“Look at the road,” Deb said.
“Mr. Hyde,” Mark said. “I’m married to Mr. Fucking Hyde!”
Mark shut up the rest of the ride home, and Deb didn’t say anything either. She wasn’t fantasizing about killing Karen anymore; yep, she was beyond all that. If Mark wanted to spend his life with some pathetic, middle-aged, home wrecker, did it really matter? At least he’d be someone else’s problem and Deb would be free; after seventeen mostly miserable years she could do whatever the hell she wanted. She could take that class at the Art Students League, or maybe go to grad school, get a Masters. She could get a job, maybe teach or work at a museum. She’d take Mark’s money and the house for the kids, but she didn’t need a man to take care of her—that was Mark’s fantasy, not hers. And when she was ready, she’d meet someone, a real man, someone as unlike Mark as possible. He’d be sexy, adventurous, sophisticated, maybe European. Yeah, she could see herself with a tall, dark, sharply dressed European man who enjoyed the things she enjoyed—travel, theater, vineyards, literature, the ballet. It would be great to have a husband whose typical Friday night wasn’t sitting on his ass, watching the golf channel, someone she could go to parties with and feel proud that he was cultured, had opinions, and when the subject turned to books he’d have something to talk about other than a John Grisham novel he’d once read.
Yeah, this had turned into the greatest day of Deb’s life.
At the house, in the garage, Deb got out of the car while the engine was still running. Casey was barking, excited to see her.
“Not now,” she said to him and grabbed her laptop and then went into the den/playroom on the second floor and push-locked the door. The page from Orbitz for Amalfi Coast vacations was still up and she said, “Yeah, right,” as she left the page and Googled “Scott Greenberg attorney.” As she called, she realized it was a Saturday and he wouldn’t be in the office, but she didn’t care. She left a message, reminding him who she was, and that she wanted to initiate divorce proceedings on her husband immediately and looked forward to talking on Monday. When she hung up she felt good for being proactive, for taking another big step toward freedom.
When she left the room, she noticed that Riley’s door was open a crack, and she peeked in and saw Riley lying on her stomach in bed, propped up by her elbows, reading some soft cover teen fantasy novel.
Deb opened the door fully and said, “Got a second?”
Riley didn’t answer, so Deb went further into the room and sat on the foot of the bed and said, “Seriously, I want to talk to you about something.”
“What is it?” Riley’s eyes shifted toward Deb but she kept the book propped up.
“I want you to stay away from Owen Harrison,” Deb said.
“What?” Riley seemed confused. “Why?”
“Because I told you to, that’s why,” Deb said. “He’s too old for you and… and I just want you to stay away from him, okay?”
Now Riley put down the book and smiled. “Wait,” she said. “You seriously think something’s going on with me and Owen Harrison?”
“I just want you to stay away from him,” Deb said.
“Yuck.” Riley looked disgusted. “Owen’s a total freak.”
Deb couldn’t help feeling a little offended. “I didn’t say he was a
freak
,” she said. “I just don’t think he’s appropriate for you.”
“Um, he’s a freak, Ma,” Riley said. “He’s totally gross. Elana’s into him, not me.”
“Elana?” Deb asked, wondering if Riley was telling the truth.
“Yeah,” Riley said, “and I think she’s crazy. I don’t know why she likes him at all, but she’s like obsessed, like so into him it’s insane. That’s why I asked you about him, because Elana’s been getting suspicious, afraid he’s cheating on her. You really thought
I
like him?”
Deb believed Riley, but she was suddenly confused by the whole situation. “What do you mean by ‘so into him’?” she asked.
“You know,
into
him,” Riley said. “Like seriously into him.”
Deb felt awkward and wasn’t sure how to get into the conversation because, she realized, she had never really had an in depth conversation with Riley about sex. They’d
talked
about it, of course. Deb had answered most of her questions around the time she hit puberty and when she was taking sex ed, but they didn’t have the kind of open relationship where they talked about sex and dating that some mothers seemed to have with their daughters.
“So you’re trying to say that Elana has a crush on Owen?” Deb asked.
“No, way more than a crush,” Riley said. “They’ve already, you know, done stuff.”
Deb suddenly felt unsteady, a little dizzy, as if she’d just gotten news about a relative’s death. She said, “Stuff. You mean they’ve… kissed.”
“Way more than kissing,” Riley said. “They’ve been, like, you know... hooking up.”
Now Deb’s stomach cramped, as if somebody were reaching in there and squeezing a fistful of her guts, and it was hard to get enough breath in her lungs to say, “Hooking up,” and that was really all she could say with her brain churning, thinking about so many things at once.
“Yeah,” Riley said. “Why? I mean like why do you even
care
?”
Deb imagined Owen and Elana in the back of his car, where
she
had been with him so many times before. She burped up the odor of vodka and stomach acid burned her throat.
“How do you know this?” Deb asked.
“Are you okay, Ma?” Riley seemed concerned.
“Did she tell you this?” Deb asked, fighting off another image of Owen as a teacher and Elana as his naughty student. “I mean, did she actually tell you this or are you just… hypothesizing?”
“Are you sure you’re okay, Ma?”
“Did she tell you or not?” Deb was losing patience.
“She didn’t have to tell me,” Riley said. “I was there. I mean not
there
, there, but I’ve seen them together. I mean, like, before they were together.”
“So is this something new?” Deb asked.
“Yeah,” Riley said. “I mean kind of. But why are you asking? Why do you care?”
Deb wanted to keep grilling Riley, to find out exactly what was going on with Owen and Elana, but it hit that she’d better back off, that she didn’t want it getting back to Elana, and then Elana telling Owen.
“Oh, I don’t really care at all,” Deb said. “I was curious because you mentioned him in the car, that’s all, and I didn’t want you dating an older guy. But I guess it was just a misunderstanding.”
Deb went back downstairs, right to the liquor cabinet, and poured a full glass of Stoli. Owen had once promised Deb that he wasn’t dating anyone else and the idea that he’d been with Elana—and God knows how many other girls—repulsed Deb, but as she downed a second glass, she thought,
Does it really matter anymore
? After all, she’d dumped Owen anyway and was going to move on with her life, and at least apparently Owen hadn’t been having sex with Riley so Deb should actually be
happy
.
But she wasn’t happy. She felt used, lied to, played, but it was hard to blame Owen. He was young, naive, so it was understandable that he’d made a bad decision. It was actually
Elana’s
fault. Like Karen had stolen Mark, Elana had stolen Owen—Deb was losing all her men to that fucking family. She was well on her way to Drunkville but, fuck it, she had a right to be angry; she wouldn’t be human if she wasn’t angry. She’d been humiliated twice today and she wasn’t sure what to do about it.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
Mark entered and saw Deb finishing the second drink. In the past Deb would have felt ashamed, defensive, but now she couldn’t give a shit.
Ignoring him, she put the bottle away, then walked right past him, not making eye contact and said, “Get ready for the fight of your life,” and went upstairs.
Ha, was that perfect or what? Mark was probably terrified, afraid he was going to lose everything, and little did he know that his fears were justified. If she didn’t hate him so much for cheating on her and making her miserable, she would have felt sorry for him, because no one—not even a lying, cheating husband—deserved the hell he was about to go through.
Deb was scared too, though, and didn’t want to be alone tonight. Without giving it any more thought, she texted Owen:
sory about before, can explain I rally want to c u later
She knew she’d made typos, but she didn’t want to waste time correcting them, wanting to hit send right away.
Seconds later she got:
Awesome!!!! Where u wanna meet?
Deb felt a rush, knowing she’d made the right decision.
Fuck Mark. Fuck logic.
They made plans to meet up at eight-thirty “at their usual spot,” in the back of the parking lot of John Jay High School.
Later, in a little black dress and knee-length black boots, Deb checked herself out in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door and loved how she looked. She usually didn’t dress sexy, and she hadn’t felt this good about herself in years; she felt like she was twenty-three years old, after college, living with friends in that small apartment on the Upper West Side. Life had been so simple then—work, shopping, and meeting guys were her only real concerns. She wanted that easy, simple life again.
She called for a car service and went downstairs when she heard Casey barking, meaning that a car had pulled up outside. Mark was sprawled in the living room, his finger in his nose, watching golf. Mark stopped picking his nose when he noticed her and, though she only glanced in his direction for an instant as he flicked away the booger, she knew he was checking her out, noticing how sexy she looked, probably wondering where she was going, looking so hot. Good, let him have his regret—he deserved it—and it felt great to be able to come and go as she pleased. For years she’d felt like a repressed teenager with Mark as her overbearing father. Well, so long, Daddy.
Riding in the back of the car down Savage Lane, past Karen’s house, Deb said, “The nose picker’s all yours, sweetie. Enjoy!”
The driver, an older Indian guy, looked at her in the rearview and said, “I’m sorry?”
“Not you,” Deb said. “I was talking to the husband-stealing whore who lives in that house over there.”
Then she texted Mark:
Drop J at sleepover at Andrews
That was perfect—texting about Justin but leaving her plans tonight a mystery. She wanted him to feel the loss, know that the intimacy in their marriage was gone forever.
The car service dropped her in the parking lot of the country club where she picked up her Pathfinder. Driving, she turned on her iPod and let Billy Joel,
My Life
, rip as she opened both front windows part way and felt the wind rushing through her hair. She wasn’t forty-four, she was seventeen, driving along a highway in Bergen County, New Jersey, where she grew up. She had completely lost her buzz from the Stoli, but it didn’t matter.
It was all good.
O
WEN WAS
never late for sex and tonight was no exception. At eight-thirty headlights appeared, and then his car eased into the spot next to where she’d parked, and he cut the engine. Then he got out and got back in to the backseat. She exited her car, barely aware that it was starting to rain, and opened his car door. As usual, he had left a flashlight, turned on, on the front seat, which illuminated the entire car in a dull orange hue, but bright enough to see each other clearly. He was sitting casually, one foot up on the seat, smiling widely.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away from me for long, baby,” he said.
Deb, halfway into the car, froze, not sure if she was mesmerized or just confused. It was raining harder; she felt the cold drops on her head, neck, and back.
“What’re you waiting for?” he asked.
Deb didn’t budge until she realized she was starting to get soaked and then she came in all the way and shut the door.
“The wet look,” Owen said. “I like that.”
He reached under her dress and touched her thigh, and she instinctively tensed. Rain sizzled on the car’s roof.
“Come here,” he said, grabbing her waist and trying to pull her toward him.
Resisting, Deb said, “Don’t.”
But he didn’t listen; instead, he grabbed her harder, saying, “Come on, what’s—” and Deb had to push him away from her. He wasn’t grinning anymore.
“Why’d you do that?” he asked.
Outside lightning flashed and Deb thought,
Who is this kid
?
Kid
, because that was how he looked—like a child, a baby. In this dim light he could be fifteen years old, younger than when they’d met, and there was nothing sexy about him, and he didn’t even seem particularly attractive. He was wiry, awkward looking. His ears stuck out too far, and he had oddly shaped arched eyebrows. For the first time, she realized, she was seeing him the way Riley, and probably everybody else saw him—there was definitely something
off
about him. He hadn’t gone to college and was living with his parents and was working at a temporary, dead-end job. Worse, he had no real interests or ambition and there was nothing particularly interesting about his personality. He wasn’t funny or smart or a very good conversationalist. From her new perspective, as a separated woman, she realized there wasn’t anything even intriguing about him. Though they’d had good sex, now it was hard to fathom why exactly she had been so attracted to him. Thoughts of his bony, hairless child’s body seemed repulsive—she couldn’t even stand the way he smelled, with his nauseating Axe cologne. This wasn’t close to the suave, sophisticated Italian man she’d been fantasizing about meeting. Now it seemed absurd, completely insane that she’d been involved with him at all, and she just wanted, no,
needed
to get away.