The Wife of Reilly

by Jennifer Coburn

  Chad interrupted. “This is such a tired old stereotype —”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” Jennifer cut him off. “You are a gossip hound and you would die before you let all this happen without you, so here’s the deal. You’re in or you’re out, got it?”

  “Who appointed you mistress of ceremonies?” Chad asked. “Thank you,” he said to our waiter, who was taking his time placing our drinks on the table. He had that distinctly trying-not-to-look-curious look, which always reveals that a person would love to know what was going on. “I think Prudence needs to decide whether she’s ready to vote me off the island just because I’m not going to rubber stamp everything you come up with. Honey, I’m in, don’t get me wrong,” he said to me. “I can be very useful to you, make no mistake about it, but I’ve gotta be me, love. You want Chad, take the whole package.”

  “So, Chad, I’m curious now,” Sophie began. “Why is it that you want to be involved in Prudence’s plan that you are so morally outraged by? Is Jennifer right?”

  Chad sighed, exasperated. “Prudence, honey. I adore you, you know that. I want to help you, yes. But alas, my friend Jennifer knows me too well. I can’t get enough of this kind of shit.”

  “He watches soaps too,” Jennifer laughed.

  “Telenovelas,” Chad shooed her away. “They help with my Spanish.”

  Jennifer decided that since she was the advertising professional, she should oversee the ad writing. She was as serious about her job as if there was a possible Cleo award in this for her. “Words that remind us of Reilly. Go,” she said urgently.

  I began. “Reilly is successful. He’s very loyal to those he loves. He’s kind.”

  Starved for sex.

  “I find Reilly attractive in a nerdy way,” added Sophie.

  “That’s very in now,” Chad chimed.

  “Single words. I need single words,” Jennifer demanded.

  Why does she need single words?

  “Controlling,” Chad said.

  “You think Reilly is controlling?” I asked.

  “Not Reilly, honey,” he smiled.

  “Heard that. Not funny,” said a grinning Jennifer. “How ’bout this? Rising young international business consultant seeks woman to share life with. Devoted and kind.”

  “Rising young professional?” Sophie questioned. “How much did Reilly earn last year, Prudence?”

  “Two forty, I think. No, no, with his bonus, it was two ninety-five.”

  Jennifer swept her pen dramatically across her legal pad. “I’m on it, Soph. Two ninety-five? He has risen,” she declared.

  “In more ways than one,” Chad smiled.

  “Did y’guys eat yet? I’m starved,” Jennifer said, glancing at the menu. “Let’s order some food. Okay?”

  Chad signaled the waiter, who was more than happy to come back to our table. He practically scurried over, sat beside us, rested his chin in his hand and said, “So what did I miss?” He seemed rather disappointed that all we wanted to share with him was our entrée selections.

  “How’s this?” Jennifer continued after scribbling on her yellow pad. “Very successful international business consultant, recently divorced and looking for long-term commitment that leads to marriage.”

  “What is Reilly looking for in a woman?” Sophie asked.

  “Actually, that reminds me that Reilly said he wanted someone just like me. So put that being a career woman is a must. Oh yes, she can’t want kids because of the whole, you know,” as I made a scissor-cutting motion at the waist.

  “What does Reilly do for fun, anyway?” asked Chad.

  “Um, he watches a lot of television. He’s away a lot of the time for his job, so this woman will definitely need a life of her own. She can’t be the clingy type.”

  “Good, good, this is all good stuff,” Jennifer wrote furiously.

  “Prudence, I’ve been wondering, how is it that you’re going to introduce Reilly to these ladies?” Sophie asked.

  Jennifer pondered that thought, biting her pen tip. “That’s true. It’s not like Dudley Do Right’s gonna cheat on you. How’s the hook-up gonna happen?”

  I explained that I was going to screen the women first, then after I left him, I’d leave a list of a dozen or so of the best prospects I’d found. “He can take it from there,” I said. “It’s those first dates that are the worst. By the time Reilly gets to the list, they will be fully screened, bona fide candidates for marriage.”

  “How will you explain to these ladies that you are meeting them instead of Reilly?” Sophie asked.

  “I’m going to tell them that I’m his sister, and that Reilly is an exceptionally busy man so he asked me to do the initial interviews.”

  Sophie liked that idea. “That might add an element of mystery to him. Reilly is very important so he can’t be bothered with first dates. Very unavailable. Women love that.”

  “I’m coming along,” said Jennifer. “I’ll say I’m his sister too.”

  “Jen, you’re black. Who’s going to believe that we’re sisters?”

  “Oh that’s how it is?” she teased. “No black people allowed in your family? Real nice. I could be your half-sister. God knows with that father of yours out humping like a prairie dog, you could have a black half-sister out there somewhere.”

  Ouch.

  “I think two-on-one interviews might be a little intimidating,” I said.

  Chad seemed fully on board with us now. “Why don’t all four of us screen the women? We could make it like a game show format.” His eyes were wide at the thought.

  “Okay, let’s get back to business,” I suggested.

  “I’ve got it,” Jennifer said rustling her yellow sheet. “Successful divorced business consultant looking for a long-term commitment with career woman who is attractive, independent and devoted. Must live in Manhattan. No boroughs.”

  “Take out the stuff about no boroughs,” I said. “It sounds snobby. Plus, there are plenty of lovely sections in Brooklyn these days.”

  “This from the girl from Staten Island,” Chad said of Jennifer.

  Jennifer defended her disqualification of borough women. “I grew up with these women, I know of what I speak. Gum. Nails. Hair. Everything funny is a pissah,” she said, scrunching her face and swatting away her words. “No other states that want to be New York either. No New Jersey. No Albany.”

  “Albany is New York,” Chad corrected. “Albany’s not another state, you idiot. It’s the capital of New York.”

  “It’s upstate,” Jennifer snapped, annoyed. “Prudence doesn’t have to go traipsing all over the East Coast when there are four million women right here in the city. Just put Manhattan only, Prudence. Think of the travel time. Think of the hair!”

  “Leave it out,” I insisted. “You’ve become a terrible snob, Jennifer.”

  “Indeed,” she retorted. “Righteous indignation from a married woman who’s gonna start dating other women so she can find a new wife for her old husband after she runs off with an indie film boy toy who believes his fiancée is a widow.”

  Chad and Sophie howled and applauded, and I could not disagree. I raised my hands in surrender. “Fair enough,” I laughed. “Fair enough.”

  So the ad was sent to the Voice and was scheduled to run the next week.

  When I returned home that night, there was a note from Daniel letting me know that a package was delivered for me, and that I should pick it up at the gallery. I ran downstairs and found him showing patrons his work and handing them a schedule of upcoming shows.

  “I know what you’re here for,” Daniel said. “Let me finish up and I’ll get them for you.” He turned back to the older couple.

  Them?

  After the couple left, Daniel returned from the back office with a clay vase filled with sunflowers. He opened the little envelope and read, “Next week I’m sending my ear.”

  “It doesn’t say that.” I grabbed the note from him.

  “Well, it should, you little tart,
” Daniel smiled. “I’ve got to give the man credit, tracking down sunflowers this time of year. And you should give me a little something for intercepting the note the florist left on your door.” He leaned forward and pointed to his cheek, which I promptly kissed. Then I tore the small envelope open.

  “I love you. Matt.”

  I considered leaving Matt’s flowers at the gallery and setting up a visitation schedule with the guys, but couldn’t bear the thought of being apart from my one physical reminder of Matt. So, I did something awful. I placed the card in my wallet, took the flowers upstairs and put them on the dining room table.

  Reilly didn’t arrive home until eleven that night. His tie was loosened, his body saddled by life. As tired as he was, though, the flowers were the first thing Reilly noticed.

  “Who sent flowers?” he asked.

  “Who said anyone sent them?” I fished to see how he knew they were delivered.

  “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Who got us flowers?”

  Us?!

  Reilly tossed his keys and wallet on the table, and threw himself onto the couch.

  “I just thought flowers would brighten up the place,” I told him.

  “Oh.” He seemed less interested. Reilly flipped on the television and began his nightly ritual of watching exactly one-half second of every show on all seventy-two stations.

  Reilly shouted to me as I prepared my Sleepytime tea in the kitchen. “Honey, are we going to your mother’s or father’s place for Thanksgiving this year?”

  “Mother’s,” I returned. “Why can’t we go to your folks for Christmas? You know how I despise holidays with the sperm donor.”

  As I popped my head through the kitchen doorway, I noticed that the juxtaposition of the flowers on the table and Reilly’s head resting on the couch created the illusion of Matt’s sunflowers as my husband’s headstone. If that weren’t freaky enough, Reilly flipped past South Park and one of those little cartoon kids shouted, “They killed Kenny!” After ten minutes and three full rounds of the channels, Reilly finally found something he wanted to watch — CSPAN 2.

  * * *

  It always perplexed me how Reilly could be such a drip in most areas of life, but he still managed to find this great loft for us. To get into our home, we have to enter through a main entrance that also leads to Daniel’s and Chad’s gallery on the street level. If you turn to the right, you see the gallery door. To the left is the door that leads to the staircase up to our loft. Though I love the natural brick walls, the real attraction to the loft is the huge warehouse windows and a ceiling that reaches at least thirty feet above the hardwood floors. In the main living area, there’s a large glass window on the roof that we can open with a squeaky warehouse crank. We went for a minimalist look with one red leather sofa and a few quirky looking wood chairs that local artists carved. Reilly didn’t give me a word of protest when I bought three giant canvases of Chad’s work and a sculpture made of twisted metal that Daniel made. In our bedroom, we have a king-size mattress on the floor and an overstuffed white down comforter. To help with my insomnia, Chad cut several hundred tiny silver stars and hung vertical rows of them from fishing wire over the bed. Then he installed a few ten-watt blue bulbs on the ceiling. At night, we turn the main lights off and let the soft blue light reflect off the stars. It doesn’t help me sleep any better, but it does look lovely.

  Meeting Reilly, you’d think he lived in a house that looks like it was furnished by a factory outlet that advertises in the Sunday paper inserts. The kind with couches that look like you could spill whole meals on them and it would blend with the fabric. Lamps that have the panache of a ham sandwich. Coffee tables that make the statement, “I was made on an assembly line!” That’s kind of what Reilly’s family home looks like. To his credit, Reilly completely surrendered to the team of queens I brought in to help decorate when we moved in. When Daniel made a chandelier for us by assembling upside-down aluminum paint buckets, Reilly said nothing. When Chad found an old parking meter at a junkyard and insisted that we install it next to the toilet, Reilly didn’t put up a fight. And when their friend Rodrigo made us a 120-square-foot mounted mural of cereal boxes for the kitchen, Reilly just said it sure was colorful. He didn’t even fuss when Chad gave us one of his self-portraits. It was right after George W. Bush won the presidency and the country had chad-fever. Chad made his own chads by cutting out small rectangles from white card stock. He then dyed his homemade chads different colors and pasted them onto Lucite mosaic-style. We got a portrait of him suspending himself from a ledge by one hand. He called it “Hanging Chad.” “Dimpled Chad” and “Pregnant Chad” were clever too and sold quite well at the gallery.

  That night after Reilly went to sleep, I checked my e-mail.

  One from Father reminding me that we promised to spend Christmas at his home. “It’s still October, Father,” I shot back, and hit the reply button.

  Evie wrote to tell me what a great time she had in Ann Arbor. She hopes I’m well. Translation, she hopes I’ve snapped back to my senses keeping my underwear intact.

  And one from an unfamiliar address I suspected was Matt’s: sourmilk@aol.com.

  Did you like the flowers? When are you going to visit me in Los Angeles? Send your resume to a few places out here, and plan a trip just as soon as you set up some interviews.

  Where exactly did Matt get the idea that I would move to Los Angeles? I just said I’d marry him, not relocate my whole life. I would have paid ungodly sums of money for the freedom to pick up the phone right then, thank him for the beautiful flowers and tell him everything I learned that week about New York’s independent film industry. I was dying to hear Matt’s sexy evening voice, but instead the last sound I heard before going to bed was Reilly having a one-way shouting session with Barbara Boxer.

  Chapter 8

  As soon as I heard the running water of Reilly’s morning shower, I ran to my cell phone and dialed my voice mail. As I suspected, the late-night call was Matt, AKA “Me,” asking if I received the flowers he sent. Knowing that Reilly’s bathroom routine takes exactly twelve minutes, I decided to wait until he left for work before I’d return the call.

  I pulled the curtains back and watched the neighborhood early birds walking toward the subway or stopping across the street for coffee. A man in a long wool coat cupped a hot drink carefully in his hands before lifting it to his lips. Rushing past him was a woman with pale skin and long tangled red hair running so fast that her bright silk scarf began to catch air. She looked like an ad for motion. A black Scottish terrier led an older woman wearing a lavender knit hat. In a few hours, hand-holding couples, tourists and clusters of friends would begin walking this same street, taking their time to browse in Chad’s and Daniel’s gallery, the boutique next door or the Italian pastry shop at the corner. I’d be long gone by then, encased in my glass office. In less than an hour, it would be me trotting down the street in my high-heel shoes, hurrying toward the subway I really hoped I’d miss.

  Before I left, though, I had to call Matt and hear his voice. I tried to remember what his morning voice sounded like as I watched Reilly butter his English muffin and put on his glasses to read the paper. “Coffee?” he offered. Reilly pushed my sunflowers out of the way to make room to unfold his Investor’s Business Daily.

  “No thanks.”

  How ’bout leaving instead? Can’t you read that at the office?

  “I can’t believe it,” Reilly shouted over something he read in an article. “What a load of crap.” I knew he didn’t expect a response from me. Reilly had developed the concept of interactive media long before the software folks came up with the idea. “Do these idiots have any idea what that’s going to do to —” He stopped. “Do these people feel any sense of responsibility toward their shareholders? This is reckless, plain reckless,” Reilly said, placing his mug down hard on the table.

  I wondered what Matt’s morning routine was. I smiled, realizing that he probably didn’t have one. And
if he did, I could rest assured that it wouldn’t be shouting at Variety magazine, or whatever indie filmmakers read. I wondered what mornings would be like in the Malone-Reynolds house? Would Reilly let me keep the apartment in the divorce settlement? Would it feel weird to keep the same loft and change husbands? I wished I’d thought of this last night when we were writing the ad. Then I could have been on the lookout for a woman with her own apartment. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and divorce Reilly the old-fashioned way, I thought. I should just sit down at the table with him right now and tell him it’s over.

  “Reilly, you’re a wonderful person, but I want a divorce,” I rehearsed silently.

  “Damn it! These people are morons,” Reilly shouted.

  “Reilly, honey, it’s not you, it’s me.”

  “We’ve grown apart.”

  “We’ve had some great times together.”

  “This marriage has been lovely, but it’s run its course.”

  “They should be taken out to the woods and shot for this kind of stupidity,” Reilly exclaimed. He turned to me and laughed the way he does when he’s annoyed. “You know what the goddamn Congress wants to do now?”

  I shook my head. Reilly was in Washington. I was in California.

  “Reilly, we need to talk,” I said.

  “Okay,” he said, putting down his newspaper. “What’s on your mind?” The phone rang. “Let the machine pick up,” Reilly suggested. I was panic-struck by the thought that the call was Matt who called the directory for my home phone after I didn’t return his call last night.

  “It could be an emergency,” I said as I answered. It was Reilly’s partner, who told me he needed to talk to Reilly right away. It was an emergency after all, but not the one I feared. Just a limited window of opportunity to complete a transaction they’d been working on for months.

  “Prudence,” Reilly rushed. “I want to finish this conversation, but I’ve got to go take care of something right now. Can it wait till tonight?”

  “Yes, yes of course.”

  Reilly kissed me and thanked me repeatedly for understanding. “You’re the best,” he said as the door shut behind him.