The Last Original Wife: A Novel Read online

  “You know what?” I said. “I don’t beat her. I never ran around . . . well, not too much. She lives in a nice house. She’s never had to work for a living. She drives a nice car. I take her to Vegas once a year. Is she crazy?”

  “I don’t know. Is she?”

  This woman, this therapist, Jane was wearing me out.

  “Look, I married her, didn’t I? I stayed with her, didn’t I? What the hell does she want from me?”

  “We need time to find that out, Wes. It takes time. Little changes can make all the difference. And it’s interesting that you choose Zeus as your avatar.”

  “Why’s that?” What the hell was an avatar?

  “Because he’s the Greek god known for his many affairs.”

  A lying philanderer. I knew she had me where she wanted me. I was trapped. The fight went out of me like someone popped my little red balloon. The bitch was right. I had no fucking idea what Les wanted from me that I hadn’t already given her.

  “Fine!” I said. “I’ll see you whenever our next session is.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Les in Dr. Katz’s Office

  I was back in Dr. Katz’s office for Round Three, convinced more than ever that this was an utter and complete waste of everyone’s time and money. All I was doing was regurgitating the story of the bravest and smartest thing I’d ever done. Not even an army of mental health workers would ever convince me that leaving Wes had been a mistake.

  “Where would you like to begin?” he asked. “I think when we last met you were going to tell me about a dance at your club? The Barbies?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Okay, so there was the spring dance at our club. Tessa, my great friend, had only been gone for a few months. I was still missing her something awful. We raised our children together, you know? Me, Tessa, and the other ex-wives of all the men at our table.”

  “Was her death sudden?”

  “Yes. When she was diagnosed, she found out she had stage IV lung cancer. And she was never even symptomatic beyond this stupid little nagging cough she had for just a few weeks. She thought it was allergies. Can you imagine the horror of it? She just collapsed, was taken to the hospital, was diagnosed, and was dead in ten days. Can you imagine? It was a horrible, devastating shock for everyone.”

  “I’m sure it was.”

  “I don’t have a picture of a birthday party or a Fourth of July picnic or anything that involved our children without Tessa and her children right in the middle. We were all very close.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t say this . . .”

  “No, please! Say anything you want.”

  “Well, it’s just that I think sudden death is so hard for the survivors, but I think it’s far worse to watch someone you love just waste away. Especially if they’re in any kind of pain.”

  “I completely agree. Poor Tessa didn’t even have a chance to be in pain, it all happened so fast. She had a kind of cancer that they said was small cell and very aggressive. I can tell you that her death was a real wake-up call for me.”

  Katz sat there tapping the eraser of his pencil against his legal pad, waiting for me to drop my revelation on his page.

  “Anyway, we were at the spring dance at the club. Paolo, Tessa’s widower, was there with his new wife. It took Paolo a whole whopping two months to marry his personal trainer, Lisette, who may or may not be thirty.”

  “This age difference thing really has resonance with you, doesn’t it?”

  Dr. Harrison Katz was quickly losing points with me.

  “Yes. It does. But my annoyance doesn’t stop with the age spread, Dr. Katz. Paolo’s swift remarriage was just another sign.”

  “Sign of what?”

  “Really? That wives are so easily gotten over and so easily replaced. We are an expendable breed.”

  “Do you really believe that?” To his credit, his expression was briefly ever so slightly incredulous.

  “Yes, I do. The evidence is all over the place. Men wear us out, either bury us or divorce us, and then they just go get another woman to be their mother.”

  “Go on . . .”

  “So I looked around at these second wives with their fake boobs and their Jennifer Aniston flat-ironed hair and their Michelle Obama toned upper arms and I felt more like a chaperone than a peer. They were all wearing skintight bandage dresses with spiky platform high heels and they had their spray tans and big chunky jewelry. I was wearing, well, something age appropriate, pearls, pumps, a nice dress. I realized over the course of the night that they had plenty of chitchat for each other, but when they talked to me, they deferred as though they were being respectful of their grandmother. That was when I came to what I thought was a rather startling realization.”

  “And what was that?”

  “That I didn’t want to be there. I really didn’t want to be there! Worse? I didn’t belong there! All of a sudden I didn’t care. Wes’s friends were married to girls who are young enough to be their daughters. I didn’t want to spend every holiday and weekend for the rest of my life with a bunch of Barbies. These men were Wes’s oldest friends, and their former wives were mine. These insipid young women would never be my friends. Moreover, I didn’t want them to be my friends.”

  “Hmmm . . .”

  “Hmmm, what? Listen, every time I looked at those men and thought about how much they hurt their families, I got angry. And guess what? They hurt me too!”

  “And how is that?”

  “Really? You need an answer to that? Look, the self-indulgence of those men, with the exception of Paolo, denies me the company of my closest friends. There will be no more Saturday nights with them. It’s all done! Finito! From here on in, weddings will be awkward, baptisms will be awkward, graduations . . . the entire structure of my social life has been undermined by a bunch of men who are afraid of getting old and who think a younger woman will reverse the clock for them. The social life that I had, that I loved, is gone! You can’t see that? ”

  “Yes. I do. But it is what it is. Divorce is painful and it impacts everyone, but as you know, half of all marriages end in divorce. It’s not unusual.”

  “Dr. Katz, I’m not campaigning for tougher divorce laws. Quite the opposite. I’m saying my life, my marriage—it all just doesn’t make sense anymore. I might have twenty years left to live or maybe twenty-five and I’ve just come to the conclusion I don’t want to spend them in a relationship that has run its course, surrounded by people I don’t want to know. It’s just stupid. I don’t want to be made to feel bad about my age, and I don’t want to be anyone’s personal slave anymore. And maybe most important, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with someone who feels he’s giving me a break by staying married to me. It’s just about as simple as that.”

  Katz sighed hard and made some notes. Obviously, he did not disagree with me.

  “What about your daughter and your son? What do they think?”

  “It’s time my daughter took responsibility for her daughter and for their lives. And my son, as you know, lives out of the country.”

  “But what did they think? You know, about you leaving?”

  “My son totally gets it, but then he’s basically run as far from Atlanta as he can. My daughter, Charlotte, was surely irked and inconvenienced.”

  “How is that?”

  “Well, she viewed me as her babysitter. Basically, she just dropped my granddaughter off with me whenever the mood struck. She’s a real estate broker and when someone calls she has to go to work.”

  “Sounds to me like you may have been the one who was inconvenienced.”

  “No, not really. I adore my little granddaughter, Holly. She’s very easy to make a priority over everything else in my life. But it’s not right, you know? She’s as pretty as a little girl could be, with curly blond ringlets and eyes so big and clear blue you could swim in them. And she’s so sweet! No, Holly is the greatest joy I’ve known in years!” We were both quiet then, and I was feeling a bit wistful. “I love to re
ad to her, and we love to do all sorts of things together.”

  I was remembering having Holly for an afternoon last spring, one when we decided to walk around the yard to see what we could find. What a marvel it was to see the world through the eyes of a three-year-old little girl. Every single thing was fascinating to her. We got down on our knees and followed a fat worm crawling through the grass and she giggled the music of tiny, high-pitched wind chimes. When I imitated the worm and his wiggle, Holly wiggled too, and we both dissolved into laughter. In the next minute, she pushed her little nose into my roses and was absolutely stunned by the sweet smell of them as though she had never smelled a flower. Oh! she said and inhaled deeply again. She peeled a handful of the petals from a thick bloom fallen to the ground and rubbed them in between her chubby little fingers. Soft! she said and rubbed them against her cheek. I could see her in my mind’s eye. I must’ve been smiling then because I lifted my head to see Dr. Katz was smiling too.

  “What other kinds of things do you do with her?”

  “Oh, everything in the world! We make cookies, we read books, we play dress-up . . . you know, we play simple games like peekaboo and sometimes we color or make things with clay, like little animals. I feel so badly for my daughter.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because of all she’s missing! No matter what I say to her, I cannot make her see all the happiness there is to be gained by having a little girl of her own to love. She doesn’t seem to be able to relate except in the most basic ways. To children, I mean. I know she loves Holly, after all she’s her own flesh and blood, but I think she sees her as, God forgive me, a burden she’d rather not have. She’s the one who ought to be in this chair. Not me.”

  “I see. And Holly’s father?”

  “Oh, him? He’s gone with the wind. And I thought he was such a nice young man—shows you what I know. Brad was his name. He always dressed so nicely and was so sweet to me. Who knows what goes on between the ears of young men today? In my day there would’ve been a hurry-up wedding and maybe a divorce later on, but at least the child would have a name and a chance at having two parents.”

  “Do you think that’s a better idea?”

  “Yes! Because maybe, just maybe, they’d face reality together and then find the courage to rise to the occasion. Doesn’t a child need a father? Think she’ll have abandonment issues when she grows up? Besides, why should this fellow get off the hook scot-free? No child support? Not even slightly interested in visitation? I mean, Dr. Katz, don’t you think it’s morally wrong to bring a child into this world and then walk away like a tomcat?”

  “Personally, I agree, but professionally? I’m not supposed to voice my opinion.”

  For someone who wasn’t supposed to have opinions, he had plenty. In my opinion.

  “Right. Listen, I know being a single parent is hard on Charlotte. She’s still angry with Holly’s father and probably always will be, but look! That awful irresponsible relationship produced a beautiful, affectionate little girl who’s as smart as a whip! It just seems to me that if Charlotte were more engaged with Holly, she would enjoy her so very much. So much. And here’s what I worry about. Pretty soon Holly is going to figure out that Charlotte would rather be elsewhere. That’s when the chickens will come home to roost. She’ll spend the rest of her life trying to please a mother who can’t be pleased and a father who can’t be found.”

  I could hear his brain ticking as he thought to himself, And that’s why I’ll always make a living.

  Dysfunctional relationships kept the lights on in his penthouse.

  “Hmmm,” he said. “Is that why you left home and went to Charleston? To force her to take responsibility?”

  “Maybe on some level, but actually, I went to Charleston, which is where I’m from, to think. And to help my brother, Harlan.”

  “I see. Tell me about your brother. Is he ill?”

  “Not at all. Harlan is a distinguished professor of the Italian Renaissance and he lectures all over the world. And he’s the chair of the Art History Department at the College of Charleston.”

  “I see. Older or younger?”

  “Older but only by a few years. Anyway, he was taking a group to Rome for part of the summer and he needed someone to watch his dog. And his house.”

  “Aha! So his departure for Italy coincided with your departure from Atlanta?”

  “Yes, but that’s irrelevant because I could have gone to stay with Harlan anytime. We have a really wonderful relationship.”

  “Tell me about it. Is he an important part of your family? I mean, is he close with your husband and children?”

  “Hardly. Wes is a huge homophobe, and he would never allow Harlan and Leonard to come to the house. Leonard was Harlan’s partner for decades. When he died—he was much older—he left Harlan a gorgeous house in the old part of Charleston.”

  “Leonard died from what . . . AIDS?”

  “No. Thank you. Leonard, who was healthy in every single way, had a massive heart attack at seventy-two while doing the Bridge Run in Charleston. He was a marathoner. Why do you assume that if Leonard died, it had to be from AIDS?”

  “You’re right. It’s a ridiculous assumption. I apologize. I just made the fleeting connection that if Wes didn’t want them in the house that it might have been because they were HIV-positive. Many well-meaning, uninformed people used to think AIDS was an airborne virus.”

  “True. No offense taken, but here we are again looking at another chink in the façade of my marriage. Wes just straight up hates gays. My only sibling happens to be gay. Wes hates him.”

  Silence from the shrink. Finally. I went on.

  “So . . . ? It makes it impossible to mindlessly adore my husband.”

  “Do you think that’s what he expects? Mindless adoration?”

  “Look, Dr. Katz. No, it’s not what he expects, but it’s what he sees when he looks around at his friends.”

  “I understand.”

  “Really? Well, I’m glad you understand because I sure don’t. I mean, Wes’s friends are successful, reasonably intelligent men. What’s the matter with them? Do they really think that all that fawning over them from their Barbies is sincere?”

  “Maybe they don’t care.”

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe they don’t care. What a thing to say. Well, how’s this? Maybe pretending to be in love leads to believing you’re in love.”

  “Really? Do you believe that?”

  “I’m not so sure about a lot of things anymore. Maybe love is a calculated gamble.”

  “How so?”

  “Because you’re signing up for a lifetime tour? Maybe it’s doomed to fail from the start, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “What on earth do you mean by that?”

  My lovely Dr. Katz must’ve had live-in help around the clock.

  “Look, when the husband leaves home in the morning, his wife is still dead tired from doing dishes the night before until eleven thirty, and she looks it. But there she is at six A.M., making his three-minute egg and one slice of lightly toasted whole wheat anyway.”

  “Wives and mothers usually make breakfast unless they’re sick. Don’t they?”

  “What? Egg duty? Hello! The kids are out of the house, and I think a man can boil an egg as well as a woman. But that’s not the point and it’s not where I’m headed. Unconsciously or not, he all but refuses to make eye contact because his actual scary number age is reflected in her puffy, no makeup face, and he hates to think about the fact that he could drop dead any minute from natural causes.”

  “Mrs. Carter, isn’t that a bit harsh?”

  “Nope. Not one bit. And when he gets to the office there’s the secretary or coworker or junior partner who’s just blown out her hair and got herself all gussied up and she smells like some subtle fragrance that’s acceptable for the workplace, something that’s not overtly bait. Nonetheless, it is definitely bait. He takes a whiff, compliments her; she smiles
and, doing her best to be all innocence even though she’s the scheming slut of the world, she thanks him. Demurely. At least as demurely as she can manage.”

  “Okay, I’m getting the picture now.”

  “You don’t know the half of it. In his mind, the affair is off and running. It’s all he can do not to think about her night and day, and what’s even funnier is that he thinks the blossoming affair is his idea. What he doesn’t know is that she has already memorized his favorite restaurants, movies, music, football team, and the names and ages of his wife and children. She knows that Little Johnny is the class clown but a straight A student and that Little Lulu only wears lavender and wants to be a ballerina when she grows up.”

  “How does she know all this?”

  “Because she’s done her due diligence. She’s over thirty. Her prospects for a wealthy husband have all but vaporized, and she can’t trade on her looks much longer. But she chooses her target because she knows this guy has enough financial assets to give half to the current wife—which assuages whatever modicum of guilt she can muster—and that because he’s young enough, he’ll still earn enough to give her a better life than she could ever have on her own. She knows exactly when the last child will be leaving for college to minimize the trauma of his divorce. You know, women still only earn seventy cents to every dollar a man earns.”

  “I’m aware. So continue down this road. Where does it lead?”

  “Well, it leads to any number of scenarios, but they all involve a bed.”

  “And you find this to be . . . what? Appalling?”

  “It used to be that appalling was the only thing I could think about it. And all that lying and betrayal is terrible. But now I’m thinking that maybe those women are doing us a favor! Well, not in every single case, but think about it. If I had just half of all our assets in my name, I’d have much more expendable income than I’ve ever had in my whole married life! Did I happen to mention to you that I found a bank statement showing we had ten times as much money as I thought?”