The Trophy Wives Club

by Kristin Billerbeck

  As I wander out to the kitchen, the doorbell rings, and my mother gets all aflutter. “That’s him!” she bellows. “Now, Haley, don’t talk about the divorce. He already knows it’s final next month.”

  “Did you tell him my cup size, too?”

  “Haley, don’t talk that way. Trashy women talk that way. I didn’t raise you like that.” She checks the oven. “How incredibly vulgar you can be.”

  “I know. Hollywood taught me. You raised me to be perfectly normal. What a cruel twist of fate I am.”

  “I did raise you to be perfectly normal.”

  “You’re off the hook, Mom.” I kiss her on the cheek. “I’m weird all by myself. Bad DNA.”

  “Get the door, smart aleck.”

  I open the door and instead of an aged high-school boyfriend, there’s a young Fed Ex driver with a package. Who, I must say, is an improvement if he weren’t jailbait. “Haley Cutler?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Sign here.”

  I take the package, slam the door, and rip open the package. Inside, instead of a lipstick or a new pair of shoes is a copy of the divorce papers from the courts, with the luminous date: March 14, when it will be final. I even have to hate deliverymen now. They used to bring me nice things.

  “Is it Gavin?” My mom comes out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. “Haley, what’s the matter, you’re white as a sheet.”

  “It’s my divorce papers.” I look up.

  “You knew it was coming. What difference does it make?”

  “I guess, as pathetic as it might be, there was a part of me that thought Jay would change his mind, Mom. That he’d change his mind, and this was all a rotten misunderstanding. I thought he’d realize—”

  She presses her hand on my back and rubs my shoulders. “You signed the papers, Haley. Jay has never been one to mess around legally. Not if it cost him something.”

  “I know, but I thought my signing would scare him, that he’d chicken out and worry he couldn’t run his life without me.” Truthfully, I thought he’d fall on his knees and beg for forgiveness. I thought the Jay I fell in love with would return to me, and maybe we’d renew our vows in a romantic ceremony with rose petals up the aisle, perhaps our son as a ring bearer…gosh, I’m pathetic.

  The doorbell rings again. I open the door to my prom date, ten years later, and it’s not the “after” one hopes for. He’s bald, has a beer belly and didn’t bother to iron his button-up shirt. More ammunition for why Jay mystified me when I met him. But he has a twinkle in his gaze and he’s still the same, warm boy from high school, with an offset grin and shining, blue eyes. He reminds me of the hope I once had for my future.

  “Hi, Gavin.” I try to muster a little enthusiasm, but it sounds just like I feel.

  He holds out a bouquet of sunflowers. “I thought these might cheer you up. You’re still as beautiful as ever. More so.” The way Gavin says these things, it’s not a pickup at all, and I can tell he feels exactly about this meeting as I do. We’re friends, and that’s all we’re ever going to be, despite my mother’s desperate and oh-so-transparent attempts.

  I take the offered flowers and let him kiss my cheek. “Thanks, Gavin, you always know how to cheer me up.” I shut the door behind him. “Well, you always did anyway. Let me get these in some water.” But before I can escape to the kitchen, my mother is there to take them from me.

  “Go talk to him.” She pushes me toward the foyer. “Good to see you, Gavin,” Mom trills. “You look like you’re eating well.”

  I’m sure that’s a compliment in some third world country, but I’m humiliated to my core. Why didn’t she just call him Porky?

  Gavin pats his stomach. “I never miss a meal, Mrs. Adams.” He kisses my mother’s cheek. “Especially one of yours when it’s offered. I saw the quilts for Africa. As usual, you had the most beautiful.”

  Now, you might think that Gavin is a bit of a brown-noser, but the truth is, he’s one hundred percent authentic. He means what he says, and he rarely says anything unkind. He makes me feel unworthy standing next to him. I can’t even keep my thoughts that nice. Is it any wonder our relationship didn’t work out?

  I find my bearings. “You look great, Gavin. Very happy.”

  He nods. “I am happy, Haley. The store’s doing well. I added siding to the retail line. We have to compete with box hardware stores, but they can’t compete on customer service. I get them there every time. People expect quality when they’re buying new windows. They deserve to be treated well, it’s a big expenditure.”

  “You were a born retailer, Gavin. Your dad would have been proud.”

  He stares right into my eyes and drops the small talk. “I would do anything to take this away from you, Haley. You didn’t deserve this. You always were the prettiest girl in town, inside and out, and nothing has changed. I’m glad to see he didn’t get that part of you.”

  “You’re the first person to think I didn’t deserve this, so thank you.” I feel a lump rise in my throat as I realize Gavin has more empathy in his little finger than Jay ever possessed. How did I get it so very wrong?

  “No, I’m not. Just the first person to say so, maybe.” He pats his stomach again. “So you know how I’m staying so healthy?”

  He makes me laugh. “No, how are you staying so healthy?”

  “I’m a bachelor in your mother’s church. The sewing group is determined to see me married off, and it involves a lot of pot roast. They bring their single daughters and beef. Sometimes pork.”

  We laugh together. “So the big question is, are you avoiding marriage for the pot roast?”

  “The shoe just hasn’t fit anyone yet,” he jokes.

  “I would have thought you would have married Susie Anderson in college. She was such a sweetheart.”

  “You didn’t think so back then.”

  “Well, she wasn’t me, and back then, I didn’t think she was good enough for you.”

  “So what changed?”

  “Marriage isn’t what I thought at all. If you can find someone who loves you back, that’s a gift you should grab and never relinquish.”

  “Apparently, Susie thought so too because she found someone who did.”

  “Oh.” I start to walk toward the living room. “Come on and sit down.” My brother is playing a loud video game when we enter. “Mike, go get a life.” See? I can’t even be nice for five minutes in front of Gavin!

  Mike groans and shuts off the television, slinks down the hall, and slams the door to his room. “Nice to have you back!” he yells through the door.

  Gavin clears his throat and sits back on the couch, “I always thought I’d be married, but it never happened. The truth is now I don’t know that I could be. The business takes so many hours. I don’t really think of myself as the fatherly type, and I never met a woman who made me think about marriage.” He looks at me, his brow furrowed. “Sorry.”

  “I’m not offended, Gavin, I admire your ability to know who you are, I suppose. What do you do with yourself to keep busy?”

  “I have season tickets to the Giants and the 49ers. I organize trips for us older singles at church, and I work. It’s a full life.”

  “Is it?”

  “It is, Haley. You’ll get used to it. What about you? What else have you been doing besides being a wife?

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  “Too personal?”

  “No, I realized I hadn’t offered, that’s all.”

  “Nothing for me. I’m sure your mom will have a nice, cold glass of milk waiting at dinner.”

  I look into his steady eyes and despite how I’ve learned to keep everything inside, my truth comes bubbling out like a Napa geyser. “I don’t ever want to feel this way again, Gavin. It’s not worth the pain.”

  “I hate to hear that, Haley. You always had so much passion for life. I envied that about you. You can’t let one mistake change who you are. You need to buy a really sparkly outfit and go for a
night on the town. I’m game if you are.”

  “I’ve moved on from just sparkly,” I say with my shoulders straight, but then I burst into giggles. “My last closet purchase that I never showed to Jay?”

  “Yes?”

  “Giraffe-print boots. And they’re kind of furry.”

  Gavin starts to laugh out loud.

  “And I love them.”

  “What are you two laughing about in there?” my mother asks.

  “Well, a man who can’t see the good humor in giraffe-skin boots isn’t worth having.”

  “All I’m saying.” It’s amazing that I can pour my heart out to Gavin, but it’s like I’m back in my graduating class. I trust Gavin. I always have, and I always will. He could never do to me what Jay did. Of course, he could never make me feel like Jay either, and that is why I’m steering clear of men. I have no common sense. The boots should tell me that much.

  “The Golden Globes are starting, Haley. Turn them on. I’ll bring dinner out on TV trays.” My mom is giddy. Is it any wonder I have a thing for sparkles? I started young watching every awards show on television. The American Music Awards, the Grammy Awards, the People’s Choice Awards, and of course, the granddaddy of them all: the Oscars.

  “Mom, we can watch after dinner.” I think this is where my love of tacky may have started.

  “No, no dear. It will be fun. Gavin knows we watch all the shows.”

  The really sad thing is that Gavin gets up and goes to the hall closet and pulls out six aluminum TV trays circa 1963 and sets them up in front of the couch.

  “Not much changes around here, huh?” I ask.

  “The difference between you and me is I see that as a positive. If twenty years from now I’m still eating pot roast on a TV tray, I’m good with that.”

  My mother scuttles out of the kitchen with classic glasses with wheat designs (they go with the burnt orange appliances and Formica) and a gallon of milk. She places one on each TV tray and pours a tall glass of milk for each of us. “They say Grey’s Anatomy is going to sweep this year.”

  “My vote is for Ugly Betty,” I tell her.

  “What would you know of Ugly Betty, princess?” my dad asks as he wanders into the room. My dad talks like the dad on any sitcom in America, but there’s no actual emotional connection. He’s old school. Notice he didn’t say hello to me when he got home, even though I haven’t seen him since Christmas when he and mom graciously visited me holed up in the Wilshire. He talks through my mother, if he talks to me at all. Unless someone is present to hear his Leave It to Beaver impression, he doesn’t bother.

  “Hi, Dad, when did you come in?”

  He comes over and kisses me on the cheek. “Welcome home, Haley.” He sits down. “Gavin, how’s the window business treating you? You seeing things clearly?” My dad laughs at his own joke. Like Gavin has never heard that one before.

  “Better than ever. The more freeways that get built, the more double-and even triple-paned windows necessary. I added siding to the business too. You might call me for a quote. I noticed you could use some upkeep.”

  “I might do that,” my dad says.

  Probably about the time he’ll get around to mowing the lawn, which, by the way, “Why isn’t Mike mowing the lawn?”

  “What?” Gavin asks.

  “If Mike is living here and doing errands, why does the lawn look like it does?”

  “Mike’s back is not good, honey.” My mom sets my glass of milk in front of me. “He hurt it working at Best Buy. Those televisions just get bigger and bigger, don’t you know?”

  “Actually, they’re getting thinner. Let me help you, Mom.”

  “No, no, you sit. Your friend is here, and you have a lot of catching up to do.” She glimmers at Gavin.

  I’m not divorced yet, Mom. Let’s allow the body to cool, shall we?

  The Pre-Awards walk on the red carpet starts, and we take our pick of obnoxious hosts, finally settling on Star Jones’s version of dissing and kissing.

  “Jay’s movie is nominated this year,” I announce, trying to keep the melancholy out of my voice. It’s the first one I ever produced myself, is the truth of it. And Jay’s first serious film. I talked him into the script. I found the star, Rachel, on television one night and deemed her perfect for the part. Naturally, he’d never remember it that way. But that is my movie, my actress, my nomination. “The one with Rachel Barlin in it.”

  “Rachel Barlin, I love her,” Gavin says, and I can’t help it, I shoot him a dirty look. Like I care that he loves her. Who doesn’t? She’s gorgeous, has a perfect, albeit-enhanced figure, and comes off as the girl next door in a vixen’s costume. Men fall for that trap every time. Same old game. “What’s not to love?” Gavin wiggles his eyebrows.

  Gee, let me count the ways. Late-night phone calls to my husband, whining about how her trailer needed better water, a more comfortable bed, a better makeup artist, blah blah blah. She expected Jay to fix it all. When she argued with the director, she’d call Jay. When she didn’t have Evian coming out of her tap in her trailer, she’d call Jay.

  “I think she’s pathetic,” I hear myself say. “Too needy, don’t you think?”

  “She’s so beautiful, and she seems like a really sweet girl.”

  “Seems being the operative word. Men see what they want to see. If someone’s had a career in the porn industry, a guy can rationalize how she only did it to pay her way through college. It’s a stereotype, you know. The hooker with a heart of gold thing. Some of them have hearts of stone and use that old stereotype to get whatever they want. You all want to believe she’s Rahab, not Jezebel, and you never believe other women, even though we have radar for that kind of thing.”

  “Haley”—my mom smiles proudly—“you do remember your Sunday school lessons. Of course I’d rather have you remember something other than the prostitute stories, but one hopes they’re in there too.”

  “When Mrs. Kensington talks about hookers, it’s not something you forget,” I explain.

  “Well, I see a beautiful woman with a sweet spirit. She reminds me of you with brown hair, Haley,” Gavin comments. “You know,” he says, pointing a fork at the television, “I bet she’s really small-town. She grew up in the Midwest with church potlucks and county fairs.”

  “My point exactly. If she’s small-town, you think her small-town mama would have taught her calling another woman’s husband in the middle of the night is what the girls-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks did. I see a spoiled brat who uses her wiles to get whatever she wants.”

  “Haley!” Gavin raises his eyebrows. “Is this upsetting you?”

  “She is an actress, Gavin. Maybe she’s better than you give her credit for.”

  At that comment, Star Jones starts to interview Rachel Barlin. Even the sight of Rachel makes the hair on my arms rise and I want to fast-forward her, but my mom hasn’t heard of TiVo. She’s wearing a sparkly, gold gown, and while I’m sure it isn’t sequins, it does sparkle. I have to wonder if now my fetish for glitter would be acceptable.

  “Look, there she is!” Gavin says, sitting up on the sofa. “Speak of the devil.”

  “Exactly,” I say.

  “She is so hot.” Then he corrects himself. “Really beautiful, you know? Like the girl next door,” he says wistfully, as if he’s heard nothing I’ve said.

  My heart takes a dive as I see the man standing behind her is my Jay. The same Jay who said he was leaving for Switzerland. The same Jay who told me I didn’t need a gown for the Golden Globes because “we” weren’t attending. I look around to see if anyone has noticed yet, but everyone’s eyes are fixed on the glittering Rachel. Jay’s watching her too, in a way he looked at me, before we got married. Something inside of me falls dead to the ground.

  Star fawns over her. “Rachel, you look beautiful. Your dress is…”

  “Vintage Mackie,” she coos.

  “Vintage Mackie,” I repeat. “In other words, no one would lend her a new one. She got Cher
’s castoffs from decades gone by.”

  “Who is this handsome man on your arm?” Star asks. “Is this the new love of your life?”

  That would be my husband. My eyes are transfixed on her. Say no, Rachel. Please.

  She giggles coquettishly, but she doesn’t answer the question. “This is my producer, Jay Cutler.” She takes a finger and smooths it along his jawline. “Isn’t he wonderful? Everyone said I couldn’t handle a serious role like this one, but Jay fought for me. He believed in me, and the rest is history.”

  It’s here that I catch it; their eye contact. It’s something any wife would understand, any woman would notice in her man, and I feel my strength leave me, but I push the TV tray in front of me as recognition pummels me. My eyes fill with tears.

  My mom gets up and shuts off the television set, and we’re all sitting around it with TV trays and no picture.

  “How about them 49ers?” my dad asks, and though I’m no football fan, I know their season is well over.

  “Haley, are you all right?” my mother asks.

  “The settlement isn’t enough,” I say quietly. I want revenge.

  “Haley, the fight isn’t worth the money. You’ve wasted enough on him.”

  I stand up. “If Jay is dating one of Hollywood’s rising stars, it increases his tabloid value,” I explain.

  “It’s not worth it, Haley,” Gavin says.

  “Honey, you don’t want to do this,” my dad adds.

  “Hamilton is about to find out just how ditsy this trophy wife is. I may be tacky and inappropriate, but I am not stupid.” I take the papers and walk to the hallway.

  “Haley,” my mother cautions. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going home to claim what’s mine.”

  “I thought her husband’s name was Jay. Who’s Hamilton?” Gavin asks.

  A man who is about to regret the day he met me. That’s who.