Once More with Feeling (7 page)

“The car needs a new engine. Cyril says the old one—’

“How much is ‘that much’?”

Roger swallowed hard. “Five hundred bucks.”

She stared at the carpeting, waiting for the rising panic to subside. “Whose five hundred bucks?” she finally asked.

“We’d better call Dirk.”

So it was that the first night of Laura and Roger’s honeymoon was spent in the company of romping cheerleaders ... and the second night with Dirk and his pal Igor stretched out in sleeping bags on the floor of their honeymoon hideaway. Dirk, after all, was the rightful owner of the ailing VW. If he chose to tow it all the way back to Pennsylvania behind Igor’s truck so he could personally fiddle with the recalcitrant engine, that was his business. Of course, where they spent the night was also Laura’s business. Still, she was a new bride, on her very best behavior, and she couldn’t bring herself to exile her brother-in-law of two days to the Y when she was enjoying such luxurious accommodations.

That escapade, it turned out, was merely a precursor of the even more symbolic event that was to follow. On day three, over breakfast, Roger had a suspicious glint in his eyes, unlike anything Laura’d seen since he’d watched the cheerleaders video.

“I had a great idea,” he told her. “How about renting a sailboat and taking it out on Lake Ontario? You and I haven’t had a chance to go sailing together yet. So far,” he added with a wink, “you’ve only heard about my prowess at sea. I’m anxious to show off.”

Lounging on the back of the fourteen-foot sailboat that was theirs for the day, Laura couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so relaxed. Even though it was October, the day was unseasonably warm. She had no duties but to be appreciative. Roger, meanwhile, bustled around, trying to impress his new bride with his knowledge of peculiar knots and sails with names that sounded like acronyms.

“Mmm, that sun feels good,” she commented, pulling off her sunglasses and squinting in the bright light. “I think I’ll take a dip in the lake.”

“Good idea,” Roger said, flashing her a smile.

Standing perched on the edge of the boat, about to dive in, Laura noticed her wedding ring. Feeling a rush of protectiveness toward both her new status and her new jewelry, she pulled it off her finger.

“Here.” She handed it to Roger, saying, “Hold this for me,” as she jumped into the lake.

She never did fully understand the sequence of events that followed. It had to do with changing sails, fiddling with those knots Roger prided himself on knowing so much about. All she knew was that as she shivered in the icy water, wondering what on earth she’d been thinking, she noticed something gold glinting in the sunlight. With a tiny splash, it dropped into the water.

It only took her a few seconds to figure out what had happened. The look on Roger’s face, the fact that there were only so many substances capable of catching the light in just that way ... As she treaded water Laura’s stomach cramped.

Her wedding ring. Gone.

“I hope what happened today isn’t a bad sign,” Roger said later that evening, chuckling. The two of them sat at a small table in a dark corner of a Basque restaurant, the plump couple who owned it watching anxiously to see if they were duly appreciative of the excellent cuisine. The tiny restaurant seemed to have been designed with honeymooners in mind. Candles dripped wax over wine bottles. The large china plates looked hand painted, the occasional chip only adding more to the ambience. As for the food, it couldn’t have been tastier even if its ingredients had been identifiable.

Laura’s smile was the cheeriest one she could manage. The last thing she wanted to do was cast a shadow over what was supposed to be a romantic evening.

“Don’t worry about the ring,” she insisted. “It’s just a piece of metal, forty dollars worth of gold. I can replace it easily enough once we get home.”

She reached for her glass of champagne, much drier than Claire’s choice and served icy cold. Somehow, it didn’t taste nearly as wonderful as the tepid stuff she’d sipped in the front seat of the car only days earlier.

Laura never did admit to Roger how much her feelings had been hurt by his carelessness with her ring, the first important thing he’d ever given to her, a symbol of a union that was meant to last. She’d never even admitted it to herself. Yet while the event was something she hadn’t thought about for years, as she stood outside a divorce lawyer’s office, it suddenly seemed of monumental importance.

* * * *

Laura tried to concentrate on the present as she sat down in a hard wooden chair opposite Irwin Hart, folding her hands in her lap anxiously. Her focus, she reminded herself, should be not on herself, but on the man on the other side of the desk.

What struck her most were his small, dark eyes. She immediately thought of the word
beady,
and found herself considering adding a vulture to the cast of characters in her jungle books.

Irwin Hart had an odd way of looking at people, staring not into their eyes but just a bit higher. Laura found it disconcerting. Self-consciously she smoothed the top of her hair.

“So you want out of a marriage,” he said, in a low monotone.

“Uh, yes.” Laura squirmed in her chair. “I don’t really know what steps I have to take—’

“Leave all that to me. That is, if you decide to avail yourself of my services.” He leaned forward, forming an inverted V with his hands. He wore a big ring on each pinky. One was a solid band of gold, so thick it reminded her of a Life Saver. The other had a diamond as big as a Ritz cracker.

Clearing her throat, Laura continued. “There are a few questions I’d like to ask before I decide—”

“Of course, of course.” Irwin Hart spoke so quickly that she wondered if he had someone waiting in the next room.

“First of all,” she said, her pen poised over the pad she’d taken out of her purse, “I’d like to know what percentage of your law practice is devoted to, uh, divorce.”

“All of it.” Irwin Hart reached into the center drawer of his desk and took out two shiny silver balls, smaller and smoother than golf balls. He held them both in his right hand, moving them back and forth, back and forth, tapping and grinding them against each other.

“I see. Well, that’s good. Uh, I guess I’ll need to know what you require as a retainer—” She stopped, suddenly aware of another noise in the room, less grating but distracting nevertheless. “Do you hear tapping?”

“Hmm? Oh, that’s just my foot. Mrs. Walsh—”

“I go by the name Laura Briggs.”

“Wise decision, keeping your maiden name. Makes a lot of things ... simpler. Do you have credit cards in your name?”

“Yes, I made a point of—”

“Good credit rating?”

“Yes, I always—”

“Own checking account?”

“Uh, no, we—”

“Open one immediately. First thing tomorrow. Today, if you can get to the bank. Own savings account?”

“No, I—”

“How about bugs?”

“Excuse me?”

“Do
you know how to plant a bug in the phone?”

“Of course not!”

He shook his head. “Child’s play.”

Laura opened her mouth to protest. But she stopped when she saw that for the first time since she’d entered his office, Irwin Hart’s eyes had met hers. “Ms. Briggs, these are all mere details, things we can work out over time. What I started to say is that what’s important here is for you to know that should you choose to have me represent you in your divorce, I can guarantee that I’ll get your husband by the ...”

He lowered his eyes to his right hand, an eerie smile creeping slowly across his face.

* * * *

Laura opened the back door quietly late that afternoon, hoping to sneak up to the bedroom undetected. The last thing she was in the mood for was a confrontation with Roger.

She’d left her brief meeting with Irwin Hart seriously unnerved. Instead of feeling calm and in control, as if she now had a pillar of strength on her side, she felt as if she’d stepped into a Fellini movie. She headed for the first phone booth she could find, and made desperate calls to friends and friends of friends. Fortunately, they were able to come up with the names of half a dozen lawyers. She set up three firm appointments with likely prospects, which took the edge off her anxiety.

Her mission completed, she’d been at a loss as to how to spend the rest of the day. While her word processor beckoned, she couldn’t bring herself to go home. Roger was bound to be there. It was her wedding anniversary, and the last person she wanted to spend the day with was her husband.

So she’d done what any other woman living in the suburbs would do: she headed for the mall. Aimlessly she’d wandered about, fondling merchandise she had no intention of buying. Glancing around, she saw she was hardly the only one spending the day this way. The place was amazingly filled with people just hanging out.

Finally, Laura slunk into the house as silently as a jungle cat, ruminating about the plot of her latest book.

So she was completely caught off guard when she discovered she’d just stepped onto the set from
Fantasy Island.

The dining room was dark except for the pale, flickering light cast by the candles in the middle of the table. There were four, mismatched, lopsided, half-burned. Laura recognized them immediately. They were the ones she and Roger used during their first months of marriage, back when making love still seemed like one of the basic necessities of life. Seeing them again made her cringe.

A bottle of champagne sat alongside two glasses, white with frost. Roger, standing in front of the little surprise he’d concocted, had to have grabbed them out of the freezer as she was pulling into the driveway. Behind him, in a tall vase, was a big bouquet of long-stemmed red roses, the official flower of people in love.

“Roger, you shouldn’t have—”

“Happy anniversary.”

“But—”

He held up both hands. “Don’t say a word, Laura. Just listen. You owe me that much, after fifteen years of marriage, don’t you?”

“I suppose so.” Her voice quivered.

“Okay. I admit that what I did, going on
Donahue
like that and spilling my guts, probably wasn’t the brightest thing I’ve even done.”

“I bet Norm and Dwayne feel the same way.”

“As for lying to you, not to mention going through most of our savings—”

“Please.” Laura shut her eyes tightly. “I can’t even bear to think about that.”

“I admit I was wrong. I really screwed up. But now that everything’s out hi the open, we can start to talk.”

She sighed. “Roger, I’ve been trying to find a way to talk to you for fifteen years. I’ve tried being nice. I’ve tried being direct. I’ve even tried ignoring you, concentrating on my own life and trying not to be too bothered by the fact that ever since the beginning, our marriage has caused me nothing but heartache….”

“We can start again.”

“It’s too late.”

“What about the house?”

Laura looked around the dining room, cast in shadow by the flickering candles. She expected to feel pangs of remorse. And so she was startled by the absence of even the slightest reaction.

“We’ll sell the house.”

“Laura, this is our house.”

“It’s just a building.”

“What about Evan? Or is he ‘just our son’?”

Laura drew in her breath sharply. Evan. That was the part she couldn’t bear to face. Every time she thought about what this was going to do to him, her heart felt leaden. Breaking up her marriage meant breaking up his family. He’d done nothing to deserve such a loss. He was only eight years old.

During all those years of rationalizing, calling upon every available resource to keep her marriage going, Evan had played a starring role. With a certain smugness Laura had read the magazine articles on the problems faced by children of divorce, relieved that this was one difficulty her son would never have to deal with.

The mere thought of telling him Mom and Dad were tearing his family apart made her knees weaken and her stomach cramp. Yet while in her heart she was distraught over what a divorce would do to him, in her mind she knew she couldn’t be a very good mother to her child if she was angry and unhappy.

Besides, she’d reached the point where there was simply no other choice.

“Living in a family that’s unhappy isn’t good for Evan, either,” she finally replied, grasping the back of a dining room chair for support.

“Unhappy?
I
wasn’t unhappy.
He
wasn’t unhappy.”

“
I
was. It never worked right. I’ve felt alone for years.” Laura burst into tears. “Don’t you get it? I can’t live with you anymore!” She flipped the light switch, casting the room in light so bright it caused them both to blink.

“I don’t want this,” Roger insisted. “I’m not going to let it happen.”

“You can’t stop it. It’s already happening.”

“Laura—”

“I saw a divorce lawyer today.”

She took a deep breath. She could see the pain her words caused him. For a brief second her heart felt as if it were being crushed. But she knew she had to be strong. She had to remember her own pain. Even more, to hold on to the conviction that protecting herself from it counted, too.

“I’m sorry, Roger. I really am. But I suggest that you get yourself a lawyer, too.”

He just stared at her until she looked away, no longer able to meet his eyes with her own.

Chapter Five

Laura ran her finger
along the smooth edge of her coffee mug, watching the hands of the kitchen clock edge toward seven.

Her hair hung limply in her face and her shoulders were slumped. Sitting alone in the kitchen, weighed down by the silence of the house, she wondered if she would ever feel whole again. Her decision to leave the marriage that had dragged her down for so many years had been hard, but it was nothing compared to living with the aftermath. Shutting her eyes tight, she felt the roller coaster.

If only I can hold on, she told herself, I’ll get through it. One day it’ll all be over. I’ll be my old self again. I’ll be the star of an exciting new movie:
Laura’s Life: Part Two.

What terrified her was that she still didn’t have the faintest idea what the plot would be.