“Yeah, on the weekends, when I’m not supposed to be doing something else.”
“What, exactly, is it that I’m supposed to be doing that I’m not?”
“For starters, taking your daughter to dance class. You run this house, Karen. And part of running the house is getting the groceries, making dinner, and making sure the kids are where they need to be.”
“And I do that ninety-eight percent of the time,” she said, getting up from the couch and slipping her sock-covered feet into her loafers. “I can’t believe that’s not good enough.”
Bob stood next to her. “Look, when you’re sick or there’s some kind of unusual circumstance, I understand that you can’t do everything,” he said, removing his suit jacket. “But taking a nap when you should be driving your kids to the lessons and activities I pay good money for is ridiculous, Karen. I mean what did you do today that exhausted you to this point?” Karen held his eyes with hers for a moment and then walked into the kitchen. Bob followed her. “Walking away from me isn’t going to cancel my question.” He was standing in the doorway. “My guess is you played tennis, had lunch at the club, had wine with that lunch, and now can’t function.”
Karen, who was filling a glass of water at the sink, turned off the faucet. “You don’t get to judge what I do because you have no idea what it is. You go off to an office all day, where you swap jokes in conference rooms before treating special clients to expensive lunches.”
“And I get paid well for it. When you start making money running errands and playing tennis, I won’t give you a hard time.”
“Is that what this is about? Money?” asked Karen, reaching into the fridge for a package of raw chicken. She removed its plastic wrap and dumped the six breasts into a large frying pan.
“No,” said Bob, pulling a chair out from underneath the kitchen table and sitting in it. “It’s about your life, Karen, and what you’re doing with it. What are you doing with your life? What’s your plan?”
“My plan is to do exactly what I want to do.” The fat from the chicken skin sizzled in the pan. “I’ve been a slave for nine years, and now I’m enjoying my freedom, which I richly deserve.”
“A slave?”
“Yes, a slave, Bob. Raising children is an incredibly difficult, tedious, and time-intensive job—not that you’d understand, since you helped about two percent of the time during those years. Now, finally, I have time to myself, and right now I’m happy to spend it doing exactly what I want.”
“And that’s fine, Karen,” said Bob, standing and getting a beer from the fridge. “You can spend the hours the kids are at school in whatever manner you deem suitable. However, when the kids get home from school and need their mother to drive them to classes or help them with their homework, I expect you to be on task. You’re on duty from three thirty in the afternoon until eight thirty at night, when Rebecca goes to bed. That’s a five-hour day, Karen. That doesn’t sound too taxing to me.” Bob swallowed a quarter of the can.
Karen lowered the gas flame underneath the chicken, set the wooden spoon in her hand down on the stove top, and then leaned back against the counter, her arms crossed over her chest. Eyebrows raised, she said, “And who makes sure they’re up and out of bed? You? No, you’re in the shower. And who makes them breakfast? You? Nope, you’re being served at the breakfast table right along with them. Who makes them lunches, Bob? Do you know what they like for lunch? Do you even know how to make a peanut butter and banana sandwich? Who keeps track of every detail in their lives, whether they are home or not? You have no concept of what it’s like to be on call twenty-four hours a day.”
Bob stood and finished his beer. “Who’s on call for you when you’re drinking at the club?”
Karen transferred the spoon from the stove top to Bob’s hand. “I don’t know. But you’re on call now. The recipe is on the counter.” Karen left the room and ran up the stairs. She jogged down the hall to their bedroom and loudly shut the door behind her.
“What’s all the noise?” Bob, still standing in the middle of the kitchen holding the wooden spoon, saw Robert standing in the kitchen doorway.
“Hey, pal. Come on over here.”
Robert hugged his dad. “Is Mommy okay?”
“She is. She’s just tired.”
“She’s tired a lot.”
“Yes, she’s busy. Want to help me with this chicken?”
“Why are you cooking?”
“Most of the great chefs in the world are men, my friend.”
“Yeah, but you’re not one of them.” Rebecca had walked into the room. He smiled at her and was met with a blank look.
“How hard can it be?”
Rebecca walked to the counter and looked at the recipe. “This has seventeen ingredients.”
Bob turned off the stove. “Let’s get takeout.”
Karen booked Jamie weeks in advance for the evening of the winter dance at the River Club, as well as salon appointments for her hair and nails the afternoon of the event. Two weeks prior to the dance, she set aside an entire day to shop for a dress. Bob gave her an absolute limit of five hundred dollars; Karen doubled that figure as her true limit. She asked Sarah to shop with her because she didn’t want to go alone and she didn’t want to go with Caroline, who had no limits. Plus, Sarah knew the difference between divine and disaster. Sarah declined, but told Karen to go for classy over trashy, traditional over trendy, and subtle over ostentatious. Avoid whatever the saleswomen are touting as “the new black.” There is no black, she told Karen over the phone, except black.
Karen drove to the Oak Run mall alone, even though her mother offered to clear her calendar to go with her. Karen had seen a lot of Shelley over the holiday weekends, and the memories were still fresh: of being asked to wrap the gifts from Shelley and Phil to her children because her mother had been busy in December with ladies’ luncheons and cookie swaps; of hearing several times a day—including right after everyone at the dinner table had just tasted their first forkful of the Christmas trifle Karen had spent hours preparing—how anxious Shelley was to start her post-holiday diet; of watching her leap up from the couch whenever one of Karen’s brothers requested another cup of coffee, or, in the evenings, another beer in one of Phil’s frosted mugs. Kevin and Kyle were twenty-six and living on their own, but whenever they came home, Shelley treated them like Generation Y sovereigns. Along these lines, Karen suspected her mother would try to dress her like a seventeen-year-old bound for the high school prom rather than the wife of a very successful executive attending a posh adult dinner dance. Women who showed too much cleavage, Shelley had said more than once over the years, had self-esteem issues.
The first boutique Caroline had suggested Karen try was Some Enchanted Evening. Dozens of formal gowns, attractively displayed by color and style on shiny brass racks, greeted Karen as she walked in the door, as did the all-business saleswoman, who promptly instructed Karen to wait for her in the dressing room. There, she took Karen’s measurements, told her to wrap herself in the freshly laundered terry-cloth robe that hung on the back of the door, and then disappeared, after promising to return with an assortment of gowns that would fit Karen’s specifications. None of the gowns she produced was right—too young, too frilly, too tailored. Discouraged and disappointed that she had set aside just one day to find a dress, Karen asked if there was anything else. The owner of the shop, who had been doing paperwork at the front counter and listening to the exchange between her employee and Karen, approached with three dresses she had just unpacked from a shipment from New York. “Try all three. But I think this one,” she said, holding a long black slip dress made of satin, “is the one.” When Karen first saw her image in the full-length mirror, her thoughts raced to another era, backward in time. She looked like a singer who had just taken the stage in a crowded nightclub, with everyone’s eyes on her, all of them smoking cigarettes and sipping cocktails but otherwise silent, waiting for her to part her lips in song. “We have the right shoes
for you,” said the owner. “And we have a variety of cashmere shawls. I would suggest a sea green—something to match your eyes and offset your magnificent hair.”
Forty minutes later, Karen had spent just under a thousand dollars on everything the owner suggested, including a tiny gold clutch. Once Bob saw her in the dress—and she would not show him until the night of the dance—he would not ask her about the cost. And Karen was right. On the way to the dance, he told her she had never looked more beautiful. At the club, he hopped out and strode around the car proudly to open the door for her. When she emerged, the valet parking attendant grinned broadly. “Good evening, ma’am.”
“Easy, pal,” said Bob, smiling at the young man and handing him a ten-dollar bill. “She’s with me.”
“And what a fortunate man you are, sir.”
“Yes,” said Bob, holding his arm out for Karen. “More than I know.”
“You’re sweet,” said Karen.
Bob kissed her cheek. “You’re stunning.”
They walked through the heavy glass doors etched with the letters R and C, down the carpeted hallway, and into the large reception area, alive with conversation between men dressed in tuxedos and women dressed in black, winter white, and every color in between. Everyone talked animatedly, their conversations punctuated with nodding heads and laughter. They were all on, like extras in a party scene on a movie set. Karen’s heart fluttered with excitement as she and Bob made their way through the crowd. Several men winked at her as she passed by, their approving glances fortifying her knowledge that she looked as good as she felt. She imagined that the dapper club manager, Ron Childs, announced a spontaneous contest for the prettiest woman in the room, and all the men surrounding Karen had just urged her to enter. Deeper in, servers dressed in pressed black pants and crisp white jackets carrying trays of champagne and hot hors d’oeuvres circulated among the guests. Bob took two glasses when offered and handed one to Karen. “To incredible evenings,” he said, raising his glass. Karen clinked hers against his and took her first sip. This was often the best part of an event for her, when the evening’s festivities were ahead of them, when her anticipation was at a crescendo.
“Karen!” Karen turned and saw Stephanie, wearing a pale pink sequined gown with a white shawl, walking toward her. “Hello,” she said in a breathy voice. “This is quite a crowd.” Bob smiled at her. “Stephanie Jennings,” she said, holding out her hand.
Bob wrapped his hand around hers and shook it gently. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Bob. It’s nice to finally meet you after hearing so much about the tennis group from Karen.”
“And you as well,” she said, then turned to the man beside her. “This is my husband, Patrick. Patrick, this is Karen Parsons, my tennis friend, and her husband, Bob.”
“Nice to meet you,” said Patrick, shaking both of their hands.
“Fabulous dress,” said Stephanie. “You look like a naughty nanny.”
“Is that good?” asked Karen, smiling.
“Oh yes. On nights like this, naughty is always nice.”
Patrick grabbed two champagne glasses from a passing tray.
“How long have you been here?” asked Karen.
“About twenty minutes,” said Stephanie, taking a glass from her husband. “Long enough for one of these.”
“Have you seen Ginny or Caroline?”
“Not yet,” said Stephanie. “Let’s head into the dining room. They may be in there. Plus, we can grab a table.”
Bob and Karen followed Stephanie and Patrick through the throng and into the spacious dining room, where twenty tables for eight surrounded a section kept clear for dancing. A dozen miniature red roses and sprigs of baby’s breath sat in crystal bowls at the center of the tables, which were covered with ironed white linen, royal blue cloth napkins, white china plates rimmed in gold, burnished silverware, and wineglasses.
“We want to be as far away from the band as possible,” said Stephanie, leading the others to the far corner of the room. “Last year, once they got going, you couldn’t hear yourself think.” When they reached table nineteen, Stephanie took eight cards from her tiny evening bag. On each one was printed the word RESERVED. Smiling, Stephanie placed one on each dinner plate. “There,” she said. “That ought to do it.”
“Where did you get those?” asked Patrick.
“I made them on the computer. Caroline told me this was the only way to hold a table.”
Patrick turned to Bob. “Do you golf?”
“I’d like to. But I’ll need lessons.”
“Burt Sanders, the pro, is excellent,” said Patrick. “If he can teach me, he can teach anyone. Word has it he’s played with Tiger Woods—and won. Call soon though. The after-work lesson times fill quickly.”
“Let’s head back to the other room,” said Stephanie. “Maybe the others have arrived.” The cocktail area was even more crowded than before. At five-foot-seven, Karen couldn’t see farther than three people in any direction. Stephanie, two inches taller than Karen, stood on her tiptoes to scan the room. “There they are,” she said, pointing, “over by the windows.” On the way, Stephanie grabbed another glass of champagne from a server’s tray. Karen abstained, knowing that if she didn’t put something other than a toast point smeared with caviar in her stomach before having another drink, she might say or do something she’d have to apologize for later.
“Where have you been?” asked Caroline, as soon as they reached her. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”
“In the dining room getting a table,” said Stephanie. “You know what a mob scene that is.”
“Good thinking, honey,” said Caroline, striking a pose.
She was wearing a lacy, flesh-colored dress with a neckline that ran between her breasts and halfway to her belly button, wowing everyone’s husband—as well as their wives—except her own, Rick, who must have done his ogling at home. Besides Rick, the only one not looking at her chest was Caroline, who was surveying the crowd with a self-satisfied smile on her face. Bob pulled his gaze up to Caroline’s face when Karen introduced them. And he looked at Ginny and Brad Lee and Rick when he shook their hands. But as soon as the introductions were done and the chatter began, he looked back at Caroline’s round breasts. Bob found himself wishing for a power failure or a frozen moment in time, when his hands could do what his mind was thinking. Karen put her arm around Bob’s back, an unusual gesture. He smiled at her, knowing the point she was making. And he was happy to oblige, for the moment; there would be ample opportunity to look at Caroline throughout the evening. It was what she wanted, after all. Women didn’t wear clothing like that to blend in.
When they walked back through the crowd to the dining room, Bob followed Caroline. Her clingy dress showed the curve of her trim waist and the outline of her pear-shaped ass. It was uncanny, really, that a woman could dress this way outside of her home. It was like she was naked, only better, because whatever flaws might exist from bearing children or last night’s bowl of ice cream were hidden beneath the stretchy lace. Bob willed her to turn and face him, wished for the rest of the people in the room to disappear. He could see she’d be a willing partner, guiding his hands with hers. He could tell simply by looking at a woman whether or not she liked it, and Caroline was as hot as her dress. At the table, Karen sat down, and Bob sat next to her. When Caroline sat next to Bob, his groin warmed. He ran his hands through his hair, a nervous habit, then smiled at her. “Tell me about yourself,” he said. “What do you do besides play a pretty good game of tennis?”
Caroline laughed. “I do a lot of things.” She lifted her champagne glass to her lips and gave him a weighty look over the rim.
“I’ll bet.”
“And what about you? I hear you’re an important person, in addition to being incredibly attractive.”
“Important?”
“Word has it you practically run Forester.”
Bob laughed. “There are people who would take exception to that.”
&nbs
p; “Like who?”
“My boss, for one.”
“Do you want to dance, honey?” Bob turned and found Karen looking at him. He had been unaware of the music, which was suddenly very obvious.
“Sure,” he said, getting up and offering her his hand.
They walked to the dance floor just as the band switched to a slow song. Bob pulled Karen close to him, and, smelling her hair, wrapped his arm around her back and led her in small circles around the dance floor. “Are you having fun?” she asked.
“I am. And you?”
“I am. What do you think of Caroline’s dress?” Bob pulled slightly away from his wife and looked at her. “Would you like it as much on a hanger as you do on her?”
“Okay,” he said, nodding his head. “I hear you.”
“Ginny told me that last year, she fell all over Brad. You seem to be her target this year.”
“What do you mean?”
“Apparently Caroline had enough to drink last year that she actually propositioned Brad, who had almost enough drink in him to accept her offer. Ginny didn’t talk to Caroline for two months.” Bob felt sweaty. “You don’t need to feel foolish. Apparently she does it to all the men, and most of them, like you, are taken in by it.”
Bob kissed Karen’s forehead. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m glad.” Bob pulled Karen closer, and she looked up at him. “Because anything she can do I can do better.”
Bob’s eyes widened. “Let’s leave now.”
Karen smiled at him. “Later,” she said, leading him off the dance floor. “We have all night.”
Bob behaved the rest of the evening. He switched to water after dinner and chatted with Caroline’s husband, Rick, a surgeon, who had reconstructed three Achilles tendons in the last week, an operation he hadn’t performed in more than five years. Injuries, he found, were often cyclical. He did knee surgery most often because it was an injury happening to younger and younger people. Many of his patients were teenagers who blew their knees out skateboarding or playing soccer. They recovered quickly, but he was uncertain about the long-term effects. No one would know the true success rate until the teenagers were forty. And by then, he hoped to be close to retirement and more concerned with his portfolio than his patients. After dinner, all the couples danced. They switched partners several times, and Bob soon enough found himself dancing with Caroline. She hung on him, not so much like a woman on the prowl as a woman who had consumed two or three too many glasses of champagne. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as they moved around the floor. At the end of the dance, Bob deposited her into Rick’s arms and found his wife. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. They said good-bye to the others and drove home. Bob quickly drove Jamie to the other end of the street and then rushed back to his wife. He encircled her waist with his arm and led her up the stairs to their bedroom. He locked the door behind them. He slowly removed his jacket and tie and her shawl and draped them over the armchair that routinely hosted a stack of folded laundry instead of someone with a book. Making eye contact with his wife, he unbuttoned his shirt. She stepped closer to him, running her fingers through his chest hair as he unbuttoned her dress. She stepped out of it and stood before him wearing nothing but lacy panties and heels. “Keep the shoes on,” he whispered. She laughed, then turned and strutted to their bed. Bob followed closely behind her. They had eager sex; only once did Bob think about Caroline.
A Changing Marriage Page 17