The Wife of Reilly

by Jennifer Coburn

  “Tina, you are so lucky to be nineteen and have your whole life ahead of you,” I said. “How do you want to spend it? As a self-loathing lesbian dressed like a Stepford wife, wobbling around in heels? Or do you want to just enjoy life as who you are?” I couldn’t help adding, “By the way, you really can’t wear white shoes after Labor Day.”

  She laughed. “You’re right. I don’t feel straight now. I just feel exhausted all the time.”

  “Suppressing your true self takes a lot of energy, Tina.”

  I am so wise they should put me on a mountaintop somewhere so I could dispense advice to all of the misguided souls out there.

  * * *

  Cecily rushed back to the table apologizing for serving our satay to another table. She looked terrified of our reaction, as though we might call her manager over to the table and have her dismembered for our entertainment. She promised to have a new plate delivered within minutes, and begged for our forgiveness.

  “Don’t worry about it, Cecily,” Tina reassured her. “You’re going to get the hang of this in no time. My first week on the job was a bitch, then it gets easier, I promise.”

  The waitress smiled before scampering off to make apologies to other tables.

  “I’m glad we met,” Tina said. “You are so right, Prudence.”

  “So, I guess you’re not interested in hearing about Reilly anymore?”

  “Are you kidding? I think I’m in love with you!”

  Tina and I hugged as we departed. Despite the fact that we’d probably never see each other again, I considered her a friend.

  “Good luck meeting the right woman,” I thought of saying as we left. I only stopped myself when I realized she could very well say the same to me. Tina helped me as much I did her that night. I was starting to feel like a supreme failure at finding Reilly’s new wife. Helping Tina made me feel like someone thought I possessed a half ounce of insight.

  * * *

  I had one hour before Reilly was expected home, so I made the phone call I had been avoiding for days. Anna.

  “Hello, Anna?” I began, hoping it was not her and I would have an excuse not to have the conversation. I would have made the attempt so I’d be not entirely at fault.

  She confirmed.

  “Hi, this is Prudence, Prudence Malone. Reilly’s sister. We had dinner Sunday night. Well, I had dinner, you had appetizers. Anyway, do you remember who I am?

  “It was three days ago, of course I remember.” This was not going well.

  “Well, I was wondering if I could ask you why you decided to end our date so abruptly. Did I do something to offend you?”

  “No, no, not at all, Prudence. I just didn’t think it was going to work out so I didn’t want to waste your time or mine.”

  “Are you sure?” I paced the length of my living room.

  “Yes, really. I had a wonderful time,” Anna assured.

  “Really?

  “Really.”

  “Well, it’s just that, well, you got up and left and it seemed like maybe you were angry with me about something. Are you sure nothing was wrong?”

  She sighed. “I really didn’t want to get into this with you, but I felt, well, uncomfortable with you. It seemed like you were, you know, judging me.”

  Wasn’t that the whole point?! What a thin-skinned little whiner.

  “I was not judging you!” I defended.

  “Weren’t you?”

  “No,” I said, holding one hand against my chest in horror. “Absolutely not.”

  “Okay, then I misread the situation, I’m sorry. It just seemed like you were.”

  “No, no, not for a minute,” I shrieked. “Who am I to judge you? You are a schoolteacher, salt of the earth, patience of a saint. Judge you? I could never.”

  “Okay, I guess I was wrong. Sorry about that,” Anna apologized.

  “So, would you like to go out again sometime? With Reilly, I mean?”

  “No thank you,” Anna said. “I’ve got to run now. Lost is about to start.” Then she hung up.

  Why didn’t she want to give it another try? I wondered. I told her I wasn’t judging her. It’s because she was judging me! Of course she was. How else did she decide she didn’t want to go out with me again? What a hypocrite, telling me that she walked out because I was judging her when all the while it was her judging me.

  My silent tirade was interrupted by the sound of Reilly ascending the steps to our loft.

  Dead man walking.

  “Hi honey, I’m home,” he called from the front door.

  Good God, it sounds so normal.

  “Welcome home, darling,” I said.

  “Anything exciting happen while I was gone?”

  Oh not much, dear. Just met a pushy lawyer I thought you might want to marry before I decided I hated her, had a frightful meeting with my evil twin, got stood up for a breakfast date with a woman, met a playwright who doesn’t want to meet you because you’re “damaged goods,” rescued a young lesbian from the clutches of a homophobic cult, and was essentially called a snob by a bore.

  “Not much, dear. You know, same old, same old.”

  Chapter 13

  Reilly was home for an entire ten days, which made my life seem like occupied territory. I couldn’t talk to Matt when I wanted to. I couldn’t date women. And I couldn’t bear looking at sweet Reilly going about his business, completely unaware that the black widow spider had already bitten him. He sat on the couch watching Monday Night Football, glanced at me and smiled contentedly.

  How do you not know what’s going on? I thought. How can you not sense that we have a real problem here? How can you not tell I don’t love you?

  I wondered if, in his own way, Reilly had given up on our marriage too. He could only be this oblivious if he chose to be. I felt somewhat satisfied that I could pin some blame on Reilly. I smiled back at him, but not for the reason he thought.

  Reilly jumped from his seat and shouted as the fans on television went wild. “Touchdown, Giants,” said the commentator before he went on to talk about his own glory days on the field.

  When Matt and I spoke that morning, he mentioned he was hosting a Monday Night Football party at his house. I closed my eyes, imagining the two of us here next year throwing our weekly football soirees. My friends and his new city pals would blend together perfectly. We’d do cute themes like catering food from both coasts when the Giants played the, um… the Los Angeles team. Guacamole, Napa wine, hot dogs and Long Island iced tea. Maybe we’d even invite Reilly and his new wife. Civilized barbarians.

  I jarred at a thought that hadn’t crossed my mind until then. If Matt and I were going to live together in New York, surely he’d cross paths with Reilly at some point. I couldn’t ask our friends to pretend Reilly was dead.

  “Dead?! No, no, no, silly, you must have misunderstood. I said the marriage was dead.” I attempted before remembering I told Matt that Reilly was killed in a boating accident.

  “I realized that our marriage was dead the day of the unfortunate boating accident… the one where we both lived, but the marriage and the boat both sank.”

  “Matt, I want to be honest with you. I lied about Reilly being dead.” That should be confidence-inspiring for a new husband to hear. I imagined Matt outraged with me, shouting that he wished he’d never run into me again, and that I was nothing but a pathetic fuck-up. I had to talk to him. Not the next morning. That minute. I didn’t know what I’d say, but I had to start to undo the lie I told in some way that would make sense. I’d figure it out as I went along.

  Since that’s worked so well this far.

  I walked to the kitchen cupboard and stuffed my box of Sleepytime tea into my purse. “Reilly, I’m out of Sleepytime, do you need anything from the market?” I said nonchalantly, my heart racing out the door before my body had the chance to catch up.

  “It’s almost eleven,” Reilly said.

  “I know. I’m not the least bit tired, so I need to get my tea.”
/>   Reilly hit the remote control and turned off the television. “Give me a second to put on my shoes and I’ll go with you.”

  “I don’t want you to miss the rest of the game,” I offered.

  Searching for his sneakers, he waved his hand at me as if to say it was no big deal. “The Giants are finished for the night,” he said as he tied his shoes. “They’d need a miracle to pull this off.”

  So will I.

  Reilly and I walked two blocks to the corner fruit stand, which was open all night. One of the things I love most about Manhattan is that you never have to walk more than five blocks before you hit an all-night Korean fruit and vegetable market, with a salad bar in the center and miscellaneous groceries around the well-lit periphery.

  I plucked my Sleepytime tea from the top shelf of the store as Reilly filled a plastic bag full of dried dates and pineapple for himself. I opened my purse and shuddered when I saw my box of tea conspicuously topping the other contents. There was no way I could open my purse and dislodge my wallet without Reilly noticing my box of tea bags ready to leap out. I could possibly move the box from my bag to the shelf without Reilly noticing, but the storeowner was a human surveillance camera. Even though I would be reverse-shoplifting, the owner would surely wrestle me to the ground while hollering for the police. When it was time to pay, I avoided opening my wallet by turning toward the back. “Oh look, they sell soy latte here now,” I said as I looked at the cooler in the back of the store.

  “Do you want a soy latte?” Reilly asked as he handed the storeowner a twenty dollar bill.

  “No, that’s okay,” I said. “I’ll get one another time.”

  “We can still add an item on, right?” Reilly asked the stern fruit stand owner. He nodded and told us it was not a problem. “Go get yourself a soy latte, Pru.”

  Forget the soy latte already!

  As we walked home, Reilly began to exhale cold fog. “Isn’t it wild that in some parts of the world, summer’s just about to start?”

  Sometimes I swear I married Gomer Pyle. “Yeah, Reilly, it’s pretty wild how that works.” I tried to hate him, if for no other reason than to justify my choice to leave him. But it was tough. Then he made it impossible.

  “So Prudence, what’s going on in your life these days?” Reilly asked. “It seems like a long time since we’ve really talked. What’s going on with you? You seem a little,” he paused, “I don’t know, not here lately.”

  I turned to look at him, both relieved and disappointed that he was aware of my state of mind at all. Another part of my mind never stopped thinking about what Matt was doing.

  “I’m okay,” I assured Reilly.

  “You don’t seem like yourself,” he said. “But if you tell me you’re okay, then I’ll just let it go. If you need to talk about anything, you just let me know, okay?”

  Prudence Malone, you suck!

  * * *

  On the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving, Chad, Sophie, Jennifer and I met at the bar for drinks while Reilly was working late again. “I hate the holidays,” said Jennifer. “I hate the false sense of festivity and commercial bullshit. I hate the tourists walking too slow. I hate the party invitations that come for you and guest.”

  “Is this mood something a new hat might fix?” Chad asked, pointing to Jennifer’s gray frock, which must have been straight from the dressing room of a recent Kafka or Beckett production.

  “A new life maybe.”

  We knew better than to take Jennifer’s holiday blues too seriously. One day she might swear she lived a charmed life; the next she’d proclaim it a disaster. Each time she completely believed what she was saying. Jennifer universalized moments. If someone took a snapshot of Sylvia Plath baking cookies for her kids, she might think, “What a content and domestic mother.” Of course, what the snapshot wouldn’t tell is that moments later, the gloomy poet would stick her head in that very oven and bake her own head. It took me years to figure out that Jennifer’s moods were just more colorful than the rest of ours. No one had to look too far into Jennifer to see how she was feeling on any given day. She was a screamer, a hand waver, a singer and a floater. All before Wednesday.

  Undeterred by our resident advertising executive complaining about the commercialism of the season, Sophie said she was looking forward to her first Christmas in New York. “Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve had this romantic notion of Christmas in Manhattan. The lights, the ice skating, the windows at Saks Fifth Avenue,” she swooned.

  Jennifer reached her hand across the table onto Sophie’s. “Don’t let me bum your buzz. I just feel completely and utterly alone, but you enjoy, okay?”

  “Waiter!” Chad snapped. “Cosmopolitan for the little match girl please.” Turning to Sophie, he rested his elbows on the table. “You’re our city holiday virgin,” he chimed as he stirred his drink. “I’m taking you ice skating at Rockefeller Center, we’ll do the tree lighting, must see the Messiah,” he began to list. “Then when we’re done with that, I know all of the insider, need-to-know-someone type places I can take you.”

  “Like where?” Jennifer sulked.

  “Oh, nowhere you’d want to be,” Chad said. “Just holiday bullshit. You’d be bored to death,” he winked at her.

  Jennifer cracked the slightest of smiles under her flirty, tilted eyes. If they weren’t constantly bickering, and Chad weren’t gay, one would think they were in love.

  “Tomorrow is another day,” Jennifer said.

  Chad’s eyes shot to the windows fearing the fate of the bar’s velvet drapes.

  “You know who’s coming in two and a half weeks, right?” I asked.

  “Matt,” they answered in polysyllabic unison as if they were imitating the drone of kids in the classroom saying, “Good morning, Mr. Jones.”

  “Hey, speaking of the next Mr. Malone,” Jennifer perked up, “how’s the search?”

  “Where did I leave you guys last time?” I asked.

  “The lesbian,” Chad said.

  “Wow, it’s been a while. Okay, let me fill you in. I’m on hold right now till Reilly leaves, but last week there was Lisa who bored me within ten minutes going on and on about some ridiculous new miracle diet that only allowed her to eat same-colored foods at each meal,” I began.

  “Oh, I heard about this one,” Jennifer added, energized by the topic of the hunt for Reilly’s new wife. “This is the one who mixed rice, milk and sugar and drank it from a sports bottle, right?”

  “That’s the one. Pretty low calorie, huh? Anyway, I think I may have dated the daughter of the KKK Grand Dragon who went into her ‘what’s wrong with America today’ speech before water was on the table. You’ll appreciate this, Jennifer,” I said, turning to her. “She said she really liked the part of Reilly’s letter that specified ‘no boroughs’ because, let me try to remember exactly how she put it…. Oh yes, she said that ‘the coloreds’ were ruining the neighborhood in Queens where she grew up.”

  “Coloreds?! She used the word coloreds?”

  “Not exclusively.”

  “How seventies.”

  I continued as our food was served and we began to eat. “One woman spent a half-hour listing all her phobias,” I said, taking a bite of my goat-cheese-and-pesto pizza. “Get this. She said she has such a fear of flying, she needs to take a tranquilizer to make a plane reservation.”

  “Now that’s scary in and of itself,” laughed Chad.

  “One woman told me that she and her husband broke up when her baby was two weeks old,” I reported.

  “Men are such assholes,” Sophie offered. “The bastard was probably upset because the baby cried all night or he couldn’t have sex or —”

  “She had an affair,” I interrupted.

  “God, that’s even worse. What kind of bastard cheats on his wife right after she’s given birth to his child?!”

  “She had an affair,” I stressed. “She met a guy when she was six months pregnant and started carrying on with him. Can you believe?�
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  They all stared with knit brows. “She had an affair?” Sophie clarified. “What kind of man is going to have sex with a lady out to here?” She made a pregnant belly with her hands.

  “That’s worse than you, love,” Chad said.

  “What a freak,” Jennifer perked up. “Go on, my Prozac in Prada. I love hearing about your freaky dates.”

  “Okay, last week I went out to dinner with a woman, and when the waiter asked her how her salad was, she said it could use twenty-five percent less dressing and a better means of distribution.”

  “What does that even mean?” asked Chad, trying not to laugh.

  “Too much dressing on some leaves, and not enough of it on others,” Sophie answered. “I hate it when they do that. You get no dressing on the top, then it’s like a bowl of soup at the bottom. She was right to complain. They need to toss it around a bit. If I go out and pay good money for a meal, it damn well better be prepared well.”

  “Okay, another woman told me her gift was revisionism,” I attempted.

  “Again, what does that mean, love?” Chad asked.

  “She said she only remembers the good in life and forgets the rest. This way she only has happy memories.”

  Jennifer loved that one. “This is my competition out there! I’ll bet anyone at this table a thousand bucks that Miss Smiley Face is married before I am. Keep her number. I’ve got to track this bitch. We should track all of them and publish some sort of report.”

  “Easy, love,” Chad held out his hand like a crossing guard stopping her. “This is not the normal pool of women. These are women who answer ads in the newspaper.”

  “That’s so unfair, Chad,” I protested. “People have busy lives. This is a legitimate way to meet people. Not everyone can fall in love the old-fashioned way.”