My Ex-Life: A Novel

by Stephen McCauley

  She hadn’t shown off anything until the end of the second time she’d done it. Craig had told her it was up to her, she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to do. He left her on her own down there while he was upstairs or out on a call. That was his way of manipulating her. She saw through him, but it worked anyway.

  Despite the fact that he was so great-looking and had to know it, Craig was insecure and clumsy. They’d made out a few more times, and once he’d put her hands on the crotch of his pants so she could feel the lumpy bulge of his penis. “Do you like that?” he asked.

  The funny thing was, it sounded as if he really wanted to know, as if he wanted her to reassure him. She hadn’t liked it or not liked it. As far as she was concerned, that part of him—while not irrelevant—was less interesting than everything else about him.

  A lot of men told her they wanted to see her “tits.” She hated the sound of that word more than the idea of showing them off. She told them that, expecting to lose viewers, but it had the opposite effect; a lot of these men wanted to be put in their places by someone other than their wives.

  The men had the money, but she had what they wanted to buy. Clearly, hers was the stronger position.

  She’d known she couldn’t hold out forever, so she’d shown them what they wanted, but not, to her utter astonishment, shyly. Instead, she’d taken down the bib of her overalls and lifted off her T-shirt slowly, like a striptease, but with confidence. After spending seventeen years covering up her body to the best of her abilities and feeling vulnerable under her layers of heavy clothes anyway, she felt, pretty much for the first time, completely invulnerable. There was nothing to hide, nothing more to reveal. No matter what anyone typed, no matter what they said they’d like to do, no one could touch her.

  And yet.

  And yet, Lindsay’s messages had made her feel even more apart from everyone than she usually did. The fan blowing in her face had started to annoy her, as if her skin was being sandblasted by the hot air. She turned it off and the room grew quiet. It was four in the afternoon, and the whole world seemed quiet. There was no breeze, and the tide was dead low. The smell of rotting seaweed and sulfurous mud would go away when the tide turned and a wind blew in, but that was hours away.

  She went to Wallis’s Instagram account. It was pretty much what she’d been expecting, a lot of stupid poses of her, intended to prove to the world how incredibly happy she was about being her. Some of them showed off almost as much as Mandy had shown in the basement, but in this context, it was somehow considered okay. “Empowering” was the word everyone used, even mothers.

  When she got to the picture of herself getting into the van, she was shocked mainly by how bad the overalls looked on her. She’d thought she was covering up, but she was just drawing more attention to herself with them, a little like Clara with her homemade vests and skirts. The comments under the picture were what she expected. The only remotely clever one said: “Pretty sad, OVERALL.” All the others just borrowed lines and phrases, as if being clever meant using the words of some other clever person instead of making up your own.

  She closed the app and went to her laptop. Since she already felt she was at a weird low, she might as well know the worst and get it over with. She followed the links to the SAT scores, looked out the window, and then slowly turned back to the computer screen.

  For a minute, the meaning of the numbers before her didn’t register. When, after reading them a third time, they did, she unplugged her laptop and bounded down the stairs to show David.

  32

  Well, well, well, Renata’s email read. So you’ve decided to play hardball. In case you’re not familiar with that sports metaphor, I’m referring to your lawyering up and attempting to make a profit off a landlady who’s been UNREASONABLY generous to you. Will do you the kindness of not saying what I think of “Michael Taylor’s” hilariously implausible demand for a buyout. (Although I confess he does make an excellent espresso.) Even as an outrageous, irrelevant opening bid, it shows ignorance of the market and a complete lack of professionalism. And yes, David, I deal with these all the time, so I know what I’m talking about. Foolish me, spending hours trying to find you something affordable. That’s over.

  * * *

  I do feel bad about the way a few things unfolded, so I’ll secure you a check for 25K right now and we’ll never mention any of it again. In return, you get back here and clear out ASAP. I know you’re the world’s most neurotically organized human, but it will take even you longer than you think to pack, and Porter and Soren want to start work on the house September 1st. Oh, by the way, did you see their engagement announcement on Facebook?

  * * *

  David deleted the email, as he’d been deleting the majority of the messages he received from Renata. The most insulting part of everything she’d written was the assumption that he spent his time looking at Facebook posts, the online equivalent of listening in on conversations in the checkout line. How dare she assume he didn’t have better things to do with his time than read recipes and vacation updates?

  The best part of the marriage news was that David felt no jealousy or envy or regret. If sadness about Soren’s departure had been noise from another room that occasionally distracted him, he could no longer hear it. Three cheers. It was a small but happy victory. He felt secure and superior in his flawed and circumscribed arrangement with Julie. Loved, for one thing, and, maybe more important, able to be loving without the fear of betrayals and the complications and dirty laundry of sex. (That could—and hopefully would—be had elsewhere. Although he’d been busy trimming hedges and repairing gutters, he was getting antsy in that department.)

  As for the rest of what she’d written, it was hard to know. The message was typical of Renata’s bluster and self-aggrandizement, but it was undeniable that she knew San Francisco real estate. The research David had done into buyouts was inconclusive. It was possible that Michael was overstating the case with a lawyer’s tendency to go for the jackpot. The 25K wasn’t enough to change Julie’s prospects, but at least it was better than nothing.

  He closed his door and called Michael.

  “Don’t answer the email,” he said. “She’s clearly rattled, but she shouldn’t be going around your lawyer. It’s totally inappropriate. By the way, how was the shopkeeper?”

  “He wasn’t. We have a dinner date in a few days.”

  “Oh, a dinner date,” he said in a pornographic drawl.

  “I’m conflicted,” David admitted. “I’d rather end up with twenty-five thousand than nothing.”

  “Cold feet are completely natural. Let me handle it. That’s what I’m getting paid for.”

  In each communication David had with him, Michael had inched away from his refusals to accept a commission and closer to a demand of his fair share. The buyout hadn’t yet been settled, but pieces of it were already getting chipped away. If negotiations went on much longer, Michael would probably expect half. Considering his role in the whole affair, that might be fair, but it wouldn’t help Julie.

  “The window of opportunity is narrowing, so we can’t keep putting it off. Julie’s closing on the house is coming up in three weeks. We need to settle this. She doesn’t have a backup plan.”

  There was a silence on the other end, during which David realized his slip. He hadn’t intended to tell Michael about his plans for the money, knowing he’d disapprove. When Michael spoke again, he was unusually cold.

  “I thought this money was for your own real estate needs.”

  It’s always best to come clean, especially when you’re up against a deadline.

  “In a sense, it is,” David said. “My real estate needs have shifted east, that’s all.”

  “You’re not suggesting you’re thinking of staying, are you?”

  “It’s not the kind of place I imagined myself ending up, nor is Julie the person I imagined ending up with, but I feel more at home here than I’ve felt anywhere in a very long time.” And
then, making what seemed like a major confession, he said, “I’m happy here.”

  “Feeling ‘at home’ lasts about as long as being ‘in love,’ which, in most cases lasts until the lights go on.”

  “If it helps, I’m not ‘in love’ in the way you mean. The lights you’re referring to went on decades ago, so I’m making the decision in a brightly lit room.”

  “And what about me? You’re just going to abandon me?”

  David was taken aback by the naked hurt in his voice. “You’ll come to visit.”

  “Never. And that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about you being my single friend who is as essentially lonely as I am. I suppose I’ll have to go back to Cincinnati and move in with Louise again.”

  “I thought she was remarried.”

  “That marriage won’t last. She still adores me. And your business? What happens to that?”

  “More and more of it is done online anyway. On top of that, I have leads for six new clients here already through Julie’s school. And I’m contacting all the private schools in the area about giving a seminar for parents. The East Coast is even more obsessed with education than the West Coast.”

  There was a knock on David’s door, and when he called out “Come in,” Michael, willing to abandon his resentment for salacious gossip, said, “Anyone with potential?”

  “Not in the way you mean,” he said. “I’ll call tomorrow. See if you can make some progress with Renata.”

  He opened the door and found Mandy standing there and clutching her laptop with a sheepish expression.

  “I wanted to show you something,” she said.

  He gestured to her and sat beside her on his bed. He had a strong suspicion about what was coming. The week before, three clients had sent him news of their SAT scores. He’d been tempted to ask Mandy about hers, but thought it best to let her tell him in her own time. He could tell from her faint and trembling smile as she pulled up the website that the scores were good. Still, it was a shock when she showed them to him and he saw just how good they were.

  “Would you be insulted,” he said, “if I told you I’m surprised?”

  “A little, but I wouldn’t believe you if you said you weren’t.”

  33

  “Her scores change everything,” Julie said.

  “A month ago,” Henry said, “you were trying to convince me that test scores aren’t as important as they used to be.” He was driving with the phone hooked up to Bluetooth, giving his voice a welcome underwater quality.

  “Even if that’s true, these put her in the ninety-something percentile. It matters. Plus, she’ll be a lot more confident when she goes back to school in the fall.”

  “You’re suddenly the world’s leading expert on tests and college applications,” Henry said. “I wonder why that is?”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Henry. You should go for direct, unveiled insults. They require less imagination.”

  She peered through the doorway into the dining room to see if anyone was in hearing range. David was sitting with Mrs. Grayson, showing her a map of Beauport and explaining where she and David walked each evening, a route that had grown to several miles. She cringed to think they might have overheard her bitter pronouncement.

  Everything involving the intimacy of coupledom was either embarrassing or all-out humiliating when exposed to the light of day. The generic terms of endearment that were so comforting and reassuring in private (darling, sweetie, lovey) were cloying when overheard. Pet names were even worse. They tended toward the saccharine and too often simultaneously hinted at physical attributes or sexual practices and preferences that casual acquaintances didn’t need to know. Stinky, Honeypot, Cuddles, Lumpy, Gumby. Horrifyingly, there was one Vietnamese-American teacher at her school whose husband (a generic WASP hybrid who wore boat shoes) called her Gookie. If it worked for them, it was really none of her business, but overhearing him call her this at a fund-raiser had made Julie view her colleague’s marriage differently.

  Public disputes were probably worst of all. They carried so much pent-up vitriol, you got an unwelcome glimpse into the historical context of the fight and learned tidbits you didn’t want or need to know. “At least I don’t use an entire roll of toilet paper every time I go to the bathroom.” “How would you feel if I spent five hours a day looking at porn?” “She criticizes me for not washing my hair enough, but I have to look at her picking her nose whenever she’s driving.”

  David looked up and winked at her, and she closed the door to the dining room.

  “I’m sorry if I don’t have as much imagination as you,” Henry said too loudly. “I sometimes wonder where you get all your imaginative ideas.”

  This was typical of Henry’s indirect accusations. In the past she’d felt too guilty about her smoking to do more than pretend she hadn’t caught the reference. But now that she’d taken action, she felt the self-righteousness of recent converts to juice fasting and Zumba. In fact, she welcomed the insult; she’d been dying to tell people she’d given up pot but had worried that doing so would be an implicit admission that she’d had a problem. At last, an opportunity to brag.

  “The connection is good. You don’t have to shout. And if that’s a reference to the fact that I occasionally took a hit of pot, you’ll be happy to know I’ve stopped completely.”

  “Really? Interesting you’d quit after assuring me for so long that there was no need to since it wasn’t a problem. I suppose David is helping you?”

  One of the side effects of giving up smoking was much greater access to her anger. This was never more true than in her dealings with Henry. When she was driving or was out walking Opal, she had imaginary conversations with him in which she berated him for moving out, for not giving her another chance, for making Mandy’s life so complicated, for dragging their neighbor into house negotiations, and, most of all, for making her purchase of the house that much more complicated. Less comforting was the fact that the increased anger probably meant an increased awareness of her sadness about his leaving. All that was piled on top of her disappointment about the way things had turned out with Raymond, although she’d never managed to drum up any anger toward him. In my mind, I’ve been with you much more often than that. The brilliant kindness of Raymond’s comment was that it allowed her to think that she might, in his mind, still be with her from time to time. She found it easier to think of him as her “lover” now that she knew she’d never see him again.

  “I called with an invitation,” Julie said. “We thought it would be good for everyone if you and Carol had dinner with us.”

  “Who’s the us? You and David?” She heard annoyance in his voice. Could it possibly, plausibly be jealousy?

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “None that I haven’t expressed previously. What’s the point of the dinner?”

  “Show support for Mandy, celebrate her scores, all get on the same page about her college plans.”

  “If you think I have any interest in getting on the same page with David Hedges when it comes to making decisions about my daughter, you’re sadly mistaken.”

  Although his words had obviously been intended to let her know that he considered David an irrelevant intruder in their lives, they made her feel, for the first time since Henry had skipped out on her, the subtle but significant power of being publicly connected to another person. Even if the nature of the connection was, at best, ambiguous.

  “What about August fourth?” Julie asked.

  “I’ll see you a week or so later at the closing, assuming there is one.”

  “There will be,” she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. “But that’s not about Mandy.”

  “I’ll ask Carol and get back to you.”

  After she’d hung up, she went into the dining room. The map was still on the table, but David was in the kitchen. “I think we’re in for a stretch of nice weather,” she said to Mrs. Grayson. “Yo
ur son must have a swimming pool?”

  When there was no response, she walked to the other side of the table and saw that Mrs. Grayson was holding a butter knife, but her eyes were closed. Julie froze. It was impossible to tell if she was breathing, and Julie was afraid to touch her.

  “David!” she called. “Come in here.”

  Mrs. Grayson opened her eyes. Julie tried to cover the alarm she felt but was obviously unsuccessful. David dashed out and stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders.

  “I must have dozed off,” Mrs. Grayson said. “Are you all right, Julie? You didn’t think I’d passed out, did you?”

  “No, no, of course not,” she said.

  “She wondered if you’d like more toast,” David said.

  “Was I eating toast?”

  “Let’s you and me go out on the porch,” Julie said. “It’s a little warm in here.”

  To the best of Julie’s knowledge, Sandra had never written about how to handle the death of a guest in her blog, but it might be worth double-checking.

  34

  Mandy was sitting in the back of the bus to Hammond, gazing out the window at the patches of woods alongside the road. It was another hot day. The trees looked as if they were ready to start dropping their leaves and give up, even though it was only the end of July. Unless maybe she was projecting some of her own feelings of weariness onto them.

  Today, for the second day in a row, she’d put on a sleeveless T-shirt under her overalls. Seeing herself so covered up in that Instagram photo had unsettled her. Since she’d started showing off her body online, she’d begun to look at herself differently. She still didn’t like what she saw in the mirror, but she’d at least begun to allow for the possibility that in this particular matter, her judgment could be wrong. There were men who were actually paying money to talk to her and to see her. It wasn’t as if she valued their opinions, but they had to count for something. She felt as if she was walking a tightrope with a bizarre new confidence on one side and a bottomless pit of regret about what she was doing on the other. Either way, if she lost her balance and fell off, she’d be in over her head.