Deconstructed(87)

So I fiddled with the straw paper, glancing back at Dak, who polished his bar like it was a Rolls-Royce. Ruby was at Printemps, awaiting my call. Juke was upstairs, hopefully not drinking.

Looking down at my watch, I noted that Scott was five minutes late. He was never late.

Maybe he wasn’t coming.

I picked up my phone and checked my email, allowing myself to get distracted by an anniversary sale at Nordstrom. A few more minutes ticked by. Still no Scott.

My phone buzzed.

Scott.

On my way. Got tied up.

“I bet you did,” I muttered.

“Huh?” Griffin asked behind me.

“Nothing. He’s on his way.” I resumed ironing out my straw paper and then making it into an accordion.

Five minutes later, Scott entered the bar. He wore his normal banker clothes—khakis, a light-colored button-down, and loafers—totally a fish out of water among the jeans and occasional tank top. I clenched my trembling hands and then pressed them against the folder in front of me. I noted that Scott saw me and hurried right over.

“Hey,” he said, pulling up a stool, “sorry I’m late. Had a meeting run over.”

“That’s okay. I understand.” And hadn’t that been what I had always said to him, now that I thought of it? I had always made life easier for Scott, picking up his dry cleaning, buying the coffee creamer he liked over the one I liked, ironing his shirts, and cutting the crusts off his sandwiches. I smoothed his way through life.

He eyed my iced tea. “So what’s with this place, way out here?”

“It’s beneath my private investigator’s office, so it was easy.”

His blue eyes flashed, and I could see right then and there that he knew but was going to play dumb. “Private investigator? For what?”

“You.”

“Me?” Again with the feigning.

“Yeah. You’re sleeping with Julia Kate’s tennis instructor, and I want a divorce.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE


CRICKET

For months I had wanted to shout those words at Scott—I want a divorce!

But now they seemed so anticlimactic. Maybe it was because I’d had a lot of time to come to grips with the dissolution of our marriage. Or maybe because the grief and anger seemed farther away now. Or maybe my “give a damn” was busted and I wasn’t interested in fixing it.

Scott, however, played his part at hearing the uttering of those fated words. His eyebrows shot up, and he looked momentarily like a carp caught behind glass, all wide eyed and gulping. “What? A divorce?”

I lifted a nonchalant shoulder. “I know you think I’m a dumb blonde. But I’m not.”

“I don’t think you’re dumb, and you’re wrong. I . . . I . . . I really need a drink.” He held up a hand to, I’m assuming, Dak. I had sat facing the proliferation of neon beer signs and baseball memorabilia tripping over themselves along the wall so that Scott would be forced to look at the room behind me, specifically at where Griffin sat just over my right shoulder. We had decided he would sit far away enough so that he didn’t attract immediate attention when Scott first arrived.

“What can I get cha?” Dak called.

“A Mic ULTRA.”

“No go on that. Bud Light work? Or we have the Great Raft beers?”

“Reasonably Corrupt will do.” Scott folded his hands and looked at me in a way that told me I was about to be gaslighted. Or dressed down like a silly child.

“How appropriate,” I uttered under my breath.

He gave me a flat look. Dak appeared at my elbow with a can of the local beer and a clean glass. Setting it down, he gave me a look that made me feel a little calmer. “Anything else? Cricket?”

“No, I’m good.” A total lie, but what was a little white lie at this table?

If Scott had his part to play, I had mine. I needed to summon the hurt and anger knocking around somewhere in my heart so that I looked like the distraught, betrayed wife. “Look, let’s not even try to do this whole ‘Who, me?’ thing, Scott. We’re too old to play games. I know you’ve been cheating. You know I know you’ve been cheating. You even paid off my first investigator. So let’s just move to the ‘What now?’ portion of this meeting.”

Scott poured his beer, frowning at the foam. He took a sip and sighed. “I’m sorry, babe.”

Those words did what they should have done—they hit their mark. Suddenly my bravado caved. Maybe the hurt and anger weren’t so hard to find after all. Moisture gathered in my eyes as I stared at the three little hairs he’d missed shaving that morning. At the silver frost at his temple. At those familiar hands cupping the glass. At the gold band he still wore on that left hand, the band I had placed there reciting vows in front of the church. I fumbled for the folder with the photographic evidence, opening it, looking down at him holding Stephanie in his arms, so I could bat away the sadness and regain my composure.

His gaze zipped to the photos, and I saw the apology in his eyes, which flung another arrow at my heart. I had no doubt that Scott was sorry for hurting me. Somewhere under his horribleness was the man who had loved me once.

Surely.

“I have an attorney and have already filed for divorce,” I said, sliding the pictures so he could see that there were at least five of him and Stephanie in compromising situations.