Who Makes Up These Rules, Anyway?

by Stevi Mittman

  And then, head high, elegant as ever, she announces that she will be in her room, should anyone need her.

  A nurse takes over for Dr. Benjamin, applying pressure on Rio’s leg, while she rises to meet the police.

  A minute later, two EMS workers come in and carry Rio out. “I’ll come back and see you as soon as I can,” he calls to me from the stretcher. “We’ll work it out. Ti amo.”

  Bobbie, still holding on to me, makes a guttural sound and says something like “work it out, my ass.” Then she asks me, “You all right?”

  I survey the room. The police allow my father (the adulterer) to take my mother (the assailant) to her room (in the looney bin) for now. They are talking to Dr. Benjamin (the psychiatrist who’s medicating me) and Diane (the rookie who is eating all this up), who are nodding and throwing a glance my way every now and then. Dr. Benjamin must have told them about the paintball accident at the house because I can see a spark of recognition flare in one of the cop’s faces.

  A nurse is cleaning up the blood (of my two-timing, conniving, black-hearted husband) on the linoleum.

  “Are you crazy? Of course I’m not fine!” I tell Bobbie. I figure it’s going to take some time to put all the pieces back together. “But I will be.”

  CHAPTER 31

  My father wanted me to go home with him. Bobbie offered to stay with me at the house. Dr. Benjamin suggested I not rush home, but take another day or two at South Winds before the kids come home, to “get my bearings.”

  But I have come home alone. Home to the kitchen full of red paint and the yard full of dirt and one enormous hole, not unlike the one in my life. I’ve wandered around the house for two days, trying to separate what really happened from what I thought was the truth. There are a million reminders of the tricks Rio played on me—I can’t reach into the fridge for milk without thinking it’s a miracle there’s any in there.

  I call Rio’s mother and tell her that there has been an accident and that Rio is in the hospital. I offer no details but suggest that it would be best if Rio goes home to her house to recuperate. Rio can tell his mother whatever he pleases, as far as I am concerned.

  All I am worried about is the children.

  Dr. Benjamin, now that she has released me as a patient, insists on my calling her Ronnie, stops by with a box of rugelach. I invite her in and get a thrill that we are on my turf for a change.

  “Did I tell you that Bobbie finally figured out why the house was such a mess even though Rio had a girl in to clean?” I ask her as I usher her into my kitchen—better known as the scene of the crime.

  “At least tell me she wasn’t cleaning in your necklace,” she says, figuring out for herself that Rio’s “maid” was Marian. My father, with Diane in tow, has already gotten the diamond necklace back.

  “Rio the Hood and—” I start.

  “Maid Marian,” she finishes with a laugh while I place little pastries on a plate and turn on the coffeepot.

  “So,” I say, gesturing at the paint-splattered walls. “I’m thinking of Barely Salmon in here. It’ll be brighter than it was.”

  She takes a bite of the fresh rugelach and nods appreciatively. I don’t know which she likes, the pale walls or the cookies. I don’t care. Just being in my own kitchen, having a normal conversation here, shooting the breeze, is heaven. “Barely Salmon. Sounds like that lox-and-cream-cheese mix they sell in the deli.”

  We sit down at the table and I tell her about possibly selling the house, and changing some things I can’t live with. I talk in detail about every room, and what it will take to make the house ready for the market.

  “I can do all that,” I say. “But I’m worried about the kids. I mean, is that one thing too many for them? Coming home to only me and then having to move and make new friends and—”

  She asks what I’m going to tell them.

  “You mean after I tell them that their grandmother shot their father while I was in the mental hospital?”

  “Yeah, after that,” she says with a grin.

  “That their grandmother could go to jail if their father decides to press charges?”

  She takes a good look around the room. Rio was clever to have loaded the rifle with red paint. Even knowing the truth, it still looks like a murder happened here. “When do they come home?”

  “The end of next week. I’ve got the painters coming in tomorrow to do the kitchen,” I say.

  “Good,” she says. It’s different now that she has resigned as my doctor, now that she is my friend. She doesn’t push me, she doesn’t tell me that I am avoiding the real issues with my decorating plans. She doesn’t tell me how symbolic it is that I am painting over the problem. If only I can stop trying to show her I am now fine.

  “Did I tell you that I’m having the pool filled in?” I ask. “If we stay or not, I’m not comfortable with a pool in my backyard, and I’m not apologizing for my feelings.”

  “Good for you!”

  “Well, I really am sorry, and I wish I didn’t have to do it, but I’m going to try not to apologize, anyway.”

  “Teddi, you’ve got nothing to apologize for,” she says. “And that’s the last professional opinion I intend to give you.”

  She pops another rugelach into her mouth with a shrug that says she simply can’t resist. Then she looks out into my hallway, gets up and strolls through it until she is standing in my living room and gazing toward the dining room.

  “This place is really fabulous. Who did your decorating?” she asks.

  When I tell her I did it all myself, she asks if I’d consider doing her office over for her. She starts to tell me that it’s getting a little shabby and we both laugh at her forgetting that I’ve seen it firsthand.

  “I would love to do it,” I say from the heart. “The first thing that goes is that dreadful leather chair.”

  She asks if this is what I plan to do with my life and I tell her about the money I’ve made from my business with Bobbie, and that I thought I’d use it to start a decorating business of my own. I’ve also asked my father if I can work at Bayer three days a week offering decorating services free to his customers, like they do in Bloomingdale’s, and he’s agreed. “With Alyssa in full-day kindergarten I’ll be able to work until about two and still get home for the kids. And Bobbie says she’ll cover for me if I’m late.”

  She tells me that she thinks that’s terrific, and acts as though my life is settled. As if everything is over.

  “But it really kills me that there isn’t anything to nail that husband of yours on,” she says as she balls her fist and grimaces.

  “You ought to hear Bobbie and Diane. Last night they came over and we sat around trying to figure out what we could do to get even without getting Diane thrown off the force, of course.”

  “Did you come up with anything?” she asks. “Anything I can help with? Do? Don’t think I haven’t considered having him committed, but—”

  “Well, when we ruled out illegal things like poison and blowing up his car, no. And you are helping. You’re seeing me through this and letting me know that it’s all right to be angry. That’s not something I’ve ever been allowed before.”

  Ronnie nods, but her look says that isn’t enough for her.

  “So,” she says after a while, drawing out the word and making it clear that it is time.

  “So,” I agree. “What am I telling the kids? Well, my big fear is what Rio will tell them.”

  “Is he still in the hospital?”

  “No. He’s at his mother’s. He calls me three times a day to tell me he loves me and wants to come home.”

  “And will you let him?” Her eye begins to twitch, something I never noticed before.

  “Hey—remember, I’m not really crazy” is all I say.

  CHAPTER 32

  Iam not a vindictive woman. I repeat this to myself several times as I sit across from the attorney Diane and Bobbie have insisted I consult.

  “Because Citibank is FDIC insured, the
forgery is considered a felony,” she explains to me as she examines the loan application I found in Rio’s kitchen junk drawer—the one with my name on the signature line.

  I tell her that I’ve called the bank and canceled the loan. She shrugs noncommittally, raising an eyebrow as if to say that it doesn’t matter in the scheme of things. Only I’m not a schemer, and I don’t know what she’s getting at.

  “That doesn’t change the facts. You can still bring this to the police, have your husband arrested and—”

  “—my children would then have a felon for a father,” I remind her. And then I remind myself again that I am not a vindictive person. As tempting as it is, it’s not a place I can go.

  “Does he know you have this?” she asks me, tapping the loan application with a well-manicured fingernail. My own nails are gnawed to the quick, but I make no effort to hide them. Ironically I see them as a badge of courage, or a medal of honor. I may be a little the worse for wear, but I made it through—I survived.

  “Mrs. Gallo?” she asks when I don’t answer.

  “Bayer,” I correct. “Teddi Bayer. It may not be a great name, but it’s mine. I want it back.”

  She assures me that will be no problem, she will take care of it along with the divorce.

  “But there’s still the matter of Mr. Gallo. A man who could pull something like this isn’t going to just tuck his tail between his legs and go away.”

  “Well…” I say slowly, as a plan begins to take form “…I might be able to make him do just that.” Maybe, it seems, I am a schemer after all.

  “How so?” The attorney asks, and follows my gaze to the papers she’s holding. She smiles and asks again whether Rio knows I’ve found the loan application.

  I shake my head. I knew when I found it in the junk drawer that the loan application wasn’t junk. He’d submitted it and the bank had approved it. I suppose he thought he could tell me I didn’t remember signing, but I am past falling for any of that stuff now.

  I called Diane right away and she assured me Rio had committed a crime and then she’d set up the appointment with the best divorce lawyer on Long Island. Still, I didn’t know what it all meant until this moment.

  “If I were to turn that application over to the authorities, that would be the end of the line for Mr. Gallo, right?” I ask. The power I feel is almost physical—it seems to surge through my body. It scares me, but only a little.

  “But as you’ve pointed out—” the attorney begins.

  “And the statute of limitations?” I ask.

  She starts to tell me that I don’t have to worry about that, that it’s seven years and it’s only been a few weeks, and then she stops. “I see where you’re going with this,” she says. “Does Mr. Gallo have an attorney?”

  “I guess he’d better,” I say.

  She asks what exactly it is I want from him. I take a deep breath and find it easier than I expected to pinpoint. “I want him out of our lives, but I want the children as unscathed as possible. And the way I see this happening, the only way, would be for him to leave me for another woman.” I think of Kimmie and Kristen, who never thought that Mike didn’t love them when he left, never blamed themselves. The Ks never felt abandoned because they knew that Mike was leaving Bobbie, not them. “I want him to tell the kids that he loves them but that he’s fallen in love with someone else. He couldn’t help himself. He’s sorry, they’ll always come first with him, even if he and Marian have children of their own, but he has to follow his heart and find happiness with her.”

  “Marian?” she asks, and until she does I don’t even realize what I’ve said. And it’s so perfect. So fitting. I explain how Marian helped him in his plot to drive me crazy.

  “They deserve each other.”

  “Is it blackmail?” I ask, suddenly worried that my children could have two felons for parents.

  “Are you asking him for money to keep quiet?” she asks me.

  “I’m asking him to go away and not hurt my children in the process,” I say.

  “And child support?” she asks.

  I can’t help laughing. The chances of Rio earning legitimate money anywhere but Bayer are even smaller than the chances of my father letting him stay on there. I repeat that I just want him to go away.

  “Not blackmail,” she concedes.

  “Can I really make him marry her?” I must admit that I am a little giddy with power.

  “Is that what you really want?”

  I suppose it isn’t. But since I can’t have what I really want—to change the past, to make Rio the husband I pretended he was—I admit that I do want some measure of revenge. I can just hear Ronnie Benjamin asking me if knowing Rio is miserable will make me happy.

  I think long and hard before I answer.

  “No, but, to quote my soon-to-be-ex-husband, it makes a helluva down payment.” I smile like I haven’t smiled in what feels like years.

  “Have someone tell him to get himself an attorney pronto,” she tells me. “I’ll take it from there.”

  I give her all my particulars and head for the parking lot, where I find Bobbie shouting into her cellphone as she paces anxiously. She raises an eyebrow at me in question and I nod. “Whoo hoo,” she shouts into the phone. “Teddi rules!” She closes the phone and we are both giggling as we head toward my car.

  “Retail therapy, anyone?” she asks once she’s settled in the shotgun seat. “Next stop, Designer Shoe Warehouse?”

  Tomorrow I’ll have to figure out how much to tell my parents. I’ll have to figure out how to tell the kids that their father has “left me.” I’ll have to finish removing any trace of Rio from my house and my life. I’ll have to insist that there are letters to each of the kids from Rio which explain and apologize for no longer loving their mother. I’ll have to make him understand that he is to fade out of their lives. And I’ll have to get myself set up at Bayer Furniture.

  Tomorrow I’ll have to call Ronnie Benjamin and tell her where things stand.

  But today some retail therapy sounds perfect. I shift my 1961 candy apple red vintage Corvette convertible into Drive while Bobbie slides a CD into the player Rio had installed and cranks up the volume so that the entire parking lot can hear Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive!

  Cliché? Maybe, but for the first time in a long time—maybe my whole life—I finally believe I will.

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