Tips for Living(3)

“I’m afraid I’m not an expert on that.”

“No, of course not.”

“About the violence . . .”

“Yes. Well, I finally got off the floor. I saw Hugh starting to boil water for tea on his hot plate, as if we were a couple of Brits who could have a civilized conversation about how to handle this over a pot of Earl Grey. I looked at that painting of him with Helene again, and I actually saw red. It’s real. That happens. The entire room went crimson. I picked up the nearest thing I could find to a weapon—the X-ACTO on his worktable—and I lunged. He grabbed my wrist before the blade touched the canvas. I accidentally nicked his hand.”

Dr. Feld scribbled on his pad.

“How did he react?”

“‘You’re hysterical,’ he said. I guess I was. But the thing is, I still have fantasies.”

“Of what nature?”

I hesitated. Dr. Feld cocked his head.

“Of hurting both of them.”

Dr. Feld wrote on his pad some more.

“What you said about being obligated to inform the authorities if I’m a danger to others or myself? You’re not going to report me for having fantasies, are you?”

“No. But it would be good to explore some of that anger in here instead of acting it out.”

“Can you say how many sessions you think we’ll need? I’m worried about money. The meeting with my divorce lawyer was kind of a shock.”

“How so?”

“Hugh and I lived together for over twelve years, but we’d only been married for one. It means the settlement won’t be all that much. Between paying the lawyer, moving out of the loft, and covering living expenses until I find a job . . .” I sighed and shook my head, resigned. “Still, I don’t want to spend years fighting for palimony.”

“You’d rather move on.”

“Right.”

At $150 each visit, I couldn’t afford to see Dr. Feld for very long, but at least I’d regained my equilibrium. I’m afraid that since Hugh and Helene moved to Pequod this May, I’ve begun to backslide. Some days I could swear there’s a volcano in my chest. The energy I expend to keep it from erupting can exhaust me. I often feel depressed. But I make sure to renew my vow every day: I absolutely will not let anger destroy my life.



“The nerve of that woman,” Grace huffed as we walked out of class down the corridor that led to the parking lot outside.

Grace Sliwa has been like a sister to me for twenty-three years, ever since we were freshman roommates at NYU. We even look like sisters. We both have long brown hair, oval faces, and prominent cheekbones passed down from ancestors who came from the same general part of the world: Grace is of Czech descent; my people hail from the Jewish ghettos of western Russia. We’re both taller than average and long-waisted. “Modigliani model types,” Hugh once observed. But my eyes are brown and Grace’s are bright blue. She wears her hair straight and parted on the side. I favor a tousled, “sauvage” look with bangs. Grace doesn’t need an excuse to put on a skirt or a dress. I’m happy in jeans 90 percent of the time.

Smart, talented, beautiful Grace also has a voice that purrs sex, which she uses to great effect on her interview show, Talk of the Townies, produced at WPQD here in Pequod and carried regionally on public radio.

“What she should have done the second she saw you in class, if she had a decent bone in her body, was leave,” she hissed.

One of the qualities I admire most in Grace is her loyalty. She’s as loyal as Lassie. After Hugh and I divorced, she wouldn’t even deign to do a phone interview with him. Believe me, it would’ve been a coup for her, given who Hugh was. Grace was the only one of my friends who refused to talk to Hugh, fame or no fame, because of what he pulled with Helene.

“If I were you, I’d want to kill,” she fumed.

Grace zipped up her fleece and took my arm as we emerged from the large, slate-colored concrete building into the chilly November morning. We steered toward our cars, parked side by side in the lot.

“So what are we going to do?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“We can’t let that woman stay in class. There must be a way to get rid of her,” she said, releasing me to open the back door of her Prius and toss her mat over a booster seat full of toys. Grace has two wonderful boys, two adorable munchkins—my godsons. After the first one was born, she and her family decamped to Pequod from Manhattan, intent on raising their kids outside the city. Her husband, Mac, grew up here.

“We need to have her banned,” Grace said, turning back to the building. “Maybe we should go in there and tell Kelly and the rest of them what she’s done . . .”

“No,” I said firmly. “You know word will spread. I can’t handle being the subject of gossip again. Remember when New York Magazine ran that paparazzi shot of Hugh and Helene, pregnant Helene, alongside my wedding photo? I was completely humiliated. I don’t want to be a hot topic here.”

“That SOB wedding photographer sold you out. What was the insult your aunt had for him?”

Sina Shluha vokzal’naja ve Siberia. Aunt Lada was so enamored of her Slavic roots, she’d studied Russian language and folk dancing in the midst of the Cold War. I knew most of her sayings but had to ask her to translate that one.