Always the Last to Know(18)
“I know.” Another sip of bourbon.
And yet . . . and yet there was the embarrassment.
My husband was cheating on me. It was so ridiculous and cliché. WORK made him feel young again. Wow. Breaking news, people. Screwing around behind your wife’s back is exciting. Dating a younger woman makes you feel like a stud.
It was pathetic. There was no other word for it. He was acting like every idiot man who’d ever cheated on his wife. And like teenagers discovering sex, he thought he invented all those feelings.
I had been planning to take the high road. Divorce him. Bury the corpse that was our marriage.
Cheating had never occurred to me. I took those vows seriously, you bet I did.
I’d worked so hard to make our home a lovely place, and even harder raising our girls. If Sadie and I rubbed each other the wrong way sometimes, it didn’t matter too much. They were fine girls. Good people. Juliet designed those amazing buildings, and Sadie taught little children to appreciate art. There was so much to be proud of.
But it had always been me who did the work. John was the provider, and I made it so he didn’t have to lift a finger around the house. He liked it that way. Who wouldn’t?
But when it came to the marriage, the nuts and bolts of it, the conversing, the staying close, the intimacy and the social life, I felt it should’ve been more mutual. He had done nothing. Those dance lessons, going to the annual scholarship auction, the bird-watching club, the bowling league . . . none of those things had been his idea. Women were responsible for what the couple did. It wasn’t fair, but it was true. John agreed to do this and that, but he never suggested a damn thing.
Then, being turned down for a little love, some affection, well, that stung. Before I’d thrown up my hands regarding sex, his absentminded professor bit had hurt when he failed to notice a filmy nightgown or the fact that I’d sprayed the pillowcases with perfume, moisturized my skin like it was religion. I’d been a nice-looking woman. Still was. John, he had to be reminded to take a shower, for Pete’s sake! He’d go for days without shaving, looking like a bum. That potbelly, his drooping man-breasts. He didn’t care if I found him attractive. But WORK . . . oh, she inspired him to do a triathlon!
I had wondered about his sudden interest in the gym last fall. About those new clothes he’d bought with Sadie on one of his visits to the city—shirts with floral prints, like something a girl would wear, and pants that stopped an inch above his anklebone. He’d even taken to wearing a little porkpie hat, and I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes, he looked so dang ridiculous. He wasn’t fooling anyone. He wasn’t from Brooklyn, and he wasn’t thirty years old.
But apparently, WORK found him just amazing.
A flash of hatred hit me like lightning. For him and WORK both.
“Okay, here goes,” I said, sitting up abruptly. I took the phone and started texting. “‘My darling, so so SO’—all caps—‘sorry to not be able to answer you,’ exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. ‘Family crisis going on here. Miss you and love you too. Will be in touch very soon. Longing to see you,’ exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point.” I looked at Caro. “How do you get those little happy faces and hearts?”
“Pass it over,” Caro said. She tapped a few keys, and handed the phone back. “Are you going to send it?”
“Watch me.” I hit the blue arrow, and a second later, we heard the swish of the text going out into the wide world.
“Cheers,” Caro said, toasting me with a smile. “And the pizza’s here, too. A good omen.”
* * *
— —
In between going back and forth to the hospital and taking care of the work that couldn’t wait, I found that I was having an odd bit of . . . well, not fun. Satisfaction, that was it.
I’d texted WORK twice more, soothing her (his?) concerns about when they’d get together. Imitating my husband’s idiot language was simple, and WORK suspected nothing. Just sent more drivel about sex and passion and fires and what they could do to each other at the earliest possible convenience.
If John was gay, that would make things a lot better. Living in a straight marriage, yearning for a man . . . everyone could understand that. I’d be kind to his boyfriend, welcome him, even. Maybe we’d all be friends. Brianna and Sloane could have two grandfathers, since Oliver’s dad had died when Oliver was twelve. John would finally admit that it was never me that was the problem; it was his fear of coming out, but now that he had, he would thank me for the most wonderful daughters in the world. We’d be a happy, loving, modern family, laughing and cooking elaborate dinners, and this new man (Evan, I thought, Evan was a nice name) . . . Evan would help me decorate at Christmas and bring the most delicious pies to Thanksgiving and compliment me on a turkey that was absolutely delicious, because I did do a great turkey.
On the third text exchange, however, WORK had referenced her breasts and how she loved when John worshipped them, so that was the end of the happy gay fantasy, which was a real shame, because I had been getting awfully fond of Evan there.
I wasn’t crushed. I wasn’t heartbroken.
I was furious.
John had made my life into a cliché. My wife of fifty years doesn’t understand me. Finally, I can talk to someone! Life had become so routine, so gray. I wasn’t living . . . I was just existing. You, my beloved WORK, have changed all that.