An Ex to Grind

by Jane Heller

  “So? Didn’t you and Dan fight when you were together?”

  “Yeah, and now we’re divorced. Not only that, he never screamed at me.”

  “Probably because he was afraid of you.”

  “He was not!” What was it with everybody? “I think she’s pushing him too hard to make a commitment. Maybe you went overboard during that last counseling session with her.”

  “You wanted her to move in there right away, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “‘But’ nothing. I convinced her that if she really liked the guy, she should throw caution to the wind and be the aggressor in the relationship.”

  “Well, now you’ve gotta tell her to back off a little. Just so she doesn’t scare him off.”

  “Scare him off? He’s crazy about her.” She smiled proudly. “He bought her a necklace the other day. Amethyst, her birthstone. How many women get necklaces after just a few weeks, huh?”

  I felt sick. “He’s buying her expensive jewelry? With my money?”

  “Melanie, Melanie.” She shook her head. “You want them to stay together? It’s gonna cost you.”

  “I know.” I breathed deeply. “But you will call her, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And you’ll tell her to hang in there with Dan?”

  “You got it.”

  “You’ll say that men like him don’t come along every day or something absurd like that?”

  “Look, I know my business, okay?”

  I rose from my chair. “You must know your business,” I conceded. “You certainly made an impression on the woman who was just in here. She said you gave her hope for the future.” I rolled my eyes. “She said a lot of other things too. God, the woman can talk. Her friend Julie had a baby by a surrogate and became a shoplifter. Did I need to know that? I mean, she’s not very discreet.”

  She sighed. “Lynda Fox. A real yenta. Can’t shut up about anybody. But she’s been through hell and back.”

  “Lynda Fox? The professional golfer?” No wonder I’d recognized her.

  “She had it all—LPGA championships, money, fame, houses all over the place—until her scumbag of a husband stuck it to her.”

  “He left her because she’s such a big mouth?”

  “No. She left him because she was hot for her caddie.”

  “Oh. Then what was she crying about?”

  “What do you think? She’s gotta pay the ex big bucks in spousal support now that they’re history.”

  “Figures,” I said. “I suppose he claimed he helped her become one of the best athletes in the country. I mean, really. She’s the one with the talent.”

  “Ain’t it the truth.”

  “Just one question though. If Lynda’s in love with her caddie, why does she need a matchmaker?”

  Desiree laughed, her dumpling body shaking and jiggling. “Same reason you do. She’s a client of Desiree Klein Heart Hunting for Exes, my new division. I’m finding her a woman for the hubby so she doesn’t have to pay him anymore.” She laughed again. “You were right, Melanie. There are a gazillion women out there who are dying to unload their exes, and I’m just the one to help them do it. It’s a mission from God.”

  I watched her lean her head back and laugh some more, and there was something about the laughter that nagged at me. Yes, I’d been the architect of her new revenue source. Yes, I was depending on her to help me the way she had just promised to help Lynda Fox. And yes, I believed fervently that men like Dan should be stopped from grabbing women’s assets. But there was a tiny voice inside me whispering, wondering, warning, and what it was telling me was this: you’ve created a monster.

  Unfortunately, what it wasn’t yet revealing was whether Desiree was the monster or I was.

  Chapter

  18

  “Good morning, Melanie,” said Ricardo. It was Monday at eight-thirty. I had come to deliver Buster to Dan—and to make sure Leah had lasted the weekend. “Mr. Swain’s caretaker left about five minutes ago.”

  I sighed with relief. “So she’s still staying with him.”

  “Every night. Got it written down right here for the insurance company.” He pulled the notebook from the pocket of his uniform and held it up proudly. “If you’d been here sooner, you could have met her.”

  Did I want to meet her? Sure. Just not in front of Ricardo, who would inevitably launch into a discussion of Dan and his suicidal depression. “I’m just glad she’s been looking after Mr. Swain so conscientiously.”

  “He does seem better. When he walks into the building with her, his whole face is lit up. If you didn’t know about his mental problems, you’d think he was the happiest guy on earth. Happier than I’ve ever seen him anyway.”

  I thanked Ricardo for his commentary, but inside I was sort of taken aback. Dan was happier with Leah than he’d been with me? Not a chance. During our early years together, my ex was on top of the world—and not just because of his pro football career but because of how much in love we were. Well, no point in feeling competitive with a woman who was about to save me from years of financial hardship, I decided. I should be thrilled that everybody was loving everybody.

  “Gosh, it’s getting late,” I said, checking my watch. “How about buzzing me up there so I can be on my way?”

  After the usual song and dance, Buster and I rode up in the elevator, got off at Dan’s floor, and rang his doorbell. When he didn’t answer right away, I turned to Buster and muttered, “So much for what Daddy said last week about meeting my needs. He probably went back to sleep and forgot all about us.”

  I waited, tapped my foot on the floor, and waited some more. I was losing patience and was about to bang my fist on the door when it swung open. There was Dan, not in his bathrobe or even in his jeans but in an actual business suit. And he looked almost, well, fabulous. Over the past few weeks I’d noticed that he’d trimmed down a bit, but now that I really studied him, I could tell he’d dropped at least ten pounds. Was he taking better care of himself since he’d fallen for Leah? Paying more attention to his appearance? Watching those calories? Or was he so in love with her that he’d lost his considerable appetite? When he and I had first started dating, I couldn’t eat a thing. “That’s why they call it lovesick,” my college roommate had kidded me. Was it the same for him now? With her?

  “Sorry. Sorry. Come in,” he said, with a big smile for both me and Buster, which surprised me. Usually, I got his scowl. “I was on the phone confirming an appointment.”

  “Nice suit,” I said, appraising him as I entered the apartment. “When did I buy us that one?”

  “No pissing contests today, okay? I need to stay focused.”

  “On what?”

  “A job interview.” He crossed his fingers on both hands. “Think good thoughts around eleven o’clock.”

  I was so stupefied by this development I didn’t answer immediately. A job interview?

  “I know, I know. You don’t believe it,” he said with the sort of self-deprecating laugh he used to charm me with. “I heard that L.I.U. was in the market for a coach, so what the hell, huh?”

  “Long Island University?” I said, still dumbfounded.

  “The C. W. Post campus in Brookville. They’re coming off their first undefeated regular season and their second-straight Northeast-Ten title, but the coach that got ’em there is retiring. They need somebody else to take over in the fall, so I tossed my name in the hat.”

  I shook my head, marveling at what he was saying. This was the same man who’d continually and contemptuously rejected the idea of coaching a local college football team? Now he was not only entertaining the idea but initiating it? Well, I couldn’t help but be shocked by the one-eighty.

  “Come on, darlin’,” he coaxed. “Just tell me you’re rooting for me today. You can go back to hating me tomorrow.”

  “I…” I stammered is what I did. Such was my surprise at this turn of events. Stammered, blinked my eyes, felt my upper lid twitc
h, started winding my finger around a lock of my hair. The usual nervous tics and then some. “I hope you get the job, Dan,” I managed finally.

  He nodded. “That means a lot. Thanks.”

  There was an awkward pause—we hadn’t been polite to each other for so long that we were out of practice—until his phone rang. While he went to answer it, I strolled around the living room, processing this apparent and rather dramatic change in my ex. Was the old hackneyed expression true? That the love of a good woman can turn a man’s life around? And was that what had happened to Dan? I’d tried to turn his life around but failed miserably. Hadn’t I been a good woman? What did Leah have that I didn’t? And why was I suddenly and irrationally so threatened by her?

  I was standing next to the sofa table, staring vacantly at all the framed photos displayed there while trying to understand this new but nevertheless genuine negativity I was feeling toward her, when I realized with a jolt that the photos of me—of Dan and me—were missing.

  I took another look. There was the one of Dan playing for Oklahoma. There was the one of him playing for the Giants. There was the one of him arm wrestling with his father and the one of him fly-fishing with his brothers and the one of him taking a bite out of his mother’s apple pie. They were all accounted for, except those of him and me.

  I know I said I thought it was weird that he’d left the photos of us around the apartment after we’d split up; that he was lazy and passive and clinging pathetically to his glory days by keeping them around. But now the absence of them threw me. Instead of being euphoric that he had obviously moved on, thanks to Leah, the woman I’d arranged for him to move on with, I was miffed. Who the hell did she think she was, coercing Dan into hiding, burying, even flinging into the trash those lovely memories of his past with me? She had no right! She was merely a temporary girlfriend! How dare she kick me and all traces of me out of my old place? I was hurt and roiled!

  “You’re still here,” said Dan when he returned to the room. “You’re usually in a big hurry to get to the office.”

  “And you’re usually in a big hurry to get rid of me so you can have Buster all to yourself.”

  He smiled and extended his hand to me. “What do you say we call a truce, darlin’? You want to stay here and spend a little more time with Buster? It’s more than fine with me. I don’t have to leave right away.”

  He stood there with his hand out for a second or two and I thought, He really isn’t goading me today. He’s being incredibly human, for him. Why not follow his lead?

  Warily, I took his hand and shook it.

  “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he said, then sat on the arm of the sofa. “We don’t have to be enemies. I’d like it better if we weren’t.”

  “We’re only enemies because you insist on taking—”

  He placed his fingers across my lips. “Truce, remember?”

  I nodded. It was all so unexpected, this courtesy he was showing me. I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I got down on the floor to play with Buster.

  “So how’s it going?” Dan said, watching me, a great big smile on his face.

  “How’s what going?” I said.

  “Work. Friends. Whatever. How’s Weezie?”

  Was he really on the level? Or was he setting me up for one of his stupid put-downs? I was completely off balance. “She’s fine,” I said, sure that he was just baiting me, letting me think things were different and then throwing a zinger at me. “Somehow she manages to have a happy life while the rest of us struggle along.”

  “Is it still a struggle for you, Mel?”

  I gave him a look. Who was this guy anyway? The Dan I divorced never asked me questions like that. Reflectiveness was not a character trait I’d ever attributed to him. “Still a struggle? What are you talking about?”

  “One of the first things you ever told me was how nothing came easily to you. I was just hoping that wasn’t the case anymore.”

  His tone was so kind that I found my antagonism toward him dissipating, in spite of myself. “I’m having a tough time with the divorce,” I admitted. “I’ve been angry about the alimony.”

  “You’ve made that clear,” he said without even the hint of a smirk. Another surprise. “Tell me about the other ways the divorce has been tough for you.”

  “I hate sharing custody of Buster,” I said. “I miss him when he’s here with you.”

  “I feel the same way when he’s with you,” said Dan. “But we’re both doing the best we can. He’s got two parents who love him. They just don’t happen to live together.” There was a second or two, then: “Is it hard for you to be out there dating again?”

  “Dating?” I laughed. “Talk about a low priority. I have zero interest.”

  “Don’t you get lonely?”

  There it was again—the kind voice, as opposed to the taunting, goading voice. I was as puzzled by it as I was entranced by it, by the change in his demeanor. Evan was the kind one, not my ex. Or at least he hadn’t been in years. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had a conversation that didn’t involve accusations and insults, so I didn’t know how to respond. “Why on earth would you care if I get lonely?” I said.

  “I’ll always care, Mel,” he said. “No matter what happens.”

  I regarded him the way you would a laboratory rat. He hadn’t spoken of his feelings for me in a very long time, and while I didn’t trust them—I was still fixated on the idea that a man who cares about you doesn’t take money from you—I wasn’t turned off by them. Once I let down my armor, I realized that there was something comforting about having a simple, honest give-and-take with my former spouse, the one who knew me best; the one who slept next to me and listened to me and confided in me; the one who was there in the beginning and there in the middle and, yes, there in the end. I had no parents and no siblings and no family to bolster my confidence in bad times. Dan had been and still was the most important person in my life. But the notion that we’d ever be able to sit in the same room and not only be civil to each other but compassionate seemed impossible.

  “‘No matter what happens’,” I said, repeating his words. “That sounds a little mysterious. Are you referring to your own dating experience? Is your thing with the vet still going on?” Well, so much for the honesty part. You should have heard how innocently I posed the question.

  “Very much so,” he said, his face getting all “lit up,” to quote Ricardo. “Leah and I have been spending a lot of time together, and I think her good qualities might be rubbing off on me.”

  A lot of time together. And all of it fully documented. “In what way?” I nodded at the sofa table. “By convincing you to remove all evidence of me?”

  “Oh. The photos.” He shrugged. “Hey, she’s a woman. She doesn’t like coming here and seeing my ex-wife’s face all over the place. You can’t blame her.”

  Of course, I couldn’t blame her. Of course, I did blame her. It made no sense to blame her, but even as I thanked God for her, I was building up a nice little resentment toward her.

  “Was it Leah who suggested you go out on this job interview today?” I asked.

  “Has she been encouraging me to embrace life instead of running from it? You bet. I know you tried to get through to me on that score, but she has a way of communicating with me that resonates.”

  Resonates. Like he’d ever used that or any other three-syllable word before. “Very interesting,” I said, aware that I was now feeling outright hostility toward this woman. Not only did she make Dan happier than I made him, but she also communicated better with him than I did and improved his vocabulary! She was turning me into chopped liver.

  “All I can say is that she doesn’t judge or criticize when she talks to me,” Dan rhapsodized. “She has an incredibly generous spirit.”

  No, I was the one with the generous spirit! She didn’t pay for that amethyst necklace. I did! “So you two are getting pretty close. And in such a short time.”

  He w
agged a finger at me. “We’re close, but don’t go pushing me down the aisle. I already told you: I’m not marrying anybody.”

  “What about living together?” I fished. “Is Leah thinking about moving in?”

  “More than thinking,” he said. “She’s got some of her stuff here. We’re testing the togetherness thing.” He eyed me. “There’s nothing in our divorce settlement against her staying here, right?”

  How about that for a moment of truth? As I sat there staring into the baby blues of my ex-husband, the tarnished-but-still-golden Traffic Dan Swain, I asked myself: Can you really take advantage of him this way? This guy who seems to be trying to get his life on track but doesn’t remember the terms of his own divorce settlement? Can you face yourself in the mirror every day if you sucker him out of the alimony? Can you do it? Can you, Melanie?

  As I felt my enthusiasm for my plan weaken just a little, I reminded myself that it was Dan who’d suckered me. He was the one who’d had no compunction about going after every cent I earned and then frittering it away once he got it. He was the one who’d said, “I love you and I’m sorry you’re leaving me, but I’ll let you work your ass off so I can buy myself lots of shiny new toys.” He was the one who was always flaunting the toys in my face and making me lose my concentration at work. He was the one who’d taken advantage of me.

  So, yes, I could follow through with my plan. I would follow through with it.

  “Nope,” I said. “Nothing in our settlement about that. Leah can stay here and you’ll still be in compliance. Happy?”

  “Very.” He smiled. “She’s great, Mel. I don’t know how long it’ll last between us, but I feel like a new man since I met her. She reminds me of you in some ways.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. She’s beautiful, independent, good at her job.” He paused. “Come to think of it, she’s you without the wiseass.” He laughed. “I bet you’d like her.”

  I wasn’t so sure, but I was about to find out.

  Chapter

  19