Secret Lives Of Husbands And Wives (12 page)

Today it pays off with some excellent ball handling. I’m especially proud of Tanner, who’s had two successful foul shots and a three-pointer that barely beat the third-quarter buzzer (make that chimes, which are calibrated to sound like Big Ben an hour past noon).

Unfortunately, today Harry can’t claim similar pride in Jake.
Besides the missed foul shot, our team’s captain is having an off day of epic proportions. Seems that every time he gets hold of the ball, it slips from his grasp and rolls out of bounds, or his shots skim the rim, then fly faithfully into the hands of our opponents.

I’ve no doubt Tammy’s tongue-lashing of his father has something to do with this. Then again, Shannon Brown’s mojo would have evaporated under her icy-hot glare.

Harry, on the other hand, isn’t letting Tammy’s cold albeit elegant shoulder kill his enjoyment of the game. He smiles and cheers and pretends he’s still adored by all of us, even her. In fact, he taunts Tammy by directing most of his remarks to her. I sit between them hoping to deflect her anger, but my nervous laughter is thin coverage for the daggered glances she aims at him. I almost lose it altogether when he taps her shoulder and offers her his hot link. “Care for a bite of my dog?” he asks with a very innocent smile.

“Omigod! Did you see what that little bastard just did to John-John?
Did you?
” Isabelle, who sits on his other side, thinks nothing of shouting out Tourette’s-worthy play-by-play descriptions. Harry has to yank her back down into her captain’s chair before she attacks the CEO guard who dared to cross her son’s airspace. Unfortunately, that puts Harry close enough for her to pierce his arm with her lavender-hued nails. “
YES! YES! YES!
My Gawd, you’re DAH BOMB, JOHN!
DAH BOMB!
”

Harry’s eyes widen. The horror of witnessing her Jocastian lust is reflected in his dilated pupils.

But this is just the lull before the tempest that drowns Jake in a perfect storm of shame and pain.

With only twenty-three seconds left on the clock and the score tied, he finds himself with the ball. Granted, he’s got a wide-open shot, but with the luck he’s been having, maybe he should consider a Plan B that’s obvious even to me, and certainly to his coach and his teammates: to pass it to John-John, who is standing directly under the basket.

Jake hesitates only a nanosecond before making his choice:

Redemption.

If only.

He sets himself. Perfectly poised, he releases, letting the ball roll off the tips of his fingers toward its final destination. It has only begun its perfect arc when the towering CEO forward (a six-foot-three-inch ringer whose parents are both Russian Olympic team alums: mom was a gymnast, dad played basketball) floats high up above Jake and snatches the ball from midair—

And just a second ahead of the buzzer, it is swooshing through the CEOs’ hoop.

Jake’s eyes shift through a kaleidoscope of emotions: Disbelief. Horror. Shame.

So do Harry’s: Pride. Sadness. Sympathy.

“What are you, some sort of idiot?” Jake may be a head taller than Isabelle, but her words, finding him over the cacophony of the CEOs’ whoops of joy, cut him down to size.

Harry grabs her by the arm and spins her around. “How dare you talk to my kid that way!”

“Well, what else could he be? John-John was wide open! Jake saw that and blew it! Yeah, I’d say that qualifies him as an idiot!”

Margot, Brooke, and I freeze. If this were a clash of offspring as opposed to parents behaving badly, the pair would be shushed and separated, and the ride home would be a Kumbaya of penitence. Instead, this train wreck of emotions leaves us all speechless. We
expect
Isabelle to go off the deep end. Each of us has been there/done that with her, too many times to remember. Not for love, but survival: keep friends close, and enemies closer, right? So, like chinchilla-swaddled starlets confronted by a PETA activist with a blood-engorged balloon, we duck and dodge her vitriol as best we can—

And keep on smiling.

But not Harry.

In a boardroom he may be Machiavelli, but his skills in playground politics are remedial at best. He’s finding out firsthand that there is no beast in the corporate jungle half as fearsome as the mother tiger protecting her cub’s shot at MVP glory.

But before she can pounce again, Harry uses the only weapon available to an unarmed man: his roar. “You bitch! Who the
hell
do you think you are?”

The gym goes silent. His words have choked the air like a LeBron James powder toss.

Suddenly it’s a free-for-all. Pete jumps in between the two of them, trying to calm them down. I can imagine, though, that he’s glad someone finally had the nerve to tell Isabelle where to get off.

Jake, ashamed of himself and for his father, can’t take it anymore. He runs out of the gym before the other guys catch on that he’s teared up.

Just then, my cell phone buzzes. I fully expect it to be Ted calling for the wrap-up score, but no, the number is Colleen’s.

“Lyssa? Where are you guys? I thought you’d be back by now!” Even when Colleen is miffed, her voice is barely above a whisper. Between all the screaming going on around me and little McGuyver’s rebel yell on the other end of the line as he shoots some imaginary gun at Olivia, it’s surprising I can hear Colleen at all. McGuyver bucks her peacenik teachings with a vengeance, which just goes to show you how strongly nature trumps nurture.

“So sorry, Col! Really I am! We—well, we thought we’d take in a few minutes of the boys’ game. You know, for moral support.”

“Oh, you’re at the game? Is Harry there too?”

I hesitate before answering. Tammy’s crush on Harry may be over, but Colleen is true-blue through and through. “Yeah, he’s here. Why do you ask?”

“Miss Judith called from the preschool. She was wondering if I’d seen him, because Temple—”

“Wait. Isn’t Temple with you?”

“No, silly! Why would you ever think that?” Colleen’s giggle is the trill of a Disney princess high on life. “I told her that Harry was at the game, and that maybe Harry asked DeeDee to do pickup for him today. . . .”

As if.

To make his implosion complete, I yank him off to the side to give him the bad news: that, inexplicably, he’s forgotten his daughter.

When he hears that DeeDee has been called, the color drains from his face, as does his anger. It is replaced by an ashen dread. “Great! Just . . . great. Why the hell didn’t Judith just call me? Why did she go and do that?”

The way he’s flexing his hands, I know he feels like strangling someone. If I tell him it was Colleen’s doing, I know who his victim will be, so I stay mum.

“Do you realize how DeeDee will spin this in court?” Harry shrugs helplessly.

“Look, if we leave now, maybe we can get there before she does.”

He hears me loud and clear. Without another word, Harry shoves his way through the crowd and out the door, to his car and his son. Realizing that this was Tanner’s ride home, I shout out to Brooke that Tammy should give him a lift back to the Heights; that after picking up Temple, I’ll have Harry swing around to Colleen’s, where we’ll grab her Ben and Olivia.

Tammy clucks her tongue in mock despair. “No wonder DeeDee left him! What kind of man forgets his own kid?”

“Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.”

—G. K. Chesterton

6:11 p.m.

Game face.

We all have one. It takes your smile and sharpens it into a grimace. Rocked by an emotional earthquake, the gentle planes of your face shift into stone. The happiness once beaming from your eyes is now refracted inward, focused with laser-sharp concentration on the dark matter at hand.

Harry’s is one I don’t recognize. I’ll admit it: for the past few weeks his dimpled smile and courtly manners have been the icing on the cake of my day. And while courting the league board, he was sweetness and light. Now, though, devoid of any joy, his smile has curdled into a snarl.

What I’m seeing now sends icicles through my veins.

He is ready to do battle with DeeDee the Ice Queen.

Temple won’t be the only collateral damage. In the side-view mirror, I see Jake. He sits silently in the back, just staring out the window, his damp red-rimmed eyes as wide as those of the ghoul in
The Scream
. I can only imagine what he’s thinking: that all of this—not just the lost game, but his father’s fall from grace, even his parents’ breakup—is his fault.

If I could, I’d reach back there and hold his hand. And yet, as the mother of one of his friends, the only place I hold in his life is that of
an abstract acquaintance.

What
am
I doing here, anyway?

Almost as if reading my mind, Harry places his fingers on my arm and pats it absentmindedly. That tells me what I need to know: I’m here because I’m the only friend Harry has in this gated, well-landscaped corner of the world.

We pull up to the front of Paradise Waldesorri Preschool and Kindergarten just in time to see DeeDee walking out with Temple and Miss Judith, the head of the school. DeeDee’s silk blouse and cashmere slacks look almost militaristic next to Miss Judith’s gauzy flowing skirt and Birkenstocks. If Miss Judith’s attire isn’t the broadest hint that she is the community’s one and only holdover from the days when Paradise Heights was a hippie commune (hence the first portion of its name, before the place was elevated into the economic stratosphere), her head scarf, tied over flowing gray curls, is a dead giveaway. Whatever DeeDee is saying has Miss Judith shaking her head in dismay. This causes the beaded fringe on her scarf to jiggle. She glances sympathetically at Temple, whose eyes are starred with tears, her pillowed lips bitten into a pout.

The way the car screeches as it comes to a halt undermines Harry’s attempt at indifference. Jake slumps down when his mother comes into view. Either he’s hoping she doesn’t see him and ask him to recap his inglorious day, or he has his own bone to pick with her.

“Stay here,” growls Harry. I don’t know if he’s talking to me or to Jake. But in the mood he’s in, neither of us plans on disobeying him.

He’s out of the car in a flash. Because he’s keeping his voice low and level, I can’t hear every word, but I do catch the phrases “very sorry” and “won’t happen again.” Miss Judith nods sympathetically, but tired uncertainty shades her pale gray eyes; it is obvious that whatever DeeDee has been telling her has colored her view of Harry.

Temple slips her hand into her father’s, but does not let go of DeeDee’s either. In fact, she squeezes it even tighter, as if to prove, if
only to herself, that they are still joined in some way.

This only seems to amp up their feelings toward each other—and their voices. “I’ve told you, I’ve got it under control,” Harry insists.

“My God, Harry! I wouldn’t be here now if that were the case. And if Temple feels more comfortable going home with me . . .” The way DeeDee’s voice trails away makes the offer seem so inviting, I’m surprised her daughter doesn’t leap at it. When it comes to their parents, most children possess innate neediness.

Not Temple. She knows a game is afoot. Her way to change the rules to suit her needs is brilliant. “
No
, Mommy, no! You can just come home with us,” she states matter-of-factly.

The adults stare at her as if she’s just landed from another planet.

Harry’s game face, dampened by tears he can’t wipe away quickly enough, softens into doubtful hope.

DeeDee’s, on the other hand, frosts solid with determination. Her teeth are tiny daggers, more a snarl than a smile.

“Damn it, Temple!” Jake’s eruption echoes with pain. Opening his car door, he yells, “Don’t you get it? She doesn’t want to come home. NOT EVER. Aw, just get in the car! NOW!”

All eyes now turn toward us. Temple’s emotional Geiger counter has picked up on her brother’s anguish as only a sibling’s can. Unlike the adults, who patronize her with cheery half lies that never pay off with the only golden ticket that counts—her mom and dad together again—Jake’s bellow tells her what she needs to know, even if it isn’t what she wants to hear:

Her parents will never love each other again, ever.

In Jake’s opinion, it’s all DeeDee’s fault. Can’t his sister see this too?

This sudden realization is too much for the little girl. As if she’s letting go of all hope, a rivulet of urine runs down Temple’s leg, seemingly at the same pace as the tears streaming down her face. Despite this, Harry scoops her up into his arms and heads for the car.
Miss Judith clucks soothingly beside him, hoping to hush her student’s heart-wrenching howls.

All mothers break apart when confronted with their children’s grief, and DeeDee is no exception. Fault lines of anguish transform her flawless veneer of a face from haughty to sorrowful. She runs after her child—

But stops cold when she notices me in the car.

DeeDee realizes this battle is lost. But the war is still to be won. Her eyes narrow and her frown inverts into a smirk. “You’ve hired some shopgirl from Nordy’s? Oh, now that’s rich! Why couldn’t she have picked up Temple? Doesn’t she drive?”

At first Harry doesn’t catch on that she’s talking about me, but Miss Judith does. Relieved at the chance to set something straight, she trills nervously, “DeeDee, that’s Lyssa Harper, Olivia’s mommy.”

After what I’ve just seen, I don’t expect a cheery hello. Still, even a stiff nod of recognition would go a long way to clearing the air.

But no. DeeDee isn’t apologetic. She’s shocked.

Suddenly it dawns on me that hitching a ride with the soon-to-be ex is not the best way to reintroduce yourself to a woman who never remembers who you are no matter how many times she runs into you.

From DeeDee’s granite stare, I am assured she won’t forget me ever again.

I can’t help but watch her in the rearview mirror as we drive off. She, too, keeps me in her sights.

DeeDee has a new target.

“I have great hopes that we shall love each other all our lives as much as if we had never married at all.”

—Lord Byron

Friday, 15 Nov., 4:42 p.m.