The Last Original Wife (4 page)

“What on earth do you mean by that?”

My lovely Dr. Katz must've had live-in help around the clock.

“Look, when the husband leaves home in the morning, his wife is still dead tired from doing dishes the night before until eleven thirty, and she looks it. But there she is at six
A.M.
, making his three-minute egg and one slice of lightly toasted whole wheat anyway.”

“Wives and mothers usually make breakfast unless they're sick. Don't they?”

“What?
Egg duty?
Hello! The kids are out of the house, and I think a man can boil an egg as well as a woman. But that's not the point and it's not where I'm headed. Unconsciously or not, he all but refuses to make eye contact because his actual scary number age is reflected in her puffy, no makeup face, and he hates to think about the fact that he could drop dead any minute from natural causes.”

“Mrs. Carter, isn't that a bit harsh?”

“Nope. Not one bit. And when he gets to the office there's the secretary or coworker or junior partner who's just blown out her hair and got herself all gussied up and she smells like some subtle fragrance that's acceptable for the workplace, something that's not overtly bait. Nonetheless, it is definitely bait. He takes a whiff, compliments her; she smiles and, doing her best to be all innocence even though she's the scheming slut of the world, she thanks him. Demurely. At least as demurely as she can manage.”

“Okay, I'm getting the picture now.”

“You don't know the half of it. In his mind, the affair is off and running. It's all he can do not to think about her night and day, and what's even funnier is that he thinks the blossoming affair is his idea. What he doesn't know is that she has already memorized his favorite restaurants, movies, music, football team, and the names and ages of his wife and children. She knows that Little Johnny is the class clown but a straight A student and that Little Lulu only wears lavender and wants to be a ballerina when she grows up.”

“How does she know all this?”

“Because she's done her due diligence. She's over thirty. Her prospects for a wealthy husband have all but vaporized, and she can't trade on her looks much longer. But she chooses her target because she knows this guy has enough financial assets to give half to the current wife—which assuages whatever modicum of guilt she can muster—and that because he's young enough, he'll still earn enough to give her a better life than she could ever have on her own. She knows exactly when the last child will be leaving for college to minimize the trauma of his divorce. You know, women still only earn seventy cents to every dollar a man earns.”

“I'm aware. So continue down this road. Where does it lead?”

“Well, it leads to any number of scenarios, but they all involve a bed.”

“And you find this to be . . . what? Appalling?”

“It used to be that
appalling
was the only thing I could think about it. And all that lying and betrayal
is
terrible. But now I'm thinking that maybe those women are doing us a favor! Well, not in every single case, but think about it. If I had just half of all our assets in my name, I'd have much more expendable income than I've ever had in my whole married life! Did I happen to mention to you that I found a bank statement showing we had ten times as much money as I thought?”

“No, you didn't.”

“Well, I did. I'll be a very wealthy woman if I divorce Wes. Maybe life's like that old song by the Beach Boys—‘Two Girls for Every Boy.' ”

“So is money very important to you?”

“What kind of a question is that? Of course it is! Money gives you the freedom to decide things. To make choices. I could live anywhere I wanted to live. I could spend my time exactly as I'd like to spend it. And I wouldn't have to answer to anyone.”

“Do you feel like you have to answer to your husband?”

“Ha! That's a good one! Dr. Katz, my husband thinks he's in charge of everything, including where I go to fill the car with gas and which road I take to get there. If I need a hundred dollars more than what he usually gives me to run the house for a month, he wants an explanation. Can you imagine such a thing? After all these years? Do you know how demoralizing it is to live like that? But does he ask me when he orders new golf clubs?
Custom
golf clubs?
What do you think?”

“Hmmm. What about commitment? You know, the
till death do us part
part of the deal?”

“I'm thinking that must have been written into the wedding vows when you died at sixty and before all these men started having zipper trouble.”

“That's very funny, Mrs. Carter.”

We both knew that zipper troubles were the bedrock of his practice. Why, not one week ago that poor Mrs.—what was her name?—Del Mastro—yes, that's it—wasn't she about to lose her mind in the lobby over her husband's flagrant carrying on?

“Thanks. I've been known to turn a phrase now and then. But Wes thinks my sense of humor is stupid.”

“Hmmm.” He made a note. “Do you think your husband has zipper trouble?”

“I do not have solid proof, but I don't believe Wes is immune to the world.”

“So then is fidelity less important to you now than it was, say, ten years ago?”

“I'm not sure how to answer that, but I'd say that recent events have prepared me to consider fidelity in new ways.”

“Go on.”

“Well, fidelity is about standing by someone, isn't it? Isn't a marriage supposed to consider the needs of both people?”

“You tell me.”

This Dr. Katz was suddenly borderline insufferable.

“Well, I've always believed that it's supposed to be about
both
people and their dreams and needs, and all the stuff of life should get equal billing. It should be an equitable relationship. At least that's what I think.”

“And, correct me here, but are you saying that egalitarianism is a concept beyond your husband's grasp?”

Egalitarianism?
Touché, Dr. Katz! A most propitious use of the word, you arrogant ass.

“By light-years,” I said politely. I hadn't been doing the
New York Times
crossword puzzles for years for nothing. “Anyway, I'm telling you all this to demonstrate how the younger women are calculating love and how the older women like me are calculating a new net worth.”

“Our time is up, Mrs. Carter, but I wanted to give you something to think about until our next session.”

“Sure.”

“Do you think it's possible that the death of your friend and the divorces of all your other friends compounded by your accident in Edinburgh may have caused you to emotionally disengage to protect yourself?”

I had to admit I had never considered that as a reason to leave Wes. A gossamer veil of confusion floated up from hell and settled quietly all around me.

CHAPTER 4

Wes in Dr. Saunders's Office

G
od! Didn't she have kids or a husband or anybody in her life? Where were all the pictures? Nothing but books on analysis on the shelves and photographs of a beach somewhere on the walls. Maybe she shared the office with a neat freak. Or maybe she didn't want me to know anything about her life. Yeah, that was probably it. This woman was pretty buttoned up. She had gone to the ladies' room and I was waiting, wondering how many times we were going to rehash the same old crap before we moved on to some solutions. But then that's what I am—solution oriented. And this Dr. Jane Saunders? Well, the sooner we closed the case, the less money she would cost me. It was just like going to a lawyer, and don't get me started on that whole morass of bullshit billable hours! But I have to say this, and may God strike me dead if I'm telling a lie, she did have amazing legs.

She came back into the office and sat opposite me.

“Thanks for waiting.”

“No problem.”

She actually smiled, never mind it was the smallest smile that ever crawled across the face of an iceberg.

“So, Wes, when our last session ended, we were talking about how things are between you and your wife. You said that you never ran around
too much
. . .”

“Aw, come on. Did I really say that?”

“Yes, your words. I think this is a good place to pick up where we left off. Do you think your wife is threatened by the new young wives? Or do you think she's worried about you stepping out?”

“Humph. Les isn't threatened by anyone. She
used
to worry about what I thought. Did she look all right? Was dinner okay? Was I happy? Did I need anything? But these days? You'd think she doesn't have a care in the world.”

“So there's been a marked change in her attitude?”

“A marked change in her attitude? Yeah, you could say that.”

“I see, how would you describe it? Is she, say, hostile?”

“Hostile? Les, hostile? No, she doesn't have a hostile bone in her body.”

“Then how
would
you describe her attitude?”

“There's a word for it—gimme a minute, it's right on the tip of my tongue—resolute! That's what she is! Resolute!”

“Okay. And how does this resoluteness manifest itself?”

I took a deep breath and exhaled. “She says she's absolutely not spending every weekend for the rest of her life with a bunch of women she has no desire to know who have no desire to know her. She's talking about the new wives of my friends. She ought to have a little respect.”

“All of them?”

“Well, yes. One guy is a widower, but he remarried. His trainer.”

“My goodness. So do you blame her? I mean, assuming these women are much younger than she is, do you understand why this might be an uncomfortable position for her?”

“No! I think if she really loved her husband, she'd suck it up. She always sucked it up before now. What's so different all of a sudden?”

“Wes. May I ask you a few questions?”

“That's why I'm here, isn't it?”

“No, actually. But in the interest of moving things along, I need a few more facts. Number one, you're a pretty serious golfer, aren't you?”

“You'd better believe it! I've been playing golf with the same guys for the last twenty-eight years! Weather permitting, of course.”

“And how many holes do you and your friends play every weekend?”

“Somewhere between thirty-six and seventy-two.”

“And how long does it take y'all to play just eighteen holes?”

“Around four hours if the guys in front of us play on as they should.”

“I see, and after a round of eighteen holes, what do you do? Have lunch?”

“Sure! Then we go out and play another eighteen. Why?”

“I'm just thinking that if you're working all week and out many nights and traveling a lot for business, it sure leaves your wife a bit high and dry, doesn't it? I mean, it almost sounds like you spend more time at work and on the golf course than you do at home or in her company? Does it seem that way to you?”

“Look, Jane, Les likes to be on her own. She likes to go see the ex-wives, go to girly movies, shop, be with our granddaughter . . . she has her own interests. I have mine. And I do take her out to the club every weekend and as I told you last week, we go to Vegas at least once a year. Some years we go to the Bahamas. You know, just to mix things up.”

“Does she like to go to Las Vegas?”

“I don't know. Of course she does, right? Why wouldn't she?”

Dr. Jane Saunders, the Ice Queen of Atlanta, just stared at me like I spoke Turd instead of English. What was she trying to tell me?

“I think we're ready for a joint session, Wes.”

“Fine with me,” I said.

Frankly, I couldn't see an inch of progress. I'd pay for one more session and after that? I was already losing interest in this whole charade anyway.

PART TWO

HOW WE GOT HERE

CHAPTER 5

Les—Atlanta, April 2012

A
ll our lives began to unravel last December 31, when Harold sheepishly announced he was leaving Danette at the overcrowded New Year's Eve party at the Piedmont Driving Club, that venerable institution of stone and timber with the most majestic ballroom in town. Lately it was becoming the stage for too many life-changing events. It wasn't the first time that Danette suspected Harold was having an affair with someone, I think, but she had absolutely no idea this one was so serious. They were both a little drunk. Maybe we all were. Well, maybe just slightly tipsy. It was late; we'd been at the club since eight, drinking champagne and wearing silly feathered tiaras with our gowns, and the boys in their tuxedos wore glittered top hats. As we did every New Year's Eve we made ridiculous resolutions that no one would keep, and quietly we all wondered what the coming year would hold, each of us praying for our own private miracles. Good health. Better health. A marriage for this child, a good job for another. This hopefulness was something hardwired into our psyches, that a new year might mean some monumental something wonderful could happen to bring us happiness at a level we had never known. A new year was a chance to start over. Maybe even, just maybe, there would be peace on earth for one entire day.

The orchestra played and we danced and danced, but Lord save me, I couldn't wait until the clock struck twelve so that I could go home at twelve fifteen and take off my heels. Those black satin pumps that I thought made my legs look so good turned out to be individual torture chambers. My throbbing feet were my priority, and then suddenly I was blindsided. What happened next was the last thing in the world I ever expected.

It was around eleven forty-five. We were sitting with six other members we barely knew, a very ancient couple who seemed sweet and two other young middle-aged corporate types and their young Barbie wives. Paolo had stayed home, still mourning and saying he just wasn't up to celebrating anything yet. We didn't blame him really, but his absence made me miss Tessa like crazy that night. I remember thinking, At least I still have Danette
.

Harold's cell phone kept buzzing—cell phones are strictly forbidden in the club. He had once been a stickler for rules and propriety. But lately? A silly club rule didn't stop Harold from pulling his phone out and looking at it. Someone was texting him like mad and Danette was becoming suspicious, rolling her eyes in my direction. The next time it buzzed she grabbed it from his hand. Harold tried to grab it back from her, but she slid his phone across the table to me. Before Wes could grab it from my hands, I managed to read a partial text message that involved Harold's tongue and the sender's nether regions. I was aghast. Wes's entire head turned beet red as he read it. As if by instinct he started to sweat and tossed it back to Harold. But Danette caught it and read it, and her expression was one of honest horror. I don't know why she chose that moment to speak up and defend her own honor. She had to know it would become the Most Talked About and Exaggerated Moment in the History of the Club—well, for 2011 anyway. And why take someone on—especially your husband—in a public place when you know in your heart it could get really ugly? But she'd had just enough champagne to take the chance that a sassy reprimand would put an end to whatever foolishness he was engaged in.

“You know, Harold,” she said loudly enough for all of us to hear, “you can't have me and your little floozy too. You have to choose.”

Harold cleared his throat, which we suddenly recognized as a harbinger of doom.

“Right now? Here?” he said.

“Yes. Right now and right here,” she said.

Without missing a beat he said, “Wes? Would you drive Danette home? I have to go and meet someone.”

I couldn't believe it. None of us could. But Harold stood and left, the orchestra started playing “Auld Lang Syne,” and Danette dissolved into tears. Wes, in a gallant demonstration of southern gentlemanly manners, moved from his seat next to hers and handed her his perfectly pressed linen handkerchief to dry her tears.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he said. “Les and I will take you home.”

There have been many moments when I've wanted to kill my husband. This was not one of them. Wes could be a really great guy when he recognized the moment that called for it.

That same night, and perhaps at the same moment, somewhere across town in a romantic restaurant a promising young physician named Shawn Nicholls slipped a two-carat diamond on Harold and Danette's only child Molly's finger and asked her to be his wife. When Shawn brought Molly home, they found us at the kitchen table. I had never seen Molly happier in her whole life, and her young man, Shawn, was just beaming. She didn't even notice that her mother was a total wreck.

“Mom? We have something wonderful to tell you! Where's Daddy?”

“Dad? He's not here. Why don't you just tell me?”

“Actually, Mrs. Stovall, I should have discussed this with you and Mr. Stovall some time ago . . .” Shawn said.

“Is something wrong?” Molly said. “What's wrong? Why isn't Daddy here?”

“Your father and I had a little disagreement, that's all!” She put a smile on her face. “Now tell me! What's going on?”

On hearing the good news, Danette, being made of stronger and better stuff than her ridiculous husband, Harold, opened a bottle of champagne and began filling flutes.

“Harold's not going to ruin everything!” Danette whispered to me and dried her eyes again. “I'm so happy for you, darling!” She hugged Molly with all her might and then turned to Shawn. “We've waited all our lives for a wonderful young man like you to come along! Welcome to the family—such as we are.”

Everyone laughed a little, and then she hugged him too. Happiness eclipsed Danette's pain, and optimism ruled the balance of the evening.

“Let me get a good look at that ring!” I said.

It was the first of many important moments that Harold would miss. And it also marked the moment that Danette decided Harold Stovall would no longer have a place in her tender heart. Her daughter was getting married and that was all that mattered for the foreseeable future.

The Little Floozy in question turned out to be Cornelia Street, the thirty-four-year-old buxom redhead who was the assistant to the director of human resources in Harold's law firm. Cornelia, who had tried out for and lost at auditions for every reality show that ever crossed the Georgia state line, was, shall we say, known to be very ambitious and extremely generous with her favors. (Read: exhibitionist, social climbing, slut of the world.)

Danette cleaned Harold's clock rather smartly and in fact almost completely. That old saying “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”? Danette embodied the words, but in the way a true lady would.

Harold quickly married Cornelia on Valentine's Day, exactly four nights before his daughter's engagement party, which was also held at the club. At the engagement party we also had the opportunity to meet Lisette, thirty-one, who was Paolo's personal trainer. I thought I might throw up. Wow, I thought, it took him all of a couple of months to find a replacement.

Molly, the poor child, had no idea her father, Harold, was getting remarried. Neither did anyone else. Molly was understandably devastated and could barely maintain her composure, wondering aloud to anyone who would listen, when would her father stop ruining her life? And I wondered to Wes, didn't Cornelia know that she was barely ten years older than Molly?

When indeed? I thought.

I began to think there would never be an end to the bad taste and timing of Wes's two remaining best friends, others having left for sunnier climes and younger arms over the years.

Danette decided back in January that she was going to dramatically change her life. Rather than beg Harold to reconsider, which was what Wes predicted, she invited Harold to get the hell out of her gorgeous center hall colonial in Buckhead and to go live with his Jezebel in her tiny one-bedroom apartment in the Allure apartment complex at Brookwood on Peachtree Valley Road. That would be NW, thank you. And yes,
Allure
. Harold was too smitten to have any shame. He bubbled over with a never-before-seen enthusiasm and couldn't pack and hit the road fast enough.

Freedom from Danette's wrath! Let my lawyers handle it! I want to be free! Free! Take the money! Give her whatever she wants! I'm outta here! Cornelia! My love!

Of course I never heard him utter these actual words, but they were all over his face every time I saw him at the club during the short negotiation period of his settlement battles with Danette. He wanted a fast divorce and didn't even have the decency to show the slightest bit of remorse. All through dinner, Cornelia had her gelled nails all over Harold, and his hand traveled her lap to the point where I wondered when someone from the Ethics Committee would ask them to knock it off. My face was in flames, but Wes seemed not to notice a thing. The next thing I knew we were having dinner with Paolo again but now with Lisette on his arm. Oh, Lord, I thought.

Naturally, after any one or all of these dinners Wes and I would go home and the rest of the night was completely ruined. Well, for me, at least. Wes didn't seem to care that I was so unnerved by Harold's happiness or Paolo's or why. He'd tell me to go to sleep and quit fretting over things I couldn't change. He needed his sleep. He had an early tee time. He'd roll over and give me a slap on my hip, roll back, turn out the light, and begin to snore within minutes. I'd lie there for what seemed like hours wondering if Harold had lost his mind or if I was losing mine.

The sight of Cornelia and Harold together simply made me ill. It was way worse than Paolo and Lisette. Maybe because Tessa was gone.

Listen, I'm hardly naive. I've seen the
Jerry Springer Show
. I knew that people fooled around and had been fooling around since the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. Many of them wound up divorced, but I never thought anything this brazen and embarrassing would happen to Danette. Reality shows were one thing, but Harold's behavior just seemed so vulgar and desperate. And Cornelia was cheap. At least Tessa was dead. She didn't have to see Paolo cavorting around with gel in his spiked hair.

Having dinner with Harold and Cornelia and Lisette and Paolo was awful. I missed my friends. Hopefully, Tessa was in heaven petitioning the good Lord for Harold and even poor Paolo to get an irreversible case of erectile dysfunction.

But what of Danette on Friday and Saturday nights? Was she home all alone in a sad chenille bathrobe, curled up on a sad sofa, watching a sad movie and drinking straight vodka, getting sadder by the minute? At least that's what I heard Cornelia say to Lisette in the ladies' room when they didn't know I was in another stall.

“Actually, ladies, Danette is not sad or drinking vodka. She's doing great! She put the Buckhead house on the market, sold it for a whopping sum, and bought herself a wonderful craftsman's cottage in the Oakhurst section of Decatur. She's as happy as a clam.”

“She is?” Lisette said.

“Well, good for her,” Cornelia said.

“You
girls
have no idea what kind of a
woman
Danette is. So, as her best friend of thirty years, I'm going to ask you politely not to run your mouths in public about her because it makes you sound happy that Harold left her, which you obviously are, but that sort of talk is better done in private.”

“We're in the
bath
room,” Lisette said.

“A public bathroom is not a confessional,” I said.

“It's
not
public. This is a
private
club,” Lisette said.

“She means we probably shouldn't gossip anywhere we might be overheard,” Cornelia said, looking at the floor.

“ 'Cause you never know who's in the next stall?”

“Tessa must be spinning in her grave,” I said, looking Lisette right in the face.

Lisette was as thick as a brick. I walked out of the ladies' lounge leaving them there, jaws agape and red faced. I thought, Score One for the Home Team, those little twits can kiss it.

It was true. Danette was flush with cash for the very first time in her adult life. She sold all her sterling silver and started collecting mercury glass. She gave all her designer clothes and handbags to Jody's Fifth Avenue, an upscale consignment store, and started shopping at Anthropologie, mixing the deliberate bohemian of their tops and sweaters with her plain pants from Talbots. She began to look interesting in a new way. She got a great short haircut and bought a Prius. I didn't mind the Prius, but to my great disappointment, she refused to discuss Harold or to say terrible things about Cornelia. I had mental steamer trunks filled with catty things I was dying to say about Cornelia. And Lisette! I was like an angry feline with a giant fur ball trapped in my throat and Danette had pulled away the soapbox the same way Peanut's Lucy swipes the football from Charlie Brown. She was determined to be dignified. It was killing me.

“I can't speak for Harold's behavior,” she would say. “He's a grown man.”

She said things like this a thousand times until I finally got it through my head that if she wanted to tell herself she didn't care, then I should support her and tell my inner yenta to go throw herself in the Chattahoochee River.

This posture went on for some time. Danette was the Queen of Serene, the Soul of Discretion, until, that is, it was time to start seriously planning Molly's wedding. Then she gradually shifted gears, and all conversation moved to a new story entitled “What to Do About That Little Bitch, Cornelia?” And there was a subtitle, “And Lisette.”

It was a beautiful day in early April, and I arrived at Danette's new home carrying a take-out lunch from the Brick Store Pub, our new favorite haunt. Danette was in the nesting stage of her new life. Flowers were coming into bloom all over her front yard, and the new gardens were starting to take shape. Danette was doing a lot of the work herself, and if you could believe what she said, she loved getting dirty in the yard.