Sex Happens

by Carol Soloway

  Despite wearing her best navy blazer, she knew she looked tired and drawn. She’d lost fifteen pounds so her clothes hung on her now-gaunt body. She had no appetite and hadn’t had a peaceful night’s sleep since Gabe had left.

  As she walked past a man seated at the ornate mahogany bar close to the entryway, she smiled. He turned away, affirming her fear that she’d never again get another man to notice her, much less find her attractive.

  She proceeded past the tables covered with pristine white tablecloths to the patio where Liz was already sitting, facing the bar. Liz wasn’t beautiful. As a matter of fact, each individual feature was quite plain: her nose was a little too long for her face, her lips were a little too thin and her eyes were a non-descript brown. But there was something about her that drew people to her. Maybe it was her embracing warmth, her contagious laugh, and her quick wit.

  And Liz had style. Her clothes, always in the latest fashion, perfectly accentuated her petite, toned body. Her long, glistening white strand of pearls was her trademark and a striking accessory for her classic, but contemporary outfits.

  Although Liz had a busy insurance business and a fabulous husband, she was always there for Alex. Only five years older than Alex, Liz’s children were away in college; therefore, she was able to, actually insisted on, the nightly talks and frequent walks with Alex.

  Liz got up and hugged her. “Present for you.” She handed Alex an elegant Christian Dior eyeglass case.

  “What’s this for?” Alex asked and opened the case.

  “I thought you’d need a little something with pizazz for today. I mean, the First Friday women could be a little intimidating if you’ve been away for a while.”

  Alex put the sunglasses on. “They’re so Audrey Hepburn. Thank you.” She kissed Liz and took a seat across from her, facing the lake. Alex knew the glasses were really to hide the dark circles under her eyes, in an effort to make her look more presentable. Never judgmental, Liz always watched out for Alex, delicately providing a solution. Liz knew how to make everyone feel special, important, especially her close friends. And Alex experienced it time and again.

  The waitress approached. “Haven’t seen you in a while. The usual?”

  “Yes,” Alex said. The usual, she thought with irony, recalling the meeting three months ago when she’d thought her life was perfect. But that was before Las Vegas. Amazing how a few months, or even a few minutes, could change a life.

  “Here comes trouble.” Liz pointed to the bar.

  Alex turned around and saw Meredith descending the stairway. One step, pause, and then another step: Catherine Zeta-Jones, perfectly outfitted as an attorney. Her entrance afforded the men seated at the mahogany bar a chance to gaze at her statuesque, perfectly proportioned body. Envying Meredith’s confidence, Alex watched her make eye contact with a handsome gray-haired man before proceeding to the First Friday Book Club table.

  Every inch the vampish attorney she was, Meredith was breathtaking in a white Prada suit, accented by her Chanel scarf and Louis Vuitton accessories.

  “Oh dear, Alex, you’ve lost so much weight.” Meredith air-kissed Alex and Liz. “Emergency shopping trip with moi.”

  “Clothing is not my priority right now,” Alex said.

  “Darling, it’s just to cheer you up. Always does for me.” Meredith took the seat next to Liz, of course, facing the bar. “And have you called any of the attorneys I recommended?”

  “Lost the numbers,” Alex confessed and rubbed her wrist.

  “If only I practiced family law,” Meredith said.

  “Meredith, why don’t you do family law?” Liz asked. “You’d be a killer.”

  “Tissues are too expensive,” Meredith said and laughed. “Actually, could you imagine a soon-to-be single man looking at moi?” She fluffed her mane of long black hair.

  Liz winked at Alex. “Meredith, now I understand why you’re a real estate attorney.”

  “If I were Alex’s attorney, I’d have the good doctor groveling, begging to pay a handsome alimony check each month.”

  “It’s not alimony I care about,” Alex said. “It’s child support that I want, and he’s offered that.”

  Meredith pursed her lips. “My motto is if he wants it, he pays. If he doesn’t want it, he pays even more.”

  “She’ll have to keep that in mind,” Liz chided.

  Meredith pointed to Terrie who was passing the bar. “Here comes the bag lady.”

  “She’s your best friend,” Liz reminded Meredith.

  “I love her, but that doesn’t mean I approve of her choice of clothes, or men for that matter.”

  Terrie weaved her way among tables until she got to the patio. Her pale skin and light blue eyes yearned for a touch of makeup. Her ’60s outfits and blunt haircut with bangs made her look every inch the empathetic psychologist she was.

  “New outfit?” Meredith asked, disapprovingly pointing to Terrie’s white peasant blouse separated from a long flowered skirt by a silver coin belt.

  Terrie twirled around, allowing the skirt to flare. “It was a birthday gift from my darling husband. Chico’s is my favorite, but I’d never splurge on clothes.”

  “That’s obvious,” Meredith said. “But it kind of looks like your other outfits.”

  “This suits me so well,” Terrie said, clearly unphased by Meredith’s comment. She leaned down and hugged Alex. “I’m so glad you’re back. It hasn’t been the same without you.”

  “I missed you too, but I couldn’t have concentrated on a book,” Alex said.

  The waitress took their orders: Chinese chicken salad for everyone except Terrie who ordered her usual hamburger and French fries. Terrie ordered for Judi since she’d spoken to her and knew she was going to be late.

  Meredith motioned towards the bar. “That guy keeps staring at me.”

  “Maybe that’s because he’s never seen such a glorious creature,” Liz teased.

  Grabbing a sourdough roll and buttering it, Terrie nodded. “Alex, I understand why you haven’t been back to the book club, but now it’s time to take care of yourself.”

  “Yes,” Meredith said and looked over at the bar. “I was just telling her Gabe owes her for every miserable year of marriage.”

  “Almost twenty years were good,” Alex said. “It was only during the last few months that Gabe started to get volatile.”

  “I thought that was the way he always was.” Liz gave her throaty laugh.

  Alex shook her head. “Only one other time, about a year before this, Gabe was really stressed—everything seemed to annoy him. His behavior was unpredictable. He’d even forgotten about a seminar he was supposed to attend and called me from the hospital to tell me he had to leave immediately for a seminar which the hospital had arranged. He told me he couldn’t even stop off at home for his luggage.”

  “Sounds like an affair to moi.” Meredith tossed her head back dramatically.

  “I trusted him then, definitely too much, but I thought we had the perfect marriage.” Alex fought back tears.

  “How could he go on a trip without luggage?” Meredith asked. “It takes moi weeks to pack for even a weekend trip.”

  “I know, Meredith, I’ve driven you and all your luggage to the airport many times,” Terrie quipped.

  Terrie and Meredith had condos in the same gated community. For Meredith, the condo was more of a place to change suitcases for an exotic trip to Paris, Rio, or some other destination, escorted by her boyfriend of the moment. And she was apt to point out that while the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre were great backgrounds for pictures, she’d rather spend her time shopping on the Champs-Élysées.

  “How long was Gabe away?” Terrie asked.

  “Three or four weeks, and when he came home, he was the old Gabe again,” Alex said, wistfully recalling how wonderful he was after his return.


  “Where was the seminar?” Terrie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Alex said. “It was at a fishing or something place.”

  “Whitefish Lake,” Terrie gasped. “That’s Silver Cloud.”

  “And what could a luxurious Silver Cloud have to do with such a distasteful sport as fishing?” Meredith pursed her lips.

  The waitress approached, arms laden with Chinese chicken salads and one hamburger. She placed the salads in front of the women with the exception of Terrie who got the hamburger.

  Terrie explained there was a place, Silver Cloud, in Whitefish Lake, Montana, where doctors who were addicted would go for help.

  “You think Gabe does drugs?” Alex asked. Could she have missed that too? Did she even know anything about the man she was married to for twenty years? Was there anything that was real? She started to cry.

  Judi rushed to the table. She bent close to Alex and hugged her. “Oh, Sweetie.” She turned to the rest. “What did you do to her?”

  “I’m fine,” Alex said and took a tissue from Liz. Judi was the only one with whom she didn’t feel a hundred percent comfortable. It started when their husbands, both physicians at Brea Presbyterian Hospital, had a huge disagreement over a hospital issue. Judi and Alex each sided with their husband. Even though the men finally resolved their differences, the women’s relationship was never the same after that.

  Terrie reached out to take Alex’s hand. “If he did do drugs, that’s the place. There’s usually an intervention. The director of the hospital confronts the doctor, and the doctor is offered one of two options: he can go to Silver Cloud and stay there until he dries out, or he can lose his license. If the doctor decides to go to Silver Cloud—and believe me, they all do—then there are no consequences, and there are absolutely no records of doctors who’ve attended.”

  “You mean there are licensed physicians who are or were addicted to drugs and still practice?” Liz asked. As the owner of one of the largest insurance agencies in Southern California, she was savvy in all areas of insurance and physicians’ profiling, but she seemed surprised by this information.

  “That is one of the most highly guarded secrets of the profession,” Terrie said.

  “Yes and evidently one of the ‘most highly guarded secrets’ of my marriage or what I thought was my marriage.” Alex dabbed her eyes and thought about secrets. Her family was built on them. They formed the foundation of her childhood home, and now she and Gabe had built their own house of cards.

  “I’ve sold insurance for twenty-five years, and I’ve heard all the dirt on providers, but I’ve never heard of such a place.” Liz twirled her long strand of pearls.

  “And I definitely would have heard about it,” Judi said, smug in her role as the wife of an esteemed internist at Brea Presbyterian Hospital.

  “It’s intentionally off the radar,” Terrie said.

  Meredith blotted her lipstick. “Then how does our Terrie know about it?”

  “That I can’t discuss, but if Gabe spent time at Silver Cloud, then there wouldn’t be any record.”

  “Did someone from our hospital go there?” Judi asked. Then she apparently caught herself. “I shouldn’t be privy to this conversation.”

  “Terrie, are you going to tell us or not?” Meredith asked, obviously impatient with her best friend.

  “Okay.” Terrie agreed. “A physician’s wife came to see me, and don’t worry, Judi, he wasn’t from Brea Presbyterian Hospital.”

  “I should hope you don’t treat anyone from there,” Judi said.

  “Yeah, I’m sure they’re all perfect,” Alex said, recalling how smug some of the physicians and their wives were. Whenever they’d had conversations at hospital gatherings, their conversations frequently revolved around how much they could make from the patients, not how much they could help them.

  “Get on with the story,” Liz urged.

  Ketchup dripping from her mouth, Terrie took a huge bit of her hamburger. “The wife, my patient, became suspicious about her husband’s erratic behavior and confronted him. He adamantly denied any drug usage. He did, however, disappear for a few weeks for a ‘seminar.’ He wasn’t allowed to pack his clothes or say good-bye to his wife and kids.”

  Judi tapped on her glass, her bright red nail polish and huge Marquis glistening. “I’m still not convinced there is such a place for doctors, but I’m willing to listen.”

  Terrie patted Alex’s hand. “Like Gabe, my patient’s husband was better for a while, after which he got even more abusive.”

  “Did the wife do something?” Alex asked and thought if only she’d done something, then, maybe, this wouldn’t have happened.

  Terrie continued, “My patient checked her husband’s cell phone and found he’d been receiving calls from this one number. She called the number several times, but it would just ring. “The area code was in Montana, so …”

  “Montana’s a big state. And are we going to get to some point that will prove helpful for Alex or not?” Liz asked, her impatience obviously motivated by her concern for her best friend.

  “I’m just getting used to Gabe leaving for another woman. Now you’re throwing drugs into the mix?”

  “It was an affair, plain and simple,” Meredith said.

  “Simple?” Alex fought back tears.

  Reaching for her Louis Vuitton purse and taking out a matching card case, Meredith said, “This is the simplest truth.” She held out a card: Robert Dorset, Attorney. “Alex, you need Mr. Dorset. He is the devil incarnate.”

  “I really wasn’t ready to get an attorney before when you gave me those attorneys’ names, but Gabe’s been acting so weird with the boys lately,” Alex said. “I just might call your Mr. Dorset.”

  “How are the dear boys?” Terrie asked.

  “The boys keep coming home with stories about how Gabe promises to take them to games and on vacations. They tell me they don’t have to do chores when they’re with their dad. Gabe even hired a tutor for Eric and Daniel, and they were getting perfect grades.”

  “Those don’t sound like bad things,” Meredith said. The only one without children, her comments about children were usually focused on the little monsters who didn’t belong in designer stores or high-end restaurants and the parents who neglected to discipline them.

  “I can’t afford tutors or the stuff that he’s getting the boys used to,” Alex said.

  “Why does he want them around so much with a new girlfriend?” Meredith asked. “I’d be jetting around the world.”

  “He travels plenty when it’s my weekend. And when he has the boys, he and his girlfriend take them to all these great places. It kills me when the boys talk about how much fun they have with their dad and Linda.”

  Liz twirled her long strand of pearls. “Alex needs our support now and not a lot of delving into Gabe’s stuff.”

  Alex decided it was time to contact an attorney, fight for what she deserved from Gabe, and, most importantly, create a life for herself and the boys instead of waiting for the possibility that Gabe would return. Hiring an attorney would push them to the point of no return, but she had to face the truth. They were adversaries, now and forever.

  The waitress arrived with the check, and they passed the leatherette folder around for each to drop money into it.

  “Time to discuss the book,” Terrie said, holding up her copy of The Falls.

  “I loved the way the wedding night was described, first from the wife’s point of view and then from the husband’s,” Liz said.

  “Both were believable yet contradictory,” Judi agreed.

  Demonstrating her ability to get to the heart of any matter, Meredith summarized, “The bride’s version of the wedding night was that the groom tore her nightgown and clawed at her in the heat of passion. Whereas, the groom’s version was that he tore her nightgown in an attempt to push her awa
y in utter revulsion. I loved the intricate working of the different points of view for the same event.”

  “Whenever I do couple’s therapy,” Terrie said, “I always try to show her version, his version, and the real version.”

  “In my marriage, I had no idea what was real until it was too late,” Alex said. Then quickly swooping up her purse and attaché case, she rushed out before succumbing to tears.

  CHAPTER 6

  As her alarm clock screamed, usually dividing her nightmares of the night from those of the day, she realized she’d finally slept through the night without being jarred awake by the dreams of Gabe or the chill she felt when she touched his side of the bed.

  She glanced at the open closet, registering the absence of Gabe’s business suits and surgical scrubs. Then she looked at his tie rack, now empty of his conservative, striped neckties. This tangible proof that he was gone confirmed her determination to focus on the future of her new family—just her and her sons.

  The sunlight burst into the uncluttered bedroom, reflecting off of the wedding photograph on the bureau. She looked at the photo and turned away. But like a tongue to a chipped tooth, her mind kept returning to thoughts of Gabe. Although she’d promised herself and the women of the book club it was time to move forward, this reality of the failure of their marriage, their family, wrapped its tentacles around her. She got out of bed, grabbed the picture and placed it in the drawer.

  She reached for her khaki pants and a crisp white blouse, an outfit she wore whenever she was too preoccupied to think about her appearance. She brushed her shoulder-length brown hair, forced her lips into a smile and left her bedroom.

  On her way to the boys’ bedrooms, she walked down the hall lined with family photographs. She decided she had to replace them with pictures of solid things like mountains, things one person couldn’t destroy.

  “Cookie Face,” she called to Jon, asleep under his Spiderman quilt. Then she bent down to rub her nose against his face, smelling his still-baby-sweet breath.

  Jon snuggled deeper under the covers.