Secret Lives Of Husbands And Wives (9 page)

“
What?
Jesus, Lyssa, I can’t believe you have the nerve to say that to me—”

“Nerve?
Me?
I can’t believe
you
have the nerve to—
to use me the way you did
!”

Angrily he slams his fist on my hood and heads for the house.
Then he stops halfway and turns around. He is not through giving me a piece of his mind.

Too bad. I’ve had enough. But before I can pull away, he opens the passenger door and climbs in. “You had no right to say that to me. Not you, of all people.” His words are deliberate, his tone ominous. “And, lady, you’ve got some nerve, sitting and pretending to be so innocent when you pretty much pimped me out to that horny pack of she-wolves you call friends.”

“I did—
what
? Let me get this straight: now you’re accusing me of—” I can’t believe my ears. “Get real, Harry. You are the one who tells them that they’re pretty, and that their kids are adorable. Heck, you even listen to them bitch about their husbands! What women
wouldn’t
fall in love with you? So don’t blame me when they do.” I can’t help it. I tear up. “Oh, and by the way, when I suggested you could be friendlier,
that wasn’t an invitation to sleep with them
.”

“Are you crazy?” He looks me straight in the eye. “Who said that about me? Oh, let me guess: that nymphomaniac Tammy.”

“No, not exactly—”

“Don’t cover up for her. Damn it, she’s not even very subtle about it. The only reason she offered to straighten out my cupboards was so that she could climb up on a ladder in those low-slung tight-ass jeans. And every time I turn around, she’s trying to get me out of my clothes. I can’t prove it, but I swear she deliberately put a pen in the wash with my underwear.” He shakes his head wearily. “Hell, maybe I
should
take her up on her offer and screw her brains out. It might actually calm her down. At the very least she’d finally shut up about it.”

That stops me cold. If Tammy were already sleeping with him, she certainly wouldn’t be talking about it, to anyone.

Neither would Colleen, for that matter. Or Brooke or Isabelle. Sure, they all desire Harry. But only because he’s a nice, safe fantasy, and not some dirty reality that could blow up in their faces.

“I do believe you, Harry.” When I look up at him, I’m happy to
see he is relieved. “But—”

“But what?”

“Well, I—really, we
all
happened to see Margot’s bike behind your bushes. We assumed that she was inside. With you. Then, when the back door opened and shut while we were in the house, I thought she’d slipped out. . . .”

Harry’s face is blank. Then all of a sudden he begins to laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“That must have been when Lucky got loose. As for the bike, it’s still there. Go ahead, take a look.”

I jump out of the car and look behind the bush. He’s right.

“Did she just leave it here?”

“Margot? Hell, no. Laurel brought it over. When she babysat for Temple yesterday. When I got home from work, it was dark, so I drove her home instead of letting her ride it. She’s picking it up after cheerleading practice.”

Suddenly I feel like a fool. “Harry, I’m so sorry. Please, please forgive me for doubting you. And I hope you believe me when I say that I didn’t know my friends would—well, that they’d be so enthralled by you.”

“That’s a polite word for it.” He smiles finally. “Sometimes Isabelle looks at me as if I’m a cupcake. One with
a lot
of icing. And every time Colleen shoves another casserole down my throat, I feel as if I’m being fattened up for the slaughter. Lyssa, honestly, these women are
starved
for sex.”

“No, Harry. Really, they’re starved for love.” I glance away. I could be describing myself, but I don’t want Harry to know that. “Well, look at it this way. If you can keep things on an even keel with them, you’ll have a wonderful cheering section at the divorce hearing.”

“That’s the problem. I don’t think they want to be friends on my terms.”

“Then that’s their loss. Stick to your guns. Just be polite about it.”
I pat his hand gently. “I guess you should get out now, though.”

“Why? We’ve still got another twenty minutes before basketball practice is over. Frankly, this is the most peace and quiet I’ve had in the past week.” He closes his eyes wearily. “Your friends are relentless.”

“I know. That’s why I think you should go. If Tammy notices you sitting in here, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Tammy? Shit,
where
?” He looks up and down the street. “I don’t see her car.”

“That’s because—oh, never mind. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” I peer out the window and up the hill. “You’ll just have to trust me on this one.”

“When a man opens a car door for his wife,
it’s either a new car or a new wife.”

—Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Tuesday, 12 Nov., 12:21 p.m.

Excuse me? EXCUSE ME? Are you going to just leave that there?” I’ve sidled up to Crabby Old Neighbor Lady at the moment she least expected it: as her mangy mutt takes a crap in our yard.

She’s been caught red-handed. But does she apologize? No. Nor does she look away in shame or fear.

But she does nod and say, “Yep. Have a great day,” before strolling away with her dog, leaving me to clean up the mess.

“Hey, I presume you know I have three kids—”

She stops to cackle. “Of course I do. I can hear your passel of brats even with my hearing aid turned off.”

“What? My kids aren’t brats! And even if they were, that’s no excuse for you to walk your dog over here so he can do his business!
Two wrongs don’t make a right, you know!
”

But I am talking to myself. She makes it a point to tap off her hearing aid as she walks off. I am left nudging dog poop under a bush with a stick when I hear my name being called.

I turn toward where the voice is coming from: the vintage candy-apple-red convertible 280SL parked across the street. Sitting behind the wheel is an older woman, late fifties, who wears dark glasses and
a scarf over a cloud of platinum curls. She waves at me frantically.

Of course, I go over.

Only when I’m halfway there do I realize that she is my old nemesis: Patti-with-an-i.

Fate has delivered me the truest test of my resolve.

Seeing me pause, she hisses, “Lyssa, please! PLEASE! It’s about your father.”

Of course it is. It’s happened a few times over the years: she does a drive-by in the hope of cornering me, of forcing me to talk about my father.

This time I know I must.

I climb into the passenger seat; the leather is hard and cracked. Once upon a time this was the pride and joy of Patti-with-an-i. I took a few joyrides in it myself, on those few occasions when, while hanging around outside my parents’ house, I’d noticed her cruising by.

Of course, now I know she’d come in the hope of running into my father. It was an ongoing effort to coerce him to run away with her. Until the day he did, I was the consolation prize: someone who, however unwittingly, gave her the scoop on my parents’ whereabouts, their fights, and their frustrations with each other.

Without the ammo I supplied, would my parents’ relationship have survived?

Probably not. But tell that to a ten-year-old who is mourning the loss of her father’s love.

“What is it, Patti? What do you want?” I sit up straight. I realize my father sits where I am now, and even the thought of that is too close for comfort. Even with the distance of time and space separating us, I don’t want to touch him in any way, shape, or form.

“Did your mother tell you?” She turns to look me in the eye. I take some satisfaction in the knowledge that Patti hasn’t aged well. I remember her as a buxom free spirit. Some twenty-four years later, what was once unlined and ash-blond is now creased and tarnished. Both body and spirit are sagging, I’m guessing under the weight of
my father’s plight.

I am far beyond his gravitational pull and have no desire to get sucked into his black hole. “Yeah, I heard. His lung. Good luck with that.”

“Lyssa, I’m here because the doctors say he won’t last beyond January.”

A distant memory comes back to me: the glow of his Marlboros in the dark. Once upon a time the combination of cigarette smoke and Old Spice was my security blanket. It meant Dad was home. There with me, because he loved me.

But no, he loved Patti-with-an-i even more.

I grit my teeth to ward off any knee-jerk remorse. If she expects me to tear up, she’s mistaken.

“Lyssa, he loves you. He needs to see you before he dies.” She shoves a card into my hand. On it is scrawled an address and a telephone number.

It’s her turn to face facts. To face me. “Don’t talk to me about love! If he loved me, he wouldn’t have walked away from me. He wouldn’t have forgotten me. But he did.” I leap out of the car. “Well, I’ve forgotten him too.”

“You’re right, Lyssa. What he did was wrong.” Her voice is calm, too sweet, as if once again she’s wheedling trust from a ten-year-old. “But two wrongs don’t make a right.”

I shrug.

Then I do something I hope I won’t regret later: scribble our unlisted telephone number on the magnetic notepad suspended on her dashboard and croak out: “Don’t call unless it’s serious.”

She waits a full five minutes after I’ve slammed the door to the house before driving away. I don’t know what she expected. For me to come back out and say I’d changed my mind? That, yes, we’d have that reunion he needed to clear his conscience, to absolve him of his parental sins?

I can’t do that.

So instead, I rummage through the basket of toys on the front porch until I find Olivia’s little plastic shovel. With it, I scoop the neighbor’s dog poop and fling it into her yard.

Then I run back into the house, where I can cry in private. Without my neighbor’s eyes peering at me through her thin curtains.

Really, I wail. Loudly, out of control.

For her sake, I hope Crabby Old Neighbor Lady still has her hearing aid turned off.

“We waste time looking for the perfect lover,
instead of creating the perfect love.”

—Tom Robbins

Wednesday, 13 Nov., 9:22 a.m.

What’s up with Harry?” Margot is sulking. “He hasn’t returned any of my calls.”

“You’re telling me. I’ve been trying to reach him too. I know he doesn’t have the kids tonight, so I’ve been leaving him voice mails about playing tennis, then maybe having a drink afterward in the clubhouse.” Brooke shrugs and takes a sip of her ’Bucks brew du jour.

Colleen’s eyes grow big with concern. “Well, something’s got to be up, or he wouldn’t have asked for us all to meet him here.”

I bite my tongue to keep from laughing, but I can’t let that pass. “I think you’re reading more into it than it really means. Remember, the guy is juggling a lot of balls right now—”

“Speaking of juggling balls . . .” Tammy is standing behind me. We all turn around just in time to see her unzip her hoodie. Underneath it she’s wearing a baby-blue tight T-shirt emblazoned with the words
HARRY’S HAREM
. “I had these made up for us! Aren’t they adorable?” She lifts up a bag filled with the shirts and starts handing them around. “I figure we can all be wearing them when he comes in. Whattaya think?”

While the others laugh and squeal with delight, I stare at the one
tossed in my lap and think,
Hell no, ain’t no way
 . . .

“Girls, wow, you’re all here. Thanks for coming.” Harry smiles genially, but there’s something different about him, an air of detachment.

“Darn, Harry, no cupcakes this morning?” Isabelle is truly disappointed.

Harry takes her hand, drawing her eyes to his own baby blues. “Darling Isabelle, the last thing you need is a cupcake. We both know that, don’t we?”

The gasps from the rest of us warn Isabelle to be on her guard. Her eyes narrow into mere slits of suspicion.

As they should. But does Harry take the hint? Not on your life.

Instead, he continues as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. He is in Master-of-the-Universe mode. “Look, girls, you know I love you. But I’m going to level with you. . . .”

As he pauses, the women, unsure as to where he’s going with this train of thought, lean in expectantly.

“I haven’t been happy with the little ‘arrangement’ we’ve got going here.” He lets that sink in. “Don’t get me wrong. Of course I appreciate all you’ve done for me. You’ve been super friends, caring, considerate. For that, I’ll be forever in your debt. And I hope I’ve given as good as I’ve gotten”—he looks pointedly at Tammy—“so here’s what I’m proposing: Carpool is a given, fine. I don’t mind being on call a couple of days a week, say Tuesdays for the kindergartners and Fridays for the middle-school guys. But there are a few nonnegotiables too. For instance, no more casual drop-ins at my house. And thanks but no thanks for the offers to do my laundry, rearrange my drawers, or buy me underwear you’d find on a male stripper.”

Harry’s fans exchange guilty glances. As for Harry, he’s emboldened and on a roll: “And, Brooke, fair warning: you break one more tennis date and you can scratch me from your dance card permanently. By the way, I heard your message about playing tonight, but
count me out. Since tomorrow is my birthday, my lawyer arranged for DeeDee to take the kids tonight instead, so I’m taking some much-needed me time. You ladies can certainly appreciate that, right? Oh, and, Colleen, puh-leeze, no more casseroles. I know you mean well, but I’m losing my boyish figure, and so is Lucky, since he ends up eating the leftovers.”

The muffled yelp from Colleen has everyone else wincing.

Except for Harry. He’s practically glowing. “Does everybody understand the new ground rules? Super! Gee, Lyssa, you were right to encourage me to get this off my chest! It feels so good. Hey, which one of you ladies is up for a latte? I’m buying. . . .”

The others turn to me. They don’t say a word, but they don’t have to. Their stares say it all:

Traitor.

Tammy has something to get off her chest, too. But since she can’t yank off her T-shirt in front of all of us—and Harry is making it quite clear he’s not interested in a private strip show—she zips up her hoodie and huffs off.