A Summer in Sonoma (21 page)

Tears began to roll down her cheeks. She hated seeing him like this. It was easier struggling and juggling, being furious with him for his damn optimism, than to look at his eyes right now, filled with regret and shame.

“It's still going to be all right,” she said, “because we're in this together. Right?” He didn't say anything and with a hiccup of emotion, she said, “We're still in this together, aren't we, Billy?”

He pulled her hand into his again and kissed the palm. “I made an appointment for a vasectomy a week
from Friday. You have to come with me to the doctor—sign off. I'll get a local. I can drive myself.”

“You're not going to drive yourself. God.”

He was quiet for a second. Then he said, “If we ever get out of this mess, I swear to God I'll never let anything like this happen to you again, Jules. I let you down. I let the kids down.” He wiped at an eye.

“Will you stop this!” she said loudly, standing. “You have to stop it! Now!”

“I'm sorry,” he said softly, his beautiful eyebrows furrowed.

“Billy, people do this all the time—our families aren't going to let us starve, for God's sake! Movie stars and professional athletes are filing for bankruptcy every day! It makes headlines and they get through it! Beth said a surgeon she knew filed for bankruptcy and stayed in his mansion of a house, operated every day just like usual!”

“Yeah, I know, but I thought if I could just work a little harder, make it a little longer….”

“Right now I don't care about
anything,
except that you straighten your back and take it like a man!” she said loudly. “If this is how it is, it is. What we have in this family has never been about money!”

He stared at her a long moment and very quietly, very sadly, said, “And that's for goddamn sure.”

M
arty got home from the shop at six, her arms full of groceries and Joe's uniform pants from the dry cleaner, her legs aching after a long day on her feet. She could hear Jason whacking around toys in his room, but all else was quiet. Joe might be lying down in the bedroom. There was a disturbing smell in the house; she wrinkled her nose. Then she put down her groceries and separated them, putting some in the refrigerator, some in the cupboards, leaving out the meat, potatoes and green beans. She flipped on the oven, sniffing again. She'd have to figure out that smell; they didn't have a dog.

She mixed up a meat loaf and put it on a baking sheet. She got the potatoes peeled and boiling, snipped the ends off the beans and put them in the vegetable steamer. Then she started picking up—dishes, toys, clothes, shoes, newspapers, pillows from the sofa. As she was
putting things away, she found Joe in the room that passed for his office. The smell was stronger. It couldn't have gotten
this
bad, she thought. “I'm home,” she said.

He turned away from the computer and grinned at her. “Hey, babe. First preseason game on tonight!”

“Joe, do you smell like
shit?
”

He sniffed at himself. “Me and Jase—we composted around the trees and flower beds. Fall's here. I washed my hands.”

“Joe,” she said earnestly, “you have to wash more than your hands. Shower before dinner. We shouldn't have to eat with that smell!”

“It's not that bad,” he said, brushing her off. “There's a game starting in less than an hour….” He turned back to the computer.

“It won't take fifteen minutes,” she informed him.

“Yeah, sure,” he said.

“What are you doing?”

“Fantasy football—it starts in a couple of weeks. I'm boning up. I'm going to kill it this year.”

She pursed her lips and left. She went and kissed her boy, gathered up dirty clothes—Joe's off the floor—and threw in a load of laundry. While dinner was finishing up, she ran the vacuum around the family room to suck up crumbs from bread and chips, dusted some of the wood, used glass cleaner to get the fingerprints off the patio doors, kitchen appliances and her bathroom fixtures. Joe was still at the computer. She put plates out on the table, transferred laundry. When dinner was ready, she called Jason and Joe. She was whipping the
potatoes when Joe entered the kitchen, came up behind her as she worked, slipped his arms around her waist and nuzzled her neck with his scratchy beard. The smell was
horrible!
She wasn't sure she could eat dinner with him without getting sick. “You look real sexy tonight, babe,” he said. “You have a good day?”

“Until I came home,” she answered coolly.

“What?” he asked, backing up.

She turned around and faced him. “You haven't heard me the first hundred times, Joe. I don't think you'll hear me the next hundred. But I'll try once more. Your hygiene, Joe. You stink. You smell of compost and sweat. You need a shower before you sit down at the table with me.”

He sniffed each armpit. “What are you
talking
about?”

She shook her head in disgust and put the food out while he stood there, staring at her as if she was out of her mind.

When the food was on the table, Joe got himself a TV tray, loaded up his plate and headed for the family room. He sat in front of his big screen. The game wasn't on yet. It was the pregame show, which he could have seen from the table—his place was strategically positioned. She didn't rag on him; he smelled of manure and sour grass clippings. The family room was a good place for him, though not nearly far enough away.

Jason wanted a tray, too, like Dad, but Marty made him stay at the table. She helped him with his meat loaf and beans—the mashed potatoes went fast. She glanced at her watch as the dryer buzzed that there were clothes ready to fold. Seven-twenty. And she thought, I can't do
this. I just can't do this anymore. Work all day, clean and cook all night, lie next to a husband whose stench was so bad it was nauseating. It wasn't like coming home to no one; it was like coming home to a bigger problem than she'd have if she was single. The house had an aroma of meat loaf and compost; Joe sat on the couch, engrossed in his football and nothing domestic had been done all day long. He'd gotten off work this morning and Jason had been sent to his Grandma's till noon so Joe could get some sleep. The rest of the day had been dedicated to yard work, foraging for food, entertaining himself and getting all juiced up for football.

I hate my life, she thought. It shouldn't be like this. I don't have to have barrels of fun every day, but I have to live in a tolerably clean environment and share a bed with someone who doesn't smell like manure.

After dinner and dishes, while the dishwasher ran, she bathed Jason, read him a story and settled him into bed. When she got back to the kitchen, Joe's tray, complete with dirty dishes, sat on the counter, ready for her to clean it up. But the dishwasher was full. She rinsed them, left them in the sink and went to her room.

Since those breathless kisses with her old boyfriend, Marty had been determined to be a better wife. She'd kept up with the house and meals, tried very hard not to complain or nag, though she didn't do so well at that. Today had been long and hard—difficult clients, petty drama among some of the beauticians in the shop, a double booking that had her scrambling with no time for lunch. Her legs ached, her head throbbed, her hands
were raw from chemicals. And she'd come home to that disgusting smell.

Here were her options: she could shower off the grime of the day, crawl into bed with one of her romances and a watchable rerun on the bedroom TV, or…or something else.

She showered, fixed her hair, applied her makeup and put on some of those new clothes she'd bought a few weeks ago—the low-slung pants, the tight shirt that showed off her cleavage and the high strappy heels. She sprayed on some perfume.

When she walked into the family room, Joe was nodding off in front of the game. This was so standard. He'd have a big meal, a couple of beers, maybe a couple of bourbons, get all cozy and comfortable in front of the set and by the third quarter he'd be asleep. He wouldn't shower or shave, wouldn't sit at the table with them. She couldn't watch the big TV because whether he was asleep or not, it was his. So this was a preseason game. Fall. Boating would go on hiatus and football would start. There would be a game every Monday, Thursday and Sunday night, and all day on the weekends. Joe was pretty senior at F.D.—he'd bid his schedule to be off for the games so he could either watch them at home wearing the smell du jour or go to the bar. This was going to be her life for the next several months until the Super Bowl—either alone with Jason while Joe worked or coming home to a mess, a smelly husband and an anger that was rising in her to unpredictable proportions.

She thought about leaving the house and just letting
Joe wonder, but she couldn't do that. There had to be a transfer of responsibilities, so she woke him. “Joe,” she said, shaking him. “Joe…”

“Huh,” he roused. “Huh?”

“Joe, I'm going out for a while. Jason's in bed asleep. You're in charge.”

“Huh? Where you going, babe?”

“I'm going out for a glass of wine,” she said.

“Oh? With the girls?”

“Yeah,” she said. “With the girls.”

He stroked her arm a little bit; he smiled through his stubble. “You gonna be home kind of early? Because it's been a while…”

“Sure,” she said, showing him a fake smile. “You just shower and shave and I'll see you a little later.”

“It's a deal. I'll have it up for you,” he said. “I mean, I'll be waiting up for you.”

“Sure,” she said.

Marty drove around for about a half hour, then she pulled into a strip mall parking lot and called Ryan from her cell phone. “Hi,” she said. “Did I wake you?”

“Course not. What's up?”

“I'm out,” she said. “I had to get out of the house for a while. Want to meet for a drink?”

“Sure,” he said, and she could hear him stifle a yawn. “Tell me where and when.”

“How about the Red Lion Inn? I can meet you in the bar….”

“Gimme a little time,” he said. “I was just watching the game.”

“And you'd leave the game?” she asked, smiling to herself.

“You're damn straight. See you in about a half hour.”

That gave her way too much time to think about what she was doing. She got to the Red Lion quickly, found a place at the end of a long bar in the shadows and asked for a glass of wine. There was no way she could rationalize this into something that was okay. It was dead wrong; she shouldn't be seeing Ryan, even for a drink, even for a talk.

But the right thing to do was even worse. She should tell Joe she was through, that she just couldn't envision her life like this for another fifty years. It was going to get a lot worse before it got better. If she thought another few years would set them right, put them back in touch with each other, she'd gut it out, keep trying. But the opposite was going to happen. He was going to get worse and she was going to get meaner, and older. If this had to be done, she had to do it now, before she was well into her thirties or forties, bitter, angry and exhausted.

This was the one thing she never thought she'd do—step out on her husband. After all the times it had been done to her, knowing the hurt and feelings of helplessness, she was meeting the same man who had cheated on her so many times! It was sheer lunacy.

Before it was too late, she asked herself, Can't I live with most of it? There was a list in her mind that she'd been over many times, and she considered it again. She could give up going out for an evening that was meant for them as a couple and not a sporting event. She didn't
mind that Joe wasn't a good dancer; she sure liked to dance, but she could get by without that. She could get used to the RV and there were things about boating that could be fun. It would be okay to never have a reason to dress up again. The domestic stuff… Maybe if he'd just pick up after himself a little bit, a tiny bit, she could handle the rest—all the cooking, cleaning, shopping, laundry. Because there were good things about Joe. For one thing, he loved her completely, would never look at another woman, and they looked at him plenty. He was an involved father, a good provider. She could deal with the stubble, but he had to be clean. Okay, if there was one day a week that he let it all go to hell—wore the worst old shorts or sweats in the house and reeked like an outhouse with B.O. —one day a week, she thought, I could do that. I just need to feel more valuable than the ball game once in a while, just important enough for a shower.

Because this was wrong, so wrong…

And then she saw Ryan walk in and everything inside her seemed to swell. Look at him, she thought, a smile coming to her lips. He was home in front of the same game her husband was watching, yet he walked in wearing a crisp shirt, tailored pants, clean shaven, his light brown hair groomed, that dimpled grin sparkling. He wasn't even married or living with a woman, yet he was put together. Neat and tidy. He saw her, walked right over to her, slipped an arm around her and kissed her temple. “You look so hot,” he whispered, sitting down next to her. “What's going on?”

“I needed to get out,” she said with a smile and a shrug.

“Trouble at home?”

“Nah. I just didn't have anyone to call—the girls are all tied up,” she lied. “And you know what I thought would be really fun? I haven't danced in years. Literally years.”

“I could spin you around a little bit. Then you have to tell me what's wrong,” he said. “Because I don't want get in the middle of anything complicated. You know?”

“Aw, don't worry about it. Everything's fine.”

“You cool with this?” he asked.

“This?”

“Me and you? Just getting together?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Then grab your wine and let's go downstairs where there's music. How about that?”

“I'd really like that,” she said, grinning stupidly.

He held her hand while they went down the spiral stairs to the nightclub, the dance floor, and it was like a date. I'm going to do this one time, she thought. I'm going to dance and laugh and not think about things—and then I'll go home and, by God, I'll handle it.

And that's what she did; she danced with Ryan three, four, five times in a row. Then they went to the bar, he ordered up a beer and excused himself for a few moments. She asked for an ice water while she waited and when he came back a slow song came on and they hit the dance floor again. He pulled her into his arms, held her close, swayed with her, his big soft hands running up and down her back, over her butt and hips, pulling her against him. Tears sparkled in her eyes. It
had been too long since she'd felt like this, like a woman and not a mean, demanding bitch.

He kissed her neck as they danced and said, “Marty, do you have any idea what you do to me?”

“Yeah, I have an idea,” she said. “But I have a very good memory—anyone does that to you.”

“Let's find someplace quieter,” he said, ignoring the jibe. “More private. What do you say?”

“I can't, Ryan. I can't go that far, you know that.”

“Sure you can, or you wouldn't be here.”

She laughed. “Tempting,” she said. “But no, thanks.”

“What do you have in mind, then?” he asked.

She pulled away a little. “Just a little dancing…”

“But see, now that I have my arms around you, I'm starting to get all those old feelings. And I think you have 'em, too, or you wouldn't have called me….”

Oh, I have them, all right, she thought. I don't want this to ever end.

“Come on. Let's get out of here.”