The Not-So-Perfect Man

by Valerie Frankel

  Her sister struggled to latch a string of pearls around her neck. Betty got up to help. She stood behind Frieda, in front of the full-length mirror. After securing the clasp, she looked at their reflection. Betty was taller, darker. Her hair straighter. But they were sisters, anyone could see that.

  Frieda said, “Sex with David is fine.”

  “Fine?”

  “We’ve only done it a few times. It takes a while to get used to each other’s bodies,” said Frieda.

  “It took you and Sam about two seconds,” said Betty.

  Frieda applied blush. “You never liked Sam,” she said. “You never supported the relationship.”

  Betty hadn’t gotten to know Sam well enough to dislike him. “I wasn’t sure Sam was right for you. I’m not sure David is either. But what do I know? I mean, it’s hard to know what’s right when you’re on the inside of a relationship. It’s impossible from the outside.”

  Frieda said, “You miss Earl.”

  Bingo. Betty had successfully worked through her apathy, and her antipathy toward the bastard Earl. Now that her raw emotions had been cooked all the way through, she found herself missing him, wanting to go back to the morning he walked into her office and turned her life upside down.

  Frieda said, “David told me something odd. About Ilene. He said that people at Cash are saying Peter left her. Can you believe the viciousness of office gossip? To make up a complete lie and spread it around?”

  Ilene’s secret wouldn’t keep. Frieda would be the last to know. Betty said, “How does a rumor like that get started?”

  “David said it comes from people at Bucks. They’re saying Peter is shacked up with a much younger woman in some Lower-East-Side hovel.”

  “What does Ilene say?” asked Betty, wondering how staffers at Bucks knew what her apartment looked like.

  Frieda said, “I haven’t breathed a word to Ilene. She’d be furious. David said she’s been working like a dog on some big bankruptcy story and barely interacts with anyone at work.”

  Betty hated hearing that. So now she’d cut herself off from her colleagues, too. Betty had been pushing Peter to contact his wife, to make up with her. But he was waiting for Ilene to make the first move. He said he’d waited this long, he could wait a while longer. It was a stalemate, Betty in the middle, keeping Peter’s location a secret from Ilene, and Ilene’s pregnancy a secret from Peter.

  The whole cloak-and-speculum business was starting to wear on her nerves. Betty felt locked in their conflict, unable to break free, but not quite wanting to, since, if she were unencumbered with secrets and a house guest, she’d be duty bound to battle her own demons. The plastic folder with the goods on Earl remained under her mattress. She wasn’t ready to mail it, thereby letting him go. He mistreated her. He manipulated her. He was a liar, a cheat, a swindler, and a jerk. But he made her pulse race. That had to count for something. Maybe it counted for everything.

  Not for Frieda, apparently. She’d switched from sex to security in a blink. Betty watched Frieda primping, wrestling with her curls so they fell just so. She seemed content. Betty wanted to ask Frieda how she’d let go of Sam so easily, whether she still thought about him. Betty could not stop thinking about Earl.

  Changing the subject, Betty said, “What’s Justin’s problem tonight?”

  “He’s pissed off that I’m going out,” said Frieda, finishing her face and spritzing Obsession. “I better go. I’ll call you.”

  “If you want to stay at David’s tonight, I’ll sleep over,” volunteered Betty.

  “Thanks,” said Frieda, “but I’m definitely coming home.”

  “With David?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “You’d willfully pass up the opportunity for some of that fine, fine sex?” asked Betty.

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Frieda. “If I do bring him home, you can have sex with him.”

  “Don’t think I won’t,” said Betty.

  Ignoring Justin took a lot out of Betty. She needed sustenance, so she made popcorn in the microwave and put it in a large bowl on the living-room table. She ate a handful, pushing the bowl an inch closer to Justin. From his nest of pillows on the couch, he looked at the popcorn, but didn’t dive in. Betty continued to nibble, making exaggerated yummy sounds, inhaling the butter scent, waving nosefuls of it into her face.

  Justin could only take so much. Finally, he edged forward on the couch and started eating. A few mouthfuls later, his mood broke. Justin and Betty tossed kernels into each other’s mouths, and ended up whipping the corn at each other’s eyeballs as hard as they could.

  More popcorn ended up on the floor than in their stomachs. Black and White wandered over, eating what they could. Black started choking and then puked, which made Betty and Justin laugh.

  The absent-mindedness of popcorn eating loosened Justin’s lips. “No one will ever be my dad except my dad.”

  “Your mom knows that,” said Betty. “But it would be nice to have a stepdad, don’t you think?”

  Justin said, “I liked it better with Sam. When he wasn’t away, he spent every night here with me. He never made Mom go out.”

  “Grown-ups need to go out,” said Betty.

  “She can go out with me,” said Justin, completely missing the point.

  Betty said, “She needs to go out with a man. Your mom has always had boyfriends. She doesn’t feel happy unless someone pays attention to her in a special way.” There. That had to make sense, even to a six-year-old.

  He seemed to absorb the information, pausing motionlessly as his hard drive of a brain spun and processed the data. “I’ll pay special attention to her.”

  “No, no. You’re not getting it. I’m talking about grownup stuff. You probably don’t understand.”

  “Are you talking about sex?” asked Justin.

  “Let’s stick with ‘special attention,’ ” she said, not sure what the proper perimeters were on this conversation.

  Justin said, “Not all grown-ups care about that. I bet my teacher doesn’t.”

  “You’d be surprised,” said Betty.

  “You don’t seem to care about it,” he said. “You never have boyfriends, except that long-haired guy at Christmas, but just that one time. Mom said he dumped you. Sorry about that.”

  “Good riddance,” said Betty.

  Justin continued. “If you don’t want special attention, then you’re like a kid. That’s why you’re here. You’d rather be with your own kind.”

  She shook her head. “Your logic is flawed,” she explained. “I’m a fully formed adult who makes rational decisions, weighs risk/benefit ratios, and then acts accordingly. I’ve decided that special attention isn’t worth the pain it can cause. I’m an adult, ruled by reason. A child is ruled by desire, like your mom. By that analysis, she’s more childlike than I am.”

  Justin stared at her, unblinking. She said. “Did you get that?”

  He said, “You lost me.”

  “Which part?”

  “I don’t know what logic means,” he shouted. “I’m only six!”

  She laughed. “Sometimes I forget,” she said, grabbing him and giving him a squeeze. He sat on her lap, and they ate popcorn out of each other’s hair.

  He said, “Sounds to me like you’re playing hide and seek. You’re good at hiding, but you’re supposed to let yourself get found.”

  Betty asked, “Are you still in therapy?”

  He shook his head. “The insurance ran out.”

  “Good,” she said. “You’ve clearly had enough of that already.”

  Chapter 35

  Tuesday, September 16

  10:30 A.M.

  “What brings you here today?” asked Denise Bother. She wore a smart sweater set, cotton, breathable, purple. It reminded Frieda of orchid petals.

  “I’m worried about Justin,” replied Frieda. “He asked his first-grade teacher, a twenty-eight-year-old woman, if she needed sex. Or ‘special attention from a man’ was how he pu
t it.”

  “That doesn’t sound alarming,” said Dr. Bother. “Many first graders are curious about sexuality.”

  “He resents it whenever I leave the house,” said Frieda. “He whines constantly. He’s clingy.”

  Dr. Bother crossed her legs and rested her interlocked hands on top of her knee. She said, “Let’s put Justin aside for a moment. How are you doing?”

  “Great. Good,” said Frieda.

  She was. The school year in full swing, Frieda was settling into a daily routine. Summers were endless, especially the weeks between camp and school. Fall was finally here, and Frieda felt centered, steady enough to hang around a bit at drop-off to chat with the moms, exchanging stories about What I Did This Summer.

  One mom, Sandy, had asked her, “Are you still dating the actor?”

  “Oh, no,” said Frieda. “I’m done with him. We broke up a few months ago.”

  Sandy said, “You’ll find someone else.”

  Frieda said, “I already have. David is an award-winning financial journalist. He works at my sister’s magazine.” She laid it on thick. “He’s a recently divorced dad, but alimony and child support aren’t a problem for him. Money isn’t a problem for him.” Frieda watched Sandy’s eyebrows go up. “He’s got blue eyes, brown hair. Six feet tall. A marathoner.” She could get into this, bragging about David as if he were her prized bull at the fair.

  Sandy said, “You sure can rope them in.”

  Frieda said, “I’ve been fortunate.”

  Sandy said, “He sounds like a keeper.”

  “You mean Sam wasn’t?” Frieda asked, forgetting for a minute that she was supposed to be madly in love with David.

  Sandy had given her a puzzled stare. Then she said, “Well, congratulations. David sounds perfect.”

  David was letter perfect. So why wasn’t she perfectly happy?

  Dr. Bother said, “If you’re doing so well, why did you call for an emergency appointment? Don’t waste my time or yours by saying this is about Justin.”

  “I’m afraid of being alone,” said Frieda.

  “You’re human.”

  “The man I’ve been seeing…”

  “Sam,” said Dr. Bother.

  “Sam and I broke up,” she said quickly. “I’m with David now. He’s been my friend for a while. We can talk for hours. He fits into my life. He loves Justin. His daughter, Stephanie, is moving to New York. If we get married, she’ll be Justin’s sister, and we can get her into Packer. David says he wants to get married anyway. But this school situation has pressed the issue. The wedding plan may seem rushed. But I can tell we’ll have a good life together.”

  “You describe him as a friend,” said Dr. Bother.

  “We’ve been lovers for a couple of weeks.”

  “How’s that part of it?” asked the shrink.

  “Nice,” said Frieda. “Fine.”

  “Friendly?”

  “Very.”

  “Why did you and Sam break up?” asked Dr. Bother.

  Frieda tried to come up with a pithy answer. “It wasn’t working,” she said.

  Dr. Bother nodded knowingly. Smugly. “The passion died?”

  “No, actually. If anything, it got more intense.”

  “You stopped loving him?”

  “No.”

  “Did he stop loving you?”

  “No.”

  “He didn’t get along with Justin?”

  “They liked each other,” said Frieda.

  “You fought often?” asked the shrink.

  Frieda shook her head. “We hardly ever fought. Only about my frustration with his travel schedule.”

  “Was he emotionally withholding?”

  “No. He said I was.”

  “Did you resent his financial situation?”

  “No.”

  Dr. Bother was silent for a minute. “I don’t understand why it wasn’t working.”

  Frieda blurted, “Neither do I. The pressure just built and built. He was gone so much. My sisters made me wonder if he was using me. Justin didn’t seem so enamored of him. But I still love him. It’s just like it was before. I can’t stop thinking about him.” Oh, shit. The tears again. What was it about this couch? Frieda reached for the box of Kleenex. “I made a terrible mistake!” she wailed.

  “You’re here to talk about how to fix it,” prompted Dr. Bother.

  She shook her head. “I can’t fix it. I’m here to learn how to live with it.”

  “Why can’t you fix it?”

  “I acted terribly the night we broke up. I was dismissive and condescending. I must have made him hate me. Besides, he’s doing so well without me. It’s almost as if our breakup was what he needed to succeed. I can’t step back in and be his bad-luck charm.”

  The timer bell rang. “We have to stop,” said Dr. Bother. “We should schedule another appointment. And I’d advise you to hold off on marrying David.”

  Frieda stood, relieved to tell someone the truth about how badly she missed Sam. The relief was so monumental, Frieda decided that unburdening herself was all she needed to do. Now, she could move on. She could let him go.

  Frieda said, “I’ll call you for an appointment.”

  Dr. Bother said, “We can make one right now.”

  “I’ve got to run. I’ll call you,” said Frieda, lighter than she’d been in months. Ready to see David in a whole new light. Ready to embrace a life with him.

  The doc smiled. Knowingly. Smugly. “One last thing,” she said.

  “Yes?” asked Frieda.

  “Comfort and security are appealing,” she said. “You should know. You’ve been there with Gregg. You’d better ask yourself how badly you want to go back.”

  Chapter 36

  Wednesday, September 17

  4:09 P.M.

  So it’d come to this, thought Ilene, paging through the short stack of legal pages. The packet had been messengered from Peter’s office this morning, with a handwritten note.

  Ilene,

  First step, legal separation. One year from the date of the countersigned document, we can file for uncontested divorce, no lawyers needed. Notarize. SASE enclosed.

  Happy birthday,

  Peter

  Ilene’s fortiethth birthday wasn’t for another month. She’d let Peter’s August birthday, his forty-first, blow by unacknowledged. She dragged her fingers over the raised seal of the notary stamp by Peter’s signature. This was the grand romantic gesture she’d been waiting for?

  When she found the envelope—her assistant had placed it prominently on her chair, instead of in her IN box— Ilene’s heart skipped a beat. The Bucks logo, Peter’s handwriting. He’d finally contacted her. She picked up the package and sat down. Drawing a breath, she opened it. It wasn’t, she saw immediately, an impassioned plea to let him come home. Ilene started reading the documents, her skin prickling with shock. At that moment, her assistant stuck her head in to ask if Ilene needed coffee. Ilene was certain that her assistant had been the one churning the gossip mill. The whispering had gotten loud enough to reach her boss’s office.

  Mark responded to the news with an e-mail. He asked her what she was going to work on next, “that is, if you think you can handle a big story right now,” he’d written. “I can put you on Bank Notes if you’d like to take it easy for a while.” Bank Notes was a front-of-the-book section of short items. Two-, three-hundred-word boxes on employment news, minor mergers and sell-offs. It was the low-rent section of the magazine, strictly relegated to associate editors and junior writers who were hungry enough to toil over glorified blurbs. Bank Notes stories were way (WAY) beneath her. Ilene send Mark a reply, suggesting she do a lifestyle feature on the hidden expenses of divorce. She hadn’t heard back yet.

  Her assistant repeated the offer of coffee. Ilene told her to go away, close the door, and leave her the fuck alone. She said “the fuck” with enough emphasis that her lip bounced off her teeth, sharpening that f to a knifepoint. Her assistant—the poor girl wa
s as dim as a porch light— scurried away like the rat she was. In seconds, Ilene could hear her murmuring on the phone. She bent her head to study the separation papers.

  Ten minutes later, she heard a gentle tapping on her door. She ignored it. David Isen slid her door open anyway. He sat down in the chair opposite her desk. He was smiling, beaming. Her separation was a happy event for him? He was no longer the only one with a failed marriage on staff?

  Ilene said, “What’s with the grin?”

  He said, “I’m bursting.”

  Bursting with sympathy? “Don’t do it in here,” she said. “I just had the carpet cleaned.”

  “I’m supposed to keep my mouth shut. And I will. I’m relying on your powers of deduction,” he said. “At dinner with your sisters the day-after-tomorrow, Frieda is going to shock and amaze you.”

  This was about Frieda? Ilene didn’t know if she should feel relieved or insulted. She said, “The suspense will have to kill me until then. I’m too busy right now to talk.” She gestured to the door.

  David laughed. He laughed! He was bursting with the giggles, apparently. He said, “I’ll go. But first, I want to thank you for introducing me to Frieda. You’ll know just how grateful I am in a couple of days.”

  As soon as he was gone, Ilene stuffed the envelope into her purse and ran out of the office. Peter’s signature had been notarized that morning. Not to be outdone, Ilene would get her countersignature notarized this afternoon. And she wouldn’t just pop the papers into the SASE. She’d send them certified mail. Overnight certified mail. She’d spend the extra $20, and then messenger Peter the receipt.

  She got the papers notarized at the newsstand in her building lobby and walked the dozen odd blocks to the post office at Third and 54th. It was an old one, built at the turn of the century. The last century. Stone mosaic floors, thirty-foot ceilings, a hanging chandelier, a long, winding circular staircase to the second-floor balcony, which overlooked the teller action below. A prime example of Old World opulence. Ilene walked up to a young man in an immaculate uniform (security), and asked, “Excuse me. Do you know where I can get a letter certified?”