Elizabeth the First Wife (17 page)

I wish I could claim credit for having found the perfect sage-and-purple-trimmed two-bedroom house with a porch in the front and a hot tub in back, but it wasn't me. It was Angie, an assistant to FX's business manager, who handled all the arrangements. (The scope of the FX Fahey Industrial Complex was coming into focus. It takes a village, and many assistants, to service a movie star.) In the short time I'd spent working with Angie via e-mail, it was clear that she was both proficient and oblivious. Proficient at researching, negotiating, securing, and documenting the huge number of details it takes to relocate multiple people; oblivious to the cost that said relocation requires. When she sent me the links to three possible
houses, I saw that all three cottages were for sale, not seasonal rentals. When I told Angie this, she just said, “Everything's negotiable.”

Apparently Angie was right, because a week later, she sent me the keys to my first-choice place, the house with the remodeled kitchen, arched doorways, and claw-foot tub. She assured me that she'd get new beds and linens brought in, and the owner would take up the awful green carpet in the bathrooms because, she said, Hollywood “doesn't do carpet in the bathrooms.”

“Is linoleum okay?” she asked.

I hadn't even balked at the carpet.

Angie threw in a cleaning service every week and offered to have someone come in to do our laundry on Tuesdays and Fridays. She also provided information about a grocery delivery service, an inhouse masseuse, and a nearby yoga studio and said she'd arranged for billing to go directly to her. I said no to the laundry, the grocery delivery, and the masseuse, because that all seemed a little too much. But yes to yoga, because I had a feeling I was going to need a little stress relief. Angie sent along the keys to our Ashland dream house as well as a “bible of information” (her words) about all things Ashland and all things FX.

My guess is that she had no idea that I'd been married to FX, and she clearly thought I'd be doing a lot of his personal bidding this summer. In addition to a four-page list of his preferred
everything
, from face soap (Dove Unscented, the same soap since college, I noted) to iced beverages (double-shot latte with one-percent milk and a half squirt of vanilla syrup) to white undershirts (TJ Second Skin). The bible also included a list of women with whom he had slept who were not to be mentioned to the press
(Carla Bruni!)
and another list of women he was interested in sleeping with, should the occasion arise
(Stockard Channing?)
. I wasn't sure what disturbed me more: absorbing the lengthy columns of names or the fact that “Elizabeth Lancaster” wasn't included on either list. I tossed the bible into a closet until I could decide the best course of action, burning it
or tearing it to shreds, one page at a time.

But that first morning in Ashland, the needs and desires of FX Fahey were far from the top of my mind. The kitchen of our little cottage was flooded with morning light, and I had my first chance to get a good look at our home away from home for the next ten weeks. It was clean, bright, and creamy yellow, like the website promised. The kitchen was stocked with the essentials: coffee, milk, English muffins. I brewed some coffee, changed into some socially acceptable yoga pants, a fleece pullover, and my Uggs, and headed out to the front porch.

Maddie and I had pulled in late the night before after a grueling 700-mile drive from Southern California to Southern Oregon. Maddie talked nonstop for ten hours. I'd brought a few books on tape that I thought would help pass the time, but she was her own book on tape. I now knew the last names of all the Emmas and where they were spending the summer. I found out why she stopped taking flute from Mr. Tom. (Yes, he did touch her thigh, which, as she reminded me, “is not a part of my body involved in playing the flute
at all!”)
I was fully versed in the rules of table tennis and the political drama that played out when one of the top players got a B in math and was benched by her parents. And she told me about the mean girl in her class she suspected of attempting to trap her in some sort of scandal so she could post on YouTube to discredit Congressman Ted. By the time we reached the Oregon border, I was pretty sure that a) Maddie would run out of things to say by July Fourth, and b) Maddie needed to get out of Pasadena as much as I did.

Maybe it was the cool, clean morning air or the sound of the train whistle in the background, but I felt a shot of renewed energy. I'd spent the last five summers grinding it out in the heat and smog of Southern California, teaching a few torturous remedial writing classes, moving dirt, and catching up on back issues of
Sunset
and
Cottage Living
. Basically, I'd done nothing in the moving-forward department, except the garden. Even just thinking about my life
made me realize how static my status quo had been for a long while.

Now I felt ready for something new, even if it meant reconnecting with something old, like an ex-husband. Over the last week, I had pieced together a to-do list of personal improvements I wanted to tackle this summer. Top three items: the play, the book, and my desire to upgrade my wardrobe by adding more color and less black. Add to that mastering the art of omelet making and I was a walking
Glamour
article, if anyone still read
Glamour
.

“I can do this,” I said to no one, in a most atypical personal pep talk. “It's the Summer of Me.”

To my surprise, somebody answered, in the form of a cold nose rubbing against my hand.
What the hell?
The sensation scared me to death, as if Oregon might be home to marauding packs of wild coyotes. I let out a pathetic scream, cut short when I saw it was just a mid-size fluffy brown dog. Well, sort of fluffy anyway. The dog dodged behind a chair, proving that yes, they really are more scared of us than we are of them.

Ashamed of my overreaction, I tried my best dog-lover patois, even though I wasn't that experienced talking to dogs. “Here, puppy. That's okay. Come here.” He/she came toward me timidly, head down but tail wagging slowly. “Who are you? What's your name? Are you a boy or a girl?”

Thanks to my complete lack of canine knowledge, I assumed the stray was a boy because he was light brown, and that's a boy color. He had no collar or tags and a look in his eyes that said he'd been on his own for a while. His fur was matted and he was whimpering slightly, as if he was incredibly relieved to make contact with another living being. Once I started petting him, his tail went nuts. He gave me a grateful look. I was smitten.

“Are you lost? Do you live around here?” For the first time, I understood why so many cartoons feature talking dogs. Who wouldn't love their dog to speak up just once? They're no help when you need them to answer a few simple questions. I walked down
the porch steps with Fido at my heels and looked both ways down Seventh Street, expecting to see an owner looking for his dog. Or maybe the dog would head home for breakfast. Oregon was kind of a lawless place. Maybe dogs didn't need to be on leashes here. Maybe they walked themselves? But there was no one on the street except a teenager on a skateboard headed in the other direction. I noticed a lost-pet sign on the telephone pole and called to my new friend, “Come on. Let's go see if this is you.”

But the flyer was for a missing ferret.
A ferret?
There really are wild marauding animals around here, I thought. I needed to protect this dog from that ferret. Then I thought about what my sister Sarah, the Advice Whisperer, had said to me: Get a dog. A dog would distract my mother from my career. A dog would distract me from dreams about FX. A dog would be an excellent prop at social events where everybody else had a spouse. Could this be the first challenge in my Summer of Me vow to say, “Yes!” more than “No”? Perhaps. But for now, I didn't want to get too attached, because a dog this cute must have a family. “Come on, let's go inside and get you some water.”

Maybe water was his cue—just then, he lifted his leg on a bush. Yup, I had a new man in my life. A fluffy brown man.

Maddie burst through the door, ready for the day. “Oh, who's this little guy?”

Without thinking, I answered, “Puck.”

By the end of the day, I'd unpacked all my clothes and set up my office in the front room with my computer, a bust of William S, and two whiteboards, one for
Midsummer
and one for my book. I secured groceries for several days and a supply of scented candles to last the summer, because it seemed like the thing to do in Ashland.

Maddie and I managed to give Puck a bath with the hose, buy a matching plaid leash and collar, and make a dramatic Lost Dog sign,
featuring before and after photos of our new roommate. We called the animal shelter to see if anyone was looking for a brown dog, but the volunteer said it had been slow the last few days, only a few lost cats and, of course, the ferret. No lost dogs at all. I tasked Maddie with walking around town to hang up the signs, because it seemed like the right thing to do. Neither of us was all that enthusiastic about returning Puck to his rightful owner, least of all Puck, who was really enjoying his new hemp-filled pet bed and chew bone.

I was settling in with a glass of iced tea and my notes on
Midsummer
when a text from FX came in: Here in Ashland. Dinner tonight with Taz? 7 at my place. The address followed.
Oh, God, here we go
.

Maddie shook her head as I modeled my outfit for dinner with Taz and FX. With conviction, she handed me a pair of jeans and a blouse. “Not that, these.”

I reassessed my black sheath dress. “Too job interview-y?”

“I've never been on a job interview, so I don't know. But just not cool.”

She was right. Nobody looked cool in a sheath dress. I took her choices then confessed, “Why am I so nervous?”

“Because FX is so cute?” I knew Maddie was dying to ask me more about him, like she did about everything else. What was our first kiss like? How did I know I was in love? Was he, you know, good in bed? (Romantic and perfect; Love at first sight; Pretty good but not great, though I didn't know that at 22. According to his bible, he's had a lot of experience since then.) Bumble must have set down some ground rules, because Maddie hadn't asked a single thing about him on the drive up. That warning and the nondisclosure agreement we both had to sign had obviously silenced her.

“No, that's not it. He's like an old shoe to me. A really cute old shoe,” I acknowledged, even though that wasn't completely accurate.
“But Taz. …”

“You got this, Elizabeth.” Maddie sounded like the table tennis team manager she was.
Yeah, I got this
.

I changed into the jeans and the filmy floral blouse I'd bought at a boutique in Pasadena in support of my decision to wear more color. It was the sort of piece that other women could pull off with ease, looking like they'd just come from the beach in 1973. But I worried that I looked like I was in costume for a revival of
Godspell
. “What do you think?”

“Very cool.”

At least I looked cool on the outside, even if my insides were a hot churning mess.