The Wife of Reilly

by Jennifer Coburn

  After brushing my teeth and washing my face, I crawled into my familiar bed with Reilly and asked if he was asleep yet.

  “Not yet. What’s on your mind?”

  “What if something happened to me and you wanted to remarry. What would you look for in a wife? I mean, describe your ideal woman.”

  Reilly sighed, exasperated. “Prudence,” Reilly said while turning on his lamp. “You’re my ideal woman. That’s why I married you. Enough with this morbid talk. With all the traveling I do, I’m far more likely to go down in a plane wreck. You don’t see me grilling you about who you’re going to remarry.”

  I didn’t get to sleep until two that morning. Half the time I spent thinking about Matt and our blissfully happy future together. The other half was thinking about how I was going to find a new wife for Reilly, inarguably one of the most decent people I’d ever known. Good. Kind. Smart. And wonderful. But not the love of my life. Not Matt.

  * * *

  That night I realized that my whole marriage to Reilly was a reaction to being dumped by Matt. We met at Wharton where Reilly was also earning his MBA. I was a waitress at one of the restaurants near campus where he used to eat his breakfast and read the Wall Street Journal every morning. There was something about a guy that ate at the same place every morning that was extremely appealing to me at the time. We also had a few classes together where he showed himself to be extremely diligent and committed to making things work. We were both assigned to the same mock project management team in class, and ran into some serious financing and cash flow issues. Other problems were also threatening this Acme Widgets’ viability; the company was on the brink of bankruptcy. By midnight, the three other students in our group had thrown in the towel and said they’d think about solutions the next day. I was so impressed with how Reilly stuck with the task at hand and finally came up with a workable strategy for the fake company. It was five in the morning, and he looked like he’d been through the spin cycle of the dryer, but the man finished what he started, just as he promised he would. Anyone with that kind of determination was the guy for me, I decided. A month earlier I had put together a list of the five character traits I was looking for in a husband: stability, consistency, reliability, dependability and sensibility. Reilly was better than a new washing machine.

  He was also cute and funny and had a daffy charm about him. Over the months I grew to really love and respect Reilly. When he asked me to marry him, I saw no reason to decline. I convinced myself that passion is something that would build over time, but was later informed that it was actually the other way around.

  What we lacked in chemistry, Reilly and I made up for in our ability to work together as life partners. Things were not bad with Reilly. In fact, I was quite comfortable with our life together. But when I compared our relationship with the weekend I had with Matt, I realized I loved Reilly like the brother I never had. I loved Matt like the husband I never had.

  Of course, Reilly is not the Patron Saint of Husbands either. Our first big blow-out was a month before our wedding when he surprised me by telling me that his parents were paying for our honeymoon as a wedding gift.

  “That’s unbelievably generous of them!” I said. “It’s so extravagant, though. A month in Italy is not cheap.”

  “Well,” Reilly hesitated. “I know we talked about Italy, but my parents booked something a little different for us. They meant well and I think we can make a good time of it.” I didn’t want to make a good time of it. It was a honeymoon. If ever there was a time I didn’t want to work, this was it. Italy was my dream. Italy would just be wonderful. I wouldn’t have to make it that way.

  We didn’t just “talk” about Italy, as Reilly so politically put it. We made an itinerary. We had reservations at local pensiones. I was even taking a conversational Italian mini-course on Monday nights after work. I had always romanticized the thought of taking a gondola ride with my husband in Venice, seeing the great museums and eating like a glutton in paradise. Suddenly that plan was out, and his parents had booked a two-week stint for us at Club Wed, a cheesy little honeymoon paradise in Aruba.

  Club Wed was so trite it was gag-worthy. Heart-shaped pink bathtubs. Top Forty love songs blasted over the resort sound system. And all the staff members introduced themselves as “Cupid Joe” or “Cupid Mary” or “Cupid Whoever.” Even the maid knocked on the door each morning and announced in a thick Brooklyn accent, “Cupid Juanita is ready to clean. Y’decent?”

  Couples weren’t required to participate in the scheduled activities, but if they chose not to, they never heard the end of it. Once Reilly and I opted out of the game of passing fruit to each other while holding it between our chin and neck, and Cupid Annie never let us live it down. “Cupid Annie was so sad not to see her favorite wove birds at Body Sports this afternoon,” she said to us as we nibbled on chocolate-dipped strawberries and drank cheap pink champagne. “You don’t want to break Cupid Annie’s wittle heart now, do you?”

  “Um, no, of course not, Annie, er, Cupid Annie,” said Reilly. “We’ll be sure to make it tomorrow.”

  We will? I thought.

  “No you won’t, pumpkin puddins. Tomorrow afternoon I’m leading Sweethearts Tennis, where the score is always love, love,” Annie said with a hiccup of a laugh.

  Splashing champagne in her face would be considered rude, right? I thought.

  “Sound like fun, what’d’ya say, sweetheart?” he elbowed me. For a moment, I thought he was kidding. Sadly, he was dead serious. The fact that Reilly was not hostile toward her made me hostile to him. At least if we both hated Cupid Annie we could bond together against the common enemy. His cheery accommodation of every goofy request the staff members made was a complete turn-off. I’ve never been a sloppy sentimentalist, but even I knew it was a bad sign for a bride on her honeymoon to mutter “Grow some balls” at her new groom.

  During our pre-wedding battle Reilly promised Club Wed could be great fun.

  “Italy was going to be great fun!” I shouted. “Why can’t you tell your parents thanks but no thanks?”

  “Prudence, be sensible,” Reilly switched his strategy. “If we put off the trip to Italy we can put a down payment on a loft in SoHo that’s right above a gallery. We can live among art for the rest of our lives, and it will make a great investment. The trip is completely free. It would be rude to turn it down. Prudence, I know it’s important to you to see Italy, but we’ll go another time. It’s not going anywhere.”

  “That’s what they said about Pompeii,” I moped.

  “That’s the spirit,” he said.

  How exactly is that the spirit? I thought. Did you even hear what I said?!

  After that I should have known that Reilly and I weren’t well suited for each other, but I never even considered canceling the wedding. The invitations had already been mailed. My bridesmaids had paid for their dresses. My mother was so proud of my choice.

  I suggested we go to Italy for our fifth wedding anniversary, but Reilly said we needed to wait until we were more financially secure. We had no kids and each earned six-figure salaries. How much more secure could we get? I asked again on our tenth anniversary, but Reilly suggested that everything I would ever want to see at an Italian museum could be viewed on the Internet.

  Reilly said that he travels to different countries so much for his job as an international business consultant that he prefers to vacation at resorts. We’ve been to Cancun, Barbados, Puerto Vallarta, Bermuda and Jamaica. Once we took a cruise to Alaska.

  Reilly isn’t entirely to blame. I am a self-sufficient adult. I could’ve easily booked a flight for myself and taken off, but traveling to Europe alone held a certain stigma for me. Like I’m such a loser I couldn’t even get a date for this wonderful journey. Perhaps Matt and I would go together, I thought. I drifted to sleep on the sweet thought of Matt and me together in Italy. In my dream, we were sitting outside the Colosseum in Rome having a picnic of nothing but candy. In real life I would never overdos
e on sugar this way, but in the dream I wasn’t the least bit concerned about my weight. I was practically drunk on strawberry cream-filled chocolates when I fell onto our picnic blanket laughing. I don’t remember what was so funny, but Matt was laughing too. He rolled on to me and began kissing me, moving down toward my stomach. He lifted my shirt ever so slightly and began nibbling my belly. Then he asked me if I was awake. “Prudence, are you up?” he whispered, kissing my stomach again. “Prudence,” he teased. “Wake up.” Then Reilly was there kissing my stomach too.

  Shit, this really is Reilly! I realized as I bolted upright in bed. Damn it. I was enjoying that dream until my husband sidled his way into the picture. In the dark of our bedroom, I saw Reilly leaning onto his right elbow, coming at me in his Ward Cleaver pajamas. I felt as sexually repulsed as the time when my twelfth-grade chemistry teacher hit on me during detention. Both times I knew I couldn’t follow my instinct to bite and run. Then and now, I would have to come up with an excuse that spared the ego, but kept the enemy troops at bay.

  “Reilly, I’ve got a big meeting tomorrow. I need my rest tonight,” I explained.

  “You’ve got big meetings every day,” he reminded me.

  “I know, but I’m exhausted,” I said, irritated by his persistence.

  “There’s a new one,” Reilly muttered just loud enough for me to hear.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I shot back.

  Reilly started fiddling with the fitted sheet, trying to get it to hug the edge it had slipped from. After he accomplished this, he straightened the top sheet a bit.

  “Hello?!” I sniped.

  “What?!” he took it up a notch.

  “I asked you what that comment was supposed to mean and all you’re doing is making the bed in the middle of the fucking night. What did you mean, ‘That’s a new one’?” I said, using my dopey male voice as his.

  “I meant that you’ve been tired a lot lately,” he clipped.

  “I am tired,” I defended. “It’s not like I’m sitting around all day waiting for you to come home so I can put on my kimono and serve tea for you. So sorry if I have a life!”

  Exactly why was I trying to find a new wife for this shithead anyway? He is a selfish pig who thinks nothing of waking me up in the middle of the night because he wants to have sex. Reilly sighed and changed his strategy.

  “I know your job is stressful, but I also remember how we used to collapse into bed at night and wake up at three in the morning having sex, neither of us knowing who started it. Remember that, Prudence?”

  “That’s not what happened tonight!” I rebuffed. “You practically bludgeoned me on the head with a blunt object trying to wake me up. What did you expect me to do, wake up and say let’s do it baby?”

  “Not in those exact words,” Reilly answered.

  Not in this exact lifetime.

  The truth was I felt like I was cheating on Matt. And I had no interest in even kissing Reilly, much less having sex with him. I knew Reilly deserved a wife who was at least somewhat sexually available to him. I also knew that would never be me. I decided to continue my plan to find Reilly a nice, horny woman. So, the plan was deceitful and bizarre. In the end, he would be better off.

  “I’m sorry, Reilly,” I conceded. “This isn’t your fault. I’m just under an enormous amount of stress right now and I’m taking it out on you. Forgive me?”

  He smiled. “I’m sorry too.” Stop! Do not apologize to me. I feel guilty enough without you telling me that you’re sorry. I killed you over the weekend. I danced naked on your coffin. You have no apologies to make, Reilly. Please just spit on me and go to sleep.

  * * *

  At five that morning, my cell phone in my purse began to ring. I grabbed the entire bag and ran into the bathroom before Reilly rose from the dead. It would have been a smarter move for me to let Matt’s call roll over to voice mail, but I couldn’t wait to hear his voice. On the plane ride home, I thought of so many things I wanted to tell him about. How the lady in the seat behind me snored like a power tool. How I read an interesting article on stem cell research. (I actually had read it the week before, but wanted to work it into the conversation to impress him, so I would tell him it was an article I read on the plane.) How I had a meeting in the morning with a man who owned a chain of jazz brunch restaurants across the country. I wanted to hear about his documentary he was working on, what his house looked like, who his friends were. Anything that had to do with him. I sat on the tile floor of my bathroom, resting my back against the bathtub, and watched the blue light from the window grow brighter as the sun rose.

  “Hey, Malone, it’s me.”

  It’s me. It’s me. Me. Like I should just know who “me” is. His confidence was delicious. Me. Do men get any sexier than this?

  “Hey, you,” I whispered. “How was your flight back?”

  “We landed. Everything after that is gravy. Hey, the address you gave me. Is it your home or your office?”

  “Huh?”

  “You wrote down a suite number here. Did you give me your office address?”

  Shit, why did I put my suite number?! How easy would it have been to just write “apt” or just the number symbol? How do I earn a living with this semi-functional brain of mine?

  “Oh, well, I work so much, it’s like my second home,” I laughed.

  “Well, how ’bout giving me the address to your first home?” Matt said. “Maybe I’ll surprise you one day.”

  I think it would be you who was surprised.

  “Of course,” I gulped before giving him the address to the loft. “Matt, I am kind of embarrassed to tell you this, but, well, I’m really kind of vain and I’d hate for you to just show up here when I look like a slob. Promise me you’ll call before you just come here?”

  “Malone, just the thought of you looking like a slob is getting me turned on right now,” he teased. “You know what they say about sloppy women, right?”

  That they’re lying, cheating, murdering adulterers? And they’re sloppy too?

  “Sloppy chicks are easy lays,” Matt said. “So, what are you wearing right now? I’m sure you’re not all made up at this hour.”

  Why are sloppy chicks easy lays?

  I tried to create a raspy sound to my voice, but came across more like an adolescent boy. Instead, I whispered. “Well, I’ve got on old sweat pants and my Giants jersey, and my mascara is smeared underneath my eyes,”

  “You fucking slob,” Matt said, knowingly and seductively. “Go on.”

  “And my hair is a mess,” I giggled.

  “Jesus, Malone. I am so fucking turned on by you right now. Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me over here?”

  Cool chick, think cool, sloppy chick.

  “I’ve got some idea,” I said.

  Finally, I am sticking to the script!

  “Take off your jersey,” Matt whispered.

  “What?” I whispered with masked trepidation.

  “I hate the fucking Giants,” he teased. “Take off the jersey.”

  My heart was pounding with both excitement and terror. I loved the thought of having cross-country phone sex with Matt as the take-charge fuck master. But at six o’clock, Reilly’s alarm would go off and he’d head straight for the shower. If he found me curled naked on the floor of the bathroom with the cell phone clutched in my hand, then he really would drop dead.

  Still, I had a sloppy vixen reputation to live up to with Matt. More than that, I wanted to take off my jersey as he ordered. Quietly, I tiptoed back into the bedroom and looked at Reilly’s clock without saying a word. Five thirty-nine. I grabbed my watch from the nightstand and scampered back to the bathroom to resume our conversation.

  “Okay, it’s off,” I told Matt.

  “You know what I want you to do now?” Matt asked.

  “I don’t, but I do know this. The answer is going to be yes,” I whispered.

  “Malone, you are a very bad girl.”

  That is
a definite understatement, I thought, as my sweatpants dropped to the floor.

  Chapter 7

  After their initial shock at Monday’s lunch, Jennifer, Sophie and even Chad agreed that while they didn’t necessarily understand my need to find Reilly a new wife, they’d at least help me. Wednesday evening after work, we met at Bar 89 for our mission. We would draft an advertisement for Reilly’s new wife, then place it in the personals section of the Village Voice. But first, we’d have to hunt for a clear table. I couldn’t believe how busy this place was. The food is good, but frankly, I just think people like the glass bathroom stalls that fog up for privacy when the doors close. But Bar 89 was noisy and close to all of us, so it soon became our Manhattan version of Cheers, where no one knows your name.

  After ordering our drinks, Jennifer took charge. “Okay, we’ve got forty words to reel in the babes. First, let’s brainstorm some descriptive words about Reilly, then weave it into copy. Plan?”

  Chad rolled his eyes. “Why am I here?”

  Jennifer had already hit her limit with Chad. “Why are you here? If you’re gonna be negative about this then just getthefuckup and go.” I loved how Jennifer could make “get the fuck up” into one word. “Wanna know why you’re really here, Chad?”

  “Why don’t we turn our attention to the task at hand?” suggested Sophie. “If we want to craft an effective message for Reilly’s advertisement, it will probably take some time.”

  “No, I’d like to hear why I’m really here,” Chad said, half teasing, half annoyed. Jennifer’s response would decide which way Chad’s mood went.

  “You guys,” I begged.

  “No, I must hear this,” Chad insisted. “Just think, without Yoda over here, I may never uncover the secrets of my universe.”

  No one could help smiling at the thought of the Jedi Master as a tall black woman dressed in a yellow petticoat from Oklahoma!

  “You couldn’t stand to be left out of the loop on this,” Jennifer said. “It would kill you to have this juicy story going on without you involved. You’re a scandal addict.”