Husbands and Other Sharp Objects: A Novel

by Marilyn Simon Rothstein

  Now Amanda had done it. She had gone subterranean, the lowest of low.

  Elisabeth’s face turned red with anger. “Amanda, say what you want. Go ahead and blast me. You’ve made us all miserable, so why not continue?”

  I could see from Amanda’s face that she was about to throw a fireball that would blow up the hospital. Maybe even medical centers throughout the Southeast.

  I interrupted. “That’s enough. Do we have to go through this now?”

  They each took a step back, looking at each other with venom in their eyes. My thoughts went to how my daughters argued as kids. Elisabeth running to me in anger, crying, “She took my doll.” Then the two tugging on the bald, naked doll until it was almost headless. All followed by more jerking and yanking as I said, “If you fight any more, I am taking the doll away.” Then me grabbing it out of Amanda’s small hands and holding it in the air. The inevitable words from Elisabeth would follow. “Now look what you did!”

  Jake returned from his disappearing act.

  “As soon as Dad is well enough, we are getting married in his hospital room,” Amanda announced.

  “Amanda, you don’t have to decide this right now,” I said. “Just wait until the morning.”

  She burst into tears. “No. The wedding is in the hospital, maybe as soon as tomorrow.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  Jake nodded.

  “I am. We are,” Amanda said.

  There was a lot to do fast if the wedding reception at the hotel was canceled. “Well, as long as you are certain. I’ll go back to the hotel now and let everyone know what’s going on. I’ll handle the hotel and all the vendors.”

  “I already sent a group text,” Jake said. “And I put it on Facebook.”

  “What did you put on Facebook?” I asked.

  “That Harvey had a heart attack, and the reception was canceled.”

  “How many likes did you get on ‘Harvey had a heart attack’?”

  I hadn’t asked a serious question, but Jake mistook my sarcasm for just that. He took out his phone. “I can’t believe it. Over three hundred responses already. I didn’t get that many likes when I put my dog Scruffy to sleep. Amanda, look at all of these comments.”

  Amanda checked his phone. “Who is this person from Zimbabwe?”

  “Put that away. We can’t cancel a wedding on Facebook. I need to talk to the hotel manager. And I can’t leave this hospital knowing that the two of you are arguing,” I said to my daughters. “Pull it together. Your father will need you.”

  Chapter 28

  I returned to the hotel and found the manager, Albee Martinez, in his office. He had worked his way up from waiter, and I had known him for many years. He was about my age, muscular, fit, and impeccably dressed. He told me that at his first dinner on his first day as a waiter, Harvey had tipped him generously, even though all gratuities were included in the resort fee. Albee said it wasn’t about money. It was that he knew Harvey had caused him to feel as though he was doing a commendable job. Harvey gave him confidence. Lovely story. But knowing Harvey, he gave the tip so that Albee would cater to him throughout our stay.

  We talked about Harvey some more. Albee said that Harvey had arrived at the hotel with nightgowns and robes for his three daughters, that he was so excited Harvey was going into menswear. He couldn’t wait to wear Harvey’s underwear. Albee said he would work with us on the cost of canceling. I said I wasn’t canceling. I was postponing. Maybe we’d figure something out. He insisted on ordering me a sandwich and drink and said he had already spoken to the vendors that had been on the premises.

  I was exhausted, but I stopped in Candy’s room. Dana was there. They were both in shorts. They had been waiting for me to call.

  “I don’t have a joke about this,” I said. “I don’t have a joke,” I repeated as Dana folded me into her arms.

  “It’s terrible for Harvey. It’s awful for Amanda. Her wedding day,” Dana said.

  Candy was on the king-size bed. She patted the space next to her. Dana and I lay down, the three of us in a row, propped up on pillows.

  I took a deep breath. Another one. Then another.

  “How is Amanda?” Candy asked.

  “Still at the hospital. They’ve decided to get married there—whenever Harvey feels one iota better.”

  “That’s unbelievable. When you think how Amanda was about this wedding . . . to just get married in a hospital room,” Dana said.

  “I am so sad for her,” I said, wiping my eyes. “She is being brave. But this has to be devastating.”

  “Do you want a tissue?” Candy asked.

  “No. I want to feel my tears running down my face. I need to feel them. Tell me the truth, do you think this is some kind of bad omen for Amanda?”

  “Bad omen? What are you talking about?” Dana said.

  “I think she will grow up fast. I think she will realize what is important,” Candy said.

  Dana stood. “You know what your last comment tells me, Marcy? I need to start pouring Scotch.”

  “I don’t like Scotch.”

  “What do you think this is, Harry’s Bar?” Dana said, making a drink for me.

  “Do you want to order dinner?” Candy asked.

  “I just want to go to my room and relax. Turn on the TV and stare at it.”

  “I’ll turn the TV on here,” she said. “Dana, hand me the remote.”

  The three of us lay on the bed in silence, watching the Weather Channel because no one really cared what was on.

  I finished a second Scotch and I left.

  I couldn’t wait to get my clothes and shoes off, to remove my bra, which was killing me, because that’s what I deserve for wearing anything but a bra from the Bosom. Truth was, no bra I had bought anywhere since I’d donated all the bras Harvey had brought me over the years ever fit as well as one from Bountiful. A minimizer from Harvey’s biggest competitor had resulted in raw red streaks where the underwire was. I had to remove my turncoat bra. I needed to collapse, to fall asleep. I waved the card in front of the door to my hotel room. I gazed at the bed longingly, and there was Jon.

  I was overjoyed, so shocked, there might as well have been a unicorn on the bed.

  “You look awful,” Jon said, amazed at my hair, which by now probably looked like a nest.

  “Got any birds that need a home?” I said.

  “How did that happen?” he asked.

  “I deserve it,” I said. “Poking my nose into Amanda’s wedding plans. How did you get into the room?”

  “I had my way with the housekeeper,” he said, joking.

  I jumped to the bed and lay on top of him. I started to cry, sniffling and whimpering. In no time, I was sobbing. He tried to stroke my hair, but it just wasn’t possible.

  “How’s Harvey?”

  “How did you know about Harvey?” I sat up, and he sat up next to me.

  “Amanda called.”

  “My Amanda?” I was incredulous.

  “Your Amanda,” he said with a grin. “She told me what had happened. She said you might be needing me and asked me if I would call you.”

  “But you didn’t call. You came. You came when I needed you.”

  “I know you, Marcy. You would return the favor.”

  “What about your flight to Tokyo?” I said, suddenly remembering that he was supposed to fly to Japan the following day.

  He got up and paced the room, then stood at the sliding glass door. He looked out at the turbulent ocean smashing to the shore. “I had to be certain you were okay.”

  “I am okay,” I said. “And I love that you came. You get so many brownie points for coming. You’re like a package of Duncan Hines.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  “Literally.”

  “I couldn’t let you go through this alone,” he said, causing a chill in my spine.

  He leaned against the glass, facing me. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He looked so great in jeans. And he w
as in a white shirt.

  “He had bypass surgery,” I said. “The kids are with him. He’s probably advising the nurse.”

  “About what?”

  “What bra she should be wearing. I’m so happy you’re here. Did I tell you I’m happy you’re here?”

  He was beaming. He had come to rescue me, and it was the correct decision.

  “But what about your flight?” I repeated. “It must have cost a fortune to change it.”

  “Worth every penny,” he said as he enfolded me in his arms.

  Amanda rang later that night. She said that Harvey was asleep. They had returned from the hospital and were all bar-bound for beer and burgers.

  “All?” I said, hoping the two sisters had patched up the mess.

  “All,” she said, reassuring me. “Do you want to join us? It is, after all, my wedding night.”

  “Amanda, thank you for calling Jon.”

  “So he reached you?”

  “In person,” I said.

  “He’s here?”

  “He is, but he is sleeping. And he’s leaving for Japan early tomorrow morning.”

  “Mom . . . Mommy . . . I’m sorry I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—be happy for you.”

  I gazed at Jon resting, his blond hair tousled onto his face. “I will see you in the morning.”

  “Who was it?” Jon asked as he rolled over toward me.

  “Amanda. They’re back from the hospital.”

  “I have something I want to discuss,” Jon said, adjusting our pillows on the rattan headboard. “Comfortable?” he said.

  I moved closer to him. “Now I am.”

  “I plan to talk to the dean. I will suggest shortening my stay in Japan to six months, and then I will come back to Price, and he can assign someone else. That gives him a whole semester to find the right person. I don’t think it will be a problem.”

  “Why would you do that? What happened?”

  “You happened.”

  My heart jumped at his words. I got out of bed and grabbed my robe. I had to be vertical to think. Jon opened his eyes wide, watching me, waiting for my response. I picked up a water bottle on the nightstand, opened it, took a swallow, then another. I hardly ever drank water.

  “No,” I responded definitively.

  “No what?”

  “No way will I allow you to forfeit what you want to do. It just can’t be. That’s not the relationship I want. I already had that relationship. It means the world to me that you showed up here when I needed you, without being asked, on your own terms, but for the two of us to work out, we have to lead our own lives. Your plan was Japan. You’re going to go there as scheduled and create one incredibly fine English program. You stick to the plan. I’ll visit. A lot.”

  I waited for him to respond.

  He spoke softly, seriously, with great care in his voice. “Marcy Hammer, I am going to miss you terribly.”

  “There’s something else you should know.” I went to my handbag, which was on a chair by the window. I unzipped the inside pocket. “Look, a passport.”

  He grinned, a smile so big it could have reached the Far East. “Whose passport?” he joked.

  I opened the passport and showed him the picture. “Well, it looks like it’s mine.”

  “You’re coming straight from Florida?”

  “I brought my identification, just in case that was what I decided to do. Don’t get a big head. It’s not all about you. I’m really looking forward to using those famous Japanese toilets.”

  “Best toilets in the world,” Jon said.

  “My bottom is sparkling just thinking about it.”

  He moved toward me on the bed and kissed me. He kissed me everywhere.

  We awoke early the next morning, the sun shining through the glass doors to the terrace.

  Suddenly, he shot up. “I have to go now, or I’ll miss the flight to JFK. I left my baggage there. I have to grab it and catch the flight to Tokyo.”

  I accompanied him, holding his hand to the deserted lobby, and waited as he got into a cab.

  He lowered the window.

  “Watashi wa, anata o aishiteimasu.”

  “Was that Japanese for ‘Never buy an American television’?”

  “That was Japanese for ‘I love you.’”

  Chapter 29

  I showered and held my head under the faucet for a long time to relieve myself from the feeling of having enough hair spray on my head to kill a live animal. I put my hair in a twist. I pulled on a short, sleeveless dress with a V-neck. I wore matching lime sandals.

  I went to the Outrigger for breakfast. One person after another stopped me to explain how dismayed and distraught they were about Harvey, how relieved they were that he was okay, how they understood completely why Amanda had canceled the reception, and that they would have done the same. People were so nice, so understanding. After all, they had all traveled far at great expense for the wedding.

  Mrs. Berger was at the buffet, in a Swiss-dot bathing suit cover-up. She told me that Jake had updated her on everything. I looked on as she loaded her beach bag with yogurts, individual cereal packages, granola bars, and packaged jellies, jams, and maple syrups to take to her room. She instructed Bernie to grab more bananas.

  “Can you hand me a few of those baby peanut butters?” she said to me.

  I gave her two.

  “Now don’t be stingy.”

  I passed three more.

  She tossed the peanut butter into her canvas bag with rope handles. I peeked into the bag. It was almost full.

  “More bananas,” she commanded her husband.

  Cousin Leona flitted by. She was wearing a maxi dress and holding a platter of food.

  I said hello, and she said, “What a shame Harvey gave himself a heart condition. All those big meals.”

  Was she blaming Harvey’s heart attack on Harvey? Or worse, was she blaming me?

  “We warned him and warned him. But he kept eating. Practically ate himself into the grave. After you separated, he came to dinner at our house. Don’t blame me. Steve invited him. I said you were my cousin, and I couldn’t have Harvey over. Steve said I shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds me. Anyway, he really piled it away. Can you hand me one of those little chocolate milks?”

  So Harvey wasn’t the president of Weight Watchers. And I wasn’t the chef at Canyon Ranch. Had Leona never heard of genetics? “Harvey did not give himself a heart attack. People become ill for all kinds of reasons.”

  I couldn’t believe I was defending him.

  “Overeating being one of them,” Leona said.

  “Okay, so how do you explain the world-class marathon man who died of a heart attack while running?”

  “Did he really?”

  I thought back to all the years I had known Leona. Since she was five and I was born. I never had anything in common with her, but she was my mother’s sister’s only daughter, so I was with her all the time. I decided right there and then, at the buffet, that I was too old to waste time with people I didn’t like; that if I lived to be ninety, I had only about thirty more years to my life, that if I lived to be eighty, just twenty years, and that if I died immediately, the last person I would have spoken to on the good earth would have been Leona.

  “She’s your cousin,” I heard my mother say. “Be the bigger one.”

  “Mom, I am being the bigger one.”

  “How’s that?” Mom asked.

  “I am about to hand her a little chocolate milk, and I am not going to pour it on her.”

  I turned from Leona to see my brother, Max. In high school, Max was voted “most likely to be convicted of a white-collar crime.” As for me, I could have been voted “most likely to kill the student most likely to be convicted of a white-collar crime.”

  “Kiss him hello,” my mother said.

  “Do I have to?”

  “Be the bigger one,” she said again.

  “Mom, you come down here and kiss him.”

  “You neve
r returned the RSVP card,” I said as I looked him over. He was wearing sunglasses and a short-sleeve Hawaiian shirt with a chunky gold Jewish star the size of a synagogue. His chest hairs were on display. I had no idea how I could be related to him.

  “Who bothers with those cards?” he asked as he took a plate.

  “Clearly not you.”

  “Listen, Marcy, I was sorry to hear about Harvey. That guy. He always ate like a horse.”

  Why was everyone blaming the victim, knocking Harvey for his heart attack? If I succumbed, what would people say? “She only went to the gym when her daughter visited.”

  “Don’t get angry, Marcy. He’s your brother,” my mother admonished me.

  “You mean the brother I haven’t seen or spoken to since the day of your funeral?”

  “My girlfriends are in the room, but they’ll be down for brunch soon.”

  Did he say “girlfriends,” plural?

  Just then, Amanda approached.

  “Uncle Max. I didn’t know you were coming,” she said nicely, even though I knew she liked him about as much as diphtheria and had invited him only to keep me at bay. I had wanted him invited only to keep my mother out of my head. Where was Dr. Genesis when you needed him?

  “So, what’s going to happen now?”

  “Jake and I are planning a ceremony at the hospital.”

  “I’ll be there,” my brother said.

  “I’m sorry. Immediate family only,” Amanda said.

  He lowered his sunglasses and glared at me.

  “She’s very upset,” I whispered in a consoling voice as Amanda walked away.

  “I’m her uncle. Why didn’t you bring up your kids to have a little respect?”

  I couldn’t stand another moment of him.

  “I did bring them up to have respect. They just don’t have any for you.”

  “Marcy!” I heard my mother exclaim.

  “Mom, you really have to find a hobby up there. Doesn’t anyone play Scrabble?”

  I walked off and ran into Feldman. Don’t tread on me, I thought.

  “Tell me the truth. How’s Harvey?” he asked. “And don’t give me the party line. After all, I’m his best friend.”