That’s when I go out to the kitchen to take care of dessert and coffee.
I’m standing there watching the coffee drip into the pot when Tim announces cheerfully that he’s come to be my assistant. He pushes up the sleeves of his yellow cotton sweater.
While I pour half-and-half in the pitcher, he gets the cups and saucers down from the cupboard. He puts it all on a tray, carries it into the dining room. I cut the tarte tatin that my mother labored over and dollop crème fraîche on each piece.
“I’ve always been pretty handy in the kitchen,” he says, reappearing. “Do you remember?”
“I remember you as the charcoal king,” I tell him.
He laughs with exaggerated heartiness and then he says, “Wynter, I can’t believe you’re all grown up. I still think of you running around our yard with Jim and Terry like a bunch of little Indians.”
“Well, that’s what happens when you’re not looking. Little Indians grow up.”
“But they don’t all grow up as lovely as you.” “Thanks.” I take a step toward the dining room.
“Wynter.” I look at him. “I know this is a difficult time for you. I’m sure you’re lonely. I just want you to know that if you ever need anything. A friend. Or advice, or anything at all, I hope you won’t hesitate to call me.” Not us. Me. He holds out his card. “I have a little office at Marina del Rey. You can usually reach me there.”
I want to tear it into shreds and stuff it down his throat. “Thanks, Tim. But I’m sure my mom has your home phone.”
Tuesday morning, my mother’s upset because I eat only one piece of French toast. We’re sitting in the kitchen with sun streaming in through the double windows over the sink. A chorus of lawn mowers and leaf blowers is getting started outside. There’s a dusting of gold pollen on the table from the pink and yellow zinnias in the white porcelain vase.
“You’re not going to catch one of those eating disorders, are you?”
“Mother, you don’t catch an eating disorder.”
“I know, but I mean, it’s a psychological thing from being upset. It’s a control issue, and I know you must be feeling very out of control right now.”
“I’m not feeling out of control, I’m feeling fat. I’ve got a long way to go before anorexia sets in.”
She reaches over to push some hair off my face. “Don’t frown, Wynter. It wrinkles your forehead. You’re certainly not fat. You look wonderful. Tim was mentioning last night how pretty you are.”
I set down my fork. “Tim Graebel is a son of a bitch.”
“Wynter, what is the matter with you?”
“He was hitting on me out in the kitchen while his sweet little wife was sitting in there drinking coffee, totally unsuspecting.”
My mother laughs.
“He was,” I insist. “You should have heard him, telling me he knew how lonely I must be. What a difficult time this was for me. How I should call him if I needed a friend.”
She laughs again. “Ah, yes. The old I’ll-help-you-in-the-kitchen routine. What’s so funny is that they all think they’ve invented it.”
I stare at her. “You mean you know? You knew?”
“Wyn, I’ve been single for fifteen years. Quite an amazing number of friends’ husbands have tried that one on me. Including Tim. Make no mistake, Georgia’s not so unsuspecting.”
“What did you do?”
“I laughed at him. I laugh at all of them.” “What does she do?”
“She ignores it, of course.”
I shake my head. “Why do women put up with that bullshit?” “You know, your language has gotten quite vulgar.”
“I can’t believe this. You’re more upset about me using a four-letter word than you are about your friend’s husband making a pass at me. And you.” I wad up my napkin, toss it on the table.
She takes a sip of her coffee and sets the cup back in the saucer with a delicate clink. “Men can’t help themselves, dear. It’s up to women to maintain the standards.”
“Standards aren’t gender specific.”
She picks up my napkin, smoothes out the wrinkles, folds it into a neat triangle. “Wyn, I agree completely. But men really are the weaker sex; they need guidance. And women have either forgotten their moral authority or they’ve become afraid to use it.”
“Mother, please.”
“All right, I won’t bore you with facts. Your mind is obviously closed.” I get up and carry my plate to the sink, rinse it, and load it into the dishwasher while my mother sips her coffee and smiles into the sunlight.
After my mother has gone off to snatch order from the jaws of chaos at Prentiss Culver Wednesday morning, I call Elizabeth Gooden’s office and leave a message with her answering service. Then I sit down at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, a cream-cheese-smeared bagel, a notebook, and a pen.
Now I begin to grasp the full scope of my ignorance. For starters, I have no idea what David’s compensation agreement with JMP is. Hey, I just spend it. I know last year he made over $400,000, but I don’t know whether that includes his bonus, stock options, the Mercedes lease, the club membership, or if all that’s on top of the $400,000.
I don’t know what kind of IRA or pension plan he has, although I’m sure there’s something. I know our joint bank account number and how much we usually have in it at any given time. And there’s my bank account for household stuff and walking-around money. But for all I know, he could have other accounts. I don’t know diddly about investments, although I do know our broker. We have a ski condo in Aspen, but that makes me wonder if he’s ever bought other property without my knowledge. I know he has insurance, but I can’t remember who wrote the policy.
Elizabeth’s office is in a small, Spanish-style building on Ventura Boulevard, in Studio City. The sign on the door says “Gooden, Hedwick, Attorneys-at-Law,” and the office behind it is comfortable, not overly luxe. The Shaker-style couch and chairs are upholstered in blue and white, mid-price reproduction, probably Ethan Allen or something. No endangered mahogany, no glass and chrome.
The only other client in the office is a very pretty, very young Asian woman with red, swollen eyes who sits clutching a handkerchief and staring at the closed door across from her chair. I’ve barely touched down on the couch and opened a magazine when the receptionist calls my name and motions for me to follow her down the hall.
Elizabeth is shorter than I am, but then, most women are. Old-fashioned combs hold the dark hair back, away from clear, gray eyes that telegraph detached friendliness. She wears a navy blue suit with Joan Crawford shoulder pads, and her scarf could pass for a man’s tie, navy blue with flecks of red. I amuse myself by imagining it’s the spattered blood of an adversary. She shakes my hand firmly, shows me a chair, and sits down at her desk, where a file folder with my name already on it sits on top of a stack.
“So you’ve been married to David Franklin for seven years.” She opens the folder, pulls out a sheet of paper, takes the cap off a Mont Blanc pen. “How would you characterize the marriage?”
The question takes me by surprise. It sounds more like a shrink’s question than a divorce lawyer’s. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking.”
“Would you say that it’s been a happy marriage or an unhappy one, overall?”
“Happy,” I blurt out. “I guess. Well, at least until the last year or so. I mean, unless he was unhappy before that and I didn’t know it. Which is possible …”
Give it a rest, Wyn.
“Okay.” She rubs the tip of her nose with the pen. “Suppose you tell me about it, starting from where you first realized all was not well.”
This is worse than making the list of assets. I try to condense everything, to leave in the important facts and leave out the extraneous details. The problem is, I’m no longer certain which are which.
When I get to the lock-out scene, she interrupts me. “Some of the questions I’m going to ask you may seem more personal than professional, Wynter, but these thi
ngs are relevant to how we want to proceed with the case. This friend you were visiting in Seattle, is it a female friend?”
“Of course.”
“And she is simply a close friend. There’s no other kind of relationship between you.”
“Absolutely not.”
“I don’t mean to offend you. But you said your husband tried to imply that you had left him. He and his attorney could be planning to say that you left him for this friend—male or female. As your attorney, I can’t overemphasize the importance of being completely candid with me.”
“CM’s been my best friend since the third grade. That’s all we’ve ever been.”
She scribbles on the piece of paper. “How would you describe relations between yourself and your estranged husband since the day he changed the locks?”
“Practically nonexistent. I’ve only talked to him once or twice. Once I went over to the house and that’s when I saw him with Kelley. His girlfriend.”
She purses her mouth. “So you haven’t had sexual relations with him since he locked you out?”
I can’t help laughing. “It’s been a bit longer than that.”
“How long?”
“God, I don’t know. Months.”
“Do you have any idea how long he’s been seeing this woman?”
My stomach knots. “No. But I have a feeling it’s been a while.”
She cocks her head to one side like a curious little bird. “Why is that?”
“It sounds silly, I guess, but it was the way he kissed her. Kind of casually. Not the way you kiss someone when things are brand new.”
“Good observation.” She nods. “Do you have any financial records in your possession?”
I look out the window at the parking lot full of Mercedes and Jaguars and BMWs. Several lines are ringing out in the reception area.
“No. I … all that was at the house.” I pull my skimpy list out of my purse and hand it across the desk. She looks at it silently. Her face doesn’t give away anything. “I know it’s not very complete.” I shrug, helpless. “I guess I haven’t been very smart.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over it. It’s a lot more common than you probably think. It makes things a bit more difficult, but certainly not impossible. We would simply have to rely on discovery to ferret out any concealed assets. If he’s uncooperative, it might entail using an information specialist and a forensic accountant.” At the look on my face, she volunteers, “Yes, it does mean more money up front. But you stand to gain substantially. Do you want to go ahead and prepare to file?”
“Not yet.” It’s out before I can think. My face burns. She must think I’m either an idiot or a masochist. “How long do I have?”
Elizabeth leans back in her chair, matching the fingertips of one hand to those of the other. “As long as he doesn’t file, you aren’t required to do anything. If he serves us with papers, we have thirty days to respond. My suggestion would be that we file first, put him on the—”
Tears pool in my eyes. “I’m not ready.”
She smiles. “Then my next suggestion would be that we file for some separate maintenance for you. And we get an investigator to start nosing around. Just in case. Generally speaking, if you turn over enough dirt, you’re bound to dig up a worm.”
I write her a check for twelve hundred dollars, which pretty much cleans out my personal account. I should feel relieved, but I don’t. What I feel like is the time CM and I went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and got caught in the mob watching the Rex Parade. At one point we lost sight of each other and I was trying to cross a side street to a doorway where I thought I’d seen her. But everyone else on the sidewalk was going the other way and I suddenly found I was going with them; my feet weren’t even touching the ground. All I could do was keep my elbows up and let myself be carried along.
Six
Mornings are the worst. You have to drag yourself out of the comfortable black hole of sleep and face it all over again. Yes, it’s true. He’s with someone else. Probably at this very moment. Doing all those warm, sweet morning things.
The only remedy is to eliminate morning. So I sleep all day. My mother says it’s a symptom of clinical depression. She comes home after work, pulls me out of bed, shoves food at me. I sit at the table in my old pink chenille bathrobe, glassy-eyed, while she tells me about her job, where she goes to lunch, which coworkers she likes, the ones she loathes. Nothing registers. I belong over in Riverside at the Cryogenics Institute—frozen in liquid nitrogen till a cure can be discovered for divorce.
She hammers relentlessly at me about seeing a shrink, says I can get an antidepressant. I promise to think about it, and I do. I turn it over and over in my mind like a grooved stone. At night it sounds like a good idea, but in the morning, taking action seems overwhelming. The one thing I do with a certain amount of energy every day is strip the bed and wash the sheets. I’ve taken to sleeping in the nude, and I’m addicted to the smell of fresh sheets, their icy smoothness against my skin.
My mother says it’s pathological.
Maybe clean sheets are important to me because I’m awake all night, reading until my eyes ache, till they’re dry and scratchy when I blink. I have to keep feeding my brain with words, keep it chewing and digesting. The danger comes when I stop. When I close my eyes, the words are replaced by images of David. The way he smiles. How he looks reading in his leather chair, fair hair spilling onto his forehead. The way he chews his food, thoughtfully, as if considering every fine shading of taste. His effortless, almost professional tennis serve. The comical way he lifts his eyebrows in time to music. His elbow resting on the open car window when he drives. The sound of his voice. The scent of his Polo cologne.
So I plow methodically through the two cartons of books that I brought from the house. I don’t read them from beginning to end, I skim a few chapters of one, then pick up another. It’s an odd assortment, as if he went through the bookshelves and threw in every third book. The Mosquito Coast and The Great Gatsby and the Lord of the Rings boxed set and The Female Eunuch, Atlas Shrugged, Anna Karenina, and the complete set of Sherlock Holmes. The copy of Night Flight that was my father’s. The Tassajara book and James Beard on Bread, Julia Child volume two, Carol Field’s Italian Baker.
And the first edition of Elizabeth David’s English Bread and Yeast Cookery that CM gave me when I went to France. Talk about asking someone what time it is and they tell you how to make a clock. This book is 250 pages of the history of grains and mills and yeast and bread back to Mesopotamia, plus about 350 pages of recipes. At the back there’s a chapter of suggestions for further reading—as if there could be anything further.
One night, my hand brushes something rough textured, large and flat, wedged in the bottom of the second box. I pull out a three-ring binder covered in denim, corners frayed and bent. It’s the notebook I started the year before I went to France, a bread journal full of recipes and notes in blue ink, sources for ingredients and equipment in green, quotes on bread, both philosophical and practical, in black. The sections are separated by tab dividers. My God, how anal. I’m my mother’s daughter after all.
I close the binder and lay it on my night table, pick up the Elizabeth David book and plunge into the chapter called “Our Bread Grain: Wheat, Rye, Barley, Oats and Pease.” This should cure my insomnia.
Two hours later I’m still reading, seduced by the elegant prose, bound by tendrils of wit and romance. This isn’t just the history of bread, it’s the story of the world, how the growing and milling of grain and the making of bread shaped all of civilization. By the time I’ve worked my way through thirty centuries of the wheat grain’s progress from Kurdistan through Egypt and up into Europe, I’m exhausted. And we haven’t even gotten around to milling the stuff yet.
I turn the book upside down on the quilt, reach for my eyedrops. Artificial tears, the doctor called them. Ironic, since I’ve been able to produce plenty of the real McCoy lately. I recoil at the sting, blink rapidly,
then close my eyes for just a second, to let the fake tears lube my lids and fill the gullies in my eyeballs. The next thing I know, my mother’s standing there in her teal silk dress and white jacket. Sunlight’s flooding the room, and I seem to be waking out of a coma. I feel like Scrooge asking “Boy, what day is this?”
My mother frowns and tells me it’s October twentieth. And Elizabeth Gooden’s on the phone. Is it possible that the information specialist has unearthed something already? I picture some Danny DeVito—looking guy in a shiny blue suit and fedora sneaking around after David with a miniature camera. It makes me laugh out loud for the first time in weeks. One small corner turned, if you believe in such crystallizing moments.
I step into my flip-flops, pull on a T-shirt, pick up the phone.
“Good morning, Wynter. I hope I didn’t wake you.” She’s probably been up since five, run three miles, and had breakfast with a judge.
“No,” I lie, “I was just in the shower.”
“You’ll be getting the paperwork in a day or two, but I wanted to let you know that your husband’s been ordered to pay temporary support of $3,000 a month. He’ll be making the first deposit in your account on the thirty-first. Are you going to be okay in the—”
“Three …? Three thousand dollars?”
“I asked for five, but Hochnauer convinced the judge that you had deserted the marriage—”
“Who?” My toes are gripping the edges of the flip-flops.
“Ivan Hochnauer, your husband’s attorney, a.k.a. Ivan the Terrible,” she adds cheerfully.
“Oh. Is there any good news?”
“Yes. We’ll go back and get an increase, but I need some time to prepare, and I wanted you to have some money in the meantime.”
“Well …” Strange how quickly you forget what confidence feels like.
“Wynter, are you doing anything? I mean, getting out, seeing friends, going to movies, exercising?”
“Well …”
“That’s what I thought. You need to be in motion. Even if you don’t feel like it, you’ll be better off over the long haul if you stay active.” “I will. I’m just—”
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