Wifey (20 page)

“I know you are.”

Then say it . . . say it . . .
“We’ll be happy together.”

He held her in his arms, brushing the hair away from her face.

“I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” she told him, kissing his neck, then his face.
Please tell me you feel the same.

“I wish it were possible, kid.”

She looked up at him. “It is. It has to be.”

“I can’t leave Rhoda and the kids. Not now.”

She shook her head and felt her throat tighten. “But you love me.”

“Yes.”

“Then?”

“I love her too.”

Sandy panicked and wriggled away from him.

“Try to understand,” he said.

“Understand?”

“Rho and I have shared a lot. Come a long way together.”

“Now you tell me!”

“Sandy, this has been the best week of my life. I mean it.”

“Stop it. Just stop it, will you.”

“I don’t want to let you go.” He reached for her but she wouldn’t let him touch her. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t get beyond the tears, beyond the hurt and humiliation. She had been so sure.

“We could arrange something,” Shep said. “Get a little place . . . see each other twice a week . . .”

“I hate arrangements!” she cried. “I can’t live that way.”

“It’s a lot to ask, I know,” he said, “and I don’t want to push you, but a lot of people do live that way, Sandy, and it works.”

“Don’t tell me what works. I’m not a lot of people.”

Shep sighed. “I warned you, didn’t I? I warned you to think it over carefully.”

“And I did. I did.”

“No, you never thought about the ending.”

“I didn’t know there had to be one.” She knew how ugly she looked when she cried. How her face contorted. But she couldn’t stop. “I thought we were going to get married and live together happily ever after. What a little girl I am. What a silly, stupid little girl . . . with little girl dreams!”

“Sandy, Sandy.” He stood behind her and put his arms around her. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she told him, trying to control herself. “It’s my fault. I should have known. What did I expect in just a week?”
Just a week . . . but it seems like months . . . years . . . my whole life . . .

“If you don’t love Norman, leave him. I’ll help all I can—money, a job, a place to live.”

“No! I’m not going to live a lie.”

“At least let me be your friend. I can help make the transition period easier for you.”

Her friend. Yes, she wanted him as her friend, but she wanted him as her lover, as her husband too. “I had it all figured out. Don’t you see, I had everything figured out.”

“Leave him. You’ll be better off. Find yourself, kid.”

“I don’t know where to look.”

S
HE’D NEVER FELT
such despair, such hopelessness. Nothing mattered now. Life was over because life had become Shep. Crying didn’t help anymore. The empty feeling inside her remained. The love of her life and her passport to freedom, all gone, down the drain together. What now, Sandy? What now? She thought about getting sick. A high fever. A raging virulent infection. Oxygen tanks. Intensive care. The critical list. Shep would rush to her bedside, blaming himself.
No!
That wouldn’t solve anything. No more illnesses. No more fantasies. Divorce Norman anyway? And then what?

Myra would say: Sandy, are you crazy? You want to live on Kentucky Fried Chicken and pizza? Work in Bloomingdale’s and get varicose veins? Come home exhausted to nasty children who blame you for messing up their lives? Think! The only way to a decent divorce is through another man. So get busy and find one if you’re so unhappy. Never mind Shep. It’s not practical for you to go on loving him.

Mona would catch her breath: Sandy! A divorce? I can’t believe it. Don’t do this to me. Don’t do it to the children. Don’t do it to yourself. You have a good life with Norman. So what if you don’t love him the way a schoolgirl loves her boyfriend? Love changes as you grow older. Accept him for what he is. You’re lucky. A lot of women would give their . . .

Yes, Mother, I know, their eyeteeth for a man like Norman.

Exactly.

She would tell the children: Daddy and I are getting a divorce. We’re not going to have much money from now on.

Then we’ll live with Daddy. He’s got plenty.

But you belong with me. Don’t you want to live with me?

Not in some crummy apartment, Bucky would answer. We want to live in the new house.

Why doesn’t Daddy get an apartment? Jen would ask. And we’ll live in the new house with you.

Because I can’t afford it. And besides, I wouldn’t be happy there without Daddy.

Then why are you getting a divorce? they’d say together.

B
ITCH,
Norman would cry. Goddamned bitch!

A
ND SO, WHAT WAS LEFT?
What were her choices now?

I keep the gun locked in this cabinet and the key to the cabinet is in the bookcase, behind
Bartlett’s Quotations.

Sandy went downstairs, to the den, unlocked the cabinet and looked at the gun.
A way out. The end.
She touched it. How cold it was. She lifted it and pressed it against the side of her head, feeling dizzy. She pictured her brains splattered all over Norman’s desk, all over the Mark Cross desk set she’d given him on their tenth anniversary. Better do it someplace else. The bathroom? Yes, it would be easier to clean up the mess in there. Mr. Clean, Windex, Ajax—that should do the job. Would she hear the explosion as she pulled the trigger? Had Jack heard it? She remembered the blood and gore on Jackie’s pink suit and looked down at her robe, her Mother’s Day robe. The children might take that personally. Maybe she should change first. No, the undertaker would get rid of the robe. Or did he send his customers’ clothes out to be cleaned and pressed so that he could return them to the bereaved family? She didn’t know. She’d have to ask Norman about that. But if she pulled the trigger now she wouldn’t be able to ask him. She would die without knowing whether or not he got business from the local morticians. Oh, so what! Besides, you don’t always die, she reminded herself. If you miss, you could wind up a vegetable. She’d read about a man who’d missed. He’d blown off half his face but they’d managed to save him so that he could lie in a nursing home, a blob, a nothing, the rest of his life. Would their insurance cover the cost of a nursing home or would Norman leave her to rot in some public institution? No. How would that look to the family, their friends? No, she’d have a private room somewhere, plenty of fresh flowers, and every Sunday after tennis Norman would drag the kids to see her.
That ugly thing isn’t Mommy,
Jen would cry, pointing.
Yes, it is, you dummy!
Bucky would tell her.
It’s Mommy with her brains blown out.

You know,
Luscious would announce at the Labor Day Dance,
she had only half a brain to start with. She told me herself the last time we had dinner together.

Sandy laughed out loud at that one. Oh, what the hell . . . she didn’t know how to load it anyway and with her luck she’d probably blow off a foot. As she put the gun back she noticed an envelope inside the cabinet. Funny, she hadn’t seen it before. The warranty? The instruction manual? She opened it. How strange. A canceled check, dated November 19, 1969, made out to Brenda Partington Yvelenski for five thousand dollars. What was this all about? Who was Brenda Partington Yvelenski? November 19, 1969—the week Sandy had been so sick. The week Dr. Ackerman had stood at the foot of her bed, listing possibilities. Thoracic cancer . . . leprosy . . . leukemia . . . lupus . . .

Who was this Brenda Partington Yvelenski to whom Norman was writing a substantial check while she lay upstairs, desperately ill? Unless . . . unless she was a faith healer and Norman had been so frightened at the idea of her impending death he had actually contacted a mystic, called Brenda Partington Yvelenski, who agreed to pray for her swift return to health for the meager sum of five thousand dollars. But Norman didn’t believe in the spiritual. He didn’t even believe in Bar Mitzvahs. Still, as a last resort? No, that’s crazy! Then what else? Then why hide the check?

Blackmail.
No, for what? A homosexual, Norman? Come on, not Norman! Okay, so the wife is always the last to know but . . .

A hooker.
A specialist in black leather boots, chains, whips because he’s too ashamed to tell her what really turns him on. A year’s supply at once, three times a week. No. Not likely.

A landlord.
He’s rented a small apartment from Brenda Partington Yvelenski. A place to rendezvous with . . . Who? Luscious . . . Brown . . . Funky . . . all three at once? Myra, to get even with her for fucking Gordon? The twins . . . for kicks? Her mother? No. Absolutely not! He didn’t have the time for anything like that. Okay, so they can always make time, but Norm wouldn’t give up his golf or tennis or holding his breath under water just to get laid, would he?

A shrink?
Yes, could be. He’s finally realized he’s got problems and has decided to deal with them. Dr. Brenda Partington Yvelenski, Shrink. Except that Norman didn’t believe in shrinks. Besides, he would have made out the check to
Dr.
Yvelenski, in that case . . . tax deductions and so forth.

She put the check back in the envelope, the envelope back in the cabinet, relocked it and put the key in its place, behind
Bartlett’s Quotations,
then went to Norman’s desk. She took out the check register and thumbed through it. November . . . November . . . yes, here it was. Number 402, Nov. 19, Brenda Partington Yvelenski: Investment.

She’s a broker? Then why hide the check? What sort of investment? Black Angus cattle, like Gordon and his friends? An adult gift shop on the highway, sex aids and porno books? Worse yet, the cleaning stores are a front? Norman’s mixed up with the mob . . . bookies, pimps . . . Jesus, you think you know someone and then . . .

She’d ask him tonight. She’d say,
Norman, who is Brenda Partington Yvelenski?

And he’d say,
Why do you ask?

And she’d say,
Because you gave her five thousand dollars.

And he’d say,
How do you know that?

And she’d say,
Because this afternoon, as I was about to kill myself, I found the canceled check in the gun cabinet.

And he’d say,
You have one hell of a nerve reading my canceled checks!

S
HE GAVE
N
ORMAN
a little something that night. He patted her shoulder and said, “Glad you’re feeling better, San.”

“Do you ever say what you mean?” she asked.

“Does anybody?” he answered.

23

W
HEN IT DIDN’T MATTER
anymore it began to rain. It rained for two days, a heavy, steady downpour, sure to flood the second hole and close the golf course, which, a few weeks earlier, would have delighted Sandy. On the first day she stayed in bed and slept, glad that Florenzia was taking the week off to drive to South Carolina with her family. She dreamt that the man on the motorcycle was really a woman called Brenda Partington Yvelenski and that Norman had hired her to drive Sandy insane.

On the second day Sandy realized that sleeping wasn’t the answer either. So she got up, dressed in old jeans and a torn shirt, tied a bandanna around her head, and decided to keep busy. She would tackle the attic first.

As a child Sandy was terrified of the attic in her house, imagining all sorts of creatures up there, just waiting to do her in.

She still wasn’t completely comfortable in the attic, although this one was well lit. Even so, the man on the motorcycle could be hiding up there, could have walked right in while she was out with Banushka, and as she reached the top of the stairs he would be waiting . . .

For what?

Rape . . . murder . . .

No, he’s gentle . . . shy . . .

You call tossing his thing around that way gentle? He’s probably violent. He’ll probably strangle you first, then stab you, then . . .

Oh, grow up, Sandy!

She carried the radio up with her, turned on all the lights, and began to rummage through cartons filled with the accumulated junk of twelve years of married life, not to mention the cartons she and Norman had brought to the marriage. One was stuffed with her crinoline petticoats. She used to wear as many as five at a time to make sure that her skirt was fuller than anyone else’s. How important that had been at the time. Five crinolines at once; horsehair, taffeta, net; under her felt skirt, her quilted skirt, her Lanz dresses. She’d been saving her crinolines for Jen, sure that one day she would be invited to a Fifties Party, just as Sandy had attended a series of Roaring Twenties parties when she was a teenager, dressed in Mona’s flapper outfits, ropes of beads around her neck, a velvet headband across her forehead.

Somehow, saving her crinolines for Jen to wear to a party seemed foolish now. She would get rid of them. Well, most of them anyway. No harm in saving one or two.

She opened a carton marked “Sandy’s School Box.” She’d get rid of everything except her high school yearbook. Bucky and Jen would have a good laugh over that some day. And her Five Year Diary, with its faded blue cover, frayed at the edges. She had started it as a sophomore in high school.

She opened it to the last entry.

Dear Darling Diary,

I am utterly, hopelessly in love with N. I am so much more mature now than I was last year when I thought I loved S. R. With S. R. it was all sex, sex, sex! Now, in my maturity I know that sex isn’t everything. It certainly isn’t love. N and I have so much in common. We want the same things out of life. I will wear his ZBT pin forever . . .

Utterly, hopelessly in love.

H
AD SHE REALLY
felt that way about Norman? Or had she just wanted to be so in love? She couldn’t remember anymore. She remembered loving Shep. But would it have worked out any better with him? Probably not.

Sandy, what are you saying?

The truth, for once . . . it wouldn’t have worked . . . not twelve years ago and not now . . .

Sandy, I can’t believe this.

Marriage to him would have meant a life very much like the one I lead with Norman.

No!

Yes, a house in the suburbs, kids, car pools.

But Sandy, what about sex?

Okay, so it would have been better but after a while, even with him, it would probably have become routine.

Routine? You sit there and call such great sex routine?

Okay . . . okay . . . so it was good, very good . . . but God, the jealousy, the mistrust, the lies . . . it wouldn’t be worth it . . .

You don’t think he’d have given up other women for you?

Maybe . . . I don’t know . . .

You don’t think he runs around because it’s not good with her . . . with Rhoda?

Okay . . . so it’s a nice idea . . . that he’d have loved me so much he wouldn’t have needed anyone else . . . a nice idea but you’ll pardon me for not believing it . . . I know him too well . . . on the airplane . . . in the restaurant . . . I think he’d be out with girls regularly, not to mention older women . . .

Older women too?

Look at me. I’m thirty-two, for God’s sake.

No, already!

Yes, already.

That’s hard to believe . . . to me you’re still a girl . . .

To me too . . . but I don’t want to be a girl anymore . . . I want to be a woman . . .

So be one.

How?

How, she asks . . . I should know?

Hmph!

One more question.

Go ahead.

If he should call now . . . if he should say he’s changed his mind . . . he wants to spend the rest of his life with you and only you . . . what then?

The truth?

The truth.

I’d probably run to him.