Secret Lives Of Husbands And Wives (6 page)

Of course I know that name. The newspapers call her “the Terminator” because of her success rate with high-profile divorces. “Will
someone at your firm be representing you?”

“No. We don’t handle divorces. I was referred to Edwin Worth. He’s supposed to be somewhat of a bulldog, too. With what I’m paying him, I certainly hope so. And of course I’m doing what I can to help out with any of the due diligence.”

I think back on some of the dirtier divorces that have taken place here in the Heights. Brenda Ravner, who lives down the street, accused her husband, Bill, of abusing their kids, and he lost his job over it. Phil Menkin, who used to live on Locust Street, ran up his wife Cindy’s credit cards, then skipped town. She had to sell the house to get out of debt.

If Harry approaches his divorce as if it is some corporate merger that needs auditing, he’ll be in for a rude awakening. The mud will be flying as fast and furiously as it does on the Heights’s soccer field after a hard rain.

I want to pat him on the shoulder and tell him that I feel his pain, but I fear he’ll close up again, like some hothouse flower that only blooms in an environment devoid of foreign elements. In that regard, I can just imagine how strange my cluttered kitchen seems to him.

Realizing that I am uncomfortable with the topic, he turns his attention to my window ledge, which is laden with pots of my favorite flower, orchids.

“Aren’t they hard to grow?”

“Not if you pay attention to them. Just make sure they get the right amount of light, and plant them in the right kind of soil. Oh, and you can’t forget to water them every ten days or so. For that matter, you can’t overwater them, either.”

“Hmm. That’s much too complicated. I don’t know how you do it and keep up with the kids, and your dog. And your husband, of course.”

“I guess if you love something, you make it a priority.”

As I say this, the look on his face changes.

I wish I’d kept my big mouth shut.

Instead I open it again, with a suggestion I hope I won’t later regret: “Hey, Harry, I was thinking: with all that’s going on in your life, widening your circle of friends is a perfect way to create a support system. You know, to break up carpool duty, for emergency childcare, that kind of thing. What do you say, think you’re up for meeting some other people here in the Heights?”

He shrugs. “Sure. What can it hurt?”

I break a doughnut in two and hand him half. “My thoughts exactly.”

“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”

—Mignon McLaughlin

7:12 p.m.

So, what’s he really like?”

That question is coming from Margot. I’m sitting with her and the rest of the board in Tammy’s newly redecorated great room.

(This is the room’s third renovation in as many years. You see, while workmen underfoot drive the rest of us crazy, it is a natural state for Tammy, who channels her frustration over Charlie’s low sperm count and his allergies to pet fur into remodeling projects. Granted, they’re not as satisfying as a baby or even a puppy, but they will certainly pay better dividends when it comes to her home’s resale value.)

The reason for this week’s board meeting is, ostensibly, to divvy up duties for the Heights’s after-Thanksgiving potluck. In reality, it is to dish the latest neighborhood dirt. That includes any neighbor’s (a) wild child, (b) obvious substance-abuse issue, or (c) spouse behaving badly.

My close encounters with our favorite Martian certainly trump the Randolphs’ sixteen-year-old son’s shoplifting arrest at the local skateboard store, and Activist Mom’s one-woman hunger strike protesting the town council’s decision to ignore her request to remove
chlorine from the public swimming pool. (“She only dropped six pounds,” sniffs Isabelle. “Come on already! She would have been better off doing Weight Watchers.”) They even trump Brooke’s suspicions that Biker Mom, who lives next door to her, is spiking her seven-year-old’s Capri Suns with Robitussin DM. (She’s just pissed because Marcus’s new role model is Biker Dad, who sports a tongue stud, is inked within an inch of his life, and rides a Harley bare-chested in black leather chaps. Not a great look for a future dentist.)

Upon Margot’s question to me, the deafening chatter comes to a halt as the pierced ears on the other women perk up and, in unison, tack in our direction.

Proof positive that Harry Wilder is, hands down, Paradise Heights’s Number One DILF.

Since Halloween, Harry has been trying to stay below the Paradise Heights gosdar. (In this case, “gossip radar,” as opposed to the local “gaydar,” which is not so finely tuned, as we all discovered when Corey Torrance ran off with his wife’s highly temperamental landscape designer. You would have thought that the time the two men spent together in the toolshed would have been a dead giveaway.)

In deference to his privacy, I’ve managed to duck all pointed references to Olivia and Temple’s playdates—until now.

I take a deep breath to buy time before answering, knowing full well that every word that comes out of my mouth will be dissected and ruminated over for the next week, or until more illuminating facts come to light.

And I am very aware that anything I say can and will be used against him in the future.

“Frankly, I think the whole thing has him in a state of shock. I have to say that I feel sorry for him. From all he’s said, he didn’t see it coming. He thought that they were totally in sync—”

This evokes a snort from Isabelle. Still, it is a much, much milder response than what I would have received last year: a few choice expletives, perhaps even a backhanded slap. It wasn’t too long ago
that Isabelle’s appearance at the Heights’s mall had every shopgirl cowering in her Kate Spades. But that was before her rampage at the Nordy’s cosmetics counter, when she bitch-slapped the poor beauty consultant who sold the last vial of La Mer Serum out from under her. The woman didn’t press charges, but only because Isabelle was her best customer.

Isabelle’s anger-management classes have taught her to channel her aggression elsewhere. Her new vice: binge eating. Still, I guess you can say that therapy does work after all.

Oh yeah, and drugs. Lots of wonderful mood-altering prescription pharmaceuticals.

Now I feel safe enough to pretend to be miffed. “I’m sorry. Did I say something funny?”

At first Isabelle just shrugs, then looks from side to side at the others for support. Margot’s smirk gives her the courage to go on. “I don’t know, but doesn’t it strike you that his pleading innocent about his wife’s affair is a bit—well, disingenuous?”

My first inclination is to administer my own sucker punch. Instead I feign ignorance. “Gee, I guess I’m not following you. Are you saying he should have been psychic? That he should have deduced what was going on here while he was at work?”

“I think what Isabelle means to say,” Margot interjects quickly, “is that the guy obviously has a lot on the ball. Why didn’t he pick up on the fact DeeDee was unhappy? My God, she was certainly upset enough to take a lover.”

I shake my head, hoping that someone else will jump in on my side, but the others want to see where this is going before they weigh in with their own two cents.

I guess I don’t really blame them. Since very little is known about either half of the Perfect Couple, their natural inclination is to side with one of their own kind.

And since DeeDee has all the right equipment, she wins their vote. At least for now.

Wouldn’t I feel the same way?
I ask myself. Well, yeah, I guess I would . . . if I hadn’t seen this very strong, very together guy go to pieces in front of my eyes.

“Look, Lyssa, I’m sure Harry is a very nice guy and all,” says Brooke gently. “But admit it: you’ve only heard one side of the story. You—or any of us—don’t really know why she left. Heck, for all we know, he beat her every night with a stick—”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Oh, come on! The guy’s wife leaves him, and now we have him beating her black and blue? Isn’t that just a bit—oh, I don’t know . . . sexist?”

“Maybe Lyssa has a point,” Colleen, our resident romantic, chimes in with that breathy kewpie-doll voice of hers, all wide-eyed innocence. “I guess we shouldn’t assume anything one way or the other, if we don’t even know the man. Right?”

The rest of them lean forward expectantly.

Cha-
ching!
The conversation has come around to where I’d hoped. Silently I bless the fact that Colleen is once again attending our meetings (but only because she’s finally weaned herself from the notion that McGuyver, her three-year-old son, still needs to be breast-fed), and I go in for the close. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t I arrange a little get-together tomorrow? You know, we can all meet for coffee, and you all can get to know him better.”

Their slight nods are casual enough, but the sly smiles that slip onto their faces for a mere nanosecond speak volumes.

Only Margot is still wary. “Well . . . I guess that will be okay. His son is the same age as my Laurel, and he seems polite enough. Although, considering how absent his father has been in the past, I assume his manners are his mother’s doing.”

To keep from reacting to her remark, I look down at the marble floor and focus on its dizzying herringbone pattern. I hope I don’t throw up before I can think of an answer that won’t blow this for
Harry. The fact that Harry is a man—and a very handsome one at that—makes him catnip to this group of women who, by the time the last mojito has been poured, will readily admit that their sex lives leave a lot to be desired.

Well, Harry is certainly desirable.

Before I have a chance to answer Margot, Tammy mutters, “If you think DeeDee is some kind of Miss Manners, you’re wrong. Admit it, Margot, the only time that woman ever said two words to any of us was when she wanted something. I for one think she’s a very cold fish.”

“Well, she warmed up to someone. Ha! I wish we knew who he is,” Brooke says slyly.

I can feel Margot’s back stiffen. “That’s just my point. We don’t know anything at all, about either of them. So why stick our noses in their business now? I mean, for all we know, it may be one of our husbands she’s sleeping with.”

For the second time this evening, the room is dead silent. Warily we all glance at each other as we contemplate this crazy thought.

Then Isabelle snickers again.

One by one, our giggles join her cackle as we all hit on the same vision:

DeeDee Wilder, Paradise Heights’s ice queen, trading handsome Harry for one of the other husbands whose sexual prowess at least one of us thinks she can vouch for.

Or, more honestly, couldn’t vouch for if her life depended on it.

“Men always want to be a woman’s first love.
Women like to be a man’s last romance.”

—Oscar Wilde

Wednesday, 6 Nov., 9:06 a.m.

I’ve arranged for the meet-and-greet to take place the next morning after school drop-off, at the Paradise Heights Starbucks. For some stupid reason I seem more nervous about it than Harry, who laughs off my suggestion that we rendezvous earlier than the nine o’clock appointment time so that we can commandeer enough chairs in the primo spot, a windowed nook.

“In fact,” he says much too casually, “I may be running a little late. Why don’t you save me a seat near you?”

I bite my lip to keep from reacting like an overbearing mother whose first-grader has made the inevitable pronouncement that from now on he plans on walking to school without her.

Unlike Harry, I fully comprehend the importance of this first impression to his future here in the Heights. Thus far, though, playing hard to get has worked in his favor, so maybe he knows what he’s doing after all.

Still, my heart flutters when I get there and realize that everyone has arrived but Harry. My friends try to keep their expressions blank, but I feel an undercurrent of excitement. They are as giddy as sophomore schoolgirls on a first date with the football team’s captain.

Although it has not yet been determined if Harry is friend or foe,
full war paint has been applied. (What, did they all stop by Benefit for makeovers first?) And unlike me, all of them have forgone the usual morning attire—yoga pants and hoodies—for slim designer jeans and fitted jackets over tight tees. What better occasion is there to show off the results of a three-day-a-week Bikram yoga regime than a coffee date with the neighborhood DILF?

Each of my friends is sipping her usual poison. For Brooke, it’s a nonfat green chai latte, while Isabelle guiltily tucks into a fully loaded mocha Frappuccino. Tammy is apparently already on her second double cappuccino; and Colleen, a follower even down to her choice of brew, mimics alpha-diva Margot’s pick: a grande caramel macchiato.

I pray that Harry gets here soon, before they are too hyped up to pay him his due.

Today I am too nervous for my usual triple venti vanilla nonfat latte, and settle for a Calm tea instead. Thank goodness only Brooke notices this. I expect she’ll tease me unmercifully when she and I regroup later this afternoon at after-school pickup, when we’ll do our own postgame analysis of Harry’s audition.

I’ve just sat down with my tea when Harry makes his entrance. He is a study in casual elegance: white shirt under a V-neck cashmere pullover, and khakis with a razor-sharp crease. Does he hear the involuntary chorus of admiring sighs that greets him? I’m guessing not. Otherwise he’d be running for his life instead of sauntering over with that confident grin.

As I jump up to make the necessary introductions, my cup of tea tilts and splatters my hoodie. Ever the gentleman, Harry quickly reaches for a spare napkin, but stops short of patting my breast dry.

Margot’s smile is wicked. It wouldn’t surprise her in the least if a burn mark suddenly appeared, shaped like the letter A.

To the other women, though, Harry is a savior, having brought with him a gift box: cupcakes from the Palo Alto Sprinkles just down the road. Ah, so
that’s
why he’s late! And knowing my friends’ love
of this particular treat, it was certainly worth the trip.