes.

  “Afraid of Lex?” She snorted. “Hardly. Oh, he rants and raves and carries on, but it doesn’t mean anything. Plus, he adores me too much to harm me. He’s going to be so devastated when I finally leave him that I worry about what could happen. And I don’t want Alexia to take his side if he runs to her for sympathy.”

  My usual practice during a first session was to urge my clients to preserve their marriage if at all possible, so I suggested that rather than rushing into a divorce, she spend a week or so keeping a journal, writing down the pros and cons of her marriage in order to make sure this was what she really wanted. To my utter astonishment, the suggestion outraged Elinor. She stormed out of my office, saying all she wanted from her marriage was out, and she’d counted on me being more supportive. I sent her a follow-up letter, urging her to return so we could continue the sess
ion and discuss her options. When I heard from the local gossips that she and her husband had separated, I wasn’t surprised. Neither was I particularly surprised to hear that she was bad-mouthing me all over town. But when Rye said she was telling the high-society crowd she hung with that I was the one who’d talked her into filing—that she hadn’t wanted to because of her daughter—that did it.

  I returned to My Fair Lady and asked Elinor if I could speak to her in private. With a huff, she showed me to her office and closed the door. I told her that I had no control over her conversations with her friends, but if I heard again of her saying I’d been the one to urge her to file for divorce, I’d have no choice but to contact my attorney. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, Elinor,” I said tightly, my voice trembling. “You’re shifting the blame because you’re afraid to tell your daughter it was your idea, aren’t you?” She denied it, of course, but I stood my ground, refusing to let her intimidate me. After I left her shop that day, the gossip stopped.

  Now here I am, facing Elinor Eaton-Yarbrough on my own front porch. Who would have thought that, long after the disastrous session in my office, her husband and I would become friends, and as a result, she’d decide she wanted him back, out of my clutches? Lex appears to have no idea that’s what she’s up to, but it’s obvious to me. Doesn’t take a therapist to see it, either, just another woman.

  “Elinor? Are you looking for us?” I ask her, admittedly not the sharpest of questions. Oh, no, Clare, I’m standing on your porch at eleven o’clock at night for the hell of it.

  Her pale eyes are cool as she stares at me, but she forces a smile. “Oh, hello, Clare.” Elinor and I forged an unspoken truce when Lex was in the hospital, having no choice but to be civil to each other. “Are you okay, dear?” she coos, wrinkling her lovely brow in concern.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” I say rather sharply. I know where she’s going, but I’m not about to give her the satisfaction of showing it.

  “That awful letter from that awful old man!” She turns to Lex, the look of distress on her face worthy of an Academy Award. “Did you see The Fairhoper today, Lex? I felt so bad for Clare.”

  Without a moment’s hesitation or a flicker of remorse, Lex flat-out lies to her. “Naw, I never read that rag. Nothing of interest in it, anyway.”

  “You won’t say that when you see the editorial page,” she tells him with a shudder, then looks my way. “But don’t worry, Clare. Everyone in town is talking about it now, but it’ll blow over in a day or two.” Having gotten her usual dig in, she’s finished with me, and she turns back to Lex. “Surely you can’t be aware of the time! I went by your place to check on you,” she adds breathlessly, “and I was worried sick not to find you there. When I couldn’t reach you on your cell, I came over here to see if Clare knew where you were. I couldn’t call, since all of Clare’s numbers are such highly guarded secrets.”

  Yeah, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before you get one of them, Mrs. Eaton-Yarbrough, I think, but manage to keep my face expressionless.

  Lex retrieves his phone from his front pocket and frowns down at it. “Damn,” he mutters. “Hadn’t even noticed it needed charging. Sorry, Elinor. And you’re right. We must’ve lost track of the time.”

  He told me that he’d made a promise to her in the hospital when he thought he was on his deathbed. He’d given his word that he would make more of an effort to maintain a friendly relationship. As Elinor had predicted, Lex had not wanted the divorce, and he’d been bitter and angry afterward, refusing to even be in her presence. The local gossips—especially Rye, naturally—had a field day when he made a great show of leaving after the two of them turned up at the same place. Even better was the way he crossed to the other side of the street when he was in town and happened to see her entering or leaving her shop. I have hopes that he’ll eventually find healthier ways of dealing with her. Lex thinks I’m kidding about enrolling him in one of the retreats, but I’m not. Although he’s told me that he loved Elinor and didn’t want their marriage to end, he either shrugs it off or jokes about it when I’ve tried to get him to talk about his feelings. The anger he displayed afterward is a typical male reaction, I’ve told him, but he needs desperately to go through the rest of the process. I’ve tried to make him see his heartbreak as manifesting itself in a literal manner, with the heart attack coming not too many months after their divorce was final. (Apply your literal-mindedness here! I argued.) It’s obvious to me that Lex has yet to deal with the emotional devastation that a divorce causes for everyone involved.

  “Alexia tried to call you earlier this evening. She’s the one who thought I should come over here to check on you,” Elinor tells him, her whispery voice provocative. When Lex was hospitalized, I also met Alexia, who’s a student at Boston College and a willowy blonde with Lex’s grass-green eyes. It was painfully obvious that her mother had done a number on her, since she masked her love and concern for her father with a studied nonchalance. After nodding a polite but cool greeting, she pointedly ignored me, and I knew Elinor had told her about me as well.

  Elinor’s cool blue stare would cower anyone, so I can’t really blame Lex for not looking her way as he mutters, “Yeah, it’s gotten pretty late, hasn’t it?”

  She takes him by the arm as though he’s a naughty child caught playing hooky, and starts down the steps. “You should talk to Alexia, don’t you think, and assure her that you’re all right? Let’s get you home and call her from there.”

  He turns to me questioningly, and I give him a nod. “Elinor’s right, Lex: You need to be home. Thanks for your help this afternoon. I really appreciate it.”

  With a wave of his hand, he brushes off my appreciation, but it’s difficult to say more with Elinor practically dragging him down the front steps. I go inside quickly so I don’t have to witness her manipulation. Why can’t Lex see what she’s doing? Funny, how we allow the people we love to pull our strings like that. I see it all the time. It’s obvious in Dory’s reunion with Son.

  When I enter the kitchen, I see that the message light on the answering machine is blinking furiously, like the malevolent red eye of an angry god, and I press it with dread. What now? The first one appears to be a hang-up, but before I can delete it, a falsetto voice comes on. “Is Fairhope’s one and only divorce coach there? I need someone to help me get rid of my sorry-ass husband.” Rye laughs appreciatively at his own humor before he says, “I missed you tonight, sweetheart. Call me, and I’ll tell you about the party.”

  The next one is Dory, her voice soft and gentle. “Clare? I wish you were in so we could talk. I doubt you let that letter bother you, but I wanted to let you know that I’m thinking of you, honey.” There’s a pause, then she adds, “I can’t wait to see you in the morning. I’ll bring the refreshments early so we can talk before the meeting starts, okay?”

  I rub my face wearily before listening to the final message. Upon hearing Son’s voice, I flinch and reach for the delete button. Lex deleted Son’s previous messages, so it’s a new one. “Hey, Clare, it’s Son,” he says, as though the nitwit thought I wouldn’t know his voice. I even recognize the tone. It’s Son’s cajoling, I’m-so-charming-no-one-could-possibly-resist-me voice. “Just trying to figure out why the hell you haven’t called me back, since I’ve left you so many messages,” he says with an indulgent chuckle. “It’s real important that we talk, Clare. Real important. Let me hear from you—”

  Hitting the delete button with a sigh, I decide it’s time to call it a day.

  Chapter Four

  Before Dory gets to Casa Loco on Saturday morning, bringing refreshments for the ten o’clock group meeting, I pace the floor, unable to keep from peering out the windows every time a car drives by.

  It’s difficult when someone we love marries someone we don’t love. When my clients lament their lack of affection—or worse—of a stepparent, an in-law, or a friend’s spouse, my advice is always the same: You’re stuck with having them in your life, so m
ake the best of it. Decide if voicing your opposition is worth losing a loved one, since that could be the outcome. Whatever you do, don’t put your loved one in the position of choosing between the two of you. I’ve had to follow my own advice with Dory. When I first met Dory Shaw, she was engaged to Son, and they were the golden couple on campus. All the girls thought Dory was lucky to have landed Son Rodgers, no doubt because he was wealthy, charming, and drop-dead gorgeous. Even though I thought he was the one lucky to have Dory, I, too, was taken with Son at first, but I was as unworldly as a wildflower then. I mistook his arrogance for self-assurance, his brashness for pride, and his jealous possessiveness as proof of his deep love for Dory. By the time I saw his true nature, she was in too deep to heed my warnings.

  It was then I experienced something that had been only a theory up until that time. When forced into an intolerable situation, we find a way of making it tolerable: the Serenity Prayer in action. Dory loved a man I found unlovable, but she was my dearest friend, and if she was to remain so, I’d best learn to live with it. Son was also Mack’s best buddy; the four of us were constantly together; and when the Rodgerses’ first child came along, Mack and I were named godparents. As the old saw goes, God granted me the wisdom to accept what I couldn’t change. Son and I often clashed and sparred, but over the span of twenty-five-plus years, we learned to tolerate each other. There were even times when I became almost fond of him and tried to convince myself that he’d mellowed. Our relationship sat atop a fault line, though, and the ground beneath us could shake at any moment.