Husbands and Other Sharp Objects: A Novel Read online

  ALSO BY MARILYN SIMON ROTHSTEIN

  Lift and Separate

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Marilyn Simon Rothstein

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477823828

  ISBN-10: 1477823824

  Cover design by PEPE nymi

  For my daughters,

  Sharyn Rothstein

  and

  Marisa Rothstein

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Whenever anything was in need of repair, I called a man. We had a lot of men. Plumber Man. Electric Man. Air-Conditioning Man. We also had guys. Gutter Guy. Plow Guy. Tree Guy. Chimney Guy. Guys tended to be younger than men. Harvey used to say that a checkbook was the only thing in his toolbox. That wasn’t really true. Harvey didn’t have a toolbox. One less thing for him to take when he left.

  I was standing in the family room, finishing a blueberry muffin and watching CNN breaking news about a woman who shot herself in the foot. Suddenly, the large-screen television and all the recessed lighting blew. I went into the kitchen and turned on the paddle fan above the English pine table. Nothing happened. I recalled something about a fuse box, but I had no idea where it was. I went to my bag for my phone. I called Electric Man. I had to go to the airport to pick up my friend Candy, so I left the door unlocked and headed out as planned.

  Of course, it was snowing. It was late March in Connecticut, but I could drive to the airport in August and it would be snowing. Worse, I had to do this trip again on Friday to meet my daughter Amanda, who was flying in from Seattle. Why couldn’t everyone in the world just fly in on the same day?

  The nearest airport was Bradley International. It was “international” because there was one flight a day to Toronto. When I arrived, parking was a mess. Worst of all, there were patches of black ice. Anxiously, I crept up and down the short-term lot, desperate for a space. My kids were grown, out of the house and on their own, but I still drove a Volvo station wagon with a roof rack. My friend Dana always said that a Volvo is the world’s safest car—but that’s only because the most risk-averse people drive it.

  At last, I came upon a space. But as I turned in, another car swerved in front of me, into my spot. I quickly slammed the brakes. Lurching forward and then slumping back in my seat, I heard the heart-stopping sound of metal smashing metal. It was just what I didn’t need, an accident. When I opened my eyes and caught my breath, I realized my airbag hadn’t deployed. So things weren’t as bad as they could have been. I was rattled, but I was okay.

  I looked out my front window and saw a silver Lexus. Already the driver was walking toward me in the snow, so I guessed he was fine. As I stepped out of my car, I read the sexist word bubble floating high above his head. All I could think was Yes, I’m a woman driver. And you are an asshole.

  “Are you okay?” I said as the cold hit my face.

  He pointed to his Lexus. “What the hell happened?”

  “I was trying to park,” I said.

  “I was already in the spot,” he said.

  And I was on the moon.

  “Are you okay?” I asked again.

  I had a tendency to communicate like a concerned mother. At the end of Gone with the Wind, I would have begged Rhett Butler to take a sweater.

  “Fine,” he said. “But now I’m going to be late.” He took out his cell and began texting.

  Just then, a woman wearing fake-fur earmuffs came along. She glanced at us, shook her head disapprovingly, unlocked a van near the Lexus, started it, and backed out.

  He looked up from his phone. “There’s a spot. And it’s the best kind. It’s empty.”

  My face reddened, but I laughed. He was a good-looking guy with dark-brown hair and brown eyes. Maybe midthirties? Under his coat, he wore a charcoal suit, a French-blue shirt, and a well-knotted tie. He seemed very broad shouldered, but that could have just been the coat.

  I hurried to my Volvo and checked to see if there was any damage. Just a dent. I pulled into the spot left by the van. Then I grabbed my scarf from the car and wrapped it around my neck. I held my winter hat, because I look awful in hats. I have this crazy theory that if I carry my hat, my head will be warmer.

  When I returned, the man said, “If you don’t want to report this to your insurance company, I’ll get a price for repairs, and you can pay it out of pocket.”

  I was surprised. Circumventing the insurance company? Harvey would love this guy.

  I nodded to indicate that this would be fine.

  “So let’s exchange information, and I’ll contact you when I have a price.”

  I typed my name into his iPhone. I’m slow at texting, using one finger at a time. This is generational. If I’d had an Apple from the time I had begged my parents to buy me a Barbie, maybe Mr. Impatient wouldn’t have had to tap his foot.

  When I returned his phone, he checked my information. He had an odd expression, like maybe he thought I had plugged in a phony name or something. He should have known better. Women who drive Volvos do not give aliases.

  Suddenly, he smiled. Then he actually laughed. He had a honk of a laugh.

  “Marcy Hammer? Are you married to Harvey?”

  How did he know Harvey the Home-Wrecker?

  When I said yes, he grinned as though he had just won the sweepstakes.

  Did I know this guy?

  “I’m Jake Berger. I represent your husband.”

  I looked at him blankly. My husband was the Bra King. He owned Bountiful Bosom, and his lawyer was Steve, my cousin Leona’s husband.

  “International business,” he said, as though he could hear my thought process.

  “Oh,” I said. I wondered if he knew that Harvey and I were living apart. I was in the house. Harvey was at an inn. And his rate was long term.

  I considered, as I always did when I met someone Harvey knew, whether the person had been in the wash with my dirty laundry. The laundry being that my husband had had a baby with another woman.

  I don’t know you. You don’t know me. But tell me, can you see from the look in my hazel eyes that my husba
nd has a new baby mama? Do you also know that she is in her twenties and is Argentine, and he sent her back to Buenos Aires with the funds to open a business?

  “So you’re Harvey’s lawyer,” I said, smiling. “Then why not just bill the repairs to Harvey?” And it’s okay with me if you double your hourly rate as well.

  “Don’t worry about a thing,” he said.

  “Perfect.”

  We shook hands, and I turned to leave.

  “Wait. Are you here for Amanda too?” Jake asked.

  “Excuse me?” Now what did he want?

  “I’m here to pick up your daughter.”

  I was taken aback. It was Monday. Amanda had told me she was flying in from Seattle on Friday. Admittedly, my mind was going fast—I could misplace reading glasses perched on my nose. The day before, I had looked for a tube of Colgate while I was holding it. However, I still knew a Monday from a Friday. Besides, when did Harvey start dispatching lawyers to pick up his children?

  “Well, I’m sorry. Harvey sent you on the wrong day. She’s flying in on Friday.”

  Jake shook his head.

  Okay, I thought, maybe she changed her plans. In which case, I wished she had called to tell me. Whatever. I was excited that I was going to see her sooner than expected. With a few extra days, we would have time to go into Manhattan together, and I’d heard there was a limited-time-only Monet show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

  “So let’s go meet her,” Jake said, stretching his arm out toward the terminal.

  “I came to the airport to pick up a friend, but if you prefer, I can take Amanda home as well, and you can go back to work. Get those billable hours!” I said, punching the air with my fist.

  “That’s okay,” he said, meaning “not in this lifetime.”

  I suddenly realized something was up. This guy wasn’t just doing a favor for Harvey. He was way too cheerful for that. I looked at my watch. My friend Candy wasn’t arriving for quite a while. It was a good thing I liked to get to the airport early, so I had time to have an accident and see my daughter.

  Jake walked quickly, and I was panting to keep up. I would have just let him go ahead, but there was no way I was going to miss Amanda.

  He stopped for a moment. “Am I going too fast?” he asked pleasantly.

  Not for a racehorse. “Slower would be better.”

  He smiled. “I see the resemblance,” he said as he studied my face.

  “Actually, Amanda looks like Harvey’s side of the family. Only thing is, she is not bald.” Harvey didn’t have a hair on his head, but he had recently topped himself with a toupee. Honestly, he looked better bald.

  “I mean the resemblance between you and Elisabeth. You’re about the same height and have the same color hair. She has hazel eyes too, right?”

  “You’ve met Elisabeth?” I was taken aback. Exactly how did he know my Elisabeth? Elisabeth was a doctor. She had nothing to do with Harvey’s business.

  “Amanda introduced us.”

  What the . . .

  He continued. “Elisabeth only stayed for one drink, because she had to rush back to the hospital.”

  So he had met my eldest daughter. Had he also met my son?

  “Do you know Ben too?”

  “No. I hear he lives in the city, in Chelsea. The first year of law school is tough. Big drop-out rate.”

  “Ben isn’t dropping out.”

  “Of course not. I wasn’t saying he was. I meant in general.”

  He picked up the pace.

  “Do you think you could slow down?” I asked between huffs. In addition to keeping up with Secretariat, I was deep into figuring out what the deal was with this guy and Amanda. How involved were they if he had already met Elisabeth, and why had no one mentioned this to me? It’s so true, I thought. The mother is always the last to know.

  “Are you dating Amanda?” I asked, blunt as a two-by-four.

  “There’s Mans,” Jake said as he waved across the arrival area to my daughter. Mans? Man’s what? Man’s hands? No one ever called Amanda anything but Amanda.

  I looked at Jake’s face. Times Square was not that bright on New Year’s Eve.

  “Mom, what a surprise,” Amanda said when she saw me. I knew that wide-eyed look on her gorgeous face. I’d seen it when she was a freshman in high school. I had stopped at home to drop off groceries in the midst of a school day. She was on my living room couch with a popular boy nicknamed Mother’s Hell. The two had matching outfits in that neither one was wearing a shirt.

  Amanda hugged me. It felt wonderful to give her a squeeze. But I couldn’t stop myself from saying the motherly thing. “I thought you told me you were coming in on Friday morning.”

  She smiled at Jake and turned to me. “I was. That was the plan. But at the very last moment, I decided to fly to Connecticut early to spend time with Jake.”

  I had no idea that Amanda had been seeing anyone since leaving her last boyfriend, Arnold the Famous Producer, pining for her in Los Angeles while she moved to Seattle. He had taken a stand. He said she should stay in Los Angeles, and they should get married. She moved anyway. That’s the gumption I wished I had. Why wasn’t gumption taught in every school? Gumption was more important than geography, because even if you can read the map, you’re not going anywhere without gumption. That’s what the world needs—Gumption 101.

  “How long have you been seeing each other?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant. As though I could fool her.

  “Not long,” Amanda said.

  “Not long” meant an eternity, because if it were really not long, she would have given a precise amount of time. I had been left out of the loop, and as a mother, I didn’t like any loop I was left out of.

  “Wonderful,” I said, patting her. Once your children are a certain age, it is best to be agreeable. They’re going to do what they want anyway. Anything but agreeable comes off as combative.

  For example, if a girlfriend remarked to Amanda that her skirt was too short, she’d check the first mirror she passed. If I mentioned it . . .

  Me: Do you think maybe your skirt is a bit short?

  Amanda: Mom, it’s fine.

  Me: Okay, it’s not short, but your crotch needs a waxing.

  Amanda: Mom, only old people say “crotch.”

  Me: I’m just saying what your friends will be thinking when they see you in that skirt.

  Amanda: Fine. Then don’t go to lunch with me. Don’t go anywhere with me.

  Amanda took Jake’s hand. “Dad told Jake to look me up when he was in Seattle on business. His firm has a large office there. We got to know each other,” she said, gazing into his eyes.

  So Jake was her man of the moment. When Amanda gravitated to a person or a locale or an activity, it was immediate, pronto, and she was the world’s biggest fan, head over heels. On the other hand, when someone rubbed her the wrong way, she disappeared like a rabbit in a magic act.

  Amanda cuddled up to Jake. She was short and slender. He was tall. He kissed her on the forehead. I thought that was sweet. He kissed her nose, then each of her cheeks. He pulled her close, rubbed her back, and petted her long, loose auburn hair. If they were any closer, I’d be a grandmother in nine months. Please, please don’t make love in front of me in the midst of a jammed airport.

  I looked away, toward the escalator.

  “So Mom, why are you here?”

  “I thought you were coming four days from now, and I didn’t want to be late.”

  She rolled her eyes. She was the Great Eye Roller.

  “I’m here to pick up Candy. She flew from Milan to Philadelphia, then home to Connecticut.”

  “You must be glad she’s back,” Amanda said. “How long was she away?”

  “Three weeks.”

  “Would you like us to wait with you?” Jake asked. That’s ten points for the boyfriend. Apparently, he is extremely polite when he isn’t driving.

  Amanda shook her head. “I want to get going. By the way, Jake, how did you
meet Mom?”

  “We bumped into each other in the parking lot,” I said.

  “You had an accident again?” Amanda said.

  “Oh, so I’m not your first victim, Mrs. Hammer?” he joked.

  “I’ve had two accidents in two years, and the last one didn’t even count. A tree hit me.”

  “Mom, you have to be more careful.”

  I was careful, but Romeo here had pulled into my spot.

  “I’ll see you on Friday,” Amanda said unceremoniously. She gave me a kiss, then zipped her puffy black coat. She reached for the handle of her rolling suitcase, but Jake said, “Mans, I’ve got that.”

  “So Jake, would you like to join us for dinner on Friday?” I asked. And can you stop calling her Mans?

  “Are Elisabeth and Ben coming?” Amanda asked, looking hopeful.

  “No. They’re both so busy.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m tied up too,” Jake said. “I haven’t had a chance to tell Amanda, but I just got word that I need to be in Wisconsin for business.”

  She looked at him as if to say “You’re kidding—I get here and you’re leaving?”

  He gave Amanda an apologetic squeeze, then a soulful look.

  “It’s a drag to be out of town when Amanda is here, but as long as I’m in Wisconsin, I have to stop by to see my parents.”

  So he was handsome and successful, and he visited his parents. The guy was a winner and a far better choice than Arnold the Famous Producer, whom I had met just once, because Amanda always liked to keep her life under wraps. And that was easy enough when you lived three thousand miles from your mother.

  We said our good-byes. Despite the accident and our rough beginning, I liked this Jake. Unfortunately, he worked for my soon-to-be ex-husband.

  The walls were closing in.

  Preoccupied with the kids, I almost forgot that I had come to the airport to pick up Candy. Children, no matter their age, and it might even be worse when they’re older, have a way of occupying your mind until you need a “No Vacancy” sign. A crowd descended the steep escalator from arrivals. I scanned for Candy, who, short and slight, could easily be blocked from view.

  There she was, appearing not one iota like a woman who had been aloft for hours, but rather like a Hollywood star in a commercial for the pleasures of flying. She was dressed in a winter-white suit and long silk scarf. I was sure she wore an Hermès scarf even while in her house in her underwear. She was, after all, the kind of woman who sprayed perfume into the air and then walked through it.