Secret Lives Of Husbands And Wives (15 page)

“So what if you’re so jealous that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.” He tilts the brim of his cap so low that all I see is his smirk.

He’s right, but not about the food drive.
It’s you that’s got me concerned.
I almost blurt it out, but I know better. Would he admit he’s lost control of his life?

No, not even to me.

No,
especially
not to me. He wants me to keep him on a pedestal, even as the others are now slinging mud at him, left and right.

The rumors will start immediately, now that Margot has lifted the embargo on all gossip concerning the Wilders. Like leaves kicked aloft in the now-chilly afternoon gusts, the whispers—all hearsay, “they say . . .” innuendo, and blatant lies—will skitter from cell phone to cell phone, from block to block.

They’ll say DeeDee left because he was cold and unfeeling; that his children are wild and uncontrollable since she has been gone.

That the proof is the anger in his children’s eyes.

Harry’s eyes have dulled, too. I know he’s angry at himself for his inability to control the one thing out of his reach: his children’s feelings for their mother. Unlike him, they can’t bury their emotions in
a merger. Nor do they have the guile that would allow them to smile and pretend everything was hunky-dory. And they certainly haven’t yet learned the art of tamping down their emotions, or channeling their hurt into some other activity—although it would be interesting to know how Jake’s been spending his afternoons lately.

“Tanner says Jake has skipped the last few practices.” I try to keep my voice nonchalant, but by the way Harry frowns, I know he hears my concern. “Coach Shriver says if he misses another, he’s off the team.”

“But . . . that can’t be. Jake told me—I mean . . .” Harry’s eyelids close under the weight of his pain. “Aw, jeez. Damn it, Jake—”

“Hey, look: Pete may be a bit of a blowhard, but deep down he’s a pretty nice guy. I’m sure Pete would understand, if he knew what Jake is going through.” Pete Shriver comes off somewhat gruff, but if anyone knows the grief of a disconnected marriage, he does.

Harry Wilder and Pete Shriver have more than their dysfunctional marriages in common. So why shouldn’t they know each other better? The third househusband, Calvin Bullworth, is a bit strange, but maybe that’s just shyness. Anyway, it’s worth a try.

“Hey, speaking of Pete, you two have a lot in common.”

Harry looks at me sharply. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, you both work out of the home—”

“From what I can tell, that dude doesn’t work at all.”

I shrug. “From what I hear, he doesn’t have to.”

“Lucky slob.”

I’m surprised to learn that Harry really doesn’t miss the office as much as I had thought he would. “Yeah, but that’s not the point here. What I mean is that you’re each your family’s primary caregiver.”

“That term sucks. Why don’t you just come out and say it? We’re both lonely guys in a neighborhood filled with silly, bored housewives.”

“Hey, watch it there! I resemble that remark.”

“Granted, you keep a nice, albeit a bit messy, home—”

I frown. “Hardee-har-har. I don’t think that’s what you meant to say, now, is it?”

“And I know you’re bored, or you wouldn’t have taken me under your wing.”

“I had an ulterior motive: I heard they’re looking for a replacement for Mother Teresa.”

“Well, you still have a ways to go before I’d call you a saint. To your credit, you aren’t half as silly as all the other women in this neck of the woods.”

I smack him on the biceps. “I’ll take that as a compliment. So, what do you say? Why don’t we invite Pete out to coffee tomorrow? Hey, you know, I’ll bet Calvin Bullworth would be up for a cuppa joe, too—”

“Whoa, whoa, hold up a minute! That strange dude they call the Cyberterrorist?”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to say beggars can’t be choosers, but I think better of that. “That’s somewhat cruel. Why don’t we give the guy a chance? One day he may be someone you’ll be glad you know.”

Harry sighs deeply. “Yeah? Okay, you’re right. Set it up, if you feel like it. Besides, if he really does know how to build a bomb, at least we’ll have him on our side.”

“Fear makes strangers of people who would be friends.”

—Shirley MacLaine

5:27 p.m.

So, you say you think you can get my forward back on the team?” Pete ducks just in time to miss being slammed in the head by one of the many basketballs hailing down upon us as they ricochet off the school gym’s backboards.

I’m not so lucky: one wings me in the arm, knocking my purse strap off my shoulder. The contents of my purse scatter under the Red Devils’ shuffling feet. Just in time I pluck my brand-new Benefit lipstick out from under Marcus’s size-thirteen sneakers. However, my own son has pulverized my new MAC compact.

“Sorry, Mom!” yells Tanner, now in a full-tilt boogie toward the other end of the gym.

Pete is desperate to entice Jake back on the team. Since the kid went AWOL, the Devils have lost two games, both by around eight points, which just so happens to be three points lower than Jake’s average per game. Not only that, he’s always been the heart and soul of the Red Devils.

Whether his teammates still feel that way about him is debatable. According to Tanner, Jake has discovered that his quick wit can be used to be cruel as well as funny. His choice of victims has no rhyme or reason. Depending on his mood, they are geeks, freaks, or his jock
buds. In fact, Tanner no longer considers Jake a friend, but an “asshole.”

Laurel still adores him. Go figure. Needless to say, it’s eating Margot alive.

“Look, I can’t promise he’ll show up at the next practice, but it’s certainly something his father wants to see happen and is willing to discuss.”

Pete nods grudgingly. He wants me to believe that he’s doing Harry the favor instead of the other way around.

To get Harry some domestic backup, I’m willing to play ball. “You know, Harry says you’re the best coach Jake has ever had.”

“Oh! Well, that kid has a lot of potential. In the right hands, he could be the next Kobe.”

“Yes, Harry agrees. He also feels you deserve a lot of credit for the big leap in the whole team’s play-off potential.” As I say this, I bat my lashes. It’s no secret that poor Pete doesn’t get much flirting at home. His wife is too busy making eyes at practically every other man in the neighborhood.

Pete shrugs, but his pinkening cheeks give him away. “Okay, I’m up for a Jake confab.”

I can’t help but feel giddy.
I love matchmaking!
“So, listen, are you free for coffee, say, after school drop-off tomorrow?”

“Yeah, that should work. The ’Bucks?”

I can feel my smile slip a bit. Hell, no, not Starbucks! Not with the board there, passing judgment, snickering, shaking their smartly coiffed heads in pity.

“Harry—well, I think he’d much rather go where you guys can grab a bite. Maybe pancakes or something. How about the IHOP by the expressway?”

He nods, then jerks me out of the way before I’m wiped out by another storm of balls. “Yo, Parker! Balls like that will keep you on the bench. Challenge yourself!
Challenge!
”

One down, one to go. Right, Coach. I’m inspired. I’m up for my next challenge. I think.

I hope. . . .

5:56 p.m.

“You’re not selling Tupperware, are you? Sorry, but we don’t believe in plastics. Too toxic. You know, PCBs and all. It’s the reason my generation will be barren.”

Paradise Heights’s only disaffected Goth girl, Sabrina Bullworth, peers out of the peephole of the Bullworths’ massive front door, which looks eerily similar to the one that welcomed the damned hotel guests in
The Shining
. It took Sabrina five minutes to answer my insistent gonging of the Bullworths’ version of a doorbell: chimes that sound like the ringing of Big Ben on the half hour. “No? Um, let me guess: Avon calling, right? Well, sorry, we don’t use products for which animals were mutilated, and which are sold through multilevel networks.”

The Bullworths moved into the neighborhood when Sabrina was only five. Even back then, what with her dark pigtails, large sad eyes, and deadpan countenance, she could easily have passed for Wednesday Addams. This resemblance was enhanced by her parents’ choice of a home: the oldest of the original Victorians in Paradise Heights—“because it was a steal,” her realtor mom, Bev, proudly reminds everyone.

Well, of course it was. Besides squatting on a dark, lonely street far from the center of town, it had been a stronghold of refugees from the Summer of Love, with all that implies. Even after the last tenants finally grew up and got real lives, their old crash pad stayed vacant for decades.

Whereas a systems renovation has finally been completed on the inside, apparently the Bullworths ran out of money before they were
able to do any interior decoration, let alone scrape what was left of the peeling original paint off the exterior fretwork. No matter, since not much of the house can be seen through a choke-hold of bushes and vines. If none of this leaves the local Mary Kay representative quaking in her kitten heels, the fact that the property backs up to a century-old cemetery will certainly have her turning pale under her creme-to-powder foundation.

Yep, a real steal.

“Sabrina, wait! Don’t you remember me? I’m your class mother. You know, Tanner’s mom, Mrs. Harper.” As my cheeriest Mary Poppins lilt echoes through the massive foyer, I squelch an involuntary shiver. “I’m here to see your dad. Is he around?”

Sabrina opens the door just a sliver. The darkness inside is barely penetrated by the sunlight pushing its way in. She gives me a wary look. All of a sudden I realize she’s wondering if my introduction means this is in some way official school business, which perhaps puts her in the one position she and every other odd-kid-out innately hates:

Anything that might bring her odd-parents-out within gawking distance of her peers.

“No. He’s . . . out of town. Europe, I think.”

But before she has a chance to shut the door in my face, Calvin’s voice drones out through some tinny intercom: “Sabrina, please invite our guest in and send her back to my study.”

Sabrina sighs. Resigned to her fate, she yanks open the massive oak door with all the solemnity of a crypt-keeper. “He’s in the last room down the hall.”

She disappears into the indigo darkness before I can thank her.

For what, I’m sure I don’t know, since she hasn’t left me a flashlight to find my way back out.

The eerie glow that leads me to Cal’s office turns out to be from a wall of large flat-screen computer monitors. The digital centipedes crawling across each screen seem to have no rhyme or reason. Calvin
doesn’t even turn around to see who has invaded his secret lair. Why should he, when there I am, larger than life (yeah, really: video is not a friend of anyone over a size four) on the far right screen?

When he finally does turn toward me, I hope he can see me better than I can see him, since he’s the one who’s looking through Coke-bottle-thick glasses. “I’m sorry, you say you’re with Sabrina’s school?”

“Huh? . . . Oh! Well, not exactly.” It takes me a second to come back into the real world, as opposed to the virtual one up on Calvin’s giant computer screen. “I was just pointing out to her that she might remember me from school. Really, I’m here to talk to you about a nonschool matter. Just a fun, friendly, neighborly gathering. Um . . . do you mind me asking: what are those things crawling across your computer screens?”

“Computer code. I helped design the government’s satellite surveillance system.” Calvin blinks twice. “And why would you want me there?”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to answer,
Because you’re a lonely guy, and now there are enough of you in the ’hood to be doing three-part harmony. . . . 

But I come to my senses before I blurt that out. “Another couple of the Heights’s stay-at-home dads were hoping you’d join them for breakfast tomorrow. They thought you could work out carpool backup, hang out—you know, guy stuff. You all have kids around the same age, so who knows?”

Calvin thinks about this for a very long moment. I imagine he has never been asked to join a team that didn’t involve computer code, and certainly no one ever asked him to a prom.

So, yes, I wait patiently as he enjoys his moment in the sun. As it is, the only light emanating in this, his cave, comes from several thirty-inch TFT-LCD computer monitors.

Finally he breaks the spell with a gentle smile. “Sure, okay. Getting out of here would do me some good.” Calvin follows my eyes
back to the big screens. “It’s mesmerizing, isn’t it?”

“I’ll say.” New friendships usually are.

Tuesday, 19 Nov., 9:18 a.m.

The true-blue roof of the International House of Pancakes glistens under a sheen of dew. Harry pulls into the spot closest to handicapped parking. I presume he’s preparing for a quick getaway in case this playdate ends up being a bust.

He turns off the engine and lets it gasp to a stop before giving me a sidelong glance. “Okay, the truth now: how bad is this going to be?”

“Personally, I like the pancakes here. The thin Swedish ones are my favorites. I think it’s the lemon zest they add to the batter.”

He sighs and steels himself to get out of the car. But as he helps me out my door, he mutters, “Glad to know. By the way, breakfast is on you.”

Frankly, it’s a small price to pay for my guilt over the board debacle. Where I went wrong was my presumption that the girls could be just friends with Harry, despite the fact that apparently he’s a live version of their
Mystery Date
dreamboat.

Then again, fantasies require less maintenance than friendships.

The realization that it takes a village to be a single parent dawned on Harry last week, around the same time his kids devoured the last of Colleen’s casseroles. Since then, they’ve lost a pound or two, and they’ve been grousing about the number of times they’ve had to eat his signature dish, tuna mac.

Worse yet, yesterday they were rhapsodizing out loud about their mom’s homemade beef stew. Lucky the Airedale is now the proud recipient of a six-pack of Dinty Moore as Harry, not to be outdone, attempts the impossible: to follow his wife’s grandmother’s recipe, which is written in Norwegian.