Secret Lives Of Husbands And Wives

Praise for Josie Brown

Secret Lives of Husbands and Wives

“I loved this juicy-as-it-is-heartfelt novel about love, marriage, friendship—and sharp, manicured claws. Could not put it down!”

—Melissa Senate, author of
The Secret of Joy

“Brown proves that a story with suburban bodies can be just as suspenseful as one with dead bodies! A probing, entertaining fishbowl of married life in a well-heeled, wayward neighborhood. Loved it!” —Stephanie Bond, author of
Body Movers

“Poignant and funny! Josie Brown’s protagonist is strong, resilient and unflinchingly honest; she has all the skills she needs to navigate the ‘mean streets’ of the gated community of Paradise Heights. A great read!” —Wendy Wax, author of
Magnolia Wednesdays

Impossibly Tongue-Tied

“Brad, Angelina, Britney and Kevin may want to check out Josie Brown’s new novel for its ripped-from-the-headlines plot.”

—
New York Post,
Page Six

True Hollywood Lies

“Brown captures the humor of working for a megalomaniac. . . . [A] well-paced, entertaining story.” —
Publishers Weekly

“The tone is confessional, the writing laced with venomous humor.”

—
Wall Street Journal

“A fine piece of literary work.” —
New York Post,
Page Six

Secret Lives of Husbands and Wives
is also available as an eBook

JOSIE BROWN

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and
incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2010 by Josie Brown

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or
portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address
Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department,
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

First Downtown Press trade paperback edition June 2010

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Designed by Renata Di Biase

Manufactured in the United States of America

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ISBN 978-1-4391-7317-6

ISBN 978-1-4391-7318-3 (ebook)

For Martin
Always my first reader, always my first love

I will always appreciate those who have been so generous in their support.

To those dear friends and family who are there to listen to me, love me, and cheer me on: my deep appreciation to Darien and Don Coleman; Helen Drake; Austin Brown; Andree Belle; Allyson Rusu; Poppy Reiffin; Patricia Steadman and Mario Martinez; Bonnie and John Gray; Sheryl and Richard Levy; Sharon, Tim, and Rob Conn; Holly Cless; Paula Santonocito; Rita Abrams; and Sharon and Bill McKeon.

To those who are both my pals and my mentors: Karin Tabke, Tawny Weber, and Stephanie Bond, you are always there for me, and I love and appreciate you for that.

Very special thanks to Anna Brown and Allison O’Connor, whose invaluable insights shaped this book’s characters and provided fodder for some of its zanier incidents.

My editor’s thoughtful consideration is felt on every page of this book. Megan McKeever, not only are you a brilliant editor, but you were the book’s uncompromising advocate. I feel blessed to be writing for you.

And finally, to my agent, Holly Root, who has been my tireless cheerleader from nanosecond one: Holly, thank you for your honesty, for the diligence with which you guide my career, and above all for your friendship.

“Getting divorced just because you don’t love a man is almost as silly as getting married just because you do.”

—Zsa Zsa Gabor

Thursday, 7:32 p.m.

You know how I hate to gossip, but . . .”

That is how Brooke Bartholomew always begins before she launches into a piece of hearsay. She knows and I know (for that matter, everyone knows) that she is the most notorious gossipmonger in our gated community of Paradise Heights.

So, yes, this will be juicy.

“Don’t be such a tease,” I answer. “Just spill it.”

“It’s about DeeDee and Harry Wilder,” she whispers. “They’ve split up. For good!”

Her tone has me looking around to see if the leads in Brooke’s drama are within hearing distance. But it’s hard to tell because it is dark, and everyone, even the adults, is in costume. Witches, Harry Potters, Shreks, and vampires zigzag across Bougainvillea Boulevard, lugging king-size 300-count pima cotton pillowcases filled with all kinds of individually wrapped miniature candy bars. For Brooke, it is not just Halloween but Christmas too: her husband, Benjamin, is Paradise Heights’s dentist and will reap what Hershey’s has sown.

I check to see that my daughter, Olivia, is out of earshot but still within sight. To my chagrin, she and her posse of five-year-olds are
racing up the circular staircase of the Hendricksons’ New Orleans–style McMansion. All the girls are dressed as fairies, which in Halloweenspeak translates into gossamer wings and long tulle skirts over leotards. It is inevitable that one of them will slip, fall, and cry, so I cannot take my eyes off them, even to gauge the veracity of Brooke’s raw data. For the first time tonight I notice that Temple, DeeDee and Harry’s younger child, is not one of the winged creatures flittering in the crush in front of me.

The nickname given the Wilders by my very own clique, the board of the Paradise Heights Women’s League, comes to mind: the Perfect Couple. Until now, it fit like a glove. Both DeeDee and Harry are tall, golden, patrician, and aloof. They are Barbie and Ken dolls come to life. Rounding out the family is their thirteen-year-old son, Jake, the star of the Paradise Heights Middle School basketball team. Our older boy, Tanner, is part of his entourage, as is Brooke’s son, Marcus. Temple is exactly Olivia’s age. With those gilt coiling ringlets and that dimpled smile, Temple is not just the kindergarten set’s unabashed leader but beautiful as well, which is why all the other little girls aspire to be her.

While the Wilders seem friendly enough during the social gatherings that put them in close proximity to the rest of us mere mortals, they never engage, let alone mingle. In Harry’s case, I presume he thinks his real life—that is, his
office
life—is too foreign for us to grasp: he is a senior partner in the international securities division of a large law firm, where every deal trails a long tail of zeros. But DeeDee has no such excuse. She doesn’t work, yet she pointedly ignores our invitations to lunch, preferring to spend the precious hours between school drop-off and pickup gliding through the posh little shops on Paradise Heights’s bustling Main Street. Heck, even the Heights’s working mommies try harder to fit in. The overflow crowd at the Women’s League Christmas party is proof of that, as are the numerous corporate sponsorships they secure for the school district’s annual golf tournament fund-raiser.

Proving yet again that mommy guilt is the greatest of all human motivators.

And now that the Wilders’ crisis has been exposed to the masses, DeeDee’s force field will stay up permanently, for sure.

“No way! The Wilders?” I say to Brooke. “Why, I just saw them together last weekend, at the club. He didn’t leave her side even once. And I know for a fact that DeeDee was at the school yesterday, for the Halloween costume contest.” Although I wasn’t there, Ted, my husband, mentioned seeing her. I stayed home with our younger son, Mickey, who has a nasty case of head lice, the scourge of the elementary school set. Not fun at any time, but doubly distressing to a nine-year-old boy on a day in which all class work is suspended in honor of a candy orgy.

To get his mind off what he was missing, Mickey and I spent the morning carving two more pumpkins to join the family of five already displayed on our steps and spraying a spiderweb of Silly String on the porch banister. Ted, who is too fastidious to appreciate our haphazard handiwork, has elicited promises from us both that all of this sticky substance will be pulled off first thing tomorrow morning, before it has time to erode the nice new paint job on our faux-Victorian.

Now, as I keep watch over Olivia’s raid on the neighbors’ candy stashes, Ted is at home with Mickey, parsimoniously doling out mini Mounds bars. Despite having purchased forty bags of the stuff, neither of us will be surprised if we run out long before the last trick-or-treater has come and gone. That is the downside to having a house that is smack-dab in the middle of Bougainvillea Boulevard, where all things pertaining to Paradise Heights begin and end. Because of this, poor Mickey will have to share whatever goodies Tanner and Olivia bring home. I don’t look forward to the fight that breaks out over who gets the Godiva candy bar and who is left with the smashed caramel apple.

“Yeah, well, apparently it happened yesterday morning. From
what I heard, he came home early from work so that he wouldn’t miss the Halloween parade—and
found her in bed with another man
.” Brooke waves her little hellion, Benjamin Jr., on toward his older brother, Marcus, who has been trying all night to ditch the kid. Having been an only child, Brooke cannot accept the notion that a thirteen-year-old wouldn’t want to hang with his only sibling, especially one seven years his junior.

Frankly, I think all of Brooke’s energy would be better spent on some therapy over her own traumas. “My God! That’s horrible! Do you think it’s for real?”