Secret Lives Of Husbands And Wives (19 page)

He is out walking Lucky, who is sniffing the ground before making the pit stop that will have Harry scooping poop with the plastic
bag already over one hand.

But no, instead he glances over—

Oh, my God, he sees me.

At least, I presume he’s seen me—seen
us
, that is, or perhaps heard us, what with the way the window is shaking, as if we’re in the middle of an earthquake or something—because he does a double take, then slowly walks in our direction, as if to get a better look.

It suddenly occurs to me that Harry has seen enough of my jubblies. I want to duck below the windowsill, but Ted has me pinned. “Ted! . . . 
TED
—”

My whispers fall on deaf ears. Ted keeps pounding away at me. As he climaxes, he roars ecstatically.

Harry, now fearing the worst, is looking for a way to jump the fence so that he can check things out.

“Ted, stop,
please
!” To make my point, I reach back and smack him on the rump.

He moans loudly. “Aw, honey, give me a minute to catch my breath! I’m not a machine, you know.”

But he’s willing to give it the old college try. He pulls me close again. This time, to get him to listen, I slap him—
hard
—in the face. “No, listen! Someone—
someone is out there
.”

“Fuck it. . . . 
What?
” My hit has deflated him, both figuratively and literally. I’m now allowed to duck below the window. Realizing his own exposure, Ted crouches, too.

“Jesus, it’s that Wilder guy! What the hell is he doing out there anyway? What is he, some sort of pervert?”

“No! No . . . he’s just walking his dog.” I untangle myself from Ted. Crablike, I crawl over to where my pants and panties have been tossed and grab them, then tuck and roll to the bed, where I’ve left my shirt. I’m not about to prance around and give Harry yet another cheap thrill. “I guess that damn loose pane caught his attention.”

“Yeah, right. I wouldn’t put it past your new boyfriend to be some sort of Peeping Tom.”

“Harry is
not
a Peeping Tom. And he’s not my boyfriend. He took his dog out, then heard the noise, so he walked over to investigate. Quit making a federal case out of it.”

“Why are you defending that loser?”

“You don’t even know him! Why would you say something like that?” I hope I don’t sound too indignant. Or, worse yet, guilty. I peek out the window, but Harry is long gone. Evidently having figured out the score, he is dragging Lucky back down the street.

I’ve still got my back to Ted so I can’t see his smirk, but I can hear it in his voice. “Oh, sure, I know him all right. He’s one arrogant son of a bitch.”

“You’ve got him all wrong. Frankly, he’s a nice guy. And despite what Tammy said, he’s been a total gentleman. There’s nothing wrong with being neighborly.”

“How sweet. So he’s finally meeting the neighbors.” Ted stares out the window, but no Harry. “Well, I guess he’s hoping that ‘better late than never’ pays off.”

“What does that mean?” It’s been a very long night. I toss him his boxer briefs in the hope he will take the hint and cover himself up.

“Get real. Is he stupid enough to think he’ll get to keep the house, once the divorce is settled? Fat chance.”

I don’t want to debate him on this topic. Not while he’s plastered and jealous.

Not ever, really.

Suddenly I feel guilty that Harry and I are friends. I glance over at Ted, only to see he’s turned his back on me and is already out the door.

So much for snuggling.

Sometime in the middle of the night, in the middle of our bed, a thought hits me:

During our impromptu shed shag, I wasn’t wearing my diaphragm.

I try to remember the number of days since my last period, but I’m
so tired, and it’s too much like counting sheep. Not to worry, I assure myself. My ovulation rarely occurs during the only other constant in my life: league board meetings.

Realizing how predictable my life has become, I cry myself to sleep.

And dream about Harry.

“Love is a gamble, it’s a chance that you take.

You lay your heart down and you bet it won’t break.”

—Hugh Prestwood

Thursday, 21 Nov., 4:08 p.m.

We need a fourth for poker tomorrow night. Are you in?” Harry’s cheeriness seems forced. We haven’t talked since I last saw him. Or I should say, since he last saw me: through the shed window.

Maybe I’m just reading him wrong. Maybe, like me, he’s catching his breath from another hellish week.

Just maybe he didn’t see Ted and me after all.

Of course, that’s it! Otherwise he wouldn’t be calling, inviting me over, just like one of the guys. And certainly he’d be teasing me unmercifully. . . .

“Yeah, sure. I don’t really play, but I’m in.”

“Great! Oh, and no need to worry. It isn’t strip poker.” He hangs up laughing.

Yep, okay, he saw us.

But he’s wrong. Strip poker is just what we need to even the score. . . .

Or not. Seeing Pete without his skivvies and validating Masha’s excuse for catting around on him would not give me much joy.

I’ll settle for a very large cash pot.

Friday, 22 Nov., 7:04 p.m.

The judge ruled that DeeDee is allowed to take the kids to her apartment on Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays, while Harry gets them on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. They’ll rotate Saturdays. Since he won’t get to see his kids for the next three nights, they are allowed to stay up until the game ends.

The kids accompany me. We wouldn’t be here at all except for the fact that tonight Ted’s company is playing a basketball league game. By the time he gets home, the kids and I are already in bed. Just once I want him to come home to an empty house. Then maybe he’ll actually bother to ask where we were.

But I wouldn’t bet on it.

Somehow Cal has convinced Sabrina and Duke to come along, but Sabrina’s scowl is proof that she’s here against her will. In order to avoid any human contact, she is concentrating on a tall wall of books in the Wilders’ living room. Finally she plucks a thick tome from one of the shelves:
The Hite Report on Male Sexuality
. I’ve no doubt she’ll get more out of it than the Wilder it was meant for.

Pete came early for his pep talk with Jake about rejoining the team. It must have worked, because the two of them are shooting hoops in the driveway. And from the way Natassia is sizing up Jake, I’m guessing Pete didn’t need to twist her arm to tag along. Like mother, like daughter.

Olivia runs off happily with Temple to her fairyland of a bedroom. At first Mickey and the middle-schoolers aren’t so eager to play nice. It’s like watching three Mafia families meet to divvy up a new territory. Natassia and Sabrina circle and sneer at each other. Tanner and Jake ignore them as well as Duke—that is, until they realize that Duke’s obliviousness to them and his fascination with his iPhone are due to the fact that, by some miracle, he is tuned to the video feed of the Golden State Warriors’ coaches while he watches the basketball game on the phone’s screen.

“Wow! Is that coming from some new ESPN app?” Tanner moves in for a closer look.

“No. I made it.” Duke ducks his head shyly. “The picture is coming from the stadium’s JumboTron feed, and the audio is coming off the licensed network’s mike.”

Jake, too, is mesmerized. “Duke, dude, think you can make it work on my phone too?”

Duke nods, but Harry shakes his head. “Remember the rules, kids: homework first. Jake, if you don’t pass your French test Monday, you won’t even own a phone.”

Jake rolls his eyes. Something tells me he’s skipped that class more than he’d like to admit to his dad.

Sabrina looks up from her book. “I’m in your class. I’ll quiz you if you like.” Her glare dares him to take her up on the offer.

Either Jake is desperate, or he likes what he sees: another rebel without a cause, not to mention a 36C chest in a tight Grateful Dead T-shirt.

As they head off toward Jake’s bedroom, Tanner suddenly realizes he has Natassia all to himself. “I’ve got a test on Monday, too. How are you at math?”

“Lousy.” Her sigh is accompanied by a flip of her long blond hair.

“Oh. That’s too bad.”

“It doesn’t have to be.” She picks up his book and riffles through it. Am I the only one who notices that it’s upside down? “Want to study together?”

“Yeah, sure!” He follows her into the kitchen.

Harry laughs. “Natassia is a real boost to Tanner’s ego.”

“Yeah, among other things. Well, here’s hoping she doesn’t decimate my son’s GPA.” I point to the deck of cards in his hand. “Now, shut up and deal.”

9:37 p.m.

“So, are you going to take a card or what?” Pete’s voice drips with venom. Well, what do I expect? He hates to lose, and for the past two hours I’ve been beating the pants off of him—and Harry and Cal, too—in five-card stud.

“Sure, why not, I’ll take a card.” I say it as if I couldn’t care less, and for a good reason: I’ve already got two pair. Since the card I draw gives me three of a kind, I’ve got myself a full house.

And the rest of Pete’s stack.

Too bad it’s not wired into his bank account.

Seeing my hand, the guys groan and fold. Harry looks over at me suspiciously. “Hey, I thought you said you don’t play.”

“I lied.”

All three men give involuntary nods. It suddenly occurs to me that I’ve said the wrong thing to redeem their faith in women.

So that I don’t completely wipe out my poker buddies, Harry uses a bit of psychological warfare to put me off my game: he asks me how the Thanksgiving food drive is going.

I groan out loud. “Well, if it’s any indication, I’m exiled from the board’s morning coffee gatherings. Until I prove myself as a leader, Margot feels my mornings would be better spent, and I quote, ‘focusing on the task at hand.’”

“What a bitch!” Pete frowns. “Seriously, how many cans do you need to get back in their good graces?”

“More to the point, why would you want to be there anyway?” Harry says this just loud enough for me to hear him.

I kick him under the table. “Somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-one hundred. Even two thousand would be considered a respectable showing. With that, I’ll be within spitting distance of her record.”

Cal blinks twice. “That’s doable. Between all three schools, there are eight hundred kids in the Heights. If every kid brought in three
cans, you’d knock the smirk off her face.”

“‘Doable’? Ha! You try wrangling eight hundred kids and their parents for a worthy cause.”

Pete nods. “Okay, you’re on. I’ll tell my team that the guy who brings in the most cans stays off the bench permanently for the rest of the season.”

“My partners and I own a vacation home in Tahoe,” says Harry. “DeeDee can’t get her hands on it, since it’s owned by the firm. If you want, you can offer a weekend there as a contest prize: everyone who brings in at least four cans is eligible, or something like that.”

“That can go in the next online issue of the
Bugle
, if you want,” adds Pete. “It launches at midnight tonight.”

“Wow! Both of you are awesome to do this for me, seriously.” I start to tear up. They barely know me, but they’re willing to do more than my own board.

I have a new definition of friendship.

“I can’t speak for Bev, but . . .” Cal looks helpless. He wants to offer something, but he can’t think of anything. “Well, to tell you the truth, Bev and I barely talk these days.”

Pete smirks. “Welcome to the club.” He slings his cards so hard that they hit the wall some four feet away.

We all sit there, stunned. Then Cal does the same.

Harry takes the rest of the deck and, one by one, flicks the cards onto the table.

Yeah. O-
kay
. I get it. I’m sitting in the midst of three very angry men. “I can imagine how hard it is, to want to get through to someone you love who doesn’t hear you. But you have to ask yourself: are you truly making every attempt to tell her how you feel?”

All three men stare at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry spits out his words.

“I’m just trying to say that women appreciate it when you verbalize what your feelings are—and when you ask them to express theirs too.”

“Oh yeah?” Pete glares at me. “What, now we’ve got to model our lives on a
Redbook
cover? ‘Is He Giving You What You Really Want? Five Ways to Tell Him How to Do It Right.’ That stuff is such bull!”

I laugh. “Well, if those headlines sell, then they must be hitting some hot button with women. Can you say the same?”

He flinches.
Ouch.
I didn’t mean to hit him below the belt.

So that it doesn’t seem as if I’m picking on him, I turn to Cal. “The one thing I’ve noted about Bev is that she’s a very hard worker. I’m sure you are too, but obviously something is driving her to accomplish even more than her fair share. Perhaps she’s expressed financial concerns, or she has a professional goal? Whatever it is, if you acknowledge this drive, show her you appreciate how hard she’s working for you and the family, it may make her realize that she’s already got what she’s looking for: your love and approval.”