The Wife's Tale (40 page)

“Okay,” Ronni inhaled.

In the mirror, Mary saw a large woman with a shallow cap of thick, soft, silvery hair hugging a nicely shaped skull and framing
a pretty face with expressive green eyes, full pink lips, a deep cleft chin. “Well,” she said, thinking,
That is me
.

Even Ronni had to admit that the severe cut suited her. “It’s chic.”

“It really is,” Mary agreed.

Ronni found a pair of large silver hoops and a choker-style necklace from her Lydia Lee supply box to complete the look. The
boys unanimously decided, because they did not know what
chic
or
dykey
meant, that Mary looked like a man wearing jewelry, which made both women cackle. The mouths of babes. When Mary announced
that she wanted to take them all out for dinner as payment for hairdressing services, Ronni shook her head. “You’ve done enough.
I’m cooking dinner for
you
.”

Watching Mary pick at her salad and nibble her grilled chicken, she frowned. “You don’t like it?”

“I do,” Mary said. “Remember I told you before? I’ve completely lost my appetite.”

“I thought you were just saying that because you like to eat alone. Look at me. I’ve gained nine and a half pounds since Tom
left,” Ronni confessed. “Potato chips, ice cream and really bad sitcoms.”

Mary nodded, remembering her old friends. “Gooch took out another four hundred.”

Ronni shook her head. “How much is left?”

“Fifteen and some.”

“You could sue him.”

“I could never sue Gooch.”

“You check with all his friends back home again?”

“They said they’d call.”

“You believe them?” Mary shrugged. “But you still think he’s coming back?”

“I don’t know any more.”

“I’ll bet he’s in Vegas. I bet he’s been in Vegas this whole time.”

“I’m done guessing.”

“Take it all out!” Ronni said suddenly. “Take it all out and leave him with nothing.”

“What if he needs it?”

“
Fuck him
,” Ronni mouthed, so the children couldn’t hear.

“I couldn’t leave Gooch stranded like that.”

“Like he left you?” Ronni asked pointedly.

Later, after the two women had taken turns reading stories to the sleepy boys, Mary kissed the triplets good night and accepted
Ronni’s invitation to a glass of wine on the patio. As she had been a cheap drunk at her highest weight, she felt the warmth
of the alcohol after only a few sips. She sighed deeply, looking into the starry sky, and mused, “Two months ago I was working
at a drugstore in Leaford, Ontario, thinking about new winter boots.”

“Tom and I were planning a vacation to Aruba. He never had any intention of going on that trip.”

Mary thought of the Caribbean cruise she’d denied Gooch. “You’re so… so beautiful, Ronni. You’ll meet somebody else.”

Ronni laughed and poured herself more wine. “I have three three-year-old boys, Mary. Down here that’s called
baggage
. For all the trouble, I’d rather date my vibrator.”

Feeling loose from the alcohol, Mary offered with a giggle, “Gooch…?”

“Yeah?”

“Has a large penis.”

Ronni threw back her head. “Mary Gooch!”

“A
very
large penis.”

“You said he was your only lover! How could you possibly know?”

“I looked around,” Mary assured her. “Plus, we got cable TV a while back.”

“You naughty little thing!”

Mary’d never been called naughty or little. She drank a gulp of wine. “I haven’t had sex in six years.”

Ronni stopped laughing. “Why?”

Mary grew somber. “My body… I…”

“I can’t imagine living without sex
forever
. Really. I mean, not for a relationship, but just for the exercise.”

“I never thought of sex as exercise.”

“Could you see yourself with someone else?”

“No,” Mary said. “There’s only Gooch. There’s only ever been Gooch.”

T
he balance in Mary’s account, which she was still checking daily, was her sole connection to Gooch. Just to keep in touch,
she’d continued to withdraw money in increments of one hundred dollars. One afternoon when Ronni had taken the boys to meet
their father, who’d blown into town for an urgent business appointment, Mary’d driven herself to the big mall in Hundred Oaks
to shop for toys to put under the triplets’ tree. She and Ronni had agreed not to exchange gifts. Their friendship was enough.

At the toy store she’d chosen preschool board games and art sets and storybooks, avoiding a display of foam-dart semi-automatics
that she knew the boys would love. Boys and their guns. Pete and Wendy had had a strict “no weapons” policy when they were
raising their two boys, but brooms had become rifles in their grimy little fists, and fly swatters swords, and when the oldest
boy consistently bit his sandwiches into the shape of a pistol, they’d finally surrendered. Americans had an infamous relationship
with guns, Mary knew, but the right to bear arms was a foreign concept to her, and she did not understand the legacy. Ronni
had admitted to keeping a weapon in a shoebox in her closet, but Mary understood from her reading that her friend was statistically
more likely to use it on her cheating husband than on any home invader.

Lugging the shopping bag through the mall’s corridors, she was drawn to a shop window displaying curvaceous plus-sized mannequins.
She needed some new clothes, since even the elastic-waist pants that Ronni had bought for her were now too large. With the
current retail slump, the sales staff were delighted to see Mary Gooch appear in their midst.

In the roomy dressing room with its slenderizing three-way mirror, she felt annoyed with herself, wondering what had compelled
her into the store, and why she hadn’t objected when the woman showed her a selection of holiday gowns. She tried on a few
sets of casual slacks and tops, then reluctantly slid into the flowing black stretch jersey dress the girl had insisted she
try. She watched her reflection in the mirror, unblinking. The shorn silver hair. The Lydia Lee jewelry. Her ample proportions
adored by the slinky midnight fabric.

One of the salesgirls announced, “You could model.”

Another enthused, “That dress was
made
for you.”

Mary protested, “I really just needed some new bras and panties.”

Another girl flew to the lingerie section and returned with a stunning selection of lacy bras and underpants. Mary tried on
the lingerie, disbelieving her reflection until she finally could not deny that she looked, and felt,
sexy
.

Blushing, she dumped the clothes and lingerie onto the counter. “I’ll take it all.” Wading out into the mall with her heavy
bags, she fought her guilt, trying to reconcile her delight in the pretty clothes with her suspicion that she did not deserve
them. Her third eye ached. She stopped, setting down her bags near a gushing water fountain, and sat on a bench feeling dizzy.
You need to eat something
, she told herself, but the thought of chewing made her nauseated, and she couldn’t swallow for the lump in her throat.

She’d found a blender in Eden’s cupboard and tried blending fruit and yogurt, but had had trouble keeping the thick beverage
down. Lately she’d been managing only sips of orange juice several times a day, and even Ronni had noticed that her energy
was flagging.

In the big Dodge Ram on the way home, traveling the road she’d traveled with Jesús, she let her eyes drift toward the stars.
She wondered about the essence of Jesús García’s strength and magnetism. “See you next week,” he’d said. She hoped he would
have time to linger again, to drink a glass of water, tell her more about her third eye. Then she reminded herself that longing
for one man was enough—uncertain, now, whether that man was Jimmy Gooch or Jesús García.

Later, swimming nude in the pool, Mary stopped in the shallow end, feeling the familiar fluppering of her heart. Not now,
she begged. Not yet. Not when she felt so close. So close to what, she couldn’t say, but she felt another change on the wind,
smelled it like an approaching storm. Maybe it was Gooch. She promised herself to attempt to drink another fruit smoothie.
If Gooch was coming back, she was going to need her strength.

It was the drink that spurred the memory of the events of one evening a decade into their marriage. Mary’d been bedridden
for a week, crippled by a flu virus she’d picked up at the drugstore. Gooch had taken time off work to care for her when he
saw that she was so weak she couldn’t make it to the toilet by herself. He’d worried over her like a mother, bringing steaming
soup on a tray and blending clumpy fruit smoothies with a potato masher and whisk. At the end of her convalescence, she found
her appetite and heard the Kenmore’s call. Thinking Gooch was out, since the house was so still and quiet, she was shocked
to find him glassy-eyed at the kitchen table, scribbling in a notebook. He looked up, guilty. Caught. “You’re up!” he shouted
inanely.

“What’s that? What are you writing?”

“Nothing.” He closed the notebook.

“Gooch.”

“Nothing.”

“What is it?”

“It’s
nothing.
”

“If it’s nothing, then let me see.”

“It’s private, Mare.”

“
Private?
”

“It’s nothing. It’s a story.”

“A
story?
”

“I’m writing a short story,” he said wearily. “It’s stupid. I… the
Leaford Mirror
’s having a short story contest and I… it’s stupid.”

She attempted to hide her surprise. “Let me read it.”

She expected him to decline, and had never seen his eyes so vulnerable as when he handed her the book. “It’s just a first
draft. It’s not very good.”

Taking the notebook back to her bed along with a tin of peanuts, Mary settled down, feeling hot fear mingling with her low-grade
fever. She wasn’t afraid that the story would be awful and she’d have to lie. She was afraid the story would be good and she’d
have to admit to Gooch, and to herself, that he’d missed his calling and that it was all her fault. Or worse, that it would
be so good that he would submit it and win the contest and realize that he’d never meant to be what he’d become, and leave
her for a charmed life as a famous author.

Mary sank with the first line. The story was about a furniture delivery man who fell in love with a young widow while his
own wife lay dying from a disease that sounded suspiciously like abstract malaise. The main character had delivered a faulty
oven to the other woman and found excuses to return daily to check on its performance, eating tray after tray of burned baking
while his wife languished in her bed. The prose was sturdy and spare, poignant and humorous. In the end the man did not consummate
the relationship, but returned to his wife out of a sense of obligation and duty. Mary finished the last line, hot with outrage,
but did not call for Gooch to come to their room.

An hour passed. She heard the television snap on in the living room. She waited, seething, sure the story was autobiographical,
certain he was about to confess. Finally, it was her hunger that drove her from her bed. Gooch shut the television off when
he heard her plod down the hallway. He stood at the doorway watching her root through the fridge for cheese and salami. “Well?”
he said.

Mary chewed thoughtfully and sighed. “I didn’t understand it,” she announced, plopping down at the kitchen table.

“It’s just a first draft,” he reminded her.

“But his wife is dying,” she said, throwing up her hands.

“That’s the
point
.”

“That
is
the point,” she huffed. “How could he do that when his wife is
dying?
”

“It’s not about you, Mare,” he said tightly.

“I know.” She paused. “But you’re a furniture delivery man. People will think it’s about
you
.”

“It’s a world I know. That’s all. It’s not about you. It’s not about us.”

“Well, he’s not very sympathetic,” she said. In spite of herself, Mary
had
felt sympathy for the yearning husband and the lonely widow. “He could be a different kind of delivery man.”

“I guess.”

“He doesn’t have to be married.”

“But that’s the conflict.”

“Okay.”

“What about the
writing?
” he asked.

She shook her head. “Some of the words are a little…” She rolled her eyes.

He took the notebook from her greasy hands. “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.”

“Gooch,” she protested, “I’m just saying that if you use words people have to look up in the dictionary, it makes them feel
dumb.”

He nodded and returned to the living room to sit in the quiet. She finished her snack and made her way back down the hall.
She pretended to be asleep when Gooch shifted his weight into the bed, wondering how even the greatest of writers could have
rendered the accuracy of such longing without direct and intimate knowledge.

Mary assumed that Gooch had not submitted his story to the contest. She was certain he would have won.

She climbed out of the swimming pool, nude, and rested a moment under the thick shroud of night. The door buzzer rang. She
slipped into an old robe of Jack’s she’d taken from the closet and moved through the house to answer, for once not dreaming
that it was her wayward husband. Even if her third eye had conjured the picture, she would still have been mistrustful of
her future sight, and too weary for hope.

There were Christmas carolers at the door—ten children dressed in Dickensian costumes, led by a woman from a church group
who explained that they were raising money to support a beleaguered school in east Los Angeles. Mary stood at the door, damp
and shivering in her robe. She heard not the children’s voices but the collective hum in the night air. When they finished,
she took several hundred dollars from her purse and gave them to the stunned and grateful woman.

The Ethan Allen called her to come and have a rest but the refrigerator chimed in, reminding her that she needed to eat something.
She pushed herself toward the kitchen, opening the fridge and finding a fresh, cold apple. She sat at the counter drawing
the apple to her mouth. A voice begged,
You have to eat something
. She was for a moment transported into the body of a dying anorexic she’d watched in a documentary several years earlier,
and she set the apple back down on the table.