My Husband's Sweethearts

by Bridget Asher

  Gail hands everyone plates with crepes and garnishes. "Here you go. With my apologies. Well, now, I guess I'm apologizing for your tardiness. That doesn't make sense."

  "There was terrible traffic," my mother says. "And I require rest stops, you know how it is."

  Gail doesn't want to share this little moment of commonality with my mother. She smiles politely. "Let's head outside."

  We follow her to the backyard and a young man jogs over. He gives Elspa a big hug. She hugs him back tightly. "You look great!" he says, and then turns to the rest of us. "Do I already have to say sorry for something Gail has said? Here's a blanket apology."

  "Thanks, Billy," she says, then introduces us to her brother. But she's keeping an eye on her Rose, who's even more beautiful closer up. She's bright-eyed and expensively dressed in a flowered pantsuit. "She's doing great," Billy says. "She already has a good sense of irony, a real feel for injustice. Like her mother."

  I tell Elspa how beautiful her daughter is. Everyone agrees.

  "She really is. Imagine, you made that," John says.

  Elspa smiles. "Not in an outfit like this."

  *

  Later, in the gazebo, I'm idling by the edges. Elspa is playing with Rose, scooping her up when she falls down on top of a soccer ball. My mother is off walking along the side gardens, taking mental notes, no doubt. She's let Bogie down and he's sniffing the grass.

  Nearby, John is talking to Elspa's father, Rudy, a golfish man wearing a smart lime polo shirt. "So, what do you do, John?"

  "Sales. I'm an entrepreneur."

  "Huh. Elspa's last boyfriend was an entrepreneur. So, she's picked another pusher. I almost pulled the trigger on the last one's punk-ass." I'm a little surprised by the term punk-ass. If John is, he doesn't show it. But Rudy explains, "We've learned the terminology."

  "I'm not her boyfriend. I own a mattress and bedding supply store."

  "Mhmm. Mhmm," Rudy says. "I see."

  I walk back inside to the kitchen. There's no one here, which I'm very happy about. I start putting dishes in the sink. Gail appears, carrying more dishes. She takes this moment alone with me to give it to me straight. "I'm just telling you that your efforts will be better rewarded if applied elsewhere. We've had Rose for a year and a half and we should have taken her at birth." She nods through the window at Elspa and Rose. "Oh, most babies get to learn how to hold their heads up straight, but Rose had the pleasure of kicking heroin."

  "Elspa's a different person now."

  "She almost burned to death in a crack house. Seven months pregnant."

  We can hear Elspa and the other family members in the backyard. There's some cheering. Someone must have scored a goal. I leave Gail at the sink where she scrubs.

  *

  Soon enough the Sunday brunch winds down. The other families are leaving. Billy gives Elspa a hug, a warm and sad one. He picks up his son. His wife just waves.

  Gail turns to my mother. "So, did you make that outfit for your dog yourself? It's quite, quite . . . unique."

  "Actually," my mother says, "I did." I cringe as she begins to report on Bogie's affliction of overendowment— including a few loud whispers of the word penis. I step away, pretending to be distracted by the tall trees.

  John shows up at my elbow. I'm surprised to find him so close suddenly. He smells nice—a cocktail and a little something cinnamon. He says, in a hushed voice, "Do you want to tell me something?"

  "Tell you something?"

  "I feel like you have something to say that you aren't saying, and I just wanted to give you a chance to say it, if you wanted to. But if you don't want to . . ."

  "Or if I have nothing to tell you . . ."

  "Right, exactly, then that's fine."

  "Fine."

  "Fine you have something to tell me? Or fine you don't want to? Or fine you have nothing to tell me?"

  I'm completely befuddled. "Yes."

  "Yes, what?"

  "I don't know what."

  "We could try this as a conversation," he says. "I say something. You say something. Like that. Back and forth."

  "The kiss is a dustpan," I whisper to him. "It's nothing more than that now. It doesn't mean anything to me, really. I'm fine with it. Are you?"

  "A dustpan?"

  "Yes," I say.

  He doesn't really respond. He's just looking at me, baffled.

  "This is a conversation. I say something. You say something."

  "A dustpan?" he says again.

  "Back and forth. A conversation," I say.

  "Okay, well, the kiss isn't supposed to exist at all. That was the agreement. I promised."

  "But do you think of this thing that doesn't exist?"

  "Yes," he says, and I know that I want him to think of it. I want him to have tried to sort it out—like I have. But as soon as I realize that I'm happy that he thinks of it, I know that I shouldn't be happy. I shouldn't have even wanted to know.

  "Okay, then," I say. "That's what I wanted to know."

  "Let me add here, while the nonexistent kiss kind of almost exists, that I don't think of it as a dustpan."

  "Okay," I say. "I tried that but I don't think it worked anyway." And I turn back to my mother who is still yammering on about Bogie and his burden.

  Gail looks confused. Her face has begun to pucker sourly, and then, luckily, Rose totters over to a cake plate she can't reach and shouts, "Mommy! Mommy!"

  Elspa gets up to help her. But Gail is there, a whir of motion. Rose is, in fact, calling for Gail.

  Elspa says, "I can get it."

  Gail scoops Rose up. "It's her nap time."

  Rose pitches her head back. "I don't want a nap!"

  "I'll take her up," Elspa says.

  "The routine is best," Gail says, and walks away with the child.

  Elspa is disappointed, shaken. She tries to keep her composure. "I guess we should go now, too," Elspa says.

  Rudy walks ahead to escort us through the house to the front door.

  As we walk through the well-appointed house, I lean in. "Secure a second meeting to talk—at a neutral location."

  I hear John whisper to Elspa, "You can do this."

  Elspa glances at both of us nervously, nods.

  Through the house, through the front door, standing on the lawn, Elspa's father is saying good-bye, shaking hands. He says to Elspa, "Are you coming by tomorrow? We'd love to see you."

  "I want to talk to you two about something."

  "You know we can't give you money anymore and you know full well we've been to classes on how to handle addicted children. Damn, they were a humiliation for your mother."

  "I don't want money. That's not what I want to talk about." She starts to back away. I shake my head, willing her to stick with it. She stops and stares up at the house. She crosses her arms and squeezes them tightly. I can see from here that she's touching the spot where I punched her, steeling herself. "Let's meet at a restaurant instead. And I want to be with Rose tomorrow."

  He glances up the stairs behind him—where Gail is putting Rose down for a nap. "Okay, I think we can do that."

  "I want to, just, take her to the park or the zoo—something like that."

  "We haven't really tried that before. Are you sure? By yourself?"

  "Maybe with my friends, too."

  "A short trip to the zoo?"

  "I've been clean for a long time. I'm taking my daughter to the zoo. I'm allowed to do that."

  He nods. "Okay." He steps toward her. It's not clear why, exactly, but it might be that he wants to give her a hug.

  She turns and walks quickly to the car.

  Once we're all inside, there's this moment when we're still holding our breath.

  John says, "That is a hive of some vicious killer WASPs."

  "With exquisite taste," my mother repeats.

  I say, "But we have a second meeting in a different location."

  "You were amazing!" Eleanor says. "Truly tough as nails." And this, coming from E
leanor, seems like the highest of compliments.

  "I was?" Elspa says.

  "You were," Eleanor says.

  Chapter Thirty

  We Are the Stories We Tell and the Stories We Don't Tell

  While standing at the front desk of the Radisson in downtown Baltimore—a swanky lobby, complete with lion statues—we can't quite decide how to divvy up the rooms. To the grave irritation of the front desk manager, a young woman in heavy makeup—someone my mother would say looks "highly polished"—we run through scenarios while standing at the desk.

  "Mother and daughter," my mother says. She's agitated, shifty-eyed. This is not a pet-friendly hotel. Bogie is in the car and will have to be smuggled in. She's talking while casing the joint.

  "But I want to help Elspa prep for this so maybe . . ." I explain.

  "I'll take my own room, if that would help," Eleanor says.

  "Don't be silly," my mother says, looking dewy with nervous perspiration.

  "I'm going to get my own room," John says.

  "You shouldn't have to pay though," I say. I'm not sure how this should work, but it seems like I've gotten him into this mess and I know he doesn't have a lot of money at present.

  "No, no," he says.

  It ends up that Elspa and I take one room. Eleanor and my mother take another, and John gets his own. After a few more moments of dithering over which credit cards to put things on—John will not allow me to pay—we ride up in the elevator.

  And, as soon as it gives its first little jerk and starts to ascend, Eleanor says, "I've always liked elevators. Even when I was a little girl."

  I turn and glare at her. She's the one who Artie confused me with in one of his little numbered love notes shoved onto some plastic fork in some gargantuan display of flowers.

  "What?" she says, looking at me.

  "Nothing," I tell her. It's over with now. It shouldn't matter, and yet I can't help it. I'm annoyed by the little reminder of Artie's infidelity.

  We all get out on the same floor—which my mother insisted on for safety—and head in our various directions.

  *

  As soon as Elspa and I are in our room, settled in, I start to write a script for her on Radisson stationery, listing tips on the art of persuasion. She's lying on one of the queen-size beds, staring at the ceiling with her hands folded on her chest.

  "Listen, you have to remember that you've given up no legal rights here. The child is yours. Of course we don't want to resort to this kind of language. We have to sell them on the idea of you as a mother. Are you listening?"

  "I'm praying."

  "I didn't know you were religious."

  "I'm not." Elspa's eyes are shut tight. Her hands are clenched.

  "Maybe I'll leave you alone. Maybe I'll get something to eat with the others." I stand and grab my pocketbook. "Do you want to come?"

  She shakes her head no.

  "Do you want me to bring something back?"

  She says, "A salad."

  *

  I knock on Eleanor and my mother's door. There's no answer. I wonder where they've gone. I move on down to John's door, maybe he'll know. I knock. There's a soft shuffling. The door opens. John's standing there, messy and sleepy. He's shirtless, wearing loose-fitting jeans he's obviously just hitched up.

  "Were you sleeping?"

  "Not really," he says, trying to sound perky.

  "Napping or modeling?"

  "Funny."

  "I knocked on my mom's door to see if they wanted to have dinner, but there wasn't an answer."

  "They already left. They asked me, but didn't want to disturb you and Elspa. I'm hungry enough now, though."

  "Oh," I say, realizing that I haven't asked him to dinner but may as well have. "I was just going to get something, anything, really. We can do room service."

  "No, no," he says. "Just give me a minute. Let's go out. Eat something worthwhile. Come on in. I'll just put on a shirt."

  I step inside and let the door shut behind me. There he is, putting on a T-shirt and then buttoning up a shirt. It shouldn't be awkward. He's getting dressed not undressed. But, still, we're in a hotel room together. There's clothing involved. I start to chatter idly. "Well, I guess it's just us then. Elspa is praying," I say. "She wants us to pick up a salad."

  "I didn't know she was religious," he says, putting his wallet in his pocket.

  "She isn't."

  *

  We're sitting in a seafood restaurant, dried nets and oars and fishing poles decorating the upper reaches of the walls. We're looking at stiff menus. The waiter walks up. In lieu of a tablecloth, there's thick paper. The waiter pulls out his pen.

  He says, "I'm Jim, your waiter." He bends toward the table and writes J-I-M in big letters.

  John puts his hand out and Jim, naturally, hands over the pen. "I'm John." He writes his name in front of his place and hands the pen to me.

  "I guess I'm Lucy then," I say, writing my name down, too. I hand the pen back to the waiter, who's a little befuddled.

  "What can I get for you all tonight?"

  We order the specials, some wine. And we find ourselves sitting there, primly, a little awkward.

  "Do you have a pen?" John asks.

  "Sure." I rummage through my pocketbook and pull one out. "What for?"

  "I'm going to tell you a story from my childhood."

  "Really? No more Jethro and Granny?"

  "No. I'll narrate and draw."

  "I didn't know you were an artist."

  "I was the best drawer in my third-grade class. But I lost interest after being snubbed by the New York City art scene."

  "They can be so fickle."

  He's drawing now, a little figure, a woman with a large dome of hair. "I blame my third-grade teacher. Mrs. McMurray didn't push my career the way she should have," he says.

  "Is that Mrs. McMurray?" I ask, pointing at the drawing.

  "No," he says. "That's Rita Bessom. That's my mother."

  "She had large hair."

  "She believes in large hair. I think it's where she hides her valuables. She still has large hair—though it's a bit airier. This is her young hair though. She was just a kid when she had me." He's drawing a picture of a man now.

  "Is this a love story?"

  "Not really. My mother's not the love type, really. One of her valuables might have been her heart, which she's kept hidden in her enormous hair."

  "That's a disturbing image."

  "It just came to me," he says. "I'm an edgy artist."

  "And this is the young Artie Shoreman?" I ask, taking a sip of the wine that's arrived.

  "No," he says. "This is Richard Dent."

  "Who's Richard Dent?" I ask.

  He's drawing another man now on the other side of Richard Dent. This one has epaulettes and a suitcase. "And this is Artie Shoreman, dressed as a bellhop."

  "Ah," I say. "I see." But I don't. "Who's Richard Dent?"

  He gives Dent a duffel bag and an army hat. "He's a soldier."

  "What kind of soldier?" I ask.

  Jim, the waiter, arrives with our salads. "Do you want fresh ground pepper?"

  John says, "No." He looks up and is staring at me intently.

  I shake my head.

  The waiter disappears.

  I ask the question again, because it seems like we're frozen in this moment. "What kind of soldier is Richard Dent?" I ask again. "Army? Navy? Coast Guard?"

  "The kind that dies," John says. "No matter if someone's in love with him back home or not." He adds a puff of stomach to the drawing of his mother. He crosses out Richard Dent. "He's the fathering kind of soldier who then dies." He circles his mother and then Artie and then ties the two circles together.

  Suddenly I get it. "Is Richard Dent your father?" I ask. "Is that what you're saying?"

  John nods. "Yes."

  "Not Artie Shoreman," I say.

  "Not Artie Shoreman."

  "Did your mother lie to Artie? To get him to support the
child? I mean, you?"

  "Yes. Oldest trick in the book."

  "Is this why you never called Artie your father?" I push my chair out from behind me and stand up, feeling numb in my legs. My cloth napkin falls to the floor. "This is a scam? Using Artie as a workhorse, lying to him all those years, and now . . . and now you're trying to cash in again . . . first your mother and now you?"

  "No," he says. "Not me. Never me."

  But I've turned away, and I'm running, shakily. I feel sick. I don't know if John's following me or not. I can't look back. I skirt around tables, past the confused hostess, and, there, right by the Please Wait to Be Seated sign, John grabs my elbow.

  "Lucy," he says. "Wait."

  And in one swift motion I slap John across the face. I've never slapped anyone before in my life, and I'm shocked by the sound of it, the sting of it. My hand is ringing.

  My eyes are blurry with tears. His hand falls away from my arm, and I run out into the night.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The Difference Between Breaking Down and Breaking Open Is Sometimes So Slight It's Imperceptible

  I'm standing in front of my hotel room. I don't want to barge in on Elspa with all this fury and messiness. I try to straighten myself up. I pull out an oval compact. My skin is blotchy, my makeup smeared. I wipe off wet mascara with a tissue from my pocketbook, which only makes things worse. I work at my eyes a little more. My hand is shaking—the hand that I slapped John with. Although I know it's wrong, I wish I'd slapped more people in my life. I think of my father's face as he waltzes out on us the month after my birthday. I think of Artie, sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped in a towel, confessing to more than I wanted to know. I imagine slapping them, the electric jolt, the ringing sting.

  How could John Bessom have lied to me all this time? How could he have lied to Artie? To Eleanor and my mother? To Elspa?

  Elspa. I remind myself that this trip isn't about me right now. It's certainly not about Artie being duped when he was a kid working as a bellhop and cheated out of all that money for decades. This is about Elspa and Rose now, completely. That has to be my sole focus.