The Last Original Wife

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “Take a pill.”

  “Can’t. Blood pressure meds and all this other stuff I take? Makes my pulse race.”

  “Right.” That was exactly what Cornelia had told me. “Look, there’s this surgical procedure?”

  “Yeah, yeah. The pump. I know all about it. I’m probably going to get it, but I have to get used to the idea. My doc said it’s that or nothing, so I guess it’s going to be the pump. But the thought of somebody cutting on my best friend? I don’t know, Wes.”

  “I’ll go to the hospital with you. Don’t worry. They do this all the time. You’ll be fine.”

  “You’re the best, Wes. I don’t care what anyone says.”

  “Thanks.” I shook my head, smiling.

  José put our lobster in front of us. It was huge. We looked up, and there stood Paolo. He had been standing there listening. He pulled out a chair and sat down with us.

  “Well, it looks like we’re all in the same boat.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “Lisette says she’s done. She can’t stand it anymore.”

  “Ah, Jeez! José?” José nodded. “One more.”

  “What happened?” Harold said. “You want some lobster? This thing is big enough for six people.”

  “Sure. It looks great. Oh, you know my girls, right? Suzanne and Alicia put all Lisette’s dry cleaning in the washing machine with bleach and ruined, I don’t know, a couple of thousand dollars’ worth of clothes.”

  The waiter put another setup on the table and filled Paolo’s water glass. Harold and I passed him pieces of lobster.

  “Can we get some more butter and lemon here for Paolo?” I said to the waiter.

  “And a glass of sauvignon blanc?” Paolo said.

  Harold said, “That’s terrible!”

  “Man, those girls of yours are a couple of hellcats! What did you do?” I said.

  “I gave Lisette the American Express card and told her to go replace everything. What else could I do?”

  “No! I mean, what did you do to the girls?” I said.

  “Doesn’t she have her own card?” Harold said.

  “Hell, no! What did I do to the girls? I told them I was very disappointed in them and made them apologize to Lisette. And I told them their mother would be deeply disappointed in them, which they didn’t believe for one minute.” He dipped some lobster into the warm butter and popped it in his mouth. “This is amazing!”

  “Right? I haven’t had lobster in ages. And Lisette is still steamed and the girls didn’t mean a word of what they said, am I right?” I said.

  “Correct,” Paolo said. “It’s a very sad day when a father can’t discipline his girls, you know, make them feel bad for the terrible things they do. They have no remorse.”

  Then the lightbulb came on. With Lisette and Cornelia out of the picture, there was no longer any reason for Leslie to ever leave me! I knew then I could talk her into coming back. The wedding was just a couple of weeks away. I was going to romance her home.

  “You’re right. It’s disgraceful. I don’t know what’s wrong with young people today,” Harold said. “This is like the best dinner I’ve had in months!”

  “You know, sometimes I think the girls do these things to honor their mother’s memory.”

  “Tessa wouldn’t have approved of this kind of foolishness,” I said. “You know? We should do this more often.”

  “So true,” Paolo said.

  “So where’s Lisette going to go?” Harold said.

  “I don’t know. I suggested we just get Suzanne and Alicia their own apartment, but Lisette’s already out and staying with her old roommates. She says she doesn’t feel safe sleeping under the same roof with my girls.”

  “Humph. Understandable, unless you’re there all the time,” Harold said. “So you heard about Cornelia?”

  “Harold? I heard and I am stunned. My God, what next?”

  “All of us—bachelors!” Harold said.

  “Maybe you assholes are bachelors, but I’m going to get Leslie back. Watch me.”

  “So are you not going to act on Les’s proposal?” Harold said.

  “What proposal?” Paolo said.

  “Wes will tell you later.”

  “Nope, I’m going to ignore it for now,” I said. “But here’s what I still don’t understand?”

  “What?” they said.

  “Look at us! Three supersuccessful men in the prime of our lives, and we all just got dumped! What the hell did we do? Where did we go wrong?”

  CHAPTER 23

  Lowcountry Les

  I packed my pretty little car (which left them all slack jawed) with some more clothes and small household items that meant nothing to anyone but me, said good-bye to my children and Holly once more, and began the long drive back to Charleston. Now that I had a car that could sync to a phone I could talk while driving, but for most of the trip there were no cell-phone towers nearby so it didn’t really matter because I couldn’t get a signal. When I reached the Columbia area, I had service galore, so I called Jonathan, and to my disappointment, my call went to voice mail. He was probably with a patient, so I left a message that I’d be in around four. “Let’s have dinner!” I said and hoped he was free.

  When I got back to Harlan’s, he wasn’t at home but, always considerate, he’d left a note to say he was out running errands and he’d meet up with me after five. Miss Jo or Miss JP, the dog with two names, met me with a wagging tail and lots of kisses. She was wearing a new monogrammed blue oxford cloth shirt. I’d bet anything that Harlan was too. It was so nice to have a happy dog to come home to, some ten pounds or so of happiness, eager to see you.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” I said. “I bet you’d like a breath of fresh air.”

  I let Miss Jo out through the French doors in the den to visit the garden and poured myself a glass of iced water. It was a hot and very humid day. I watched her prance around, sniffing every blade of grass. Even in deep summer Harlan’s garden was still fragrant and beautiful. She scampered back inside and I closed the doors to keep the heat and bugs at bay.

  The next project to tackle was to relocate my roll-on bag from the foyer up to my room to unpack. I began lugging it up the steps, wondering why I took so many heavy shoes from Atlanta when I knew the dastardly stairs were waiting for me at the end of my trip. Those priceless stairs I once adored were now mocking me with their steep pitch. Harlan seriously needed an elevator. We weren’t getting any younger, and I decided right then and there that any house I bought in Charleston would have one or else the house would have to be all on one level. There was no sense in dropping dead from steps. I wasn’t Rocky Balboa, for heaven’s sake.

  I couldn’t help thinking over and over how terribly sad it was that my marriage was coming to an end. But it was. Everything on this earth had a life span. Wes and I had simply outlived the life span of our marriage. In fact, the time for it to groan to a close was long gone. It was so hard to walk away, especially because my future was so uncertain and I wasn’t so young. The reality that I was actually planning my final act hit me again. I wasn’t leaving Wes to run to Jonathan like Harold had flown to Cornelia. I was leaving Wes because I just couldn’t live in that dead horse life for one more day. Worse than everything, I had a nagging going on in the back of my brain that I needed something larger than a dead horse to justify leaving. My personal unhappiness and deep feelings of unfulfillment didn’t seem important enough. But wasn’t that how women of my generation had been programmed? The good woman, the exemplary mother and wife put the needs, happiness, and dreams of everyone else before her own. We were at the disposal of our family around the clock throughout the year until we drew our last breath. Therein lay my guilt. I reminded myself to love myself more, especially now.

  It was probable that for a long while or maybe for the rest of my life I would mourn the surrender of my house, and I knew it. In every corner there was a memory of something—the children, Christmas trees and turkeys, an
d all the birthday and cocktail parties we used to give. Dinners around our table, all the nights I snuggled up on the sofa with my children watching movies, sleepovers and Halloweens and Easter egg hunts. I was so proud of that old house that had sheltered us through everything life threw our way. It certainly wasn’t the grandest home in Atlanta, but our fingerprints were on its every square inch. Maybe Wes would give it to Charlotte. If he did, maybe I’d will my yet-to-be-found house to Bertie. What I’d miss the most was seeing Charlotte and Holly practically every day. But as I’ve said before, the only chance Charlotte had of becoming a devoted mother would be if I wasn’t so available to her. I really believed that with all my heart. It was too easy to put Holly in my care, and I had such a terrible time saying no.

  And maybe I was feeling melancholy at the moment, but, weirdly, I felt like I’d even miss Wes. Not in the sense of how I’d miss a red-hot lover, someone who’d broken my heart, leaving me for a prettier girl. But Wes and I were friends in an odd way. At least I liked to think we were. And there had been some good years. I had already decided that if Wes got sick again, I’d go back to Atlanta and help him if he wanted me to. And I was going to walk into Molly’s wedding by his side, sit with him, and be polite to him. There was no reason to steal one bit of thunder from Molly’s special day. But the miser owed me a phone call to give me his decision on my offer. He had six days left, and I wasn’t playing around on this. I couldn’t or else things between us would revert back to how they had always been with Wes calling all the shots. That would force me to file for divorce.

  I opened my suitcase to unpack but then decided to call Danette to catch up. I’d been so busy in Atlanta with the therapy marathon that I’d not had the time to touch base. I went to the kitchen for another cold drink and dialed her number.

  “So what’s new?” I asked.

  “Do you have a seat belt on and an oxygen tank nearby?”

  “No, why?”

  “Well, girl? Set yerself down and get comfy cozy. You ain’t gone beeee—lieve . . .”

  When Danette used her supercharged teeny-tiny Southern town twang, I knew I was in for some juicy headlines.

  She rolled out the story of Cornelia and Shawn. I was absolutely aghast. Then, after a minute or two of being properly horrified and blustering with indignation, we nearly died laughing.

  “Holy hell! What did Harold do?” I said. “I can just see his face!”

  “Molly said he threw a conniption fit with Cornelia the likes of which could light Atlanta in a blackout. I’ve never heard him go crazy like that, not in all our years. I didn’t even know he had all that fury in him! Anyway, Molly was out of her mind with anger. It was awful for her, the poor thing.”

  “Do you blame her?”

  “Of course not! But listen, here’s what really frightened me. She was about an inch away from calling off the whole wedding. I sat her down and said, ‘You listen to your mother. You and Shawn are perfect together. Don’t let your daddy’s whore ruin your life. Besides, this whole nasty business happened a long time ago, so get over it!’ ”

  “Excellent advice. Tell her that her auntie Les said to take this story, put it in a box in her mental attic, and never open it again.”

  “You’re right. Women have to forget a whole lot of things if they want to stay married, and not just from husbands. There are about a thousand boxes in my attic. Anyway, the latest poop is that Cornelia has moved out.”

  “Well, that’s probably the first noble thing she’s ever done in her worthless life, bless her heart.”

  “Amen. I mean, we’re as modern a family as there ever was . . .”

  “Come on. Really?”

  “Okay, we’re not so modern. Truth? Once that dreadful cat was out of the bag, it was just way too awkward for my blood.”

  “I completely agree. And the good news is that you don’t have to look at her at Molly’s wedding.”

  “Thank heavens! In her miserable size two dress.”

  “Girl? Speaking of? You haven’t even told me what you’re wearing!”

  “Oh, please. I’ve got about ten different dresses laid out in the guest room and every day I change my mind!”

  “I’ll bet! Well, I’m wearing a little navy blue dress if that’s okay. The MOG isn’t wearing navy, I hope.”

  “No, she’s wearing burgundy. So, I told Harold, I said, ‘Honey? If you lay down with dogs, you get up with fleas.’ He didn’t want to hear it.”

  “No, I imagine he didn’t. I love that saying.”

  I could hardly take a breath without laughing again.

  “And the other fast-breaking news is Lisette packed up her little red wagon and . . .”

  When Danette was finished with that story, I could hardly take it all in.

  “Danette? Stop! This is like winning the lottery of all gossip! I need to catch my breath! My Lord, Paolo’s girls are something else. I live vicariously through them for Tessa’s sake.”

  “Me too. And of course, Suzanne and Alicia are both in the wedding. Gotta love those two.”

  “I do! Well, listen, more to come on them all, I’m sure, but in the meanwhile I have a few things to tell you.”

  I told Danette about finding the money and the therapy and that for the foreseeable future, I’d be living in Charleston, riding around in my new Benz. Wearing diamond earrings. I thought she would die laughing all over again and that I would too. However, I didn’t tell her the details of the offer I’d made Wes. It didn’t seem like the right time. When Wes and I had everything worked out, then I’d tell her. Besides, Danette, as anyone would expect, was in wedding overdrive.

  “So I don’t want you to worry about the bridal brunch,” I said. “I’ve booked it at Loews in midtown. The New Wes is happy to pay the bill.”

  “You must have scared the absolute devil out of him.”

  “I did. Therapy was pretty much an exorcism. But believe it or not, he’s still half clueless. Anyway, Loews has a great-looking restaurant called eleven. Check it out on the web. Does eleven to two sound good for a time?”

  “Perfect! All the out-of-town guests are staying there because it’s so close to the club. I’m putting together hospitality baskets for all the rooms with all the information they need for the weekend and of course some treats and a bottle of wine. And the hotel is giving us a hospitality suite where people can meet and talk.”

  “Great. Don’t forget to give them corkscrews! And I’d throw in a peach, a Vidalia onion, and a Coke!”

  “An onion?”

  “Yeah, with a recipe on how to fry onion rings! Give them a packet of the White Lily mix?”

  “Oh, gosh, I miss you, Les. You’re so funny.”

  “And I miss you. But I’m going to see you soon, and your beautiful daughter is going to be queen for a day! I can’t wait. Now, how are those tango lessons going?”

  “Fab. I’ll tell you. Les, a younger man? Oooh-weee, baby. He’s something else. And wait until you see my yard! It’s beyond anything I could’ve imagined. We’re having the rehearsal party here. I found beautiful red and yellow paper lanterns to hang everywhere all above us in the trees. It’s going to be a gorgeous party, if the weather holds, that is.”

  “Sounds amazing. And how are the groom’s folks?”

  “Shawn’s mother is a living doll and his father too. They’re so relieved they don’t have to do a thing except pay the caterer, the florist, and smile.”

  “Well, didn’t we say months ago that a big party is too hard to manage from a distance, especially if you don’t know the town? Wait! They don’t know about this business with Cornelia, do they?”

  “I see no reason to tell them anything, do you? If Shawn didn’t tell them, why would I?”

  “Heavens, no! I wouldn’t tell them either. When you get a head count for the brunch, let me know, okay? I’ll get the invitations in the mail as soon as you send me a mailing list. If you have e-mails, I can do evites too. Maybe we should just add the brunch to the itinera
ry for out-of-towners? We don’t want the Yankees wandering around eating out of vending machines when they could be eating eggs Benedict with us.”

  “Excellent idea. I’ll e-mail you the list this afternoon. I think we’re about fifty.”

  “Great!”

  Wes was going to choke.

  We talked for a few more minutes, and then we hung up, promising to speak in the next few days.

  So Cornelia and Lisette were back on the streets and had to stake out new victims, did they? I’d bet they were already waxing their southern climes and making cupcakes for some poor women’s unsuspecting husbands. Wow, I thought again, Cornelia had an affair with her almost stepson-in-law? That wasn’t even redneck—it was downright nasty! Did Wes know this? Of course, he must! Why hadn’t he told me? I could just see him at the club with Harold and Paolo, all of them consoling themselves with big steaks and lobsters and martinis. Laughing. I’d bet they were laughing and having a good time. Oh, so what if they were? I needed to make sure I didn’t fall into that trap of thinking they all had a better deal than I did. And there wasn’t a single thing I missed about any of them beyond some nostalgic twinges of our shared past in better days. I went back upstairs to unpack. My clothes were all put away.

  “Thank you!” I called out.

  Later on, downstairs, I checked the refrigerator to see what there was that I might rustle up for dinner and there wasn’t more than some cheese, olives, and pickles. I could pull together some finger food for cocktails, but other than that, we were going to have to go out.

  My cell phone rang and I answered it without checking the caller ID. It was Jonathan.

  “I knew you were back!” he said. “Suddenly the sun’s brighter and I’m in a better mood for no good reason at all.”

  “Thanks! Boy, it’s good to hear your voice! Can we have dinner?”

  “I can come by late, after dinner. We’ve got a department meeting tonight. Usually they cater in something like bologna sandwiches, which are darned hard to resist. All that yellow mustard and mushy lettuce.”

  “Sounds delish. Sure, just call me first, okay? I’m a little tired from the drive and all.”