The Idea of Him

by Holly Peterson

  I tried to push by her on my way out of my office. “And why do you need to know?”

  “Because I want to give you good girlfriend advice, and you’re so clammed up, we can’t figure this out.”

  I plunked my sorry body down on the sofa in the hallway before the elevator bank and placed my head in my hands.

  Caitlin rubbed my back. “Where are you guys? Where are you in all this?”

  I shook my head. “If you fall in love with someone who turns out to be a liar and you still love something about him and you have kids on top of that, then you’re fucked. It’s like Lucy and Blake form this concrete block that trips me up. They deserve the family I never got. I’m telling you, I’m so lost in this mess.”

  “Well, maybe Wade just isn’t quite the man he seemed when you . . .”

  “Wade is just a big kid. He wants it all and he wants it now. And he’s exciting in so many ways, but his flaws are very, very real. And they cause acute pain, because a lying mate doesn’t mean the connection turns off like a faucet. It just means confusion reigns and, in my case, a prickly and constant state of what the hell do I do now?”

  “Well, how long can you hold out?” Caitlin asked, like it affected her somehow. “Are you going to try despite his, I don’t know, his ways?”

  “I wouldn’t be the only woman in America who’d overlooked that issue.” My heart hurt and I felt a rush of anxiety wash over me because I had no idea what I wanted or how to fix this.

  “Look at Jackie O,” Caitlin said, sounding dejected.

  I shook my head and stared at the horribly creased shirt I’d slept in. “Nothing about me is like Jackie O.”

  “Look at Hillary Clinton!” Caitlin offered next. “She might be president someday; then we can say the leader of the goddamn free world overlooked a womanizer!”

  Yeah, but maybe I just couldn’t overlook it, and maybe I couldn’t find the right answer either. A happy me didn’t exactly shine on either side of the coin. I had two choices: leave him and be alone with the kids and face God knows what hell or stay and feel like I wasn’t meant for any of what had come of my marriage.

  I stood up straight like a good soldier and stabbed the elevator button. I had a report to present to my boss, a confidential package to deliver to him, and two tired children downstairs in the lobby on a steaming hot, disgusting, muggy New York day. No way around it but to take them to the meeting and feed them enough cool ice cream to keep them as happy as possible. Hugely depressing thoughts were creeping through every inch of my body, but I closed my eyes and willed them buried for now.

  THERE’S AN UNWRITTEN rule in Manhattan that says “on summer Fridays, leave for the Hamptons before two o’clock or after seven o’clock.” Never in between. By the time I got the kids into the car and a movie playing on the drop-down screens, it was one thirty.

  This time, the unwritten rule was wrong by thirty minutes, which only amped up those depressing thoughts. Two hours later, I sat on the Long Island Expressway, caught up in a perfect storm of pre-rush-hour, middle-island business, and rich Hampton weekender traffic around exit 50, twenty long, slow exits before the off-ramp to the Hamptons.

  We were at a standstill on a four-lane highway, and the air conditioner on my old Volvo wagon huffed and puffed. At least the kids had both passed out after the first hour of nonstop poking and teasing and whining. I looked back at them all passed out, finally, and they looked like little rolled-up cherubs. At least I had them, and no one could change that ever.

  My phone rang—Tommy’s number on the screen—and I clicked on my Bluetooth earpiece quickly before it woke them. A least a little ray of light in an otherwise taxing morning.

  “How’s the presentation?” he asked.

  “Mashed potatoes at best. My boss will point out every shortcoming.”

  “Well, fuck your job. Stick to the writing.”

  “When’s yours due?” I asked.

  “I got a week.”

  “I’ll be on your ass next week then,” I promised.

  “That sounds nice, you on my ass. We could maybe try that before then to practice a little . . .”

  I coughed. “I’m undecided on that front, you know that,” I said, while making sure the kids were out cold in back.

  “I can help you with that decision. Why don’t you just chill out, come to my apartment and rip off my clothes, and you take charge; have your way with me . . .”

  “How about instead I help you with your writing?” I asked, hoping to even the score, and cool him off.

  “It just so happens I am having this one problem with my main character. There’s this nice girl he likes, but he wants to cheat on her with this hot, totally destructive chick, and I’m concerned it’s making the audience hate him. How do I do that and make women want to go to this movie, and, on some level, like him?”

  “Well, that’s not easy, but you should thank God it’s the guy you’re trying to make likable. Audiences hate it when a woman cheats, especially a mother, so much puritanical backlash baggage about all that. If a married woman actually cheats, then the writer has to have her jump on the train tracks so the audience can go home happy . . . oh, shit.” I slapped my forehead with the palm of my hand.

  “Allie?” Tommy said, clearly alarmed. “You there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here.” I shook my head as my anger resurfaced. “But I gotta do something. I’ll call you later.”

  “Okay, do that. And put your ass on me next time it’s convenient.”

  I heard rumblings in the backseat as Blake stirred and asked for a drink, his eyes still closed.

  “Honey, there’s your favorite strawberry Capri Sun drinks in the cooler; take a sip of something and go back to sleep. When you are both awake, while I’m working at my meeting, you can turn on Toy Story 3.”

  Next I anxiously called lobby security.

  “Good afternoon, 553 West Nineteenth Street.”

  “Hi, Lorenzo, it’s Allie Crawford from the Hillsinger offices. I have a quick question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Do you remember I came down to greet my husband and children?”

  “Yes. Always remember the children. Can’t say that about the husbands.”

  “Okay, Lorenzo,” I pleaded. “Please please please try to remember, just before that, you sent a messenger upstairs. A Mr. Prissert?”

  “Okay, yes, I see it. Mrs. Crawford, it’s like Grand Central Station here, I don’t remember every face I sign in.”

  “Did you happen to see my husband talking to that man, Mr. Prissert, the guy who came up with the envelope?” I was gripping the wheel like a crazy person, with all my knuckles turning white. It hit me like an electric shock. If Wade and Mr. Prissert were talking in the lobby, then Wade and Murray were in some kind of financial dealings together for sure and I just might believe everything Jackie was telling me. Maybe I would even hand her the flash drive.

  “Honestly, Mrs. Crawford, I’d really like to help you, but I just don’t remember. I remember your kids running in when you came down and thinking you must be an awful nice mom, seeing how you treat me nice all the time. I remember that. And I remember you going outside to someone; I mean the kids wouldn’t have been there alone, I guess.”

  “Can you find any security tapes?”

  “Yes. But I’m not supposed to . . .”

  “Please, Lorenzo. Look at the tapes. And also tell me if there’s an SUV, a black one, outside that was with the guy who brought up my package.”

  “Okay. Give me an hour.”

  I just needed a link between Wade and the envelope Murray wanted so badly from some bank and then I’d be pretty close to believing everything Jackie said—why the hell else would my husband pray to Jesus in thanks on the floor when I handed him a missing flash drive? The pieces were too easy to ignore: Max Rowland, a.k.a. Texas Takeover King, looking to get even richer; my husband manipulating media stories; Delsie broadcasting fake news on CNBB to earn some more cash for her Easter
-egg-colored Valentino suits; and Murray spinning more tales with the help of media mover Wade Crawford to protect them all. A nice little circle of crime that went round and round . . .

  Jackie said this crew was up to another deal that would be even bigger. I had to find the missing link before that happened. Problem was I didn’t understand all the codes and numbers on the flash drive. Though I could tell that the projects Red, Green, and Blue had bank account information linked to them, I didn’t know what they meant. I was still worried that they implicated Wade in a way that would harm him, and us, and because of that, I kept a firm grip on the flash drive. I would not be handing it to Jackie just yet.

  23

  Landed Gentry

  At 4:40 P.M. that steamy day, I rolled my car through Murray’s automatic gate, which dramatically revealed his stucco Southampton château. The pebbles on his circular driveway were raked to an even perfection like frosting on a cake. An enormous elm tree that was new to the yard loomed over the driveway.

  On the lawn in front, I spied Murray with a Wiffle ball and bat in his hand at home plate. He was clad in pinstripe seersucker shorts held up by probably the longest needlepoint belt known to exist—his initials “HH” sewn in pink and green squares every three inches, with crisscrossed golf clubs in between. He wore bright orange Tod’s driving shoes that looked like they were about to explode on his puffy feet.

  Murray’s sinewy wife, Eri, quite elegant at last night’s screening in a Dennis Basso gown with the jewels and the chignon, was looking decidedly out of place on a makeshift athletic field. She wore white leggings on her drainpipe legs, a fuchsia Polo shirt, and $1000 snakeskin Lanvin “sneakers” on her feet. Her bright blue contact lenses made her dark Asian eyes ethereal in a deeply creepy way.

  I drove the car a little bit around the circle and watched the Hillsinger family from my front seat as I pretended to be on a call. I couldn’t bear to walk out into the bright, blistering sun just yet.

  Murray was playing ball with his two sons, Benjamin, aged six, and Noah, aged four, with Eri supposedly playing catcher: one of those insta-families created by older rich men who’ve left their long-loyal wives for all the hopes and promises younger flesh seemed to offer. The boys wore little colored twill shirts tucked into khaki shorts that reached their knees. Benjamin, skin bulging over the top of his socks like his dad, walked up to the pitcher’s spot that Murray occupied and whined, “I hate team sports. Why do we have to play this stupid game?”

  “Murray! The kid needs to take a break. Take it easy on him,” a matronly woman yelled from the shade of the front porch.

  “No, Ma! The kid needs to learn to play ball. You think you were easy on me?”

  “You weren’t nothing like Benjamin. You couldn’t do anything right. You needed to work hard just to get even with everyone.” Mrs. Hillsinger lumbered up from her chair and walked down the steps of the front porch while her enormous breasts swung to and fro. “Benji’s already a star. Come heyah, my Benji. Come to Nana for some love.”

  “Ma! Stop!” Murray smacked the top of Benjamin’s head, knocking his cap off and told him, “This is only finished when one team reaches twelve points. You got that?”

  I got out of my car into the intense heat, leaving the engine and AC on, and walked right over to the game, hoping my own kids would remain hypnotized by the wonders of Pixar.

  Murray yelled over, “Give me ten minutes, Allie. You got the envelope, right?”

  I smacked my bag and held it tight. “Yes, I do. Unburned.”

  “Murray!” Mrs. Hillsinger yelled again. “Don’t you go working and ignoring my boys. Allie’s got your life in control. You’ve got all afternoon to do your work!”

  I walked up the steps to the house and kissed the formidable Toni Hillsinger hello. She grabbed some flesh on my arm. “Allie, darling. You’re lookin’ too thin. What’s with you city girls? Eri over there is so skinny she looks like Popeye’s girlfriend. A Japanese Olive Oyl!” As she laughed, her enormous Murray-like stomach shook.

  “Well, Eri is quite elegant actually.” I was trying.

  “If you like that kind of thing.” She added in a loud whisper Eri could hear. “Not my type! That’s for sure!” As she walked back to the stairs, she continued on her charming rant, no longer with any pretense of discretion. “And look at my Murray, what’s with the fey needlepoint belt and orange girls’ moccasins on his feet? He forgot where he came from. Just because he buys a house on a bay with pretty flowers doesn’t mean he’s a gentile.”

  “I can hear you, Ma,” Murray bellowed. “Allie, go ask Eduardo for some gentile iced tea. Or he’ll bring you one on the back porch. Go sit, Allie,” he barked, as if I were his lapdog, which I guess wasn’t far off.

  “Sure thing.” I went back to check on the kids to see if they wanted to come into the television room or watch the game outside.

  Just then, a beat-up 1986 Ford F-150 pickup rolled around the driveway. In it, I spied an older woman behind the wheel, and a passenger I couldn’t see properly. The truck stopped short of the walkway near Murray, and the messy-haired woman in her late fifties waved a hearty hello from the driver’s seat. A BARBARA’S ORGANIC GREEN THUMB sign was painted on the side of her truck.

  “Barbara, what are you spoiling us with today?” Murray stopped his game and walked over to the car.

  “Everything. Looks like you could use some fruit in your diet. No pies for you today.” Barbara cracked up in a raspy voice that sounded like it was caused by far too many Kool Menthols—I noticed three used packages lining the filthy dashboard. She grabbed a small basket of strawberries from behind the passenger seat and held an especially plump one up to the sky. “Look at these babies. Rubies from the heavens.”

  She was a handsome woman with a stocky middle and long legs, curly grayish-blond hair, and deep brown eyes, looking for sure like she was born and bred on the salty East End of Long Island. Barbara pulled down the creaky and heavy back door of her truck, which had long ago lost its springs, and pulled out a cardboard box bursting at the seams from the weight of the fresh berries, peas, and lettuces. She unloaded more boxes of heavy produce as if they were filled with cotton balls.

  “What about me?” yelled Eri, feigning disappointment and jealousy. “Don’t I matter, Barbara? Didn’t you bring anything for me?”

  “Now you pay the bills?” Toni Hillsinger said from the porch. Eri shot her a cool look, while Barbara piled on.

  “I’ve known Murray a lot longer than he’s even known you,” Barbara yelled back. “Maybe before you were born, sweetheart!” More laughter cracked out from both older ladies staking out territory. Barbara stomped her strong build through the back door and toward the pantry.

  “See, Ma? See how a woman treats me nice? Could you try that once? I send you to Boca on the East Coast, to the Bacara on the West, not to mention possibly the Cip in Venice—you could act a little appreciative.”

  “You know Pop and I worked hard to make you good at everything so you could make all that money and have all this. And I don’t even get any thanks for it. Ah, the hell with you. I’m takin’ my nap.” Mama Hillsinger walked through the front door without saying another word as she let it slam behind her.

  Quite unexpectedly, out of the passenger seat of the beat-up truck pranced a sexy thing in hot shorts, tangerine orange in color, who murmured to the older woman, “Hold on, I’ll give you a hand, I didn’t realize there was more . . .” The shorts were hiked up so that the back of her bottom ever so slightly bounced out with each little provocative step. A high ponytail of streaked blond curls sticking out of a New York Yankees hat was all I noticed at first. Pert little breasts in a tight turquoise cotton camisole next. Then that unmistakable face.

  No. It couldn’t be.

  It was. Jackie Malone. Here in Southampton. What on earth? Was she stalking me?

  As she approached, I watched Murray’s eyes bulge out at this candy-colored confection of a girl.

  I barely re
cognized Jackie. This wasn’t the lip-smacking sophisticate who was slithering around my parties and the Tudor Room; it was the spritely, down-home, country singer, Barbie version.

  “I’ll get it,” Jackie said. Wow. The weatherworn lady driving the pickup must have been her mother, and Jackie’s story about a mom in financial straits started to take on more meaning.

  I studied Murray’s expression. Something about this Jackie woman terrified him. I was sure he’d witnessed her around New York and at the Tudor Room, but seeing her in this setting was seismic for him in a way I couldn’t decipher. I could tell because his face wasn’t just red, it was full-on purple, just like the fresh beets Barbara had yanked out of the earth.

  Jackie arched an eyebrow and rounded the truck, which caused Murray to blink wildly from the amount of perspiration dripping down his forehead and cascading down the divots in his pockmarked face. When he saw her twirl around the corner of the Ford F-150, as if to help her hardworking mother in such a selfless way, I thought he might just melt into a round puddle of sweat like a cartoon character.

  “Murray. Try to be a little cool.” I nudged him. I was watching Eri watch Murray watching Jackie and couldn’t quite figure out the dynamics of the trio.

  “Who is that woman?” he asked me.

  “Have you seen her before, Murray? I think I have somewhere.”

  “I-I don’t know. I just can’t figure out who she is, doesn’t matter at all.” And he turned to face his boys on the field.

  “I’m not sure. Looks like she’s just helping the lady,” I answered just to screw around with him.

  It took me a moment to realize that Blake was standing at my side, prepubescent mouth equally agape. I turned him back toward the car, dropping my carefully collated package of charts in the process. Jackie strode over and reached for the envelope marked CONFIDENTIAL.

  “Let me help you with that,” she said as she bent her knees into an elegant squat next to me.

  24